2024-05-08 15:00:14
Book. It’s the story of a small extremist world where everyone knows everyone. Those who are part of it are young – none over the age of forty –, share the same cultural references, toast together in chic bistros in the center of Paris and display the same objective: to take power.
They have another point in common: the rejection of Islam and immigration. However, not everyone contributes to the same place. Some, like Jordan Bardella, chose to stay in the “old house” of the French far right, the National Rally (RN), born in 1972 under the name of the National Front. Others, such as Sarah Knafo and Stanislas Rigault, have chosen to follow Eric Zemmour for the 2022 presidential election.
Two specialists on the extreme right, Marylou Magal, journalist at L’Expressand Nicolas Massol, who officiates at Release, offer a fascinating dive into this microcosm. The choice of the two authors is to tell the story of the extreme right through the prism of its youth which presents well, despite a radical, xenophobic and Islamophobic discourse. The very one that the 24-hour news channels love, notably the right-wing team of the Figarovoxthe ex-journalists of Current values today at the head of Sunday newspaperthe identitarians, the reactors, the thurifers of Eric Zemmour…
Impose your themes
Left aside are violent activists and older ideologues (whom we come across incidentally despite throughout the investigation). The two journalists are more comfortable telling stories about those their age. The latter learned from their elders the lesson of Antonio Gramsci, an Italian Marxist philosopher, who posited that any political victory required, beforehand, a cultural victory. In short: winning the elections requires first winning people’s minds by imposing your themes.
The authors trace the ideological and political thread of this generation which cut its teeth around ten years ago, at the time of opposition to marriage for all. These demonstrations allowed the dams to be broken between part of the right and the extreme right and the birth of a dialogue outside of traditional partisan apparatuses.
Also read the column | Article reserved for our subscribers “With an expected score of 32% in the European elections, the National Rally should panic the employers”
Add to your selections
But the real nerve center of this small community was an apartment in the Latin Quarter, a sort of “brown living room” where the young extremist shoots fomented their strategy. The hostess was Sarah Knafo. In third position on Marion Maréchal’s list for the European elections in June, she is also the central figure of the book.
You have 21.99% of this article left to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.
#investigation #booming #ecosystem