ANTI-SEMITISM AND THE FRENCH RIGHT

...The more evolved a society is, the more it is hierarchically ordered...

...Neuilly was represented by a Gaullist deputy, Mme...

...Be sure to put a clear return address, and do not send cash under any circumstances...

...also, because of their violence, they came as something of a surprise...

...Henri Curiel was murdered in his own apartment in full daylight...

...Their joining the Hersant paper marked, for supporters of the "new right," a passing from semiclandestineor, rather, nonpublic—to public action...

...Its sole chance for success, which will never be complete but which could be significant, lies in whatever influence it will be able to exert on the traditional—the Gaullist and Giscardian—right...

...The Club Nation-Armee maintains close contact with reserve officer and NCO organizations, except, of course, those of leftist persuasions...

...Robert Hersant, who has put together a press empire closely resembling Axel Springer's in West Germany, was a militant anti-Semite in his youth and, as such, put himself at the service of the Nazi occupiers and went so far as even to wear their uniform...

...He had not abandoned the S.S...

...Translated by ADRIENNE FOULKE q Have You Written to Us and Not Gotten an Answer...

...We have reported these incidents to the postal authorities who are investigating...

...was in any way responsible for it...

...We are determined to protect our right to circulate our magazine legally and without harassment...

...to support an elitism that does not consist, as in democratic societies, in forming elites but rather in promoting those that already exist—which is to say, those that would be so identified by a "scientific" racism—those, indeed, that if given the opportunity are ready and willing to define themselves as such...

...Shortly thereafter, Editions Copernic was formed...

...An incident such as this seems more serious than all the attacks that have been made since 1977—against Le Monde, which is charged with being in Jewish hands, and against synagogues and cemeteries—with perhaps, the exception of the damage done the Jewish student hostel in the Latin Quarter, for which a group calling itself the League of French Fighters Against the Jewish Occupation claimed credit...

...he tranquilly whiled away some 20 years in Madrid, where he was protected by the Franco regime and, according to his own statement, enjoyed amicable relations with the French Embassy...

...Indeed, its "thinking" is reflected in its various publications, which must now be considered to include Figaro-Magazine...

...Any reader or subscriber who has not received a response to a letter or request and who wrote in March or April of this year should write to us again and explain the request...

...therefore, they must be eliminated...

...The Comte de Gobineau and Houston Chamberlain would feel quite at home with this neoracism...

...In this area, one can find nothing to admire except their skillful use of litotes...

...They now are well-bred people...

...As for the influence they can exert in the areas of "culture," government, 297 politics, and the military, everything suggests that they will never convert anyone to their views who does not already share them...

...The one difference between the old and the new right is tactical in nature...

...when he extrapolates his findings about animals and applies them to human beings—to their sexuality, their feelings of altruism, or their religion—Wilson becomes imaginative, not scientific...

...it can seem new only to people who have forgotten or have never known about events in the '30s...

...Ethnic identity is the factor that establishes preferential differentiations on the scale of biological potentials...

...The theories of the new right—based on "the most recent genetic discoveries," as Louis Pauwels reiterates—have been set forth in books published, for the most part, by Editions Copernic (which shares its top management with GRECE...

...It would like to be the "doctrinal laboratory" of the current majority, and in relation to the Giscard people it seeks to play the role the Club Jean Moulin once played for the left...

...If one refers to Alain de Benoit's "Vu de droite" and to articles that appear in Elements (the GRECE house organ), Nouvelle Ecole, and now Figaro-Magazine, one can summarize its thinking thus: GRECE is opposed to the "Judeo-Christian" ideology (and everyone knows what that means...

...No one should entertain any illusions: French anti-Semitism has never died, any more than have other forms of racism directed against blacks or Arabs, for example...

...The hierarchy and order "needed" by society have led some new-right theoreticians to concern themselves with eugenics...

...however, the champions of this new right were correct in saying that it had been in existence for some ten years...

...It will be necessary to mount large enterprises, large collective experiments in discipline and selection if one wishes to put an end to that frightful domination of the absurd and the fortuitous, which has, until now, borne the name of history...

...Disturbing not because they point to the existence of fascist groups in France—that has long been known—but because now these groups are moving into action more readily and more often...

...The former neoNazis of Europe Action have been recycled...

...These incidents include opening of envelopes and packages, emptying them of their contents, etc...

...others were not shocked by his past, and even admired his Iron Cross with its diamond stars...

