En savoir plus
Recent polls have indicated for the first time that a far-right candidate could win the French presidential election in 2027. Reactionary and racist ideologues increasingly sully the French media. Assaults by fascist groups are on the rise as they grow in size and confidence. How did this happen in a country once so proud of its revolutionary past?
Writer and academic Ugo Palheta shows that the fascist threat is rooted in the triple radicalization - neoliberal, authoritarian and racist - of the French ruling class. Unable to win majority support for the self-interested policies represented by Emmanuel Macron, this class has sought support by adopting more radical right-wing positions. Palheta argues for a renaissance of anti-fascism to inspire resistance to the far right and the triple threat encouraging its rise.
Why Fascism Is on the Rise in France has repositioned the question of fascism to place it at the centre of intellectual debate in France.
A propos de l'auteur
Ugo Palheta is currently a lecturer at the University of Lille and the co-editor of the online journal Contretemps. His research has focused in particular on class and racial inequalities, the social trajectories of young people from working-class backgrounds and changes in education systems. For several years he has been working on the rise of the far right and the issue of fascism: he has published several books on the subject and hosts a podcast devoted to the issues of fascism and anti-fascism. He has also translated Michael Burawoy and Erik Olin Wright into French.
Commentaire
Why Fascism is on the Rise in France is an audacious, urgent, precise and often terrifying intervention. Shaking off the encrustations of orthodoxy, the greasy equivocations of mainstream anti-populism, and the crudely polemical or creakily mechanistic conceptions of fascism inherited from parts of the Marxist tradition, Palheta restores rigour to antifascist thought. In underscoring 'fascisation' as a process immanent to hegemonic collapse and democratic decay, he renews Marxist theory and gives us a practical orientation in the battles to come. This is essential reading for everyone in the crosshairs of the new fascism, and everyone who wants to fight back. Richard Seymour, author of Disaster Nationalism
