For some months now, the concept of the ‘ultra Right’ has been all the rage among French journalists, who seem to have found a new enemy to slay. A bogeyman designed to remobilise a public that has become too accustomed to the term ‘far Right,’ the ‘ultra Right’ could have the opposite effect to that intended: it could further normalise the discourse of the national Right.
In France, the term ‘far-right’ (extrême-droite) has traditionally been used for decades to refer to the party founded by Jean-Marie Le Pen, the Front National. For a long time, the main party on the right of governmental right-wing parties, such as the Rally for the Republic (RPR)—the successor to General de Gaulle’s party, later renamed the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) and now Les Républicains (LR)—the Front National was labelled as ‘far-right’ in opinion polls, on election TV shows, in the assembly, and represented by a dark blue colour sometimes tending towards black. Since the socialist President François Mitterrand, there has been a cordon sanitaire separating the acceptable parties from the ‘far Right’—with whom no alliance was possible nor any political participation, whether at the local or national level.
Since Jean-Marie Le Pen’s accession to the second round of the 2002 presidential election—a real trauma for left-wing parties—much water has flowed under the bridge. Jean-Marie Le Pen has given way to his daughter Marine Le Pen, and since 2018, the Front National has become the Rassemblement (Rally) National—a term that was chosen to be more reassuring.
The constant and relentless efforts of the president of the Rassemblement National to try to normalise the political grouping inherited from her father have partly succeeded. Even if the last presidential elections proved that the advent of a Le Pen in power is not yet feasible, the party is no longer relegated to the outside of the public sphere—a development confirmed by the entry, in June 2022, of 88 deputies from the Rassemblement National into the National Assembly. The war between Israel and Hamas has been a turning point, helping to whitewash the reputation of the Rassemblement National—now unambiguously in the camp of Israel supporters, whereas the far Left continues to maintain dangerous relations with the Palestinian terrorist organisation.
The ‘de-demonisation’ of the Rassemblement National—dédiabolisation, to use the official term in the French press—has been given a significant boost by the arrival on the Right of Éric Zemmour and his Reconquête (Reconquest) party, which has picked up battles and elements of language abandoned by a Rassemblement National in search of acceptability. Expressions such as the Grand Remplacement (Great Replacement) and remigration have become an integral part of the rhetoric of the Reconquête cadres, whereas the Rassemblement National is now reluctant to use them. Certain battles have been abandoned, such as leaving the European Union or the euro or abolishing dual nationality.
For journalists accustomed to condemning these elements of the programme and turning them into markers of acceptability, the term ‘far-right’ is proving its limits. Until now, it has been used to stigmatise the Rassemblement National and encourage a Pavlovian reflex of rejection among the average French voter. Now, two parties share the same political space, and the new arrival is more radical on many issues than its predecessor. What the two parties have in common is that they both refuse to be described as ‘far-right.’ Zemmour sees this as an old Stalinist ploy, as in the days when the Comintern ordered all its opponents to be called ‘fascists.’ Marine Le Pen also vigorously refutes the term, which she describes as “deliberately pejorative,” and rejects it all the more as she now sits in the National Assembly with a substantial group of 88 MPs located… on the far right of the hemicycle. She is opposed to her group’s geographical position in the parliamentary chamber being turned into a value judgement.
As a result, in the context of the 2022 presidential campaign, the press began asking questions. In the months and weeks leading up to the vote, there was a proliferation of perplexing articles. The weekly Le Point ran a headline a few days before the first round of voting: “Presidential Election: Is Marine Le Pen Far-Right?” L’Express described the expression ‘far-right’ as a “semantic pebble” in the shoe of the Rassemblement National: an embarrassment, admittedly, but a residual one. Experts such as political scientist Jean-Yves Camus, an expert on extremist movements, and recently the philosopher Pierre-Henri Tavoillot increasingly agree that the term ‘far-right’ is no longer appropriate to describe Marine Le Pen’s party.
But politics, like nature, abhors a vacuum. As the official discourse began to water down and recognise the inadequacy of the term ‘far-right’ to define the Rassemblement National while hesitating to use it systematically for Reconquête, a new term gradually emerged: ‘ultra-right.’ It is now used to denounce small groups and personalities whose statements are deemed excessive and who act outside the ranks of the party, which had historically been identified as ‘far-right.’ The label is meant to inspire fear, to hark back to ‘the darkest hours of our history,’ and it is only to be used with trepidation. The fact remains, however, that this ‘ultra-right,’ which has become an object of fantasy, is a pure construction: those it designates belong to movements whose existence is not new, even if some groups may have changed names, disappeared, or reformed.
Yves Deloye, director of the Institut d’Etudes Politiques in Bordeaux, acknowledges that the widespread use of the term is recent but denies that it is a fashion, explaining that it has long been used in American literature. He sees it as an effect of the “right-wingisation of society.” Ludovic Renard, a researcher at his institute, makes a subtle distinction:
The extreme-right refers to an ideology and the political groups that support that ideology. The ultra-right refers to the means used, which is why the police describe a group of violent and xenophobic groups as ultra-right.
In a way, the ‘far-right’ is the official form of the despised ideology, and the ‘ultra-right’ is its armed wing. But the representations associated with the two expressions are not the same. There is a habituation effect to the term ‘far-right,’ while the expression ‘ultra-right’ continues to smell of hell and prohibition.
The increase in journalistic use of the term ‘ultra-right’ ends up producing an effect that commentators on current political events had probably not identified in advance. By constructing a new repellent from scratch, they are definitively giving credence to the thesis that the Rassemblement National has been normalised and become acceptable, or even that it is possible to vote for this party—something they say they want to avoid at all costs.
By targeting an apparently new enemy, they can also afford to step up the repression of this trend because the accusation of ‘far-right-wing extremism,’ now widely perceived as a hackneyed ploy of the mainstream, is no longer sufficient to justify it in the eyes of the majority in France.
Since the ‘ultra Right’ has swept through the newspaper columns and onto the television screens, the suppression by the authorities of structures as varied as Génération Identitaire, the venerable Action Française, and the Institut Iliade has intensified, as shown by the arbitrary and repeated bans on meetings and demonstrations that have taken place in recent months and that we have reported on. A few days ago, a rally in Paris in tribute to Thomas, the victim of the Crépol tragedy, was banned because it was linked to the so-called ultra Right—before the Paris administrative court, ruling that the decision was illegal, ended up authorising it again at the last minute. The mainstream press then closely scrutinised the demonstration in an attempt to detect the markers of infamy attached to this fantasised ‘ultra Right.’ Unfortunately for the thought-police investigators, nothing reprehensible could be identified, and no trouble arose from the rally.
Several right-wing influencers, laughing at this semantic overkill, now claim to belong to the ‘giga right.’
Meanwhile, those genuinely radicalised in the service of Islamism are out on the streets, killing innocent people.