A-Infos (en) France, Monde Libertaire - IDEAS AND STRUGGLES: How Fascism is Winning France (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

A Resistible Movement or Not? ---- Thus, we should no longer speak of 
the rise of fascism, but of a conquest of power in France that would no 
longer be a sinister fantasy but a certainty. Ugo Palheta, in his book 
How Fascism is Winning France, from Macron to Le Pen, published by La 
Découverte, believes that this is a "process already underway and the 
concrete possibility of a state of open war against minorities, the 
working classes, the left, and social movements." However, he considers 
that the outcome is possible but "resistible, provided that the danger 
is recognized in time and fought with determination, unity, and 
strategic sense." ---- The book aims to explain how, after the 
peremptory assertions of "never again" or the slogans of the 
demonstrations, we can refer to the famous phrase of Bertolt Brecht: 
"The womb is still fertile from which the foul beast will emerge." 
Vigilance is constant and in areas that are not limited to caricatured 
organizations. There is a whole series of structures, ideological, 
societal, institutional developments that are imperceptibly transforming 
the State in an authoritarian and racist or at least xenophobic 
direction, a form of creeping fascism. Thus, let us go back in time, if 
only to 2019 and note the coercive measures imposed on the inhabitants 
under the cover of a health crisis. The process is admirably described 
in Théo Boulakia and Nicolas Mariot's book, L'attestation, Une 
expérience d'obedience de masse (The Certificate: An Experience of Mass 
Obedience), Spring 2020, Ed. Anamosa, 2023. It's a trivialization, the 
acceptance of vocabulary, procedures persisting just in case... The 
institutional left had no reaction, even if only one of distrust.

The Choice of Words

Be careful with the choice of words, and Ugo Palheta takes care to 
distinguish fascism from populism. Fascism: a mass movement that claims 
to work for the regeneration of an imaginary community considered 
organic and whose disappearance or at least decomposition is feared. 
Current neoliberalism, neither right nor left, for which everything is 
equal, leads to the end of ideologies, demobilization, the degradation 
of social rights, and the reinforcement of inequalities.

Ugo Palheta paints a picture of the political developments of the last 
fifty years to re-establish responsibilities for the rise of the extreme 
right with security laws, social violence in businesses, the increasing 
power granted to capitalist finance, and the circumvention of the people 
with the complicity of the media. All political leaders, from the left 
to Emmanuel Macron, are taking the blame, even if some are forgotten. 
Certainly, Ugo Palheta attributes to Nicolas Sarkozy the responsibility 
for the radicalization of the right, both in the vocabulary used and the 
proliferation of laws relating to nationality and security. The FN/RN 
has fed off these developments; its discourse was taken up in the media 
and by political leaders. Thus, this opposition between Them and Us is 
asserted in the political landscape. The "real French" in opposition to 
the "paper French"! The France that rises early and the France that 
rises late...

Political debate opposes, rejects, and accuses Others.

Instead of uniting people, political debate opposes, rejects, and 
accuses. Thus, this National Front (FN)/National Front (RN) creates the 
illusion of a popular party, while its leaders constitute a quasi-family 
caste. The discourse is extremely violent, with France "submerged," 
"occupied," "colonized" by "anti-nationals," "unassimilable." And a 
minister recently spoke of "barbarians"...

This re-examination of words and behaviors prevents the reader from 
being guided solely by current events. This is an interesting synthesis 
of recent political history and that of this conglomerate party that has 
never denied its origins.

At the end of this journey, the author seeks effective proposals and 
argues for them. The reader is the judge. Certainly, analyzing the past 
allows us to understand individuals and events. Yet, as Ugo Palheta 
asserts: "It's probably not the fascist past of the National Rally that 
should worry us, but its fascist future once it has seized power."

* Ugo Palheta
How Fascism is Winning France
From Macron to Le Pen
Publisher: La Découverte, 2025

https://monde-libertaire.fr/?articlen=8498
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