Identitarians vs National-Republicans

[Eurovox]

Following the recent dispute between supporters of a national-republican line (including Alain Soral’s Egalité et Réconciliation – E&R) and « Identitarians » (Les Identitaires – ID) about the concepts of Nation and Identity, we suggested them to have a debate. Six questions were prepared by the main proponents of both trends. Egalité et Réconciliation and Les Identitaires accepted to answer them and to engage into a firm but courteous discussion. This is the dialogue between them.

ID: 1) The Front National (FN) has popularised the slogan « France and the French first », but today, isn’t the point « France or the French first »? Isn’t there a divorce between the “French” nation and the “French” People?

E&R: This is a very apt question. We think this is more a question for the « Identitarians » than for the national-republicans. In fact the French People, in its national definition, has changed, because of mass immigration after a botched decolonisation process and because of the commercial logic that was accepted, and sometimes even encouraged by our leaders. If, leaving History aside – that of France (the Antilles have been French for about four hundred years), you give an ethnic definition (or rather a racial definition since France is originally an artificial clustering of ethnic groups, contrary to Germany or Japan) of the French people, you logically question the national scope to adopt a “White Europe”, or even a “White West” scope. This approach obviously leads to Atlanticism and to the so-called civilization clash wanted or rather invented by Washington. This is not only an abandonment of the concept of France as a free and sovereign Nation State, but, we think, of French civilization too. This civilization – obviously I’m not referring to the would-be civilization of « Human Rights » – has built up along centuries while getting over the ethnic, then racial cleavages, and was only made possible by the enormous and steady will of edification and greatness that allowed this « miraculous synthesis » which France is or still was recently. The French people brought down to its white racial component in a « Europe » we cannot but a trading entity under the US, would surely return to its original reality, i.e. a sum of non-French ethnic groups, even indeed anti-French. That is why the White Project which lies behind different more or less efficiently marketed names will not only lead to the end of France but also to the end of the French people and civilization. For us patriots, for all those who first feel French and consider the author of « The Three Musketeers » as a French genius and not a nigger, the choice is easy. In other words the racialist French Right today has, for dialectic reasons, the choice between nation and racialism. In the same way and in parallel, progressive internationalists have a choice today between (globalist) internationalism and progressiveness. If there is today a divorce between the French nation and its people with its miscellaneous components, it is because it does not work efficiently any more, mainly because it gave up most of its missions and prerogatives. So they have to be restored.

ID: But what is France made of? A carnal and historical reality, an administrative and institutional fact, or a part of the worldwide market linked to a moralising ideology with a universal ambition? And what is the French people? The people that would be French or the people that is said to be French?

For us France USED TO BE a carnal and historical reality, but it was overgrown throughout the Third Republic by a universalistic and moralist ideology fed by an institutional and administrative state of affairs: Jacobinist centralism. The drama of WW I – as pointed out by Jean de la Viguerie and Dominique Venner – was a turning point. And the only France we love and respect is the historical and carnal France. It was, unfortunately, deeply weakened at Verdun.

The French People, rather than the People that claims to be French, should be the people who knows it is French but, just as we just mentioned, if France is no more than a universalistic myth (the country of Human Rights), how can we maintain a relationship of identification and belonging with an idea that is offered to the entire humankind?

At any rate, a distinction should be made between the elites (and oligarchies) devoted to ‘turbo-capitalism’ and its nomadic cosmopolitanism (à la Attali) and whole segments of the population who refuse to accept industrial de-localisation and the dramatic consequences of globalism. It is of course not a “real country”, but it consists of a large portion of our fellows who are experiencing their deprivation in a silent dereliction with no ideological support to sustain and strengthen their unmethodical resistance so as to turn into political terms the previously scattered feelings that a talented demagogue like Sarkozy can summon by merely throwing in as decoys a handful of keywords, as illustrated in the last presidential and legislative elections.

