FRANCE: Direct democracy, true populism, imitation nationalism

“Block the far right”. The slogan, a little wobbly, remains etched in people’s minds while Marine pushes more and more to the left, like a vacuum cleaner picking up crumbs from rebellious French people and everything that remains to be taken, even the dust of Lutte Ouvrière. She is on the left, Marine, Little Red Riding Hood bringing a basket of food to the retired grandmother at 60, to the single mother, to the smicard who cannot fill up, to the small trader whose margins are shrinking, to the exasperated suburban and rural.

Journalists, for the sake of impartiality, ask the various commentators to quote at least one measure from Marine Le Pen’s program which is on the far right. The answer is rarely satisfactory. It would be better to ask how its ideology is populist and what exactly is populism.

Communism has never succeeded in pooling the means of production to obtain a fair share of the wealth created. Wherever it is imposed, communism gives the same result: misery for the people, wealth for the nomenklatura, scorned freedoms. The dictatorship of the proletariat? It is the dictator who arrogates to himself the powers promised to the little people who had put him in place. As a result of all this, the left in our democracies is reduced to a trickle.

Populism is taking over. And it works ! A dozen candidates in the first round? Nothing appetizing for populist popular people. This democracy of elections, governments, laws and management is rotten. We want direct democracy.

Yes, for example, the occupation of the Sorbonne. Graffiti and filth. Well, here we are faced with extreme populism. In the case of Marine, it’s policed. But no less dangerous. The people of the populist government will not be better off than the proletariat of the communist regime. Because the people are not what we would have you believe. It is not a collective and direct democracy is the tyranny of special interests.

Precisely, the Yellow Vests. Leaving aside the disparate demands that have attracted almost generalized sympathy, we will discover the mechanisms of populism at work: the impossibility of concerting and developing common projects, endless and increasingly violent internal conflicts , anarchy, vulnerability to opportunistic actions such as Black blocks, antifa, scum. It’s a miserable every man for himself. The forces released are destructive. Who takes the bet? The strong man. Inflated with the mismanaged energies of the people, he seizes power and exercises it tyrannically.

Marine president, the people will decide by referendum to stop the immigration which has tormented them for decades without any elected government being able to control it. Why entrust “direct democracy” with the task of settling an essential question? Why not act through democratically elected institutions? Because “direct democracy” is not democratic, just as populism is not the government of the people. By dealing with the question of immigration democratically, we allow all streams of society to express themselves, to defend their interests and, in the end, to accept the decision reached.

The referendum is a simplistic answer to a simplified question. And that’s not all. We also have to wonder why Marine Le Pen is 100% confident that her referendum will produce the answer she wants. It is because it intends to dictate its will to the people without fearing the unforeseen events of freedom. Isn’t that what populist elected officials around the world do?

In fact, the referendum can give everything and its opposite. Didn’t those who tell us that demography is destiny imagine that one day we could impose by referendum the veil prohibited by the previous one? Democracy protects minorities and protects us from minorities. When it doesn’t work (for example, wokism), we need more democracy, not less.

The National Front, which has become Rassemblement National, which has simply become Marine, is not a democratic party. It’s a clan. Transmitted turnkey to Marine, it continues to function as a clan and to defend an undemocratic policy. Despite her incompetence and failures, Marine is the one and only presidential candidate. She decides everything. The others, from lieutenants to infantrymen, follow her orders, defend her against all odds, offer her faces and extras. There is no question of challenging the established line. No currents, no boss battles. Since the defeat of 2017, Marine has surrounded himself with a brigade of young men of roughly the same size, rather handsome and virile, like the “leader”, Jordan Bardella. They look awfully similar. It reminds me, in a radically different style but with a similar uniformity, the vendors at Mariage Frères. It is not insignificant.

Simili-nationalism

In the midst of the war against Ukraine, faced with an incredible shock that is hitting the European people, Marine Le Pen and the other pseudo-nationalists shamelessly gargle about the power of an independent France. Without daring to clearly state the breaks they advocate, they advocate half-cuts in our ties with Europe, NATO and the United States. Like a sweater that you undo by pulling on a thread. They mock our allies, glorify the illusory strength of a single, unrelated French voice and hide the alliances they intend to forge, once France is freed from (democratic) shackles. All this, as Ukraine struggles to survive against Russian brutality.

This aggression would not have taken place if Ukraine had been a member of NATO. But the pseudo-nationalists turn reality upside down and make Ukraine guilty of having provoked the attack by wanting to join NATO. Faux-nationalism does not defend the nation, its territory, its values, its freedom, it hides the nation behind compromises with hostile forces. Putin today. Tomorrow, who knows?

