by Kenneth Schmidt

Jul 30, 2024

Kenneth Schmidt outlines a hypothetical scenario where French right-wing nationalist leaders, with military backing, form a Sixth Provisional Republic by detaining President Macron and his allies, restoring order amidst chaos, and establishing a nationalist government.

Someone is vandalizing the train networks in France. Not minor vandalism, major vandalism. The travel of 800,000 commuters was disrupted. The railroad vandalism was probably caused by eco-terrorists. The French government tried a couple of years ago to ban ecological groups that were instigating illegal acts, but they were overruled by a court. There was a suspicious blackout in parts of Paris. As I write this, the nature and extent of the blackout are disputed; some say huge portions of the city are dark; others claim a relatively small area is affected. All this in the middle of the Olympic Games, which were inaugurated by a weird tableau of transsexuals and children posing as Christ and His apostles a la “The Last Supper.” So, even the French Catholic bishops are edgy and upset.

The nation is already in a foul mood. In order to keep Marine LePen’s and Jordan Bardella’s National Rally out of power, France is ruled by an uneasy coalition of neo-Liberals and radical leftists. President Macron is widely disliked and his new government partners, led by Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who fancies himself as a kind of reincarnation of Leon Trotsky, are feeling awkward as de facto allies of the banker Macron.

There was a lot of sadness in the national-conservative crowd after the LePen/Bardella-led National Rally did extremely well in the EU elections and in the first round of National Assembly elections. They then did poorly in the runoff. Once again, though, NR got a record number of seats. They do better and better every election. Even more encouraging is their great poll numbers with young voters, something not seen before. Jordan Bardella has helped with this; apparently, he makes the young mademoiselles swoon.

As the title of one of Lenin’s books said, What is to Be Done? It’s becoming plain to me that in countries like the US and France, their respective deep states are not going to simply let even mild nationalists gain power by winning elections. Mr. Trump clearly won the 2020 race, but thanks to millions of absentee ballots that showed up mysteriously in several battleground states, re-election was denied him. I fear the same will happen again in November. Thanks to lawfare tactics, challenging voter fraud in US courts has been made effectively illegal. In places like Poland, Hungary and Slovakia, where anti-immigration governments are ruling or have ruled, there weren’t deeply entrenched political elites in the bureaucracy preventing the rise of anti-immigration parties. The French “Institute System” operates outside of the universities. Also known as the Grandes Ecoles, they groom people of talent for the big jobs in government. In practice, the system creates very intelligent people; the only bad thing is that they are all fanatical neo-liberals. So, outsiders like LePen are blocked from power.

If the political instability and terrorism last a few more months, I think it may behoove France’s right-wing, nationalist and anti-immigration advocates to take direct action. Permit me to envision a purely theoretical concept. Imagine this: Le Pen, Bardella, Ciotti (head of the more anti-migrant part of “The Republicans”), Éric Zemmour (head of the Reconquest Party), a powerful general and a suitable French Catholic bishop sit at a long table at a press conference and announce the formation of a Sixth Provisional Republic. Every RN, Reconquest and The Republicans member that can walk or crawl to Paris will fill the streets.

A move like this would have to have the appearance of a “democratic process,” so the typical French bourgeois won’t be too untroubled. The prospect of maintaining order would be too tempting for them. The crazy French eco-terrorists would be unconsciously helping bring an anti-immigration party to power. Such a thing would be too delicious.

Getting the army on their side should not be an impossible task. In 2021, forty French generals and a thousand current soldiers wrote an open letter to Macron demanding that something be done about the Islamic immigration and migration problem. National Rally has to be really stupid not to have some informal contacts with serving generals and admirals. Macron and Mélenchon would be detained on a temporary basis. The Islamic mob would immediately hit the streets but be defeated by the army. The modern French army, seasoned by the small wars in their semi-colonies in West Africa, would emerge victorious.

There are two massive trends in the West in recent years. Firstly, the increasing popularity of anti-immigrant, mildly nationalistic and populist parties and secondly, the extreme reluctance on the part of center-right parties in places like the US and Britain to do anything about the immigration issue. They are, in fact, so reluctant that they would rather be defeated in elections than do anything. In the case of France, I think the French people are ready for change. It may, however, require just a little push.

Something like this may be suitable for the US in the future. I think Mr. Trump will “win” the upcoming presidential elections in the US in four months in the sense that the actual legitimate votes cast will bring him a victory, but only in the strict technical sense. A lot of very well-intentioned people think that Trump will win the upcoming election. I still don’t see how Trump can overcome the massive election fraud involved in drop-box absentee balloting. It worked so well for the Democrats last time that in accord with their current morals, or lack of them, it would be crazy for them not to repeat the tactics of 2020. In many multi-party systems in Europe, nationalists are blocked from power by all the other parties making grand, ideologically senseless coalition governments. This has been done in Belgium for many years, with its “cordon sanitaire” system against Vlaams Belang.

I think, eventually, these cordon sanitaire tactics will be defeated, but I think it will take many years. Geert Wilders seems to have made real progress in the Netherlands, but it remains to be seen how the new “neutral” Dutch prime minister will actually carry out true anti-migrant policies. At any rate, nationalists will have to think of ways, both constitutionally and extra-constitutionally, to gain and keep power. Someday, the logjam will be broken. Let’s hope it happens sooner rather than later.