Yes, some in the population knows they are and want to be heirs to the carnal and historical France. Unfortunately, they are a minority in front of all those who claim to be the children of “the country of Human Rights” and those adopted by the said “country of Human Rights” through an intensive process of administrative naturalisation acclaimed by beautiful-people who have been promoted to the collective standard-setting leadership by “the France that moves forward”.

Yes, there is a divorce between carnal and historical France, which is still present in the patriots’ hearts, and the ethnic and cultural reality of today’s French. In the same way, there is a divorce between contemporary and institutional (republican and secular) France, and the persons who still feel French in their culture, their traditions and their roots. Unfortunately, there is not the appropriate distance between institutional France and the “paper French”. This is the reason why Identitarian militants do not waste their time fighting for a fanciful French sovereignty or trying to “make French” the good-willed immigrants; rather, they are struggling to strengthen the carnal links without which any common destiny is meaningless.

ID: 2) According to you, is there still a French people?

ID: As I said, a real gap has developed between the concept of a republican and cross-bred France and a vision of man rooted in his natural and historical communities (even if these communities have been partially planed out by the modernization at work for over two hundred years).

So one must ask oneself if there still really exists such a thing as a French people.

In order to build the future and project yourself into it, a people has to want to share a common destiny. But, when I am standing in a line at the post office, when I walk through some districts or when I am riding the underground in Paris, I do no feeling nor desire to share a common destiny with the motley population I see there.

Nevertheless I refuse to adopt a losing attitude. I do not think we have reached yet the stage of those “last islands of civilisation” Jean Raspail wrote about in 2004 in Le Figaro.

We live in an atomised society gnawed through by individualism. Let us notice that individualism was already in force at the time of the French Revolution (Le Chapelier’s law), and it is induced by the liberal conditioning of society.

In this context, the Identitarians know that people need signposts and symbols of identification. This is why we are working day after day to exalt our local identities, which, long ago, were the elements of French identity, and European Identity, which is the only one we can find our bearings in the global maelstrom. Far from parlour speeches, it is concretised in actual field actions. I can mention campaigns against anti-white racism and rap as examples of actions designed to bring together those who still are conscious of their European civilisation identity. I can also refer to “La Maioun” (a community house in Nice) and our cultural work as illustrations of our efforts to develop the feeling of belonging, especially in youth but not only them.

Therefore this feeling must be nurtured and sustained by community action to resist the lonely crowd anonymity, and numerous counter-offensives to the strategies of Capital which endeavours to build up aggregates united only by Market interests.

I think a clear distinction must be made between organic identity and State-national identity based on republican values. To “France as an human-rights idea”, we oppose Barrès’s notion of the dead and the land. Rather than “Nation”, which is an ideological concept, we definitely prefer “homeland”, a carnal reality.

Besides, as Identitarians, we rely on three levels of identity: regional (carnal identity), French (historical identity) and European (civilisation identity). For example I feel at the same time a Niçois, a French, and a European. On the other hand, if Mohamed is considered French by the Republic, he can never be an Occitan, Breton, Alsatian, Basque, and even less European. That notion of a triple identity may be a part of the answer for someone who wants to determine who belongs or does not belong to his people.

E&R: Of course. Even if the French people has changed a lot due to immigration but even more to the damages of commerce-based civilization, the national fact lives on. Regional cultures have not all been erased, French remains a living language, the national feeling still smoulders and is demonstrated on many occasions, e.g. for the rugby World Cup. Patriotism is ready to wake up.

ER: 3) Do you consider there is a specific French civilization, or that French culture is a component of European civilization?

E&R: Europe’s specificity, precisely, stems from the fact that it has been built up progressively as nations which developed their own civilizations. If a “racial” and geographic reality exists, it has never been homogeneous in a cultural point of view.
The Slavic, Germanic and Latin worlds are too different for us to talk about “European civilisation”. If there is an Arab civilisation – which, incidentally, includes some Christians along with some Muslims –, it is mostly because there is an Arabic language. We think that, while there is a European cultural basis, Europe has brought out various civilisations: Greek, Roman or French. For us Europe is meant to become a confederation of free nations, built around a Paris/Berlin/Moscow strategic axis – but in no way an entity that would replace France, even with pseudo ethnic and cultural justifications.

