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Political change starts at the margins. Activists advance the cause, but may not reap the benefits. We clear the way for those who come later. But we can tell the truth and have fun doing it.
President Emmanuel Macron’s appeal in the last election was his claim of independence. He started a new party and governed from the center. Occasionally, he flirted with race realism. He broached the subject of the African population explosion. He refused American wokisme He sometimes talked about border control. He probably understands race, but refuses to act.
Enter Eric Zemmour. The nationalist writer struck exactly the right tone with his “Reconquest” party. He shrugged off criminal convictions for “hate speech,” i.e. common sense. He explicitly invoked The Great Replacement, forcing other candidates to talk about it. He put President Macron on record as denying The Great Replacement while also admitting that immigrants don’t assimilate. Mr. Zemmour said the Republic should seize African leaders’ French homes if countries won’t take back their unwanted populations. He says France must be for the French.
The French presidential election has two rounds. The first will be on April 10. The two leading candidates then go to a run-off on April 24. According to polls, President Macron is winning in both the first and second rounds. While Mr. Zemmour is a distant fourth, Marine Le Pen trails the President by just a couple points. More importantly, Marine Le Pen is within striking distance in the runoff. Let us hope this won’t be a repeat of 2017, in which President Macron crushed Marine Le Pen in the second round.
What has changed? Marine Le Pen has tried to soften her image. She changed the name of Jean-Marie Le Pen’s National Front to National Rally. In the last election, she wanted a referendum on leaving the European Union. That was unpopular. This year, she championed economic issues. She wants to lower the retirement age, cut taxes for young workers, raise taxes on the wealthy, set up a French sovereign wealth fund, and subsidize struggling economic sectors.
This makes libertarians cringe, but it is winning Marine Le Pen new supporters. Her focus on inflation and cost-of-life issues are popular with ordinary people. She is also outworking President Macron on the campaign trail, a welcome contrast to his “Jupiterian” self-image. Mr. Macron is tying Marine Le Pen to President Vladimir Putin, but Viktor Orban’s victory in Hungary shows that voters might be more worried about their own problems than being dragged into a new war.
Marine Le Pen’s focus on the economy doesn’t mean she has ditched her immigration program. Nationalist issues are relevant to all cost-of-life issues. Non-white immigration worsens housing, wages, crime, education, public infrastructure, and defense. The Great Replacement, which is occurring even if President Macron wants to pretend otherwise, is already tearing France apart. French philosopher Michel Onfrey, a thousand military officials (including 20 generals), and Mr. Zemmour himself suggested civil war is possible. Mr. Zemmour claims Mr. Macron told him frank talk about racial issues would itself cause civil war. If that’s true, the French president knowingly imports dangerous groups and hopes censorship, cowardice, and silence will keep them calm.
Marine Le Pen says Mr. Zemmour is too harsh. Marine Le Pen is using the same tired tactic of attacking to the right, and this could strengthen any effort to silence Mr. Zemmour or other nationalists after the election. Bloomberg blames Facebook for not stopping Mr. Zemmour. The New York Times blames media mogul Vincent Bolloré for the rise of “a noxious blend of oligarchy, nostalgia and bellicose nationalism.” Corporate control of what people can see and hear is a key part of Western “democracy.” Marine Le Pen’s attacks on Mr. Zemmour threaten a fatal split in nationalist ranks. She refuses even to form a common electoral front with Mr. Zemmour. Marion Maréchal-Le Pen, Marine Le Pen’s niece, is more faithful to the original National Front and is backing Mr. Zemmour.
