On the left, we forget too much that Islamism is a variant of Lepenism

Part of the left does not want to see that Islamism is a far-right ideology. She thus paves the way for the RN, supporting a collective of researchers in a forum initiated by the philosopher Eric Guichard.

So that Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella do not win the European elections, we want to awaken the rational and united left which is ours by inciting its “Islamophile” part, that is to say complacent towards of political Islamism, to move away from an illogical choice which favors the extreme right. This in fact wrongly appears to be the only lucid formation in the face of the Islamist push perceived by the working classes.

By Islamism we mean militant proselytism which promotes Islam as a political project. Islam, as a religion adopted by individuals, is not our subject: we let everyone believe what they want and know that complex beliefs lie within each of us.

It is clear that Islamist activism has been expressed with renewed force over the past forty years. From Iran since the 1970s to Algeria in the 1990s, from Boko Haram in Africa to Daesh in the Middle East, from Morsi in Egypt to the Ennahdha party in Tunisia, from Yemen to Afghanistan, the list of countries having tilted towards a religious reactionarism sometimes assuming terrorist methods is long. We observe the same anti-democratic, anti-feminist and military Islamism in countries like Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia.

A claimed reactionaryism

This Islamism is profoundly reactionary, as were the far-right Catholics in the 19th century.^e century. It is the omnipotence of a god that Islamism claims when it kills at the Bataclan, at “Charlie’s”, in Moscow or at college.

Islamophiles will criticize us for the amalgam: “Do not confuse the Kouachi brothers and the unfortunate Muslim dominated by our racist state. » We respond in logical terms: if the LFIists rightly deplore a contamination of the French right by Lepenist ideas, let them admit that a prudish Islam is contaminated by the fundamentalism of the Muslim Brotherhood through their agencies, like the former CCIF (collective against Islamophobia in France). The values ​​of this Islamism and the extreme right of Europe are close: focus on the family, obsession with purity, identity xenophobia, superiority of men over women. With the added bonus of banning apostasy and atheism.

Such values ​​are not specific to Islam: Baghdad welcomed into its House of Wisdom many mistreated scholars from the East (from Nestorians to Indian scholars). We also know that religious identities can be transcended: around 1150, when Islam, Christianity or its orthodox variant did not shine with their openness, Al-Idrissi, Roger II of Sicily and George of Antioch together forged a culture of staggering wealth.

Islam is not Islamism. The latter is imperialist and violent; like any totalitarian ideology, it refuses debate. In this sense, it is a far-right ideology. However, part of the French left denies this fact, which leads it to failure.

A triple contradiction

This Islamophile left, under the guise of defending the oppressed against the power of the State and capital, plays into the hands of Islamism. On the grounds that the majority of people of foreign origin are Muslims and that it is appropriate not to discriminate against them, it in fact admits modes of thought that are contrary to its values: primacy of religious law over that of the State, submission of women to the male moral order, xenophobia, etc. A bit as if the PCF supported fundamentalist Catholics!

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This posture is doubly blind. It reduces forms of domination and exclusion to religious segregation, while there are many others: thus digital capitalism is now more powerful than States (Musk has much more economic power than Tunisia, but has no hospitals or schools to finance). Furthermore, it focuses on France, forgetting the new political balances resulting from globalization and the ideological pressures of despotic countries like China, Russia, Qatar, Iran, etc.

Above all, she shows condescension towards immigrants and their children, refusing to allow them to be tempted by reprehensible political extremism, as many French voters are. And ignoring that some of the first could be atheists. Sad expression of racist paternalism and colonialist spirit, if ever there was one!

Electoral strategies

It is not that the far right has a lucidity that the other parties do not enjoy. This is because the Islamophile left cannot convince by interacting with a movement which rejects atheism and secularism and which promotes far-right values.

In France there are many disadvantaged people and individuals distraught by the state and the directions of the world: some of them choose a simplistic and authoritarian political solution of rejection of the other. Rather lepenist for those who have the right to vote; rather radical Islamist for those who don’t have it, or whose parents didn’t have it. 42% of French people voted for Marine Le Pen in the second round of the presidential elections. If we admit that similarly, a high proportion of people originating from the Turkish-Arabic-Maghrebi arc can be Lepenists in their own way, and rather attracted by Islamist authoritarianism, the risk of a France dominated by fascist opinions.

Awakening of the left

By fighting now against this other “extreme right” that is Islamism, the left will bring back into its fold those who live in precariousness and who are tempted by one-upmanship so that their voices and their concerns can finally be listened to. , their misery. She will be able to defend a sharp increase in aid to the most disadvantaged and in budgets allocated to schools, so that everyone living in our territory can reconnect with reasoned debate and listening to others.

It is on this condition alone that we will be able to oppose totalitarian excesses in France – whether religious, Trumpist or nationalist. And that we will be able to reconnect with the universalist, rationalist, democratic and pacifying logic of the history of the French left.

First signatories:

• Lucie Marignac, editor and translator, publishing director. Rue d’Ulm, Ecole Normale Supérieure (Paris)
• Thierry Lafouge, professor emeritus at the University of Lyon
• Jean Dhombres, director of studies at EHESS
• Michel Dreyfus, historian, research director at CNRS
• Céline Masson, professor of clinical psychopathology at the University of Picardie Jules-Verne
• Alain Boyer, professor emeritus, philosophy
• Rossella Saetta Cottone, Hellenist, research director at CNRS
• Angelo Vignolo, computer scientist
• Zina Weygand, doctor HDR, historian of the blind and blindness
• Alain Staigre, consultant
• Martine Benoît, professor at the University of Lille
• Thierry Daguin, poet
• Gérard Panczer, professor at Claude-Bernard Lyon 1 University
• Martine Bismut, Scuola Normale Superiore of Pisa
• Roland Béhar, teacher-researcher at the École Normale Supérieure (Paris)
• Piero Caracciolo, former Italian teacher at the École Normale Supérieure (Paris)
• Paul Carmignani, professor emeritus at the University of Perpignan-Via Domitia
• Loïc Seron, author, photographer
• Pierre Chiron, professor emeritus at Paris-Est University, member of the IUF
• Évelyne Buissière, associate professor, HDR doctor in philosophy, CPGE teacher
• Florent Meyniel, researcher at CEA