In France, far-right nationalism has grown dramatically in recent years, and most notably in the months since the November terror attacks in Paris. The anti-immigrant National Front party made surprising gains in the first round of voting in countrywide local elections last December.
A far-right youth group known as Generation Identity has also been growing its membership. The group describes its genesis as a reaction to their largely liberal parents’ generation,who they say sold out their country and their future to migrants.
Tom Carstensen has covered nationalistic and right wing groups and parties in Europe for almost ten years and files this report from Paris. .. .
LISTEN to AUDIO
The Leader of Generation Identitaire, or Generation Identity, Pierre Larti opens the door to the organization’s headquarters in Paris. It’s a medium sized backroom with a bar, loads of posters declaring support of the organization on the walls. The neighborhood is a nice part of Paris with many cafés and small squares.
The goal of the organization is to promote and defend European identity,” Larti says. “And, in fact, we see dangers with migration, Islamization and globalization.
Generation Identity first emerged a couple of years ago, with a video the group itself said was “not a manifesto, but a declaration of war.” The video spread across the internet, resonating with a hard-line sector of youths.
This gathering at Generation Identity headquarters consists of all men, with the sole exception of a young woman, who greets the others in the traditional French way of cheek kissing. The office’s restroom is decorated with symbols disdained by the group: an Algerian flag and a number of stickers from left wing organizations.
This evening, Generation Identity’s activists are going out onto the streets to put up posters to advertise a yearly celebration they have created in Paris, which doubles as a sort of public recruiting effort.
Generation Identity leader Pierre Larti says the group upholds traditional values and denies being racist, despite expressing clear anti-immigrant sentiments.
We have too many immigrants. I mean, some parts of Paris, or some parts of France, are not France anymore,” Larti claims. “You go out and you have only men, you have burqas.
Generation Identity is not a political party, but most of them vote for the far-right Front National, whose leader Marine Le Pen has moved from the outer fringes of French politics to garner more widespread voter support in recent years.
Its not likely the French far-right will moderate its rhetoric any time soon. The ongoing state of emergency in France has also done little to calm long-simmering tensions in the suburban housing projects known as the banlieues, where many Middle Eastern and African immigrants and French citizens of immigrant origin reside.
With groups like Generation Identity and the so-called Islamic State seeking to radicalize French youth from different backgrounds, the impacts of this polarization on the French mainstream remains to be seen.
https://fsrn.org/2016/05/far-right-anti-immigrant-generation-identity-seeks-to-galvanize-nationalist-french-youth/
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[–] [deleted] 0 points 7 points 7 points (+7|-0) ago
[–] 5126777? 0 points 4 points 4 points (+4|-0) ago
I'm excited to see what the French execution camps will look like. Crème brûlée muzzies, anyone?
[–] Super_Cooper ago
I don't care how we do it as long as we secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.