Confrontation: Besson and Marine Le Pen

Last week (January 14) there was a much-publicized debate between Minister of Immigration and National Identity Eric Besson and the vice-president of the Front National Marine Le Pen. Many looked forward to a slam dunk from one or the other, but according to most reports the great debate did not take place, primarily because of the way the topic of national identity was skirted by Besson and Marine Le Pen's reluctance to offer an effective response to his anti-French statements (see my recent post). Moreover, they hurled insults at each other, the most striking one being his crack that she had become a "dinosaur". There are many accounts of this debate, and there are of course videos that take a great deal of time to translate. So, here is an adaptation of an article from Polemia:

The great debate did indeed take place but... it ended up being only about immigration.

Marine Le Pen emphasized the magnitude of the 200,000 annual entries into France, and the 110,000 naturalizations, the economic and social disadvantages for the French and the injustice of affirmative action. Eric Besson defended the government's policies of expelling illegals (12 Afghanis), "regulating" the influx, and "selective" immigration.

This would have been fine 20 or 25 years ago.

Above all, the real question: What does it mean to be French? was not debated, even though the answer determines which immigrants should be accepted and which rejected.

When the government launched the debate on French identity, it had one objective: to force acceptance of the idea that there is no policy possible other than the government's, i.e., that France is a nation of mixed blood, and must continue welcoming immigrants who "enrich the country" but who have to be better "organized."

And on this point, Eric Besson had great latitude. Under the falsely critical eye of Arlette Chabot (the moderator of the debate) he had 50 minutes, with no opposition, to develop his conception of French identity. He repeated the formula he had used on January 5: "France is not a people, or a language, or a territory, or a religion, it is a conglomerate of peoples who want to live together. There is no ethnic Frenchman. There is only an ethnically mixed France" ("une France du métissage").

At no point in the discussion did Marine Le Pen deny his allegations. She gave him a free rein, and chose to avoid a confrontation on the essential question. She even backed off when Arlette Chabot attempted to utter the words of General de Gaulle: "We are, after all, a European people of the white race, of Greek and Latin culture and of the Christian religion." Marine Le Pen, horrified, clearly refused to concur with this definition. Is the tyranny of anti-racism then so powerful that at the mere mention of what de Gaulle said, the daughter of Jean-Marie Le Pen runs for cover?

The only higher value Marine Le Pen defended was the Republic. She was probably right to do so when she opposed affirmative action, for nothing is more contrary to the notions of equality and republican merit than this American concept. (SIC!) But to regard the Republic as the only marker of French identity is to rally behind official thought. And it is a theme on which the Front National is, rightly or wrongly, barely audible or credible.

Note: I disagree with Polemia's assertion that affirmative action is "American". It is profoundly anti-American, and its opponents have been saying so since the idea was first introduced decades ago. It has caused irreparable damage to the workplace and to the education system, by granting high grades, diplomas, scholarships, jobs and influential positions in the policy-making sectors to people whose skin or sexual orientation or gender happen to conform to the norms established by the Left. Besides being the most outlandish bribe in history, Obama's Nobel Prize was a good example of a gift given to someone on the basis of race, not merit. The notion of affirmative action demands a belief in the equality of outcomes, not in the equality of chances. America is oriented more towards freedom; France, on the other hand cherishes "égalité", at the price of freedom. But now, France has to deal with the social and cultural consequences of meting out equality to those whose merit has not been proven.

Thus, Marine Le Pen acknowledges the evils of affirmative action, but not the evils of the type of immigration that made affirmative action inevitable.

Back to the article. Here are some of the things Eric Besson said to Marine Le Pen:

"You are young, but you are a dinosaur."

Another account of the proceedings at the website Boursier quoted him as saying:

"You are young, and physically attractive and I have the feeling I'm looking at someone from a world that has disappeared. When I listen to you, I see the old politics..."

He reproached her for turning the people against each other and against foreigners. He found her to be "puffed up" and "presumptive", while she found him "impolite"...

When confronted with Eric Besson, Marine Le Pen tried to demonstrate that he was not only under pressure from business leaders to support immigration, but that he was applying anti-French affirmative action. She reminded him that 580,000 foreigners had entered France in the past three years: "Every three years the equivalent of the city of Lille comes into our country". She also denounced the increase in demands from ethnic communities, pointing to the school cafeterias where pork meat is no longer served and to the giant mosques demanded by certain religious groups.

Eric Besson interrupted her to say: "Unless you can frighten people, you have nothing to say."

Marine Le Pen cited the example of l'Oréal that received recompense from the State for having practiced affirmative action, calling it "anti-French racism, anti-republican and anti-constitutional".

They continued hurling insults at each other. At the end, Marine Le Pen waved a Front National voting ballot, demanding to know how much the fact of being French weighed. When he did not appear to understand, she explained: "It weighs one gram, a voting ballot, and it is what you intend to take away from the French people, the only privilege remaining to them."

Besson responded: "I thought you were strong, Madame, but tonight you got it all wrong."

Note: Marine Le Pen was referring to the government's desire to grant to foreigners the right to vote.

Wherever it was reported on, the debate generated a huge reader response. In some ways the reader response was more interesting than the debate itself. If Marine lost, you cannot convince the following readers of Le Figaro:

- I have just watched the debate again. Most of the time she was realistic with concrete examples, while the other was unworthy of his position and sought to destabilize her with vulgar off-topic remarks. Stunning victory for Marine. BRAVO.

- I have watched the debate for a second time and have changed my mind. Marine did very well, she resisted the attacks from her opponent and was able to say truths that are often hidden from the French. Besson tried dishonestly to unnerve her several times. He lied and tried aggressively and heavy handedly to change the subject. I had found him dominating when I watched it live, but in the end he is much worse that he had seemed (...)

But the downside of the debate, as Polemia pointed out, is the true political position of the Front National itself. If the FN is not opposed to the idea of a France that is mixed (métissée), then I suppose it doesn't matter very much how well Marine does in a debate. It has often been feared and noted by identitarians and regionalists that the FN regards métissage and Islamization as givens, and seeks only to stem immigration, not to strive for a restoration (perhaps they regard it as illusory?) of the original French identities.

Here is a two-minute clip showing her in good form, citing the immigration figures, the case of l'Oréal, and repeating several times that the affirmative action practiced by the cosmetics firm was "scandaleux."