Both camps must ultimately reconcile. The stakes are too high. Assuming leftists don’t unite to score an upset victory, Marine Le Pen will face President Macron in the second round, trailing by just a few points. Her victory could be within the margin of error. This has sown panic:
- “French markets skittish as far-right candidate Le Pen closes gap in election polls,” by Elliot Smith, CNBC, April 6, 2022
- “The Guardian view on Marine Le Pen’s surge: alarm bells ring,” The Guardian, April 6, 2022
- “Traders Wake Up to Le Pen Risk as French Vote Polls Tighten,” by Vassilis Karamanis, Libby Cherry, and Albertina Torsoli, Bloomberg, April 5, 2022
Marine Le Pen must know that she has reached this point because Mr. Zemmour made her respectable. People are as “right-wing” as they are “allowed” to be. “Far-right” policies on immigration, cost-of-living, and foreign policy are just expressions of self-interest, something whites aren’t allowed to pursue. More militant candidates can open space, making fringe concepts more mainstream. When that happens, normal people can vote their interests.
Mr. Zemmour doesn’t think he’s an extremist. In his view, he’s following the patriotic vision of Charles de Gaulle. He almost certainly feels insulted by Marine Le Pen’s behavior towards him. However, he should take pride in making a Marine Le Pen victory a real possibility. No matter what happens after this election, his influence will grow. History remembers champions, even failed champions, more than it measures cautious politicians. A Marine Le Pen victory would fundamentally change European politics, and Mr. Zemmour would deserve a lot of credit for it.
Many outlets frankly admit this:
- “Former French PM says Le Pen can win, Zemmour makes her look moderate,” by Hannah Thompson, The Connexion, April 4, 2022
- “French far-left leader Le Pen softens image for election,” by Elaine Ganley and the Associated Press, The News & Observer, April 4, 2022 – “For far-right expert [Jean-Yves] Camus, Zemmour has helped Le Pen by making her appear more palatable. A presidential candidate must bring voters together, and that’s what Le Pen has done, he said.”
- “Even Before France Votes, the French Right Is a Big Winner,” by Norimitsu Onishi and Constant Méheut, New York Times, April 6, 2022 – “Though he has now receded in the polls, to about 10 percent support, Mr. Zemmour’s meteoric rise last year captured France’s attention and ensured that the presidential campaign would be fought almost exclusively on the right’s home turf, as he successfully widened the boundaries of what was politically acceptable in France.”
- “The election of Marine Le Pen is now a possibility,” by Gilles Paris, Le Monde, April 6, 2022
White advocates know truth is all-important. It is our job to put pressure on politicians so they do what we want. We must appeal to politicians’ interests, not try to convince them. That usually means attacking them from the right. It may also mean clearing the way and helping them. During the campaign, Mr. Zemmour has been doing both at once. If the first-round ends in a Marine Le Pen-Emmanuel Macron race, I hope Mr. Zemmour will have the courage to stop attacking Marine Le Pen, endorse her, unite French patriots, and save both the Republic and Europe. Similarly, Marine Le Pen must show French nationalists that she hasn’t abandoned her immigration policies.
I think Mr. Zemmour is a hero and Marine Le Pen is too cautious at best and a coward at worst. At the same time, I don’t think Marine Le Pen would be just another French president. Her presidency would unleash productive forces.
It would also be good for Mr. Zemmour, perhaps even the beginning of his true political importance. Marine Le Pen learned from her past political mistakes and improved her election strategy. Reuters says Mr. Zemmour’s campaign “has fallen back as he struggles to formulate ideas beyond immigration and security and has been hurt by his comments on Russia.” That may be true, and Mr. Zemmour can learn from it. Now that he’s established a true movement and proven his credibility on the most important issue, he can build a party that attracts more French voters.
This will be Marine Le Pen’s last chance to be president. Voters won’t tolerate a second failure against President Macron. Whatever Marine Le Pen’s fate, the future of the French (and perhaps European) Right lies with Mr. Zemmour’s movement. I hope Marine Le Pen wins the election and that Mr. Zemmour helps that happen. However, the Reconquest of France, Europe, and America, goes beyond one election. I suspect Mr. Zemmour already knows that. What he’s already accomplished is paving the way for the victories of the future. If he can help Marine Le Pen win in the second round of the elections, that Reconquest will be just beginning.