ID: Those two scenarios are not incompatible. I don’t separate culture from civilisation. Culture corresponds to a social, ethical and sometimes artistic heritage which is the basis of a human group. That culture may be seen as one meaning of the notion of civilisation.
The British anthropologist Edward Tylor wrote: “Culture or Civilization, taken in its wide ethnographic sense, is that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society. ” [in Primitive Culture, 1871].

This said, it is obvious to me that there is a French civilisation, which is part of European civilisation.

ER: 4) What is francophonie [the French speaking community] for you? May that space represent an alternative to the EU or to Europe to allow a return to a powerful France?

ID: To begin with, there is no such thing as one French speaking community; there are several French-speaking communities. The North-American French speaking community (Quebec and French-Canadian communities), strangely often neglected if not forgotten, can hardly be assimilated to African French speaking communities and treated the same way. North-American French speaking communities (just as Belgian and Swiss French speaking communities), beyond the language, share with France several centuries of common history, common human roots; hence some ethnic and cultural homogeneity, a common way of life, a similar imaginary and shared world visions.

Therefore the links between them and us are obviously very deep and should be kept alive in a very close collaboration.

Conversely, the other French speaking communities are overall much too heterogeneous in their core and culturally distant from France to represent an efficient and coherent political space. While language is indisputably one of the components of a common identity, it is far from being a sufficient condition of it.

One can hardly see what power might pull France out of an association with countries which usually experience both high political instability and endemic economical fragility. The risk would be to maintain indefinitely the present European aid-based relation with Africa, which is often very close to an underlying neo-colonialism benefiting only a few corporations and clever financiers, along with corrupt bureaucracies, bloodthirsty tyrants and cathedrals in the middle of the desert. Assistance should also entail some return on investment, and not to grease the palms of the French “government parties” as it has been doing for so long.

Moreover, countries with no international linguistic spaces, like Germany, Japan or Russia, have somehow managed to become world powers at least on a par with France. Also, the notion of France as a world power does not necessarily entice us. Moreover we do not consider the expanse of French speaking countries as relevant an instrument of power as Europe, in terms of heritage and common destiny. We’re more in favour of a pacified France within a powerful Europe.

This being said, Francophonie remains, of course, a cultural space that should not be neglected, in particular for the outreach of our arts.
In conclusion, let me make it clear refusing to join in the same politico-civilisational entity as all of Francophonie does not mean at all refusing any occasional collaboration with their members, in particular on issues of immigration and economic development. I have a remark to make on this point: instead or using the term “co-development”, which is a favourite cliché of the system along with “sustainable development”, I would rather speak about initiatives meant to encourage “ethno-centred” projects that do not bind the involved countries to the global market logic and protect them from ethnocide caused by the distress and misery (more than poverty proper) they promote.

We should not forget, for example, that in spite of tremendous growth (of the capitalist type), China remains a country of emigration. The large-scale inequalities its development provokes amplify more than they stall many a Chinese’s desire of running away. That desire is reinforced through a westernised imaginary which has been widely interiorised, along with and the rest of the planet, even though the country is relatively closed off by an indisputably authoritarian power. The world of merchandise has become the main agent of unification of mankind. This must be taken into account, especially in the context of a circumstantial collaboration with African French-speaking countries.

E&R: Well, yes and no. The French-speaking space is admittedly the natural area of influence of France as a world power, but it is no alternative to the EU for the return of a “powerful France” if one considers that there will no real France any more in the EU. France must take its inspiration from Russia, retrieve ambition and pride, and defend its interest and those of French speakers, in its natural influence space. Of course, we are no longer in the colonial era and our view of French speakers, especially from the Maghreb and Black Africa, must be totally revisited, without any clichés. Similarly, the whole history of de-colonization should be revisited; it is stuffed with lies and clichés about those who defended the idea of a great French-speaking nation.

