Key developments
On the parliamentary scene, the race for the presidential elections (10th and 24th of April) continues, just as the fluctuations in the polls that go with it. Florian Philippot, leader of Les Patriotes and a front personality of the anti-covid pass movement is no longer a candidate. Nor is François Asselineau (Union Populaire Républicaine, UPR) who failed to collect the 500 support signatures needed to compete. During February, more Rassemblement National (RN) executives have left the party to join Éric Zemmour’s campaign, including Stéphane Ravier, the only Senator of the party, and Nicolas Bay, European MP, accused of communicating strategic information to the Zemmour campaign. Éric Zemmour furthermore happily reported to have spoken to a supportive Donald Trump on the phone on February 15th.
In the wake of the billionaire businessman Vincent Bolloré acquiring more and more media in the last decade, therefore endangering the plurality of opinions and consequently the democratic debate, this article from ACRIMED, the critical observatory of media, reports on the normalisation and “mainstreamisation” of far-right themes in the public debate. The latest example might be when the candidate of the right-wing party (Les Républicains, LR) Valérie Pécresse, openly spoke about the existence of a “Great Replacement” at her political meeting in Paris on February 13, referring to the conspiracy theory popularised by the French author Renaud Camus, denouncing an alleged ongoing replacement of the white European peoples by non-white extra-European populations.
On the extra-parliamentary scene, February 6th saw its yearly commemorations. This date is symbolic for the far right for two reasons. First, because of the events of February 6th 1934, when right-wing and far-right anti-parliamentarian groups demonstrated in Paris against the new government, which had just dismissed the Paris Police Commissioner, known to be far right friendly. The demonstrations escalated and a dozen of people died, mainly demonstrators, and this event is often thought of as an attempt from fascists to overthrow the Republic, in a context of Mussolini and Hitler already in power in neighbouring countries. Second, on February 6th, but in 1945 this time, Robert Brasillach, antisemitic writer and journalist, was executed because of his collaboration with the Nazi regime. Far-right groups continue to commemorate “their” deaths on that date, through demonstrations and gatherings on Brasillach’s grave.
On another note, the foundation Polémia, headed by Jean-Yves le Gallou, held its yearly (since 2010) parodic event on February 7th of “Bobard d’Or” (Golden lies awards) supposedly denouncing “fake news” by mainstream media and the occasion to gather the far-right bourgeoisie in a Parisian theatre to feed their narrative of the alleged corruptness and unreliability of mainstream media, while promoting the need for their task of “re-information”.
Ukraine-Russia conflict
The Russian invasion of Ukraine has shaken the Russia-friendly positions on the French far right. The Rassemblement National (RN) has historically supported closer relations with the Kremlin and high-executives of the party have regularly visited Russia and Marine Le Pen herself was officially welcomed by Vladimir Putin in 2017, before the presidential elections. The RN has moreover reportedly received loans from Russian oligarchs and banks both in 2014 and 2017 to finance the EU and presidential campaigns respectively. Journalist have highlighted the connection between the RN’s positive attitude towards the Russian annexing of Crimea in 2014, and the allowance of a loan a few months later – refuted by Marine Le Pen, who justified it by her inability to be granted a loan from French banks. Mediapart especially highlights the role of Konstantin Malofeev in the financing of the party, but this oligarch is also close to other far-right personalities in France and beyond, such as Philippe de Villiers.
Éric Zemmour has voiced a similar support to the Putin regime in the past, in line with a general fascination for the authoritarian and sovereignist leader among the far-right. Neither him nor Marine Le Pen believed in the accuracy of an imminent invasion, and, even more in the context of the 2022 presidential elections, were forced to operate a 180 degree turn on their positions from the first days of the attacks. Despite the strict condemnation of Russia’s war on Ukraine, the narrative remains one that portrays Putin as a victim of NATO’s expansion. As expressed by Éric Zemmour, Putin is the “only guilty one”, but not “the only responsible one”. Similarly, Paul Marie Couteaux, a former Front National (FN) executive and today in the closest circles of Éric Zemmour, affirmed that Putin was led to invade Ukraine by the humiliation caused by NATO, and that the war is primarily serving US interests.
Additionally, while Éric Zemmour strongly prefers to restrict Ukrainian immigration by supporting the direct neighbour countries, the RN is instrumentalising the crisis to give a more humanist image to the party: Louis Aliot, RN mayor of Perpignan, exemplifies the double standard discourse regarding refugees. He went to Lviv in person to welcomed refugees from Ukraine, and turned of course the event into a public relation campaign. Last August, the RN was rather busy with organising a petition against the welcoming of Afghan refugees.
On the extra-parliamentary far right, there is a dominant support to Ukraine among nationalist groups such as Luminis Paris, Bordeaux Nationalistes, Les Zouaves Paris, Les Braves, Lyon Populaire. They have organised collects of money and goods for Ukraine. However, the support is unsurprisingly channelled towards Ukrainian ultranationalist groups such as the Azov movement and regiment, known for its neo-Nazi ideology – an ongoing and underlying support since the start of the war in Dombass in 2014. The leader of Zouaves Paris, Marc de Cacqueray-Valmenier, had been to Ukraine in 2019 and met with Azov members. However, Streetpress had also reported in 2016 on the involvement of (at least) 23 French far-right activists who had joined the battleground on the pro-Russian separatist since 2014.
A group that stands out by its unequivocally pro-Russian position is Les Nationalistes and the rest of the bubble revolving around Yvan Benedetti. He has described Ukraine as “an artificial country”, supporting a re-organisation of the borders according to “historic realities”.
In short, despite various and contradictory positions at times, the war in Ukraine is instrumentalised to serve typical and historical far-right narratives, whether it is islamophobia targeting the Chechen troops sent by Putin, or antisemitism when portraying the war as yet another action of the Judaic world order/globalist elites trying to operate a “Great reset” to better fool and control people. Moreover, the admiration for the Ukrainian resistance also feeds hyper-masculinist and ultra-nationalist tropes of European territorial defence in front of an othered enemy. Additionally, the overwhelming support to welcome Ukrainians fleeing the war is of course to be celebrated. Yet is also shows a racist judging of who is “a good” refugee and who is not, as shown in the treatment of non-white people also fleeing the war in Ukraine, and more generally by the previous attitude to refugees fleeing the middle east or African countries, also at war.
Lastly, the support for support for Ukrainian troops and people has led to collaboration among far-right European groups. This is best exemplified by the Identitarians, who, at the initiative of Generation Identity Denmark, organised food and basic care products collection and brought it to Budapest, where they celebrated the cooperation from activists from France, Hungary, Germany and Denmark to help Ukrainian refugees who had arrived in the Hungarian capital.