...They also are skillful enough to adopt watchwords that can mislead people...

...Hersant was seated nonetheless and, serving under the tag of "reformer," came to hold what is probably a record for absenteeism and silence in the Assembly...

...The leftist press began writing about a new right in 1978...

...The very existence of the human species is bound to racial differentiation...

...These killings are going unpunished to this day, and the French police have not greatly exerted themselves to find the killers...

...Laws now in effect in France do not, of course, permit publication of material such as one used to find in the anti-Semitic sheets of the prewar and Occupation years...

...Although a commentary accompanied his remarks in L'Express, many people questioned the usefulness of their being published at all...

...What's more, the subsequent election, which assured the success of the "center" (which means, in the main, the traditional right), had relegated them definitively to the sidelines...

...In electoral terms, the leaders of the new right amount to nothing, and they do not seek to be anything...

...For example, they are against all forms of totalitarianism, they say...

...In the past he served on the departmental staff of two Ministers of the Interior (Poniatowski and Bonnet), and has held the post of assistant first secretary to Alain Devaquet when the latter was secretary-general of the Gaullist R. P. R. The Club de l'Horloge, although founded by members of GRECE, attempts to conceal both its origins and the ties it has maintained with organizations from which its founders have come...

...Thus it became public knowledge that a medical college had put an erstwhile collaborator at its head, whose past activities were known to those 291 who appointed him since he had been officially pardoned and released...

...From his studies of children's IQs, Professor Debray-Ritzen draws these conclusions: children of workingclass parents have lower IQs than do children of middle-class parentage...

...Jacques Chirac, in his capacity as the Gaullist party leader, tried to persuade Florence d'Harcourt to withdraw in favor of Robert Hersant—which, given the "Gaullism" of the one and the past of the other, was cause for some surprise...

...he moves over into the realm of science fiction when he claims to relate all that to genes...

...They may reject our "JudeoChristian" culture, but they are sufficiently steeped in it to be able to talk and write well about it...

...They are significant and troubling because they offer evidence not only that anti-Semites are recovering their courage but also that antiSemitism is rediscovering what one could term its traditional partisans...

...Like everything that Alain de Benoit writes, this article is merely a series of statements that rely on the authority of "scientists" whose specific works on the subject are rarely cited, and to offer a precis of it would be pointless...

...Of course, he adds, "a plumber is not 'superior' to a carpenter, but a 'good' plumber is superior to a 'bad' plumber...

...If I may, for the moment, adopt the language of the publications in which this ideology is set forth, they call on supporters to fight against egalitarianism, which, it is claimed, conflicts with the findings of science...

...Milliez said, further, that they had the young man's promise that he would never try to obtain a university post...

...And now that the left is divided, it is plausible to expect that the traditional right will remain in power in France for a long time to come...

...One must "enter" into society, do everything possible to insinuate oneself and to be admitted into it— hence their circumspect language—and, in particular, aim at securing positions in which one can exert influence...

...Fortified by such support and borne up by current antiSemitism, Maurer judged that, even with his post at forfeit, he could finally glory in his past...

...Jews are different from Aryans...

...We will take care of the matter immediately...

...knew that suspicion would immediately fall on it, its Paris representative promptly and unequivocally condemned the attack...

...they demand, of course, in the name of an antitotalitarianism of this brand that the privileges of an elite be confirmed...

...With the Club de l'Horloge, the new right is attempting to raise the issue of "metapolitics," which is to say, the issue of "the place and the role of ideology...

...Some stuck by their old positions—for example, the Parti des Forces Nouvelles or what was left of the former (royalist) Action Francaise—but a handful of militants from a neo-Nazi organization called Europe Action decided to modernize their activities and to take on a new field of operations...

...After the developments of 1968, the small groups that had always shared a nostalgia for Vichy or fascism could see that, set up as they then were, they had lost any chance of exerting even minimal influence...

...Alas, poor Gaullism...

...Their impact has been considerable, in that they have reinforced the anti-Semitic current that is manifest in French society...

...This quotation is a good résumé of the new right's attitude, of its "scientific" assertions, and of its racism...

...One readily sees the kind of confusion in such thinking, which takes off from genetics only to arrive at such a commonplace...

...Not only did Jacques Chirac ask Florence d'Harcourt to step aside but, when she refused, he withdrew the Gaullist party's endorsement from her and gave it to Robert Hersant...