E&R: 5) What is your view of French colonisation? Do you think there is a privileged link between the French people and the peoples of France’s former colonies’?

E&R: Let’s state first that, whatever one might think, colonisation has been the driving force of the world ever since humanity started. No great civilisation did without it, not even China, in spite of what is usually thought. France itself is the result of Gaul’s colonisation by Rome, and it is clear that the Gauls’ rights were not the Romans’ first concern. The Gauls were enslaved and about half of them were deported or slain. No doubt that in the point of view of the Gauls of those times, the positive aspects of colonisation were far from obvious. Nevertheless it took place, and it produced France, the foremost nation worldwide for cultural heritage.

French colonisation is no exception, even though it must said it was far from being the worst of the colonisation examples, from a human aspect. The crimes of the French colonisation are not different in their size from the crimes that marked the history of France and its building in the home country. The specificity of French colonisation was its explicit ambition to raise the education and development level of the colonized peoples. It could have fared better – as it could have fared worse. It has significantly increased the economical and educational level of the African peoples it colonized, in all areas, even though it should and could have done better. The current outlook of many French on their colonial history is biased, in particular by Algerian decolonisation. The official history of French decolonisation was written by the FLN (National Liberation Front), so many French people think Algeria was a nation before colonisation, and an Arab nation too. Only few know, especially those of Algerian ascent, that Algeria was an Arab-berber province under the ottoman rule, only sparsely populated largely nomadic. That is, it was already a colonised province and the Algerians are hardly Arabs proper. This bullshit made it easier to portray the Algerians who wanted to remain French as collaborators. The French also generally ignore that a great deal of those who, in the homeland fought for French Algeria, including those within the OAS (Organisation Armée Secrète: Secret Army Organisation), were in favour of an access to citizenship for Muslims, which is far from being a racist position. This was the line of Jean Marie Le Pen when he introduced a bill going to that effect. They do not know that it is precisely out of fear of “Black” and “Arab” demographics that de Gaulle hastened decolonisation, sometimes against the stakeholders’ desire, for example in the Ivory Coast with Houphouët Boigny.

Who knows that Boigny was a State Minister for several years and that contributed to the drafting of the Constitution of 1958? Who knows that Monnerville was the French State’s second most important character for ten years? The faked history of Algerian colonisation, and possibly even more that of its decolonisation, is new taken an emblem of the history of overall French colonisation, which has heavy consequences in terms of the French’s assimilation with and relation to their history, of patriotism and of repentance and remorse. It is necessary to make them know ‘counter-history’, that of the ‘losers’ (politically but not militarily, as far as Algeria is concerned), and to initiate a real debate to get done with the anti-French propaganda which is raging about those facts. It is a crucial, because France today has about ten million French people of extra-European origins, a large part of them coming from our former empire. Being French, even as subjects, for one hundred and fifty years, does count.

To answer the second part of your question: yes, of course, there is a privileged linkage between the French and the various peoples of our former empire, which, insofar as we may judge, is not true for other European countries.

ID: It may be useful to remind that colonisation was a left-wing enterprise, of a Jacobinist type (exporting Human Rights), of a moral nature (putting an end to slavery) and based on a universalistic anthropological view (men are essentially similar) and thus denying differences.

That being said, there are, I think, only few privileged linkages between France and its former colonies.
Either we think we acted wrong, and the only possible linkage would be remorse on our side and vengeful hatred on the other – or we think we acted right, and the only possible linkage would be the acknowledgement by these peoples of our contribution in various areas (culture, health, economy, technology, etc.).

Everyday observation shows that the few linkages that remain are usually of the first type and so can be seen as harmful.
However, we should not overlook the constant attacks at France, especially by the Algerian rulers, who regularly ask for apologies about the “wrong” done to its people – plus the consequences of decolonisation for our own people, as it ends up in a counter-colonisation on the French soil.

Unfortunately, it seems that what should be a settled historic episode is an ideological vademecum designed to instil guilt into European peoples and make them accept the migratory flood wave as a “deserved counter-effect”, a balancing act of sorts, even though it may usher tragedies of more magnitude that those we have known.

