Jean-Marie Le Pen’s remark underlines that the superficial face-lift of the NF is a political smokescreen. Le Pen’s statements aim to comfort the followers of Nazi ideology within or on the periphery of the NF. This party’s development depends on the incitement of anti-Semitic and anti-democratic sentiments linked to the Holocaust and to the heritage of French fascist collaboration with the Nazi occupation of France during the Second World War. What these elements signify for the working class in the framework of the social counterrevolution pursued across Europe is visible in Greece, with the promotion of the violently pro-Nazi Golden Dawn party, and in Ukraine. There, massacres are being organised in the east of the country by the army, at the head of which are fascist elements organised in the National Guard and various private businessmen’s militias. In the corrupt and reactionary political context which predominates across Europe today, the openly fascist remarks of Le Pen do the FN no harm. Researcher Alexandre Dézé describes the cynical division of labour between the Le Pen father and daughter: “It’s profitable for Marine Le Pen. Jean-Marie Le Pen upholds what makes the party unique, and at the same time serves to justify the strategy [of Marine Le Pen] to reform the demonized image of the party, because she poses as an opposition to her father.” The FN’s integration into the French political establishment and media, many of whom treat Marine Le Pen as potentially France’s next president, is a warning to the working class. It testifies to the rapid evolution of the whole of the capitalist class towards the far right.
Posted on: Wed, 09 Jul 2014 07:26:58 +0000