...The term "Aryan" is generally eschewed for reasons that need not be stressed...

...9) put it: "What we need is to have influential men placed in the decision-making spheres of today and, even more, of tomorrow...

...On November 4, 1978, with the best intentions in the world, the weekly L'Express published an interview with Darquier de Pellepoix, former Commissioner General for Jewish Affairs in the Petain government...

...Accordingly, antiSemitism has reemerged primarily in terms of attitudes, in talk rather than in writing (unless clandestine...

...Intellectual inferiority is thus considered an innate characteristic that is virtually impossible to modify, and it warrants the division of society into classes a "hierarchical" organization of society— according to an order established by the intellectual capacities of the respective groups...

...ideal, he added, and he still favored a social organization based on elites...

...Here the biological argument is merely the mask for an authoritarian thesis," Jacob wrote...

...In its area, the Club NationArmee is supposed to play the same role as the Club de l'Horloge—i.e., gain access to certain milieux, place trusted men "in the decisionmaking spheres...

...to fight Marxism, which is nothing more than "laicized theodicy"— all this supporters are to do in order to rediscover the wellsprings of "Celtic and Indo-European culture...

...The fact is that, one year later, Hersant enlarged the staff of Figaro-Magazine (the weekly supplement of the daily paper) with a group of writers headed by Louis Pauwels, Alain de Benoit, and Michel Marmin...

...Training on an appropriate racial basis is the source of all civilization...

...This was not a competence necessarily to be expected of Inspectors of Finances, of whose highly respectable corps Michel Poniatowski was once a member, as was, indeed, the President of the Republic...

...Because its activities were confined to restricted circles it was little known, and not until some of its more prominent leading spirits began to appear in a paper as widely read as Le Figaro was public attention drawn to it...

...to destroy the "Nazarene mentality...

...One cannot say that at this point they constitute a real danger...

...But M. Chirac argued that his Gaullist party must keep the good will of a "press lord" who, having acquired some ten provincial papers, had just become boss of Le Figaro and taken over L'Aurore and France-Soir—which is to say, the most important "information" organs in Paris, apart from Le Monde, and among the most important nationwide...

...Apart from the two crimes just mentioned, it is a question of incidents that are more premonitory than intrinsically grave, more foreboding than frequent...

...to affirm each ethnic group's "right to its difference" and to define a hierarchy among these groups and among individuals...

...In his statement, which he released to the press, Professor Milliez added: "Of the people who acted to assure [Maurer's] career, some adduced as their reasons the young surgeon's gifts and his pardon...

...They are found today not only on the staffs of the Hersant publications—where, indeed, they entirely belong—but also in the government...

...The long articles by Alain de Benoit and the peremptory statements by Louis Pauwels boil down to one simple idea: biology teaches that human beings are different, therefore unequal...

...This organization publishes an expensive monthly magazine as a part of its officially self-assigned purpose of "ensuring better liaison and greater understanding between the nation and those responsible for its defense...

...The right used to call itself "center right" or "center," or even "left center," so that the right now identifying itself as such has promptly been dubbed the "new right...

...Other people refer to themselves as rightists...

...What with time doing its work, then, and with young generations being less sensitive to these matters, French anti-Semites are recovering their courage...

...On May 2, 1974, in drawing up a balance sheet for the labors of the secretariat of GRECE's Research and Study Group Blot wrote: Ethnic identity and training are the two components of a superior humanity—which is to say, of the highest known form of life...

...For 35 years, whatever else the French extreme right may or may not have done, it has maintained itself at a constant level while experiencing a kind of molecular agitation, its particles in perpetual motion yet always the same (changes of name notwithstanding), its members always jockeying for position...

...Clandestine movements—one calling itself Commando Delta and another known as Police Honor (this was the name of a group of Parisian Resistance police during the Occupation)—have claimed responsibility for two murders: of Henri Curiel, an Egyptian Jew long associated with the Egyptian Communist party, whom a newsman had clumsily and falsely accused of being the pivot of terrorism in Europe...

...It is worth recalling the circumstances in which GRECE was founded...

...What the people who believe in the GRECE doctrine expound and defend is a "scientific" racism, not to be confused with Hitler's "romantic" racism...

...Signs of a recrudescence of anti-Semitism are sporadic, yes, but disturbing...

