Russia: The Promised Land for the French Far Right?
Emmanuel Macron’s first trip to Russia brings into sharp focus aRussian strategyof influence that, during the 2017 French presidential campaign, appeared to rely heavily on the far-right card.
Nicolas Lebourg, University of Montpellier
In France, the shift toward the East affects all factions of a far-right that has historically been fragmented but has been dominated by the National Front (FN) for more than thirty years. This movement is often portrayed as a break with the history of the far right.
The report titled “The French Far Right in Russia’s Sphere of Influence,” which we have just published for the Carnegie Council and Open Society Institute’s program on Russian soft power in France, in cooperation with the Open Society Initiative for Europe, seeks to demonstrate that the issue is not cyclical but structural.
Russia Without the Soviets
Long before the National Front’s pro-Russian leanings, various collaborationists who continued their activism after World War II (through the formationof international organizations such as the European Social Movement, the New European Order, and Young Europe) espoused an ideology aimed at overcoming antagonisms among Europeans in the interest of continental integration. For the most part, these movements adopted the term “European nationalism” to describe their ideology, following a formula derived from collaborationist propaganda.
Among other things, the rise of anti-Zionism in the Soviet Union following the “White Coats Conspiracy”in 1953 subsequently convinced them—as well as the young activists they were training—that Russia could protect Europe from “American-Zionist imperialism,” which they believed sought to establish global governance over the world.
This attraction to socialist Russia was often interpreted as a shift within the far right—which was said to have “moved to the left”—even though it was, in fact, the result of adherence to the most uncompromising dogmas of the radical far right regarding the primacy of organizing the world into large ethno-cultural blocs.
A similar mistake was made when the radicals became enamored with Russia after the communist option was ruled out by the fall of the Berlin Wall.
It is true that the myth perpetuated by certain figures on the radical far right regarding their past involvement with the left contributes to this illusion: François Duprat, co-founder of the National Front, and his half-true, half-false Trotskyist past; essayist Alain Soral, who exaggerates his history with the French Communist Party; and so on.
Amid the East-West rapprochements between radical groups that took place during the breakup of the Soviet Union, some members of the French intelligentsia imagined they were witnessing a “red-brown conspiracy.” This term originated in Russia in 1992 to denounce the National Salvation Front, which brought together the populist far right and conservative communists. In France, it is nothing more than a figment of the imagination.
Above all, it was the appeal of a Russian neo-Eurasianist ideology that proposed a new, organic structure for ethno-cultural societies stretching from Iceland to the Pacific.
Building a political unity stretching “from Reykjavik to Vladivostok” is one of the utopian visions—admittedly held by a minority—of Europe’s radical far right, but it is a long-standing one. It was therefore reasonable for its supporters to hope that the collapse of the Soviet Union might pave the way for such a development.
It was this neo-Eurasianism that motivated some supporters of the European far right to back the war against Ukraine starting in 2014—within the French far right, the Groupe Union Défense (GUD) was one of the few organizations to support the Ukrainian side, with the National Front (FN) going so far as to sever ties with its local sister party.
Rejection of the Multipolar World
Indeed, support for Russia runs through all of these far-right extremist groups, from the Jewish Defense League to Égalité & Réconciliation, Alain Soral’s radical anti-Zionist movement. In fact, after Alain Soral broke with the National Front in 2009, his group’s first independent action was a pro-Putin demonstration.
Both the LDJ and Alain Soral have viewed Vladimir Putin as a geopolitical ally. This is only contradictory on the surface, as this entire dynamic is based on the desire to reshape the world order by creating a multipolar world with more sovereign nations, a society that is less multicultural and postmodern, and an economic structure less dictated solely by market forces.
However, these are ideas that touch on the shared ideological core of the far right.
Russia, a bulwark against multiculturalism
In response to the transnationalization of the world—which they reject—right-wing extremists therefore rationally advocate for the transnationalization of politics. After a period—from the fall of the Third Reich to the war in the former Yugoslavia—during which European far-right groups had reorganized themselves within thetransatlantic framework, their focus shifted toward Moscow.
In particular, it was with the Kosovo War in 1999 that arguments began to spread within the French far right portraying Islamism as a tool in a U.S. conspiracy to ensure its dominance.
This phenomenon is amplified by the split within the National Front (FN) and the European elections taking place that same year: radical activists are introducing into the far right the Serbian narrative about Islamist totalitarianism threatening Europe, in order to justify breaking away from an FN that fails to recognize the continuity between “Arab delinquency” and the “Iranian threat.”
This is a crucial moment for understanding France’s fascination with Russia, which is now seen as the only country capable of providing a bulwark against both unipolar globalization under American domination and Islamism. Emerging from the fringes, these various themes have, step by step, found their way into the public sphere.
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A Phenomenon in the Making
Marine Le Pen has played an important role in this regard. Her own geopolitical views owe a great deal, initially, to one of her former speechwriters, the Eurasianist activist Emmanuel Leroy, who is now politically involved in the Donbas and Moldova through his humanitarian association, the organization of conferences, and so on.
There is certainly some hope for a boost in terms of political or financial capital. When Marine Le Pen visited the Duma in May 2015 to express her support for Russia’s policy toward Ukraine, a Sputnik news report—published in Russian and not translated by the French branch—stated that the meeting also involved negotiations for a loan, even though the FN had already received 11 million euros in Russian funds in the preceding months.
But this attraction to the East cannot be reduced to financial considerations alone: there is no doubt that illiberal democracy—as embodied by the model in Eastern Europe—aligns with the way the institutions of theFifth Republic are operated, a model that the far right promotes in France.
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Furthermore, just as the shift to the right may have been a transatlantic phenomenon, the possibility of a new form of authoritarian governance is amplifying this shift toward the East.
This polarization is therefore not merely a temporary phenomenon. The current phase of realignment within the French far right cannot break with the way this political space functions—characterized by internal interactions and shifts—thus allowing individuals and small groups to maneuver within it and assert their principles and interests within a party that now has access to the second rounds of elections.
Nicolas Lebourg, Research Associate at CEPEL (Center for Political Studies of Latin Europe), University of Montpellier
The original version of this article was published on The Conversation.