午夜剧场

Since the mid-1980s, I have watched almost all major national elections and referendums in France on the ground and have continued to write essays on them. This publication reorganizes those writings, focusing on descriptions of the far right, and re-examines the underlying far-right ideologies and active organizations to compile them into a single volume.

In fact, my interest in the expansion of Le Pen's power began with my first experience visiting France in 1978.

The sight of Jean-Marie Le Pen loudly advocating for the exclusion of foreigners before an audience of a few dozen people in Paris's Tuileries Garden left a powerful impression on me. Surrounding him were young men in combat uniforms with intimidating glares. I held my camera, but within five minutes, I was stunned to realize I had unconsciously backed away to the exit of the venue. I was afraid. As a Japanese person, I was neither the European nor the Frenchman they spoke of; I was literally a "foreigner," and if I lived there long-term, I would be an "immigrant." The immigration issue was not someone else's problem. It was the first step in my own discovery of "Japan in the world." And in that France, at the dawn of multicultural coexistence, I was convinced that an anachronistic group like the far-right "National Front" would never expand its influence. That is now a reality.

There is no doubt that this force is a far-right group advocating for exclusionism. However, this is not just any right-wing or far-right group. It has not remained a ragtag band of outsiders that occasionally rises and falls with the trends seen in French political history. No, since its founding, this party has been fully aware of the history of failures of such historical right-wing groups and has continued to seek a path as a parliamentary party. It did not end up in the presidential runoff by accident. Telling the history of this party is, if I may say so without fear of being misunderstood, a "success story." However, it is one that should not be accepted.

Certainly, one factor in the expansion of European far-right forces is that they disguise themselves as republicans and democrats under the guise of "de-demonization." However, the reality is the dark side of human nature based on a sense of discrimination. This is why I included the subtitle "The Two Faces of Janus," the Roman god with one body and two faces.

Hirotaka Watanabe

Hakusuisha

330 pages, 2,750 yen (tax included)

*Affiliations and titles are as of the time this magazine was published.