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Part 1 begins here
Le Pen’s active engagement in politics continued long after 2002 despite his advancing years, his iron constitution resisting the ravages of time remarkably well, but his party had been weakened by the split with the MNR and for the next ten years was much less successful than before. (more…)
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(Part 1 begins here)
While Prime Minister Chirac’s successful re-engineering of the electoral system in his own interest damaged the Front National (as it was intended to do), the FN had no intention of giving up or going away, fortified as it was by its strong contingent of European deputies. (more…)
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Following the swearing in of François Mitterand as President on 21st May 1981, he dissolved the National Assembly, calling new elections that took place in two rounds on 14th and 21st June 1981, leaving his Socialist Party with 266 of the 491 members of the new National Assembly–an absolute majority. (more…)
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Immigration was already becoming a serious problem in the France of 1973, as conservative elements in the system recognised, but were ultimately unwilling to address. De Gaulle’s successor, President Georges Pompidou, a far better man and leader than his counterparts in British Conservatism or the GOP of his time, complained privately how every time that he wished to implement restrictions on immigration, his party’s major donors in French industry, notably the construction giant Bouygues, lobbied against any such restrictions. (more…)
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Yesterday, France and Europe lost a great son. The death of Jean-Marie Le Pen at the age of 96 marks the end of an era in politics. Fuller appreciations for his long and eventful life will come in time from biographers, friendly and hostile. What follows is a brief envoi for a man whom I had the privilege of meeting several times and grew to respect greatly, without necessarily agreeing with him on every point of detail (a subject to which I will return). (more…)
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It is two years since Guillaume Faye, one of the leading intellectuals of the French and European New Right, passed away on 6th March 2019 at the age of 69 after a long struggle with cancer.
Faye was born on 7th November 1949 in Angoulème in southwest France into a middle-class family. An academically gifted child, he followed a well-charted path from lycée (grammar school) to university in Paris, where he studied political science. (more…)