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00:00A controversial event in Jerusalem attended by far-right figures from Europe, invited
00:04by the Netanyahu government, has gone ahead.
00:06This in spite of large demonstrations against the presence of the representatives of the
00:10parties, many with roots in anti-Semitism and links to neo-Nazis.
00:15This is all representing, observers say, a real change in thinking in Israel.
00:19They're saying that Prime Minister Netanyahu is desperate to gain allies in the face of
00:22his growing unpopularity within his own country, so from France.
00:26It is an interesting cocktail of people around that table.
00:47Let's bring in Paul Smith, Associate Professor of French History and Politics at the University
00:52of Nottingham.
00:53Paul, we always appreciate your contributions.
00:55I'm wondering whether you ever envisaged seeing the political and in one case the family
01:02descendants of Jean-Marie Le Pen, he of course the famous and repeated denier of the Holocaust,
01:07being invited to Israel by the Israeli government.
01:10No, it's extraordinary really, isn't it, that this has happened.
01:16But as you yourself said, both at the top of the programme and just now, this has caused
01:20a great deal of controversy in Israel and a lot of the participants, the original invitees
01:26for the conference, announced that as a consequence of Bardella being there and Marichal being
01:31there, they would not attend, including the Chief Rabbi of the UK.
01:36I believe that yesterday President Herzog cancelled a reception for some of the visitors
01:41for the conference because he didn't want to be associated with Bardella and company.
01:45But it is an extraordinary move.
01:48We're seeing images of Jean-Marie Le Pen, of course, he the, if you like, the godfather
01:53of the far right.
01:54He passed away not that long ago.
01:56We're not speaking ill of the dead by any means, we're just stating facts.
02:00He of course made many statements, including referring to the gas chambers as a detail.
02:07Clearly the idea of Holocaust denial to him was something that almost happened every day,
02:11didn't it?
02:12Yes, absolutely.
02:14And of course, since he stood down as president of the party, there's a kind of a push and
02:20pull thing going on when Marine Le Pen took over, that part of her dédiabolisation, her
02:26detoxification of the party was to move away from those statements.
02:30And then, of course, in 2015, she tried to remove him from the party as the honorary
02:36president.
02:37But nevertheless, there were occasions where she got very close to his positions.
02:42And although we've seen both her and Bardella trying to push back on the traditions of the
02:48party, and also its links to Vichy, a very interesting statement by Bardella yesterday
02:53that for him during the Second World War, the real France was in London with de Gaulle.
02:57The idea that the French far right is suddenly trying to steal the heritage of de Gaulle
03:01is quite something, but that's a subject for another time.
03:04But nevertheless, there is this kind of this heritage and exactly, you know, the response
03:12within Israel has underlined that.
03:14But what we're also seeing is, of course, the far right in France trying to ally itself
03:19with Netanyahu, seen as being part of the new Trump order within the world.
03:25So there's something else is happening there as well.
03:28They didn't expect them.
03:29The scale of the demonstrations that we've seen via our reports both 24 hours ago and
03:35today at the actual venue, talking about the origins of the National Front as it was, National
03:42Rally as it is now, founded in 1972 by ex-WAFN-SS, and as you were saying, Paul, previous French
03:50collaborators during World War II that linked to Vichy, to the part of France that collaborated
03:56completely with Nazi Germany.
03:59And again, the victims were Jewish people rounded up in their thousands and put in trains
04:07just north of Paris and then by those trains taken to concentration camps.
04:11Again, coming back to my first question, because I'm still getting over this sort of the idea
04:15that this is happening in Israel, such people, the political descendants of the ones who
04:19founded that party, invited over.
04:23I'm finding it hard to understand how it's happening at all.
04:27Well, there's been an important shift in French politics.
04:32And I think that what's happening, of course, here is that with the Husslemore nationality,
04:38its real target is nowadays, of course, is Islam, French Islam.
04:45Let's make no bones about it.
04:46It is deeply Islamophobic.
04:49And there's kind of a putting two things together, trying to generate the idea that
04:55anti-Semitism now in France is essentially a product of the presence of Muslims in France
05:03and that, in fact, nowadays, so many years down the line, I'm speaking in inverted commas,
05:12that now the new party, the Husslemore nationality, has broken with its old anti-Semitic roots.
05:17It now sees Islam in France as the real, the enemy of or undermining at least French
05:26cultural values.
05:28And that's where this big kind of shift, it's a huge change of approach really comes from.
05:35So it becomes allying oneself with Netanyahu's Israel, becoming the party that is anti-anti-Semitism,
05:45as it were, is part of this transformation of the party and part of the culture war that
05:53is kind of the bread and butter of the Rassemblement Nationale.
05:58And above all, people like, I can see you've got Marion Maréchal there on the screen there.
06:04Her kind of stock in trade is this idea of the culture war.
06:08Indeed.
06:09So aligning itself as anti-Islam, therefore with Netanyahu, therefore anti-Hamas, creating
06:14that kind of grouping, as you say, with Trump behind it, or you can see how that starts
06:18to make sense.
06:19But nonetheless, trading one group that you hate for another group you hate doesn't help
06:23you get that far-right tag taken away, does it?
06:26Because I think I'm quoting the 11th of March 2024, the Conseil d'État, now you, Paul,
06:31can put this into context for our viewers, the Conseil d'État refusing to declassify
06:37the Rassemblement Nationale as a far-right party.
06:40Can you explain more about that decision?
06:43Yes.
06:44It's a legal challenge.
06:45What the, and it's been going on for years, Le Pen, the father, tried to challenge this.
06:51In fact, I think he even tried to bring libel suits against various newspapers for calling
06:55him far-right because far-right has such a strong resonance with the French people.
07:02It's the resonance of Vichy, it's the resonance of extremism, of the scapegoating of certain
07:09groups.
07:11It's not just a kind of extreme form of nationalism.
07:13It is precisely that as well, the idea of a pure group that are the real French in the
07:22French context.
07:23And so the Conseil d'État, which is pretty much the highest legal authority in the land,
07:30has the ability to say that you mustn't call this group far-right.
07:34And it ruled in quite the opposite direction, that when you drill down into the reality
07:39of what the party is really all about, and this is a party that has never officially
07:45disowned.
07:46I mean, there is the kind of the unofficial, we don't like the things that Jean-Marie Le
07:51Pen said about the gas chambers, but there's never been a formal kind of act of repentance
07:58by the party.
08:00There's always this kind of, it never goes quite that far because there is still a kind
08:06of a hard core that is deeply anti-Semitic.
08:11I wouldn't say it's a majority of the party by any means, but it is still very much there.
08:15And that kind of anti-the other element within the party defines it as, helps to define it
08:26as being on the far-right.
08:27Indeed.
08:28Paul, I'm going to leave it there.
08:29We could continue, I know, and your knowledge is always appreciated here at France 24, Paul.
08:33Thank you very much indeed.
08:34Paul Smith, Associate Professor in French History and Politics at the University of
08:38Nottingham.
08:39Paul, pleasure to see you.
08:40That conference, controversial as it was, taking place there in Israel with Jordan Bardella