Voting instructions

As a foreigner, I depend more than anyone on the goodwill of French citizens. When Jews are urged to vote Zemmour, I feel targeted, even without the right to vote. When someone would like me to believe that the extreme no longer means anything, that there is no longer or never has been a dividing line, I have to answer. Yes, there is a line and some candidates are placed on the other side, where we should not venture.

According to the polls, 85% of those who voted for Zemmour in the first round will go to Marine Le Pen in the second. It was with them that the Z intended to achieve the union of the rights? With Lepénistes temporarily seduced by the newcomer? They wanted the intellectual, but the small mind will also be appropriate? I was urged as a Jew to vote Zemmour. I was called names if I lacked enthusiasm for the wonder boy . All this to choose Marine?

I will never forget Marine Le Pen at the GGMO, questioned about the possible transfer of the French embassy to Jerusalem in the event of her victory. Behind the holes, no eyes. Nothing. An abyssal void. No neurons to catch the question and send it through some circuit. No Jerusalem circuit, no French embassy route, no Israel box, nothing. She ended up standing, as a good student, on the line of the Quai d’Orsay. Later in this show, she fought tooth and nail for the kosher slaughter ban. Animal welfare lit up a face that had shown no sign of life on the issue of the Jewish state’s capital. Then, turning on her carnivorous smile, she reassured the Jews, correcting Jordan Bardella’s untimely announcement of the double penalty: no kosher slaughter, no import of meat slaughtered in this way. Of course we will not prohibit the import!

I come back, once again, to this primordial question which says a lot about the massive transmission of the Zemmour vote to Marine Le Pen. One cannot condemn Russian aggression against Ukraine by taking up the Putinian narrative that justifies it. And Jews, practicing or not at all, cannot fully enjoy their citizenship in a France where kosher meat is prohibited (and then circumcision?). If the practice affects only a minority, the symbolic is aimed entirely at us.

And yet, the warning of the presidents of the CRIF and the Consistory against the extreme right causes, in certain circles, hysteria. However, if there is an authentic dividing line, if Marine le Pen is not a candidate like any other, this exit from the reserve is justified. Signaling the danger of an undemocratic choice is not the same as expressing a preference.

bird names

It’s true, for a long time we stuck with the label “extreme-right” the mouth of the true speakers on the threat of conquering Islam. But the balance of power has changed. One wastes one’s energy redoing battles already won. It’s true, the extreme right label is still stuck on the Rassemblement National, despite its left-wing economic policy. But ultimately, it’s right-wing leftism. The RN changes its acronym but keeps the core of its links with the historic far right, while integrating an Arab-Russian component, that is to say an update of tyranny.

A revealing pre-debate

I followed on LCI Monday evening the debate, rich in teaching, between Oliver Véran and Jordan Bardella. The acting president of the RN accuses the government minister Macron: You suck, you did nothing. It’s worse than incompetence, you’re in cahoots with the Islamists. We will do everything right away. Then, faced with the difficulties or even the impossibility of imposing a measure, for example, the ban on wearing the veil in public, Bardella lowers his voice: we will do it little by little, we will give people the time to comply. They will, as a good citizen. We will take into account the age and the motivation but we will end up removing it, this veil, banner of the Islamists.

We saw the face of France RN appear. Petty. Without scale, without opening, without horizon. Calculations without dimension, without dynamics. Refusing to recognize the benefits derived from exchanges of all kinds, we close the wallet. Finished ! We don’t give anything anymore. Circuits are clogged. The RN proposes extravagant measures, soaked in gratuitous hostility: a foreigner in a regular situation who works in France and pays his contributions would not be entitled to social benefits. Zero benefits! Bardella holds on to it like a dog to his bone. No compromise, no understanding. It’s like that. The French first. The ban on kosher slaughter is in the same spirit.

Bardella slips away on the question of the war against Ukraine: We condemned the invasion without ambiguity but we did not vote for measures that will hurt the French, our first priority. Pushed to his limits on the good relations with Russia advocated by his candidate after the war, Bardella lost the mask of kindness of the RN cuvée 2022. Twice he summoned Véran to answer the solemn question, posed sotto voce: What do you want? you ? Do you want to go to war with Russia?

That’s it. For almost two months, we have been witnessing the cruel destruction that is falling on Ukraine, and the interim president of the RN accuses our government of waging war on Russia.

In summary, this proto-debate reveals the weakness of a contemptuous approach, knitted with degagist ruminations and undermined by the absence of a sense of reality. Arrogance, in my opinion, is on the side of the RN. And this could cause for Marine Le Pen, Wednesday evening, a crash worse than that of 2017.

Then, once the anti-democratic force has been removed, everything will remain to be done. 

© Nidra Poller. All rights reserved.

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