French colonisation was both a time of greatness for France and a factor of decadence and threat to our identity. Had it not been for those colonies, we would not have so many foreigners of extra-European ascent on our territory.

For me, a French is a European. He is closer to an Italian, even though he does not speak his language, than to a Malian, who speaks French.
Yet there can still be some privileged linkages with some former colonies… and they should let us transform those who are “immigrants” in France “emigrates” ready to return to develop their homeland, in particular via the above-mentioned ethno-centred projects.

ER: 6) Could you remind us your position about immigrants’ question: integration, assimilation or return to their homeland?

ID: Return to their homeland of course!

In two stages:

• immediate expulsion of illegal immigrants and offenders;
• entering into partnership contracts with homeland countries concerning return plans (which could be established, for example, over a fifteen-year period).

This is because we want immigration to be a marginal phenomenon again. For this, we should promote the values of rooting. As clearly explained by philosopher Simone Weil, uprooting is a deadly illness. Therefore we must act in order to minimize the motives of emigration.
Thus the implementation of “ethno-centred” projects is an alley, as they would provide good economic and social health to the countries suffering from emigration. However we should also give a sense of responsibility towards their original country to the people considering emigrating here. Our aim is not to close off France’s or Europe’s borders, but to make them somehow like swinging bar-room doors: you get in as easily as you get out (possibly with a kick in the ass…) because you know you are only there temporarily. Well, let us get over with ‘immigrants’ and restore the rights of “foreigners” (in particular that of enjoying our kindly hospitality) as well as their duties (that of not meddling in our way of living and tomorrow that of going back to build upon the experience acquired here).

Within the National Right, we recently could hear an argument that Arab/Muslims present in our country could fully become French Citizens and that eventually it would be suitable to defend the “party of the French People in its ethnic and religious diversity”.

To me, this stance amounts to abandoning in the middle of the fight in front of the migratory invasion. By accepting the presence of a foreign population on our soil, you become a party to economic liberalism policies which favour immigration – a strange situation if, at the same time, you claim to be opposed to liberalism. By giving up today, by considering the invasion as a minor issue, you implicitly accept the suicide of European Identity.

E&R: As a first thing, we are in favour of the total and immediate interruption of immigration, as a minimum through a moratorium on family reunion (with or without a DNA identity check as was recently suggested by the government…). To answer that question, one should begin by clarifying what is meant by ‘immigrant’. If immigrant means ‘not white’, this is no valid criterion for us. We refuse all new immigration, including white immigration! We are, of course, in favour of assimilation – which can go through integration – of all our compatriots in their own nation. This is not only the French people of extra-European origin, considering the deteriorating social and cultural situation of the French at large. We shall also have to assimilate the illiterate young Duponds, with their caps and rappers’ attire, speaking an unlikely jargon. As far as foreigners are concerned, we should promote their return, for example by restricting the social benefits of those who do not work, or by taxing foreign labour. We should also demand that foreign find themselves an acceptable housing solution, and limit the benefit of social housing to French citizens. Foreign offenders shall be systematically expelled. But the bulk of immigration is potentially ahead of us. To protect from it, we’ll have to take defensive measures, such a mandatory delay period to start being entitled to social benefits: they should be triggered only after a minimum of five years’ work, and conditioned on having a job; and we should re-establish borders and controls. But we must be aware that all of that can exist only in a France which would have retrieved its full sovereignty and would decide to take up again its place in French speaking Africa, especially through massive investments (and not assistance). Let us forget about indebtedness: our debt is a problem only because it does not result from investment. We get into debt to die without suffering instead of getting into debts to survive. Very likely, the fates of France and Africa are linked.

E&R: 7) Do you feel National Identity is more threatened by immigration or by the American-style ‘global culture’?

E&R: By ‘global culture’, of course, since even old stock French people themselves are more and more uprooted and lacking culture. This does not mean that mass immigration is not a threat, either.

