This book on the far right shows how the dam with the right has (already) broken

POLITICS – They don’t have the same jersey, but they have the same passion: politics. And more particularly its identity and nationalist offer. They are young, and you may know them. Their names are Jordan Bardella, Sarah Knafo, Stanislas Rigault, Guilhem Carayon, Damien Rieu, Pierre Gentillet, Samuel Lafont… We find them at the RN, at Éric Zemmour, Les Républicains or on the set of CNews.

In the book The Far Right, new generation (ed. Denoël), journalists Marylou Magal (The Express) and Nicolas Massol (Release) meticulously explore this microcosm, teeming with friendly links between its different actors who, despite the many pints drunk together, campaign for different chapels. A very small incestuous world, which has its ties on the Left Bank in the bars of rue des Canettes or on the terraces of the 15th arrondissement of Paris.

This ecosystem emerged through different structures starting in 2013, when the law on marriage for all put all of France’s reactionaries on the streets. We find Generation Identitaire or the National Youth Front, including student unions like Uni or Cocarde. An organization which was led until recently by Pierre-Romain Thionnet, close to Jordan Bardella and who today chairs the RN youth movement; he is also expected to obtain an eligible place in the European elections.

Fed by the cathodic projections of Éric Zemmour, this community was also forged through the SOS Chrétien d’Orient association, which allowed young people from the UMP or the FN of the time to make a cause common for a fight “civilizational”. A sort of incubator of this right ” outside the walls “ which occupies a place of choice in this in-depth work, clinically describing how this generation mocks the cordon santé that has long separated the right and the extreme right.

The shadow of small groups never far away

And it is not Guilhem Carayon and Stanislas Rigault, respectively presidents of Jeunes LR and Génération Zemmour, who will say the opposite: their friendship is narrated with precision in the book. Just like the efforts made by the Institute of Politics Training, in Paris, to bring these young people into dialogue and break down the dike between the Republican right and its nationalist cousin.

With, in the background, the heavy shadow of small groups never far from the feasts. “When we had access to the VIP boxes for the Current Values ​​evening, it jumped out at us. It ranged from the most radical, like the owner of the Citadelle bar in Lille, to Guilhem Carayon, including Jordan Bardella”specifies Nicolas Massol at HuffPost.

“It’s a hyperporous universe. Everyone rubs shoulders. For these young people, the sanitary cordon does not exist. They share the idea that when they come to power, everyone will work together.”, adds his co-author Marylou Magal, describing ambitious people emerging from political marginality, pushed by powerful media relays that their elders lacked. When she started, Marine Le Pen had neither CNews nor The JDDneither Current valuesneither Boulevard Voltaire or others Black Book embracing his struggles. Today, the new generation has the impression of being almost mainstream in its civilizational crusade.

From the sovereignist and Europhobic temptation on the sidelines of Brexit, to the identity shift carried out in the wake of the terrorist sequence of the years 2015-2017 and by the crash of Marine Le Pen on the exit from the euro, this work goes beyond the Who’s Who of the extreme right, aiming to touch the approach of the sum written in 1987 by Patrick Rotman and Hervé Hamon on the subject of the left and May 68: dissecting a generation to shed light on the political moment.

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