On June 18, Alain Soral will go on trial again in Paris for antisemitic
remarks made in 2021. This is yet another conviction in sight for theman who glorifies them and victimizes himself on his website Égalité et
Réconciliation, the last active space of a largely obsolete organization
in the radical sphere of the far right, but whose role was decisive and
whose influence is still felt today. A look back at the Soral case. ----
The upcoming trial is just another milestone for someone who can be
considered an old hand at fascism. Initially known as a television
polemicist, a self-proclaimed "sociologist of flirting and fashion," due
to his works centered on his "success" in street harassment, he rose to
prominence on shows such as C'est mon choix, where he unashamedly
displayed his misogyny, racism, and homophobia.
As part of a generation of intellectuals claiming to be left-wing but
veering toward the far right out of conservatism, he consistently
asserted his former membership in the French Communist Party (PCF)
(never truly established) and his past as an underground artist to
establish his credibility. His political career, already driven by
nationalism and anti-Semitism, led him toward the
revolutionary-nationalist movement embodied by the former leaders of the
Groupe union défense (GUD), and then toward the National Front (FN) of
the time. Between 2005 and 2008, he held various positions in Jean-Marie
Le Pen's campaign team, among others, where he attempted to inspire a
"national-popular" line, based on an alliance between the white and
immigrant proletariat on reactionary grounds against alleged Jewish
domination.
During the same period, he became close to Dieudonné, already noted for
his anti-Semitic remarks, and launched his organization Equality and
Reconciliation (E&R) in June 2007, alongside two former Gudars, Philippe
Péninque and Gildas Mahé. He also participated in the opening of Le
Local, a nationalist bar in the 15th arrondissement of Paris, in
collaboration with Serge Ayoub, another leading figure of the radical
far right at the time.
From Political Organization to Online Store
Dismissed from the National Front in 2008, his political line
marginalized in favor of the Islamophobic discourse now dominant within
the party, Soral attempted an independent electoral adventure with
Dieudonné and Yahia Gouasmi through the "anti-Zionist list" (sponsored
by the Iranian regime) in the 2008 European elections in the
Île-de-France region. It was an overall failure, but his success was
relatively high in certain working-class towns in the Paris suburbs.
From 2011 onward, Soral focused on developing his organization, which
became a major media and training center, with the creation of a myriad
of satellite companies, the most central of which was the publishing
house Kontre Kulture, which mixed anti-Semitic, conspiracy, and
reactionary publications with copyright-free works, notably by anarchist
and socialist thinkers. A veritable ideological mishmash shaped by the
thinking of its president, whose only constant is hatred of Jews and the
left, E&R blithely mixes fundamentalist Catholic inspiration,
confusionist pseudo-"left" personalities, former anti-racist but
homophobic activists, and ultranationalist leaders.
In programs like "It's My Choice: I'm Macho!", Soral's speeches
foreshadowed current masculinist discourses twenty years ago.
Wikimedia/David Barber CC BY-SA 4.0
Soralian activists attempt to infiltrate social movements, particularly
pro-Palestinian demonstrations, and build grassroots activity. But they
encounter the constant vigilance and reactions of anti-fascist and
anti-racist movements, forcing them to most often fall back on online
activism.
Soralism reached its zenith in the period 2012-2014, during the
demonstrations against same-sex marriage-where E&R attempted, with
relatively little success, to rally working-class neighborhoods to the
Manif pour tous (Demonstration for All), to its positions on the murder
of Clément Méric, and then to the controversy surrounding the ban on
Dieudonné's performances in early 2014, a move sought by the then
Interior Minister, Manuel Valls. The Manif pour tous was a godsend for
Soral and Dieudonné, who held a string of the movement's most important
conferences. The culmination was the "Day of Anger" demonstration on
January 26, 2014, where several thousand people, from all sides of the
far-right, chanted homophobic and anti-Semitic slogans in Paris.
What followed was a long decline, of a bewildering banality in an
environment that often combines demagogic politics and business. Soral's
authoritarian and violent personality led to the departure of E&R
presenters. The few supporters in the neighborhoods drifted away when
the leader's Negrophobic remarks and sexist violence against a woman of
color were revealed (the "Binti affair"). The embezzlement cases exposed
the deception of those who claimed to be fighting the "System," and the
reactions of the GAFAM platforms-long indifferent to Soral's
remarks-followed one another.
Above all, the ideological basis of "Reconciliation" between white men
and women and people of color with immigrant backgrounds around
antisemitism is becoming less and less audible at a time when the
National Rally (RN) and the vast majority of the radical far right are
taking the path of Islamophobia and white supremacist rhetoric. Now a
refugee in Switzerland to avoid prison, the tin-pot resistance fighter
and his remaining acolytes continue to run the E&R organization, whose
activity is limited to occasional appearances, most often centered
around workshops devoted to the worship of the guru Soral.
A method that leaves its mark
It is easy to see the anecdotal influence that E&R now wields in
politics, even within the far right. It is rather reassuring to see that
an organization that could have represented a major threat to the social
movement ultimately came to disintegrate under the weight of its
political contradictions, the mediocrity of its leader, and the
political opposition he aroused, notably through the salutary resurgence
of the unambiguous fight against antisemitism.
It must be recognized, however, that the "Soral method" succeeded,
through a certain innovation, notably the widespread use of the internet
and a simple, direct, and formidable presentation-Soral's centrality,
his direct address to the public, an intellectualizing yet accessible
rhetoric-in sparking a genuine racist movement whose analytical
frameworks have spread far beyond its organization.
By filling the space of political education on the internet, where the
revolutionary movement was clearly lacking in its backwardness, an
entire generation was inspired by its model and its discourse. Soralian
rhetoric, blending pseudo-criticism, essentializing categories, and
vocabulary borrowed from Marxist theories, continues to be a backdrop,
even within the debates of our social camp. It doesn't take much for the
Soralians of yesterday, repentant or not, to reappear. While Soral may
have become outdated, vigilance regarding his descendants remains essential.
Hugues (UCL Fougères)
https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Antisemitisme-Soral-echecs-et-succes-d-un-pro-de-l-antisemitisme
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
Geen opmerkingen:
Een reactie posten