...Astonishment of a different sort was sparked later by the realization that Philippe Malaud and Jean Medecin were dipping into the same sources, and that all three were referring to the books of Konrad Lorenz and Georges Durnezil—so misinterpreting them that, in the case of Dumezil, Claude Levi-Strauss had to make mention of the fact in his speech on the occasion of Dumezil's election to the French Academy...

...But it is not all that new...

...Or did he simply feel that from then on precautions were pointless...

...It should be noted in this connection that the Nobel Prize winner in biology, Francois Jacob, has commented on the view that assigns the totality of mental aptitudes to heredity, saying that the position is based on "measuring the IQ, a procedural method that utterly amazes the biologist, for he has not managed even to define the intelligence that others seek to measure and quantify...

...ergo, some will be superior, others inferior...

...So, to come quickly to his conclusions: "Not all differences, of course, determine hierarchy, but most do...

...The abiding error," Jacob wrote, "is to connect a difference in ability and a difference in nature...

...We regret the inconvenience and count upon your cooperation and understanding...

...292 Today, however, you can meet people who call themselves anti-Semites—something that would have been impossible for the last 35 years...

...So, as soon as they observed that they could speak openly—though at the price of some protest—and even could congratulate themselves on what had been done to Jews during the Occupation and that it was possible with impunity to comment that in Auschwitz "they killed nothing but lice," they realized that a page had been turned, that the time had come—or, rather, returned—when they could again speak out...

...She was undaunted, and proceeded to run as an "independent Gaullist" against Robert Hersant, who proceeded to use against her tactics that can readily be imagined...

...GRECE's racism claims a scientific foundation, especially in biology...

...As soon as diversity is lived—is perceived in daily life and is not merely imagined—it entails classifications, hierarchies, inequalities...

...Outstanding among them is "L'Inegalite de l'homme," by Hans J. Eysenk, which is the source of Debray-Ritzen's work on IQ, as well as of "Race et intelligence," published anonymously by "two French geneticists who are known for their scientific work but do not wish to compromise their careers by putting their signatures...

...One notably significant instance occurred recently on the medical faculty of the University of Paris...

...But this is not true of the GRECE dogmatists: they are intelligent, well connected, well placed, and they give no indication that they can be pushed to the sidelines, as used to happen with French fascists and royalists...

...During the Events of May, they had been pushed aside, even forgotten...

...In addition to the Club de l'Horloge, which is intended to enable the new right to penetrate the upper administrative and policy-making echelons of the government, GRECE has founded the Club NationArmee...

...its editorial board was made up of the same people who headed GRECEnotably, Alain de Benoit and Michel Marmin...

...and Le terreau de la liberte, by Jacques Medecin, erstwhile Secretary of Tourism, deputy, and mayor of Nice...

...A number of incidents involving tampering with Dissent mail (including First Class and Second Class mail) during the months of March and April of this year force us to call this to our readers' attention...

...In this incident, a bomb exploded at dinner time and wounded several people...

...As to the scientific value of the new right's theories, which propose that the differences among men as defined in biological terms prove their inequality, let us listen to some specialists as well...

...Everything leads one to believe that the man who owns Le Figaro, together with numerous other papers, did not engage such collaborators by chance...

...Opportunism and business acumen led him to put distance between himself and his compromising friends quite quickly, and some time after the Liberation one found him heading a specialized paper, L'Auto-Journal, which rapidly proved profitable...

...Using antiZionism as a pretext, certain political groups, such as the Maoists, and certain publications, such as Temoignage ehretien, have waged such a sustained, blind, and violent campaign against Israel that most of the time it has been impossible to distinguish between attacks against Israel and those against Jews...

...It purports to be based on American studies in sociobiology and on IQ research carried out in the United States by Aubrey M. Shuey [author of The Testing of Negro Intelligence, cited by Arthur Jensen as a source for his assertions] and in France by Debray-Ritzen...

...his a fact that, for a number of years and increasingly since 1968, anti-Semitism has become the business of small groups on the far left...

...In a speech, the dean of the faculty, Professor Maurer, interjected totally extraneous remarks in which he recalled having been a member of the S.S...

...But Mme...

...Florence d'Harcourt's political past is irreproachable...

...In his article, "Differents, mais inegaux" (Elements, 1978), Alain de Benoit justifies the new right's theories on "scientific racism" by calling to their rescue not only Darwin but also Sir Andrew Huxley, genetics as well as psychometrics and, of course, "house" theoreticians of the ilk of H. J. Eysenk...