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“the future of the French (and perhaps European) Right lies with Mr. Zemmour’s movement”
It lies with an Algerian Jew, i.e. it’s dead on arrival. Not disputing the idea that his candidacy and message have assisted in shifting the Overton Window favorably in Le Pen’s direction. But is the French Right that desperate or naïve that they can’t spot an infiltrator or Trojan Horse? The anti-immigration and pro-French champion is both a descendant of immigrants and non-French. honk honk
The ‘movement’ is animated by a message, not by Zemmour as an individual. The message being: The Great Replacement must be stopped.
He is the replacement.
I’m skeptical of those poll numbers. Last Sunday Victor Orban’s party did much better than the pre-election polls suggested. Macron has always wanted a second round against Marine Le Pen and French pollsters and main stream media are manipulating those numbers to give Macron the second round that he wants. The reporting will change dramatically Monday morning after the first round (assuming it’s a Macron-Le Pen runoff) and Le Pen will be demonized for two weeks over her “racist, xenophobic” opinions. With demographic changes, by 2027, elections in France will be unwinnable by any candidate willing to concede even the possibiity of the Great Replacement.
Best case scenario; Zemmour is working with Marine to make her electable to swing voters.
Purists like you are a far greater threat to a European racial revival than “infiltrators” like Zemmour. If it were 1962 instead of 2022, you might have a point. But with all that has happened, there is no way, no way at all, of turning the ship around without taking a racial hit. The focus needs to be on limiting the damage, so that at the end something recognizably European can still emerge, not to police some purity line – an approach which is deader than dead on arrival.
I doubt that Hood is in any position to know this for sure. Mitterand lost two presidential elections before becoming president, so it would not be unprecedented if Marine were to get another shot.
The French, Germans and people of other Western Nations have really become strange. In two World Wars, they had no problem in sacrificing their own people for their various nations. The nation state was almost spoken of by the average European, as part of their family—-their motherland, fatherland, etc. What a strange transformation, that they now can barely move in a single direction, that would show any love of their lands.
Responsible government is unpopular.
Confiscation is always popular – taking property from one person and giving it to two others loses one vote and gains two. The end result of this game theoretic logic is Communism.
Looks like France boiled the frog. If you’re clumsy, the voters learn to correlate the creeping Communism with personal discomfort. They react – which is why these ultimately impotent rightward flinches are called “reactionary.” Once they calm down again you can continue robbing Peter to pay Paul.
If Zemmour’s rhetoric were effective, someone would have tried it already. This isn’t exactly rocket science. It wouldn’t have reached this point in the first place if it had any genuine power.
Also, as recently demonstrated, if they really have to they’ll just fake the election. It’s cool bro, nobody minds. France, like all NATO so-called countries, is in fact a game show: the policies are made up and the votes don’t matter. Presidents have no effect on policy – the only reason they bother faking the vote is that it’s embarrassing when (not if) the bureaucracy is doing the opposite of what the president is telling it to do.
The end result of Communism is 100% mortality. In the final stage, the one person who still has a meal gets their food confiscated and given to two others, with the result that all three starve to death. If not everyone is dead, someone is compromising Communism.
If you don’t fancy having your descendants get Stalin’d and then probably die anyway, you have to reject popular government.
The only purpose of the whole discussion is comedy. Europe and European peoples screwed up to a lethal degree a long time ago.
This particular joke is that even if someone is saying exactly what the antisemites want them to say, point for point, except for the gyew thing, they still won’t accept them. Even unconditional surrender isn’t enough for them – only suicide. A lovely way to ensure all their enemies fight as hard as possible. Great work all around.
Ironically, this is rational, precisely because the antisemite is merely opposite-day clown world. Their own rhetoric, even at 200% power, isn’t enough. Trying to counter envy worship with envy worship. Gnon laughs.