Key developments
In January 2022, Eric Zemmour’s popularity seems to have lost its momentum and rather decreases, as he now ranks 4th according to the latest polls for the upcoming presidential elections in April this year. Nevertheless, this month has seen several personalities leaving their respective parties to join Zemmour’s ranks, including the second-highest executive of the right-wing party Les Républicains (LR) and three key Rassemblement National (RN) executives, one of them being Damien Rieu (Damien Lefèvre), RN member and figure of the French Identitarian movement. Marion Maréchal (ex-Le Pen) also quietly voiced her support for the Reconquête! candidate, despite her historical family connection with the RN. More defections are expected, what testifies, besides political opportunism, of Zemmour’s success to pull the political debate further to the right and comes to shake the “de-evilised” façade of the RN. It also shows a certain success of Reconquête!’s strategy to “unify the Rights”, around an educated bourgeois and masculine crowd who funds the movement, benefiting from the support from the identitarian scene.
Eric Zemmour was convicted this month for the third time for incitement to hate and violence based on one’s origins, as he described immigrating unaccompanied minors as “thieves”, “rapists” and “murderers” in 2020. He awaits another trial for contesting a crime against humanity as he claims that Pétain, who collaborated under German occupation during World war two, “saved Jews”.
On January 5, Les Zouaves, a violent activist group, reportedly involved in the assault of anti-racist activists at Zemmour’s first campaign meeting in December 2021, was dissolved by the French government for incitement to hate and violence and spread racist and neo-Nazi ideologies. This did not prevent its reported leader Marc de Cacqueray-Valmenier to participate in an anti-covid vaccination pass demonstration in Paris, which led to his incarceration as he was not allowed to attend such an event due to his conviction in a different legal case.
January 15 and 16 were indeed the theatre of several demonstrations with a strong far-right presence. Saturday 15, Florian Philippot (Les Patriotes) called for an anti-covid vaccination pass demonstration in Paris. Identitarians, nationalists and hooligan groups attended and even formed their own section in the demonstration. They named it “White block” and claimed on the Telegram channel Ouest Casual to have gathered 200 activists (see picture 1). During this demonstration, AFP journalists were assaulted and insulted. As we enter 2022 with new far-right violence, check out Rapports de Force’s updated 2021 map of far-right violence.
Later that day, the organisation Paris Fierté, close to the dissolved Génération Identitaire, organised its yearly torchlight procession to celebrate the protector of Paris, Saint Geneviève. This march was clearly organised by former Génération Identitaire members but seemingly tolerated by the authorities despite the dissolution of the organisation in March 2021. The next day, on Sunday 16, the yearly “March for Life” demonstration took place in Paris too, gathering traditional conservative anti-abortion activists, but also the more radical far-right fringe such as the nationalist and antisemitic Yvan Benedetti (see picture 2) or the organisation Civitas.
International links
Jordan Bardella, RN president during Marine Le Pen’s campaign, complimented the Portuguese André Ventura for rising to third place with its party Chega at the recent legislative elections. At this time, on January 29, Marine Le Pen attended a two-day summit in Madrid with her European counterparts to discuss further the terms of creating a broader far-right/populist alliance within the EU. This gathering, led by the party Vox, was a third of the kind, after being initiated in July 2021 and continued in Warsaw in early December. The goal is to reform the EU in order to reinforce national sovereignty and traditional conservative values.
The student union La Cocarde Étudiante, inaugurated an official alliance with two other European student unions: the Spanish Revolution, and the Italian FUAN-Azione Universitaria. The aim is to defend the European Universities and youth against a perceived left-wing cultural hegemony.

