France’s Extreme Center Is Radicalizing — And Adopting Far-Right Talking Points
Last summer, left-wing French MP Danièle Obono was portrayed in a nationalist magazine as a slave in chains. She told Jacobin about how the far right is taking over French media — and how Emmanuel Macron’s supporters are adopting its reactionary agenda.
Then economy minister and current French president Emmanuel Macron with billionaire Vincent Bolloré, head of Bolloré Group, which owns the Fox News–style network CNEWS, in 2016.(FRED TANNEAU/AFP via Getty Images)
French politics seems to be radicalizing to the right — with president Emmanuel Macron’s interior minister accusing Marine Le Pen of having gone “soft on Islam” and far-right TV polemicist Éric Zemmour rumored to be planning a bid for the presidency. Ahead of April’s presidential election, mainstream media as well as Fox-like outlet CNEWS are dominated by an obsession with immigration and national identity.
One figure in the firing line of this narrative is Danièle Obono, an MP for the radical-left France Insoumise. Elected to the National Assembly for a northeast Paris constituency in 2017, this anti-racist activist has been a frequent target of conservative media’s efforts to demonize minorities and the Left. Last summer, she was the target of a vile “political-fiction” story published by the far-right weekly Valeurs Actuelles, which portrayed her as a captive of an African tribe complicit in the slave trade.
Attending France Insoumise’s annual summer convention, Obono sat down with Jacobin’s Harrison Stetler to discuss Emmanuel Macron’s rule, the far-right threat, and her party’s hopes of a breakthrough in next spring’s elections.
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