Yet, immigration creates, in the long run, biological extinction, while world culture does not change genotypes.

Even though I am obviously aware that the West remains a ‘megamachine’ (to quote Serge Latouche) for killing peoples, I also know that the hordes of immigrants who are settling every day on my soil directly threaten Europe’s ethnic basis in the very short term.

Answering criticisms from the Identitarians, a National Right militant recently wrote: “Shouldn’t we not admit, once and for all, that the one main cause of all the huge mutations of identity of France and of the French is international capitalism and the U.S.A.? That France has been much more transformed by US culture than by Islam? Or even by immigration, which is also one of its consequences?”

As for us, we think that it is the egalitarian ideology, the materialism of a godless society that transformed France and Europe, to the point of forsaking them now, in the throes of American global culture. Yet, it is this very egalitarian ideology we find within “Egalité et Réconciliation”…

ID: 8 ) What is the place of Islam in France?

That of a non-European religion, that is: freedom of private practice, but no allowance for public practice. No mosques, no veils, no claims, no institutional representation.

Some within the National Right think that Islam should not be seen as a danger and that, moreover (quoting Gustave Le Bon and Bardèche) the fight against France’s islamicisation “is not an essential element of French nationalism”. We may admit that the fight against islamicisation has never been one of the orientations of French nationalism under the Third Republic, but it seems to me that the situation has changed a lot since and that the context is somewhat different. Does it matter to Europe, and to Jean Dupont, besieged in his housing development or surrounded in his apartment, whether Sufism is a way to wisdom or Islam “a warrior religion”?

The line of some I named “Cosmopolitan Nationals” about the legitimacy of “the Islam of France” does not seem very remote from the one advocated by Nicolas Sarkozy, who they are supposedly fight actively. It is he who promoted the institutionalisation of Islam in France by setting up the CFCM (French Council of the Islamic cult). Sarkozy and the National-Republicans may have a differing vision of Islam in France, yet I must admit I just have not perceived the nuance.

I know some of you are accusing us of taking part in a logic of a clash of civilisations. Supposedly, by fighting the islamicisation of Europe, we are playing into Washington’s and US/Zionist interests’ hands. This is pretty simplistic, especially from people who are so obsessed with the US and Israel that they consider Islam as an ally and enter a resignation logic in front of the invasion which threatens European Identity.

Refusing to fight France’s islamicisation is undoubtedly a way to acquire an intellectual attitude at a low cost, but it is not standing by one’s people. As for us, we have made the choice of defending the true people of France and not “the party of the French People in its ethnic and religious diversity” – hence Nissa Rebela’s campaign against Nice’s mosque or else the action of Île-de-France’s Bloc Identitaire playing muezzin calls from loudspeakers in the streets of Montfermeil.

E&R: The place of Islam in France depends chiefly on the immigration policy. There lies the true problem. Otherwise, Islam should be treated just like other religions are, that is along the lines of laïcité and neutrality. We must demand from Islam as well as from Buddhism (as Chinese immigration is on a constant rise) a total respect for our laws and traditions. Of course, when we speak about traditions, we do not mean the right for twelve-year-old girls to go to school dressed just like prostitutes or for gay people to march naked.

Mosques must be funded by their faithful, just like Buddhist temples, and respect our architectural traditions. It is quite striking to notice that, when talking about Islam, we have a strong tendency to come up with reproaches about practices and customs that used to apply in France not so long ago. Sex-specific spaces and schedules as in swimming pools or schools, a stronger sense of decency, the fact that a woman would rather see a female gynaecologist or doctor instead of a man, roles within the family – all of this existed in France in a not-so-distant past. From that point of view, it is quite surprising to see some right-wing elements of our country consider themselves as the guardians of the modernist temple…

ID: 9) How do you consider the place of France in Europe, and conversely, the place of Europe in France?

E&R: You are probably talking about the European Union, not Europe. We think that France should be out of the EU, at least in its present form. As we said before, we envision Europe, including Russia, as a confederation of free nations around a Paris-Berlin-Moscow axis, without Britain, as long as it is an American state in disguise.