Key developments

On December 5th, Eric Zemmour held his first political meeting to kick off his campaign in Paris, in front of 13 000 participants, including politicians and identitarian figures officially displaying their support to the new candidate. At the event, anti-racist activists were violently attacked as they conducted a peaceful action (i.e. shouting “no to racism!” wearing t-shirts with this slogan). Members of the ultra-right violent group Les Zouaves Paris counted among the assailants, and two of them have been arrested since then. Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin has reportedly started a dissolution procedure against the group. Eric Zemmour has not denounced the violent actions from his supporters.
On December 20th, a new violent video was revealed by an antifascist leader. The video shows Zemmour’s supporters practicing shooting. Their supposed targets: named left-wing members of Parliament, Emmanuel Macron, antifa, “leftists” and Muslim foreigners whom they insult with racist comments. Eric Zemmour made an official press release to distance himself from the video and its creators, in which he however simultaneously targeted the antifas allegedly “harassing” him. The two men shown in the video have been identified and will be judged early next year.
A new branch of the international Mototcycle Club (MC) Les Bandidos is reported to have settled in Besançon. Members directly come from the neo-Nazi scene and more precisely from the group Combat 18 (dissolved in 2019), which claimed to be the armed group of Blood and Honour, an international neo-Nazi organisation. The Bettoni brothers, former leaders of Combat 18 seem to be behind this new local branch.
 

International links

On December 3rd and 4th, Marine Le Pen went to Warsaw to meet her other leaders of European nationalist parties at the invitation of Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki (PiS). This was the follow-up of a meeting earlier this year which aimed to initiate a new alliance between a dozen of Conservative parties at the European Parliament. The hope is to bring together the Identity and Democracy, ID, (which includes the RN and la Salvini’s Ligua) and the European Conservative and Reformists group (PiS, Fratelli d’Italia) and the non-affiliated Hungarian Fidesz members, to create an greater nationalist and conservative political force at the EU Parliament.
On December 12th, Yvan Benedetti (Jeune Nation and Les Nationalistes), gave an online conference to the Portuguese nationalist movement Força Nova (see picture 1).
Les Braves, (Conversano) inaugurated two new national sections in Russia and Ukraine. (see pictures 2 and 3).

