Identity generation, breeding ground and source of ideas for the RN - France 24

Paris (AFP)

The National Rally protested against the dissolution of the radical movement Génération Identitaire, one of its recruitment pools and an inspiration on "localism", a new theme defended by Marine Le Pen, even if differences remain on immigration and Islam.

The party chaired by Marine Le Pen sees in the procedure for the dissolution of the radical far-right group, which represents 800 activists and sympathizers, a "political" decision and "a dangerous attack on the fundamental freedoms" of association and expression, even if he "does not share all the opinions" of GI nor his "modes of expression".

In this case, unlike the RN, GI is not only opposed to "Islamism", understood as radical Islam, but to "the Islamization" of France and Europe.

On the other hand, GI advocates "remigration", ie the return of all immigrants to their country of origin, while the RN calls for the return home of immigrants in an irregular situation or having committed crimes or offenses.

"The RN admits the hypothesis of assimilation (of immigrants) while the identitarians consider it impossible", explains the specialist of the extreme right, Jean-Yves Camus.

The political scientist also sees a difference in European identity, GI considering "that there is a European civilizational identity, a notion which is quite non-existent in Marine Le Pen", even if the latter recently mentioned the "European nationals" who would be the only ones authorized to travel in the Schengen area.

- "School for executives" -

These differences do not prevent Marine Le Pen from taking the defense of GI: "63% of French people are worried about massive immigration and its consequences: will the government go so far as to dissolve 63% of the French?" , she asked on Twitter on Sunday.

The president of the RN had paid "tribute", on May 1, 2018, to the anti-migrant actions carried out in the Alps by GI, welcoming a "beautiful communication operation".

His party multiplies the nods to GI.

The FN youth movement (now RN) was renamed "Generation Nation", and the RN campaign against the European Migration Pact was launched under the slogan "Save Europe", close to the slogan "Defend Europe "from GI in the Alps and the Pyrenees.

Les Identitaires (formerly Bloc Identitaire), of which GI was the youth branch until 2016 before taking its autonomy, was first a political party competing with the FN.

Then he stopped standing in the elections and called to vote FN, with about fifty candidates on the FN lists in the municipal elections of 2014.

Identity executives then join the FN while GI chooses to be "right-wing Greenpeace", according to his spokesperson Thaïs Descufon, who presents himself on the Telegram network with the hashtag #whitelivesmatter ("the lives of whites matter").

- Localism -

"GI oscillates between a school for RN executives and a transnational agit-prop movement playing the avant-garde role", according to historian Nicolas Lebourg.

For Jean-Yves Camus, "GI operations are of great benefit to the RN" because the "demonization" of the party "requires that young people no longer assault radicalism" as in the 1980s and 1990s.

But despite Marine Le Pen's reluctance to integrate identities, a former Bloc official, Philippe Vardon, was promoted in 2018 to the National Office of the RN (extended management).

And the former GI executive, Damien Rieu, becomes in 2019 parliamentary assistant to the main adviser of Marine Le Pen, the MEP Philippe Olivier.

Eric Cattelin-Denu, elected RN municipal councilor in Lille in 2020, is the lawyer for one of the young identities convicted last December, in particular for an assault of a racist nature.

There is also a "real ideological proximity" between the RN and GI on localism and short circuits, notes Mr. Camus.

This theme was already the subject of a conference of Identitarians in 2010, in which Hervé Juvin, elected since MEP of the RN and become the champion of civilization ecology.

Mr. Juvin created the Localist Movement at the end of December, hailed as a "partner" by Marine Le Pen, which could play a role in his presidential campaign.

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