Will a Neo-Fascist Lead France?
As we’re still ensconced in the Passover holiday, this will be another short newsletter.
Twenty years ago, Jean-Marie Le Pen, an ultra-nationalist with antisemitic and Islamophobic tendencies, made it into the second round of voting for president of France. Shocked and appalled, the French establishment rallied around his opponent, Jacques Chirac, who defeated Le Pen by more than sixty percentage points. This Sunday, Le Pen’s daughter, Marine, who despite a more moderate veneer shares her father’s basic worldview, will face off against incumbent President Emmanuel Macron. Polls suggest that she trails him by as little as five points.
What has precipitated this enormous, and terrifying, shift? And how does it parallel—or not parallel—the ultra-nationalism that in 2016 led Britain to leave the European Union and Americans to elect Donald Trump. On Thursday (not our usual Friday) at Noon ET, I’ll ask James McAuley, whose writing about French politics I’ve been devouring for several years now. James writes a column from Paris for the Washington Post. And he’s written a series of terrific recent essays in The New York Review of Books about the right-wing backlash against an increasingly multicultural, multiracial, and multireligious France. He’s also the author of a new book entitled The House of Fragile Things: Jewish Art Collectors and the Fall of France.
The Zoom call with James will be on Thursday (not Friday) at Noon ET. As usual, paid subscribers will get the link on Wednesday and the video the week after that.
Other Stuff:
Jewish Currents has published a Hebrew-English edition of the Israeli Black Panthers Haggadah, which originally came out in 1971. Here’s an introduction to that fascinating document.
Last week, I appeared on Mehdi Hasan’s show on MSNBC to talk about the “great replacement” theory favored by Tucker Carlson.
I also appeared on Lawrence O’Donnell’s show to talk about Donald Trump’s view of Vladimir Putin.
Palestinians keep saying that the way to stop violence against Israelis is to stop Israel’s systemic violence against Palestinians. Odeh Bisharat makes the point eloquently here. If only people in power in Israel or the United States were listening.
See you on Thursday,
Peter
Interesting: Ultra-nationalists in France - deplorable. Ultra-nationalists in Ukraine - adorable.
"Palestinians keep saying that the way to stop violence against Israelis is to stop Israel’s systemic violence against Palestinians."
The classic "She was asking for it/she started it" defense. Infamously employed by rapists, children, and domestic abusers everywhere. No surprise then that that's the argument, as Palestine has plenty of all three.