Key developments

• On November 2, StreetPress revealed that supporters of Eric Zemmour practiced shooting on racist caricature targets (a black man, a Muslim, a Jew).
• On November 5, as a response to StreetPress’ article, a far-right Telegram channel published a photomontage with pictures or caricatures of left-wing journalists and politicians (among others), with a red target on their forehead. Alongside the message provides a link to a website where one can legally buy weapons. Claims have been filed to the police.
• Between November 4-7, a catholic-fundamentalist training camp for young men between 16 and 23 years old was held near Orléans. The “Camps des Hussards” was led by Abbot Matthieu Raffray, a figure of the far-right catholic-fundamentalist sphere. On the program for the weekend, only manly activities: “fight, fight, pray”. Baptiste Marchais, a far-right youtuber was also present.
• On November 17, the local organisation Alvarium in Angers was dissolved by the French government, on the basis of inciting to discrimination and violence, notably through the promotion of an amalgam between immigration, Islam and terrorism, spreading a xenophobic ideology through connections with other similar groups.
• On November 23, 13 far-right activists were arrested as they planned violent actions. They were part of a wider network called “Recolonisation France” and which had a least 4 regional entities. This group promotes an identitarian, racist and survivalist ideology, and had already gathered many weapons and called for the formation or armed action groups. Telegram was used as a means to recruit new members, as well as personalities of the far right such as “Monsieur K”, close in the past to Alain Soral (Égalité et Réconciliation)
• On November 20, the Collectif Nemesis, a far-right “feminist” group (anti-Islam and immigration) was present at the feminist demonstration to protest against violence against women. As they tried to be silenced, trouble arose and their masculine defenders from La Cocarde Étudiante (student union) and Action Française got into a fight.
• On November 20, a customs investigation led the Police to inspect the residence of a person where they found over 130 weapons as well as neo-Nazi propaganda. An accomplice, an active soldier from the French army, was already been denounced by Mediapart’s investigation earlier this year for his public display of Nazi symbols.
• On November 27, the Foundation Polemia, founded notably by Jean-Yves Le Gallou, held its 7th Forum of dissidence, featuring the sociologist Michel Maffesoli and Nicolas Faure (Sunrise Media), among others. The theme was “You are the majority, they are the extremists!” (See picture 1).
• On November 30, Eric Zemmour finally announced he will run for the 2022 presidential elections, with a dramatic video combining a speech and images on the downfall of France.
   

  International links

• Between November 19-21, Yvan Benedetti organized and led a trip to “nationalist Spain” in order to celebrate the anniversary of the death of Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera on November 19th, founder of the Falange Española (see Pictures 2 and 3).
• Les Braves opened a new section in Croatia (See Picture 4) and were present in Warsaw, Poland on November 11 for the Nationalist march and celebration (see picture 5)

Key developments

• On October 2nd a 19-year-old was arrested as he had planned to commit terrorist attacks on two mosques and his former high school, on April 20, 2022, Hitler’s birthday. This article on Mediapart gives more context on the accelerationist doctrine behind such deadly projects (the aim being to trigger a racial civil war, thought as inevitable, therefore the need to accelerate its occurrence in order to start anew).
• Eric Zemmour, still not officially a candidate for the presidential elections, keeps rising in election polls and occupying media space to spread his hateful speeches. He also continues his book release tour, considered by many as a (not so well) disguised campaign. Mediapart revealed his connections and organizational support from well-known far-right groups such as the monarchist organization Action Française.
• Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin has started a procedure to dissolve the organization Alvarium in Angers, born in the wake of the Bastion Social (dissolved in 2019) and close to other organizations such as Génération Identitaire (dissolved in 2021).
• Far-right violence has increased in the last few months. This can be partly explained by the numerous weekly demonstrations against covid measures and the vaccine obligation/covid-pass, where the far-right has been very present. Here is the map of far-right violence.
• On October 28th Rémi Daillet, the figure of conspiracy movements connected to the Honneur et Nation neonazi group was now been charged for terrorism as he was involved with the coordination of a 300 people network (organized in local entities) eventually planning a coup. Its “operation Azul” counted vaccination centers, 5G towers, a masonic lodge, and journalists among its numerous targets.
   

  International links

• On September 25th, members of Jeune Nation (a group led by Yvan Benedetti) were in Sofia, Bulgaria to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the National Bulgarian Union. Recently they have shown their support against the banning of the organization.
• Marion Maréchal formalized yet another partnership between her graduate school ISSEP and, this time, the Collegium Intermarium in Warsaw, Poland. They indeed share “the same ambition to train a new generation of executives who serve and defend the European heritage and the freedom of Nations” (see Picture 1).
• Les Braves, Daniel Conversano’s organization started an English Telegram channel in order to attract a wider community. The organization is spreading across Europe, as shown by their map of local groups. It advertised in this logic its upcoming participation in the 11th November demonstration in Warsaw along with Polish Nationalists, to celebrate the anniversary of Poland’s independence (see Pictures 2 and 3).
• Thais d’Escufon, the former spokesperson of Génération Identitaire, was once again the guest on Martin Sellner (Generation Identity Austria)’s show to speak about Eric Zemmour, whom she supports.
• Jordan Bardella, RN president, was present at the launch of a new far-right party in Belgium: Chez Nous, along with Tom Van Grieken, the president of the Vlaams Belang (see Picture 4).
• On October 26ht Marine le Pen, RN and presidential candidate, met Viktor Orban in Hungary to reaffirm their ideological proximity against immigration, EU regulations, and for an alliance of Nations in Europe (see Picture 5)