In the background, the Eiffel Tower, lit in the colors of Israel. In front, a handful of elected officials pose, their tricolor scarves wrapped around their chests. There are eight deputies from the National Rally, this Monday, October 9, who went to the march in support of Israel, following the terrorist attack perpetrated by Hamas. Frontist elected officials at a demonstration organized by Crif. Unthinkable some time ago. How far away they seem, the 1970s when François Duprat, notorious anti-Semite and contributor to neo-Nazi magazines, was one of the party’s thinking heads. Or those days of May 1, when the GUD or the Œuvre française dedicated their processions to Jean-Marie Le Pen, chanting “Deauville, Sentier, occupied territories”. For years, anti-Semitism has plagued the political propaganda of the National Front. To rehabilitate French nationalism, the far-right party made the denunciation of “domination” or the “Jewish International” one of its regular themes.
A few decades later, we found representatives of this same party welcomed with open arms at a Crif demonstration, while left-wing elected officials were ordered to leave the premises. “Collabo”, we notably said to Olivier Faure, boss of the Socialist Party. A knee-jerk reaction linked to the declarations of La France insoumise, which, following the attacks, refused to qualify them as a “terrorist act”, preferring to describe them as “an armed offensive by Palestinian forces”. A position which aroused the indignation of several political leaders, and pushed some to accuse Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s movement of “complacency with Islamism”.
Anti-Semitism, the last barrier to demonization
A positioning which also allowed Marine Le Pen, protected by the LFI lightning rod, to put forward her argument. “Insoumise France has definitively chosen the anti-Republican camp,” she said on Tuesday at the microphone of CNews and Europe 1. And to affirm, once again: “The National Rally is, I believe today, for many French people of Jewish faith, a shield against Islamist ideology.” This statement is not the first of its kind. It is part of a long strategy of seduction started by Marine Le Pen in 2011, the date on which she succeeded her father at the head of the National Front. The frontist boss then believes that this is the last barrier that stands between her party and the coveted demonization, and intends to bring it down.
From then on, she began a major clean-up, leading in particular to the ousting of particularly scandalous figures like Yvan Benedetti or Alexandre Gabriac. In February 2011, in an interview given to Point, the president of the far-right party says: “Everyone knows what happened in the camps and under what conditions. What happened there is the height of barbarism. And, believe me, I remember this barbarity well.” Tacit way of breaking with the numerous slip-ups of his father, who had described the gas chambers as “a detail of the Second World War”, or regularly indulged in anti-Semitic puns, such as the infamous “Durafour crematory “.
A vast enterprise of seduction
From the 2012 presidential campaign, Marine Le Pen played on both sides, nourishing her argument against a certain conception of Islam while attempting to establish rapprochement with the Jewish community. She repeatedly presents the FN as a bulwark against “Islamic anti-Semitism”. In 2014, after tensions rekindled by the conflict in Gaza and several acts of violence around the synagogues of Paris and Sarcelles, she declared: “If the Jewish Defense League exists, it is because a large number of Jews feel threatened.” So many signals, up to the ouster of her father from her own party, which allowed her to make progress, from 2012, within the Jewish electorate where she gathered 13.5% of the votes – a score which remains well below the national average of 17.5%. No matter, the breach has begun, and allows the Lepenist party to break down a few barriers.
Thus, on October 13, 2022, the Nazi hunters Serge and Beate Klarsfeld were presented with a medal by the Frontist mayor of Perpignan, Louis Aliot, a historic member of the party. In December 2022, Sébastien Chenu, RN vice-president of the National Assembly, was appointed vice-president of the France-Israel friendship group at the Assembly. This Tuesday, Meyer Habib, LR deputy, friend of far-right Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu, declared on CNews that “the RN had entered the Republican camp”. A godsend for the RN, always in search of respectability, which hastens to unfold its position on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Community organizations refuse any contact
On BFMTV, on October 9, Jordan Bardella, president of the party, described the attacks as an “Islamist attack” and addressed his “unequivocal” solidarity to Israel, maintaining that the Israeli response was a “legitimate and normal” response. And quickly continues: “Islamism in France is the consequence of a policy of massive immigration, which has multiplied foreign enclaves and miniature Islamic Republics on our soil.” Always walk on two legs. Marine Le Pen is careful not to talk about immigration. At the microphone of CNews, on October 10, she aligned herself with the French diplomatic position, and discussed the two-state solution. “I believe in responsibility and so no, I hope that the two-state solution has not been definitively assassinated, also in a way, like the improvement of relations between Israel and Arab countries. I hope so but It’s certain that it’s not current,” she maintains.
However, she will not go to the march organized by Crif, ensuring that she does not want to “politicize” the event. And having in memory, perhaps, the white march of 2018 organized following the assassination of Mireille Knoll, from which she had been exfiltrated. Not welcome at the time. Because some have long memories, and the main community organizations still refuse to deal with the far-right party. This is the case of Crif, which again qualified Marine Le Pen as an “existential threat to Jews”, on April 12, 2022. This is the case of the UEJF, which organized a demonstration during the second round of the presidential election, calling for a barrier to Marine Le Pen. This is the case of AJC Europe, which categorically refuses to associate frontist elected officials with each of their initiatives. “We refuse and will always refuse any contact with the RN,” assures Simone Rozan Benzaquen, head of the organization. “It is a party which is marked by its history, which remains surrounded by people who are who they are, and whose the strategy is exactly the same as all the far-right populist parties in Europe with the objective of kosherizing their past and what they are by pure electoral strategy. Because in their heads, we are the last obstacle that prevents them from gaining power.”
Stigmas of anti-Semitism
Because despite attempts at seduction, some remain put off by persistent stigmas of supposed anti-Semitism. Among them, the name of Le Pen, but also the links that Frédéric Chatillon and Axel Loustau, close to Marine Le Pen and former members of the GUD, still maintain with the party. Or this day in 2018, when Marine Le Pen invited to the Assembly the Egyptian deputy Abderrahim Ali, a convinced anti-Zionist who regularly denounced the existence of a “Jewish lobby” in Europe. Or this legislative campaign of 2017, during which the media Buzfeed has singled out several Frontist candidates for having relayed articles by Emmanuel Ratier (anti-Semitic author), judging that a Holocaust memorial was “too politicized” or liking photos in which a Jew kissed Hitler.
A recent survey, published by Fondapol in January 2022, also reported particularly widespread anti-Semitism among French people close to the National Rally. We learned in particular that the statement according to which “the Jews have too much power in the field of the economy and finance” was shared by 39% of Marine Le Pen’s electorate and by 33% of those close to the Rally. nationally, compared to 26% of the entire population. Enough to persist, within the main organizations representing Jewish institutions, an anti-National Gathering feeling. On October 27, an Israel-Morocco trip on the Abraham Accords was to take place, organized by the American Jewish Committee (AJC), to which several members of the France-Israel friendship group were invited. No RN elected official was invited. If the frontists are tolerated in demonstrations, the road to demonization of the RN is still long.