ID: Therefore we are obviously against any brand of Jacobin centralism, whether national or continental. But we think it is essential to make a transition from “France alone” to a “Europe of subsidiarity”. This stance sets us apart from the pussyfooting of the sovereignists and strengthens our conviction that we must now concentrate both on regions and on the attachment to Europe as a civilisational sphere.

Thus we defend the concept of a France of regions within a Europe of nations by putting forward the subsidiarity principle and the defence of local rights. For us, there is indeed no contradiction between one’s attachment to one’s region and to one’s homeland when both are freed from the influence of ‘republican’ ENA (Ecole Nationale d’Administration) graduates, and hope for a powerful Europe, free from Brussels’ scleroses.

Therefore we do hope for the emergence of a political Europe, which is the only arrangement to bring stability and peace to a disorientated world. Such an autonomy for Europe is necessary to have the necessary weight in front of other civilisational spheres, including North America’s.

Concretely, we are develop convergences at the European level with movements like Lega Nord and Vlaams Belang. Additionally, we have inspired Identitarian structures in several countries (Belgium, Switzerland, Spain, Portugal, Sweden…) and we are also developing European solidarity structures, like “Solidarité Kosovo”, which has been helping for three years our Serbian brothers of Mitrovica who are besieged by Muslims.

ER: 10) Are you in favour of a federal French state? In this respect, what do you think of the institutional evolution proposed by de Gaulle in 1969?

ID: As already said, we are in favour of the idea of a France of regions and a Europe of nations, putting forward the subsidiarity principle and the defence of local rights.

The institutional evolution proposed by de Gaulle in 1969 is interesting but does not reach far enough.

Regions are the foundational and inescapable elements of France and, therefore, of Europe. The reality of regions emerged, across centuries, from the interplay between a given geographic environment and the specific culture and history of a population. Thus the region may be seen as an organic constituent of France. It is regions which give France its strength, wealth and vitality. Today, in spite of the levelling will of the centralist State, we observe the re-emergence of a true attachment for carnal homelands. Just have a look at Catalogne, Alsace or the Nice country to realize how regional facts are still topical.

Alain de Benoist wrote: “The wealth of Humanity is the personalisation of individuals within their community. The wealth of Europe is the personalisation of regions within the culture and the civilisation they originated from.”

Today, there is no great European State without a regionalisation and decentralisation plan. At the same time, German Länder and the Helvetian Federation’s cantons are clear evidence that the federal system is pertinent. Decentralization within, federating outside –those could be the axes of a Europe respectful of local identities and rights.

E&R: The institutional evolution de Gaulle proposed in 1969 was not designed to create a federal State but to correct some inordinate Jacobinism or centralism. As he himself explained, he thought that the French nation was strengthened enough for rationalization not to lead to oppositional stances on the part of regions. Within the scope of a fully sovereign France, we would quite agree with this, for we think the cultural diversity of France, an artificial nation cemented by history, is an asset. We are in favour of rooting and our vision of the nation is not limited to an abstract republicanism. A regional re-distribution more in line with cultural reality would also be a good thing. But we do not fall into essentialism; this is not an undisputable rule: what is true in a context is not necessarily true in another. It is obvious that Brussels’ zealots are currently using the regions to undermine what is left of national sovereignty, and the examples of Italy, Spain and Belgium should make us wary. Even though we can hardly be seen as Giscardians, we would be tempted to answer like Giscard: “Yes, but…”

ID: 11) Equality on one side, identity on the other – are those two values compatible?

E&R: Equality is not an absolute but a relative notion. We are not “equal” in the middle of nowhere but we must be so in front the law, justice, insecurity… We place equality in opposition, in particular, of communitarianism, which creates legal inequality between citizens: it is forbidden to be “homophobic”, but not to be “heterophobic”. It is prohibited do be judeophobic, or even worse, “anti-semitic”, but not to be cathophobic or islamophobic… The State should not make a communitarian distinction between French citizens, and this is not at odds with the notion of identity. The fact that the Bretons and Basques are equal in rights does not prevent them from being Bretons and Basques. In connection with the former question – we are attached to equality regarding social right, which may be at risk with a ill-conceived decentralization: at present, since vocational training is being funded by regions with no equalisation between them, the vocational training rights of those living in the Paris area are much higher than those of the French living in the Centre area, and that is not acceptable.

