For this former minister of Jacques Chirac, the president of the deputies of the National Rally is neither “fascist”, nor “racist”, nor “extreme right”, but embodies a “popular and republican right”.
“I am not sectarian, I do not think that Marine Le Pen is fascist,” said a former minister of Jacques Chirac on the morning of Europe 1, Tuesday January 2. According to the latter, “today, everyone is Republican, from Jean-Luc Mélenchon to Marine Le Pen.” No offense to the “left-wing intellectuals who want at all costs” to see in the rise of the National Rally “the Nazism that is returning”.
For the essayist Luc Ferry, former Minister of Youth, National Education and Research under Jacques Chirac, “Marine Le Pen is the popular and republican right”, and not the extreme right. “I know her a little,” he says. “I know very well that she is neither racist nor anti-Semitic. I am sorry to say that to my left-wing intellectual friends who want at all costs to say that it is “It’s Nazism that’s coming back. Look at Mrs. Meloni, it’s not fascism that’s coming back to Italy.”
But then what is the extreme right? For Luc Ferry, the extreme right “was revolutionary and factious, “assassinated opponents”, “wanted to take power by arms and violence”, “was anti-Semitic and racist”. Which is “absolutely not the case of Marine Le Pen, who is neither anti-Semitic nor racist and who is obviously Republican.
The essayist condemned the “strategy” consisting, according to him, of accusing the National Rally of “fascism” and “immorality” because “it is simply false. And the 42% who voted for it know that it is false. And so, when we insult these people, we strengthen them. Ultimately, we will make them racist if we continue.”
The former minister admitted having “disagreements with the RN, but much more on the economic level than on the moral or political level”.
