Marion Maréchal Le Pen, the niece of Marine Le Pen and granddaughter of Jean-Marie Le Pen, has published a Facebook video reacting to the Black Lives Matter protests, the destruction of historic Western monuments, and French Interior Minister Christophe Castaner’s recent statement that he is ready to “bend the knee” for BLM. I post below an English translation of her comments, as a significant marker of the racial radicalization of discourse in France, both among anti-racists and nationalists. I have not omitted Maréchal’s “Dems Are the Real Realists” caveat at the end.

Perhaps an enterprising good soul could add these as subtitles to a YouTube video.

For those who have not kept up, Maréchal has left politics since 2017, dedicating herself to her daughter, setting up a Right-wing university in Lyons, which is incidentally expanding with an office in Madrid, and giving occasional speeches. She seems to be positioning herself as a unifying figure who could be the junction between conservatives and nationalists in France.

I am making this video as a kind of epidermic reaction, as a kind of psychological rearmament, so to speak, in the face of this steamroller which is coming down on us with the George Floyd and Adam Traoré cases.

This is a steamroller which is difficult to escape, given that it exists at once in our schools, our universities, our companies, but also sometimes in our churches. And so I want to tell you why I will refuse to bend the knee, unlike apparently the Minister of the Interior.

Because I think by this gesture all these left-wing activist groups – so-called anti-racist, indigenist, Black Lives Matters groups – do not seek respect, but rather humiliation and submission, not tolerance. They ask us not only to bend the kneel, but also to besmirch the memory of our ancestors, to spit upon our history, to purge our heritage, to take down our statues.

I don’t know what nation worthy of the name, having a minimum of self-respect, would accept to bend to such demands.

And yet, a demonstration of just 20,000 people in front of the Palace of Justice was all that was needed – I recall that the yellow-vests represented 250,000 people at the height of the demonstrations – for the government to give way on all the demands, to excuse itself, to condemn an entire profession, that of law enforcement, by recognizing virtually a presumption of guilt, and even refusing to apply the law against manifestly illegal demonstrations, despite the restrictions related to COVID-19.

This is the rule of emotion, of the crowd, of vile political calculation, and, let’s be clear, of stupidity. And I don’t think this is very surprising because this entire ruling class has been nursed on these delirious theories, emanating from American universities and which themselves derive from French theory. I am notably thinking of this infamous “white privilege,” intersectionality, systemic racism – theories which are as delirious in form as in substance.

If we have a Minister of the Interior who is ready to bend the knee and a President of the Republic who submits to and is complicit with these demands, I am convinced that there are like me millions of Frenchmen who are not fooled by this political maneuver and this attempt to subvert minds. I am weighing my words here.

I do not have to apologize as a white woman and as a French woman – you see to what we are reduced to in having to position ourselves on this. I do not have to excuse myself for the death of an African-American in the United States. I do not have to excuse myself for the death of a criminal, Adama Traoré, an accidental death which took place following an arrest which was not linked to his skin color, but to the crime which he and a part of his family apparently committed.

I do not have to excuse myself because I did not colonize. I have colonized no one. I have enslaved no one. In the same way, none of these political groups and activists have been colonized or enslaved. If we look upon history, all civilizations unfortunately have, in various epochs, colonized or been colonized, enslaved or been enslaved. Given this, it is extremely unhealthy to enter into this endless and perfectly unjustified victimarian competition, if we want to look to the future together.

There was a time when we prided ourselves on being heroes rather than victims. Today, these indigenist and anti-racist groups take pleasure in this unflattering status of eternal victims. I think this is no trivial thing: it’s a very profitable business, it must be said, given that behind this victimarian position there is the acquisition of power politically and in the media, money, jobs, reparations, privileges, quotas. All of this of course to the detriment of merit, competence, and genuine equality of rights. Because behind this expression “positive discrimination,” there may be something positive for those who benefit from the quotas, but there is something negative for those who are rejected from the start because of their origin or skin color.

I am very worried because these people are preparing and contributing to a completely unprecedented regression of our civilization and of our patiently-built nation. I am convinced that the racialist logic is morally regressive. As Mathieu Bock-Côté says, by categorizing people solely by skin color, we abolish nations, peoples, religions, and civilizations. I think this is an absolutely atrocious world in which we first of all have to look at skin color before judging each of our acts.

And it’s a good thing “race doesn’t exist,” because in the end all of these groups have done the most to rehabilitate this concept and to systematically and even obsessionally evoke it. Fortunately, many Frenchmen – white or black, whatever their origin – are not intoxicated by this Americanization of our minds. Fortunately, they do not aspire either to civil war or to racial war. Fortunately, they refuse to participate in this victimarian competition. Fortunately, they reject these privileges on the basis of skin color or origin.

And I sincerely hope that the French will be able to draw the political weapons from their history, their culture, and their intelligence to refuse this repentance and this self-flagellation, which objectively condemn us to exit history.

Some will object: this phenomenon is not really catching on and the excesses are only present in the United States. Yes and no. Unfortunately, the trends that we experience are for the most part are merely imported with ten years’ delay from the United States. And so we must from today fight and resist this trend. We must be ready and vigilant.

Notes

Marion Maréchal legally has actually dropped her grandfather’s name.

A black criminal who died while in the custody of French police and who has inspired BLM-style protests in France. Covered here: https://www.unz.com/gdurocher/pro-blm-demonstrations-sweep-across-europe/

“Indigenist” groups like les Indigènes de la République (“Natives of the Republic”) are black and Arab groups who claim to be mistreated like “natives” were in the French colonies of Africa. Thus, there is a complete reversal of vocabulary on the part of these foreign-origin groups. I am personally advocating for French nationalists and identitarians to declare themselves indigenous European groups.

Maréchal said this in English. A reference to postmodern French philosophers who have had a great influence in the English-speaking world and beyond, including Louis Althusser, Jacques Derrida, and Michel Foucault. Critics contend that much of this intellectual current represents nothing more than pompous gibberish.

A conservative Québecois nationalist and professor.

The National Assembly in 2018 voted to remove the word “race” from the Constitution’s anti-discrimination clause, on the grounds that race does not exist . . .