ID: No, they are not compatible. Identity is the acknowledgement of diversity – of individuals, of peoples, of civilisations. Equality is the germ of totalitarianism, of uniformity – the very opposite of diversity.

Rather than equality, we prefer justice and equity. Respecting identity is a condition for justice. When equality demands that all apple thieves be served the same sentence, equity will have the moneyless mother merely blamed (and directed to some social counselling) while the son of a middle executive would be charged with a heavy fine or general interest compulsory work

Moreover, identity is at the same time what makes men resemble each other (and thus, according to an obvious natural law, assemble with each other), and what makes a man different from another, and a people from another. The Identitarians consider that the protection of identities against the global steamroller is a historical mission, so we want to raise high the flag of identity against uniformity, which is a systematic outcome of all egalitarian ideologies.

This refusal of equality accounts for our orientation towards the concrete and the actual. Our generation is weary of fine speeches and tall promises, of Tables of the Law and of “little books” of whatever colour. Defending one’s identity, and being an Identitarian, is neither a dogma nor an ideology, but, on the contrary, a principle resting on what is real, on what we are.

ER: 12) Finally: you have surely noticed that the military scene is picking up about the Persian Gulf. What should France’s stance about Iran? Are you worried about the current tightening of relations between France and NATO, in this respect or on other accounts?

ID: The proliferation of atomic weapons is not a good thing. That some country (e.g. Israel) possesses it is not a reason for all the countries in the world to claim a right to it. This would be too simple, I think.

Yet, I think France should not engage into war on Iran and should refuse to align with NATO. NATO remains a necessary bridgehead for U.S.A. in Europe. The latest conflict in the former Yugoslavia was a strong reminder of this. That war waged against a European country, by other European countries, under the leadership of the U.S.A., just shows the amount of work that should be done to achieve Europe’s unity. The continuation of an actual military domination (through NATO), the multiplication of diktats concerning our traditional economy, the support to the Islam of Kosovar while France is plagued with Arab-Muslim immigration – all of this shows an actual will to divide and rule and to weaken what is painstakingly trying to build itself up.

To conclude about Iran: while some go into rapture over every appearance of Iran President’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, I rather think that his numerous provocations eventually serve the interests of the U.S.A.

The U.S.A. have found their new scarecrow and they can wave it to the “free world”. Should Ahmadinejad not exist, he should be invented. He is the perfect villain, to quote sociologist Todd Gitlin, a teacher at the Columbia School of Journalism.

E&R: US policy has one target: trying to preserve their global supremacy at any cost, building an empire of a thousand years. For this, American leaders, in the hands of trusts and lobbies, are ready for the worst crimes and lies, no matter whether the victims are American or not since they are protecting the interests of a class. Note in passing that one of those lies bears the name of al Qaida, a would-be organisation led by some bearded Dr No they use to justify their criminal policy. France should stay away from that insane policy in Afghanistan, in Sudan, in Iraq and elsewhere, and all the more so in Iran should the U.S.A. decide to intervene. France may not have the means to oppose that criminal policy which is contrary to its interests, but at least it can refuse the U.S.A. any international backing through its veto right at the UN Security Council, and may weaken it by exposing its actual purposes and its lies. The fact that our country is currently led by a representative of the U.S.A. – who is not trying to hide it – is not encouraging. The tightening of the relations between France and NATO, in the perspective of reintegration, is an objective of Sarkozy and his Atlantist clique. But public opinion may not follow him much longer in this, particularly if the U.S.A. launch an attack in the Gulf.


Translation by Guy Martin and Dr Pangloss for Novopress UK