Is there really a right-wing culture in France?
Does the observation of a right-wing country mean the adoption of a typical right-wing culture? Does this culture take over society in one fell swoop, enrolling citizens? Surprisingly for some, the answer may be no.
There is certainly a reactor heart in the adjustment: it is the fear, the anguish of the decline of the West, that is, Occidentalism. However, according to the social groups, at different levels, different forms of thinking prevail, sometimes contradictory but forming edifices whose character arose from the ruins of the cultural dominance of left. These social groups employ different but broad forms of thought that one might qualify as “right wing”.
A starting point: unlike Italy, a right-wing counterculture did not develop in France in post-1945 France, moreover it is more closely associated with the Years of Lead than with the civil war of 1943-1945 . The short-lived Parti des Forces Nouvelles (PFN) tried for about a decade to cultivate a right-wing culture that was elite enough not to attract crowds. The right remains largely resistant to any form of ideology.
Straightening, something of surfers more than sappers
The rise of the FN has not translated into increased sales of the far-right press. This fact may seem insignificant if it does not reveal that, more broadly, the country is at the forefront of the most developed forms of right-wing ideologization or culture. Contrary to widespread opinion on the left, which thus elevates its role as a warrior, it is not the theses of the extreme right that permeate the country.
It is not because the French lean to the right that they are concerned about the vagaries of “union rights”. The foreseeable failure of the Éric Zemmour electoral enterprise, along with some RN/FN executives, was due to the ideological pretensions of the operation while the National Rally, strong on the “brand” Le Pen, surfed the its basis (insecurity and immigration) and add to them social concerns that must make sense in relation to these basic postulates.
Traditional political parties, often endowed with a weak ideological framework, have no choice but to obey their voters by persuading them.
On the contrary, the so-called “government” or “republican” right has not had any ideological and programmatic framework for fifteen years, that is, since the successful campaign of Nicolas Sarkozy. Intellectually, the bet made (by default?) by Laurent Wauquiez on conservatism during the last European elections appears retrospectively as the most imperfect, and certainly the only one with real ideological content. Other meetings and declarations are anti-fiscal and anti-civil servant “liberalism”, bordering on intellectual impotence.
Indeed, traditional political parties, often endowed with a weak ideological framework, have no choice but to obey their voters by persuading them. Many actors or observers would have us believe that the parties promote right-wing “from above”. The co-production of the latter is certain, but what is the part of the “bottom”?
The end of an obsidional complex
For a long time, right-wing intellectuals and activists convinced themselves that they were victims of a “leftist”, “Marxist” or other hegemony in the media and the university. The propaganda of the National-Interuniversity Union (UNI) aimed to convince its members of this very relative truth, and used this obsidional complex as a powerful cement.
At a time when rightism has removed what is considered the “cultural dominance of the left”, it can certainly think that it has not yet won, because some of the dominant values in France are in radical opposition to him.
La Nouvelle Droite (ND) saw its audience increase, with a new editorial effort added to the base of Alain de Benoist’s works. It is worth noting that Elements magazine is almost always available at most places that sell press, Relay and kiosks. A dynamic driven especially by its editorial director Pascal Eysseric.
Recently, a controversy related to a front page among YouTubers, mainly showed that there was again a rather dynamic neo-right-wing milieu. Others, very far from ND, established themselves in the ideological landscape of the country. The conservative magazine L’Incorrect established itself quickly and with real success, while remaining in touch with its youth.
Rights are rapidly evolving in a country that is becoming more righteous without needing them.
While the Fratelli d’Italia, the party of the President of the Council Giorgia Meloni, is making a slogan “Pride and Optimism” a mobilizing word in Italy, the French partisan right is reveling in the state of darkness in the country, feeding an electoral right-wing but not a profound ideological victory. Right-wing intellectuals and youth activists seem determined to inject ideas and worldviews into the nation’s psyche.
With the left’s strange defeat owed solely to its failures to assert its ideas, rights are rapidly evolving in a country that is becoming more righteous without needing them. Their handicap is that they cannot give real depth to their success in polls and opinion polls.