Nationalism is a scam. The State is always a parasite, inherently in conflict with the host society. It is not strange at all, nor it is a transformation. The only difference between now and 100, 200, etc years ago is that the parasitism has become more obvious. As the cancer grows, the society hurts more; the lump becomes a painful lump. As the burden increases, the scam has to work harder to hide the reality, and ultimately the scam fails.
Of course there is a degree of truth to what you say, human nature being what it is. But if you think Nationalism is bad globalism is 100 times worse. Can’t you observe what the globalists are doing right now? The U.S. for example, is experiencing things brought on by the democrats and rino’s, at the behest and support of the globalists, that are nothing less than insane and an attempt to destroy the country. In other words, rising crime, gas prices, abuse of citizens, etc. is all being done on purpose.
I suppose it depends on what your idea of “turning the ship around” is, or perhaps what your idea of the ship is. Is the idea merely to stop crime, welfare parasitism, cultural overthrow, etc. but the identity of the culprits is irrelevant? Or is the idea that the identity of these culprits is inherently bound up with the aforementioned problems? I favor the latter. Also I fail to see the logic of a non-French person championing the idea that France should be for the French. If Zemmour is French then how are African Muslims not French?
*commentor shilling his own website*
Opinion discarded
(your nose is showing)
Congratulations, liar, you have annoyed me by being offensively stupid and boring. Mission successful?
Great work on those middle-school manners. Who doesn’t miss being harangued by 12-year-olds?
Thanks for letting me know I have you pegged, I guess.
Sorry but just more of democracy’s paradox, if we vote in the right candidate, they’ll loosen the chains. Keep dreaming slaves!
Besides greenflation, Covid and the war in Ukraine probably haven’t harmed her chances either. One of the reasons why liberal globalism has been so successful over the last half century or so has been the absence of global pandemics, which instinctively trigger isolationist sentiments and are a tailwind for cosmopolitan big city culture.
Similarly, the last 30 years of US great power monopoly have given liberal globalists the freedom to crack down on western nationalists with impunity. Now they are finding they are having to tolerate nationalists in the interests of maintaining a united western front against Russia and China. It’s more difficult to crack down on the likes of Le Pen when you’re tolerating stauncher nationalists in Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia, and sending military aid to hard core nationalists in Ukraine.
This is not your blog. (Yeah we saw the link.)
A brusque reply is not “middle school manners.” It’s being succinct. We get it though; you wish you were Moldbug.
But since that flew over your head here’s a genuine harangue in response to your “nationalism is a scam” assertion: Nation is, of course, derived directly from Latin nationem (nominative natio) “birth, origin; breed, stock, kind, species; race of people, tribe,” literally “that which has been born. What you refer to is statism misnamed, not Nationalism. Doubtless it is difficult for many to distinguish between the two, having been grossly propagandized in favor of the definition you imply and having been deprived of an authentic nation for decades now – the latter condition being the source of @Dr. Charles Fhandrich’s consternation over the “strange transformation.” To be compelled to defend one’s Fatherland (i.e. patriotism) one should look around and find his brothers and sisters taking up arms alongside him, as opposed to finding a bunch of random propositional citizens. Many of us middle school commenters here, however, are fully aware of the Nation/nation-state distinction. Stick around and maybe you’ll come to understand it yourself. As an aside, I don’t disagree with most of your take(s), I just find that you’ve yet to reach the marrow of the bone you’re chewing. The scam you’ve described has nothing to do with Nationalism and is merely the opposite side of the communist coin you so decry. There are other possibilities aside from collectivized universalist communism and atomized individualist hedonism. Perhaps even…a Third possibility. But ya know, keep getting butthurt over randos in the comments section of the site that won’t pick up your brilliant-but-undiscovered blog, and enjoy your galactic confederation. I’m sure the Klingons will respect your cultural heritage and your unique philosophical disposition.