The Press in France | This France that does not dissolve

(Les Épesses) You have to set foot in Puy du Fou in Vendée, in the west of France, to understand the craze surrounding this historical theme park which, without any rides, manages to attract more than two million people per year.

There we witness a real gladiatorial combat, a breathtaking ballet of birds of prey, horseback acrobatics, and stagecraft that rivals those of the Cirque du Soleil. Adults and children alike come out with fireworks in their eyes.

But you also have to set foot in Puy du Fou in Vendée to understand that this theme park is not just entertainment. The historical content – ​​scattered across about twenty shows – is strongly tinged. It extols a thousand-year-old France that was able to repel invaders – Romans, Vikings, and other “barbarians” – thanks in particular to the Christian faith. All of this is distilled on scenes spanning from Antiquity to the First World War.

In one of the most impressive shows in terms of its staging, the theory of genocide committed by Robespierre and his troops against the royalist Vendée and peasants is defended. A theory that has been strongly contested by historians, but which is at the heart of the beliefs of the initiator of the theme park, Philippe de Villiers, former French minister and former member of the European Parliament.

You will have understood that Mr. de Villiers does not belong to the New Popular Front, this coalition of parties ranging from the center left to the extreme left which won the greatest number of seats in the second round of the legislative elections which took place on July 7, but rather to the large nebula which straddles the radical right, the nationalist right and the extreme right.

It was the victory at the polls of this union of the right in the European elections of June 9th – 4 out of 10 French people voted for it – which prompted Emmanuel Macron to dissolve the National Assembly and launch his country into a risky electoral campaign on the eve of the Paris Olympic Games with the avowed aim of “clarifying the political situation in the country.”

We now know that the result is anything but conclusive. After congratulating themselves on having kept the National Rally (RN) of Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella and their allies away from power, the Macronist troops and the broad left are at loggerheads over the sharing of power.

We almost forget that the RN won more votes than each of the other two blocs in the second round, while obtaining fewer seats in the National Assembly.

The right of the right has therefore emerged from this second round with a black eye inflicted mainly by the voting system, but it is far from having said its last word. In fact, it continues its rise by making its way into the political preferences of more and more French people from increasingly diverse backgrounds.

The cliché of the typical National Rally voter is being dumped: a worker without a diploma living in a corner of France! The appeal of the National Rally is now felt in all social classes and in all age groups, concluded the Ipsos firm in a statistical study that preceded the second round. Ten days of reporting in France to cover the election also allowed me to see that the followers of the National Rally have a thousand and one faces.¹. A disillusioned policeman, a tourism worker, a well-off retiree, a security worker in a multinational firm are just a few of the RN voters interviewed from the south-east to the north-west of France that I was unable to name in my articles.

I won’t soon forget a conversation I had with two young women in their mid-twenties in Paris. They were attending the launch of a new bistro in a posh corner of the City of Lights.

Both university students were preparing to vote for the National Rally, arguing that the French government is too generous to newcomers and not generous enough to native French people, who are finding it increasingly difficult to make ends meet.

During my stay, the new RN followers, very often young, very often women, spoke to me about their concerns about “out of control” immigration, the ambient insecurity and the link between the two. In fact, I had the clear impression of hearing a dominant discourse that links those who decide to give their trust to the extreme right for the first time as for the tenth.

This discourse, which is reminiscent of that of Donald Trump’s fans in the United States, is also omnipresent in the right-wing French media, the vast majority of which belong to the industrialist Vincent Bolloré. By listening to Europe 1 on the radio, CNEWS on television and reading the Sunday newspaperwe immerse ourselves in this vision that denounces a lax France overwhelmed by “foreigners” and aspires to establish order in the name of “French values” before it is too late. A point of view that is very close to that of the Puy du Fou shows. Moreover, Philippe de Villiers is one of the star speakers of CNEWS, as is the Quebec columnist Mathieu Bock-Côté.

A good part of the French political elite – Emmanuel Macron at the head – thinks they can make this ideological movement disappear by isolating it, or even ignoring it. Instead, they are arming it for the next elections.