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“Marine Le Pen, a nationalist unfortunately not isolated”

Interview with Patrick Cabanel

Marine Le Pen (photocredit: L'intellettuale dissidente)

Marine Le Pen (photocredit: L'intellettuale dissidente)

Interview with Patrick Cabanel, professor of Modern History at the University of Toulouse and author of book “Histoire des Justes de France”


Marine Le Pen defined the EU as “European Soviet Union”. What does this mean and what is MLPL’s vision of Europe? 


It is a traditionally nationalist, banal vision, in which Europe must be submitted to the national interests of France. The novelty instead is that there is something “socializing” in her vision of Europe. It is not sheer nationalism, but also a dimension which we might call leftwing criticism towards the EU. From this point of view there is a kind of an alliance between extreme right and extreme left. Historically, if we compare this with the discourse in the Twentieth century, we see a socializing , workerist tendency, like the defence of the “interests of the oppressed” of France from international capitalism, globalization, Europe as an enemy. 


Something in common with fascism? 


Of course from a historical point of view, but todate we don’t speak of fascism in the political field. It is a banal vision, which a historian would rather consider as a “pollution” or of extreme right and extreme left in this decade. 


What are the differences between Marine Le Pen and her father, above all as regards racism and xenophobia? 


Marine Le Pen decided to change the image of the National Front, here in France we say they did a bit the same as the Italian neofascists. She wanted to change the racist and anti-Semitic image of her father’s party. Jean Marie Le Pen’s Front National was a traditional kind of party: racist, anti-Semitic, Catholic.. The great difference with Marine is that she introduced some leftwing elements. In France the two-party system with competing lefwing and rightwing forces still works fine. But she sort of created a third force. 


MLP also had a trial for racism and xenophobia. Is she still accused? 


FN’s sublayer is still the one that supported Jean Marine Le Pen, but Marine is doing something different. For example she says she wants to defend the French fatherland from Islamism and terrorism, and this is the key to understand her support to Vladimir Putin, a strong national leader who fights Islamists and terrorists. But she is not anti-Muslim. 


Marine Le Pen also said if she wins she would ally with Putin. So does she want to govern, not only to lead a protest movement? 


This is a good question. She wants to make a great political party out of the FN. This is why she run for Paris. She wants to lead a third or second national-scale party and she is managing to do so. In this sense her goal is to lead a government force. 


Do you wish to explain better the issue of the alliance with Putin’s Russia? If MLP won, could France ally with Moscow? Would it be a rightwing, leftwing, nationalist or other kind of choice? 


Not only Marine Le Pen, but many leaders also on the left nurture admiration for Putin. Let’s think of Jean Luc Mélenchon of the French far right, who is very hostile to the European treaties. MLP is not isolated. Many European leaders share in this “strongarm” kind of nationalism. Putin’s Russia is a very strong state, fiercely fighting Islamism, and Marine Le Pen’s National Front if compared with the time in which it was led by her father is strongly committed to the secular feature of the French state. She is not anti-Muslim, she is anti-Islamist. 


The last question. I will deal with a giant. De Gaulle was strongly opposed to students and communists, but he was a freedom fighter, a general and a partisan. In what sense can Marine Le Pen say she is a spokeswoman of Gaullism? 


In the sense that nowadays in France De Gaulle is the father of our nation, the father of the 5th Republic. So everybody, from the far right to the left for some extents, say they represent the Gaullist heritage. So the meaning of MLP’s statement is not peculiar to her or her party, but it is rather commonplace in nearly all French political forces. 

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