...It is quite safe to say that the old French right was, of them all, the most stupid...

...He then got himself elected deputy from Seine et Oise, and had to defend himself publicly in the Chamber against a move to invalidate his election...

...Most likely this was its objective in inspiring—if, indeed, it did not entirely prepare a number of books published by prominent persons on the official right, notably L'Avenir-n'est nulle part, by former Minister of the Interior Michel Poniatowsky, who is still a carefully heeded Elysees adviser...

...The men of the new right are employing a tactic in the service of this ideology for which some extreme-left movements in France once coined the term "entrisme...

...The quotations also show clearly what the political applications of this ideology must be...

...Was Hersant's next move motivated by a spirit of revenge...

...In addition, we have taken various measures to make it more difficult, if not impossible, for such acts to take place in the future...

...Florence d'Harcourt, who, in deference to her democratic mandate, does not use the title of duchess to which she is entitled...

...GRECE passes itself off as a "think tank...

...Can one then speak of a renaissance of anti-Semitism in France...

...Francois Jacob gave his opinion (Le Monde, July 19, 1979) of "La politique du vivant" (published by the Club de l'Horloge): if, in order to combat an "egalitarian utopia," the new right claims to base its views on science, nowhere does it indicate what "the scientifically controlled elements" are to which it refers...

...As I have said, it is not a matter of a renaissance but of a continuation...

...it is launched on a long-term effort...

...Subsequently, Darquier was sentenced to death, in absentia...

...But one must also be mindful—and this is precisely the point—that a "bad" plumber is, on certain levels, perfectly equal, as far as his rights are concerned, to a "good" plumber...

...and of Lucien Goldmann, a former anarchist, whom an assize court had acquitted of the crime with which he had been charged...

...Darquier's anti-Semitic remarks contained a degree of violence that over the years had almost been forgotten...

...in the course of these proceedings he was reminded, in detail, of his activities during the Occupation...

...Any excesses were looked on with disfavor Paris even by anti-Semites, who did not want to be associated with memories of the atrocious racial crimes committed during the war...

...But years have passed, indignation has had time to subside, and today one has the impression that somehow anti-Semites have been waiting for a sign to resume their activities—overtly, that is...

...Finally, the new right's political action must aim at creating an "organic" society in contradistinction to the "trade-oriented" society that Elements (March, 1978) charged with having "continually besieged the three functions of IndoEuropean societies: the productive function . . . the military function . . . and the function of governance...

...Since the right was more openly compromised with Vichy than the left, people used to hesitate to claim kinship with it...

...We must be prudent in our use of language," declared 295 Jacques Bruyas, the founder of GRECE...

...Prudence may go by the boards, however, when these thinkers are among themselves...

...The aim does not appear to be theft, since checks and money orders made out to Dissent cannot be cashed, but harassment and sabotage...

...And again Yvan Blot...

...Alain de Benoit now divides his energies between the "cultural" editorship of FigaroMagazine and his activities at GRECE 293 (Research and Study Group for European Civilization) and the publishing house Editions Copernic...

...When the 1978 elections came around, with the—erroneously—expected surge from the left, he realized that his election from Seine et Oise was threatened, and he decided to run in the middle-class, conservative district of Neuilly...

...As an editorial in Nouvelle Ecole (No...

...There are also indications that groups may be forming in which criminals find a haven...

...With regard to sociobiology, to which the new right is constantly referring, Professor Jean-Paul Escande writes: What do sociobiologists do...

...There are no grounds for thinking that the P.L.O...

...Science does teach us that men are different...

...The club's president, Yvan Blot, is a member of the Inspection Generale 296 and, as such, an official of high rank...

...THE EDITORS...

...to scientific truths they profess...

...To this end, in 1969 they founded GRECE, supplied it with one bulletin for members, Elements, and one lavishly produced magazine for general distribution, Nouvelle Ecole, of which Alain de Benoit, who was one of those who had moved over from Europe Action, became editor...

...However, in the postwar years it was difficult for anti-Semites to vent their feelings freely...

...Two examples will suffice: From remarks by Yvan Blot, president of the Club de l'Horloge, during a 1972 Club discussion of "Nietzsche and History": Slaves are needed if a new aristocracy is to arise...

...Today, "incitement to racial hatred" is a crime punishable by law...

...Professor Milliez, who played an outstanding part in the Resistance, has indicated that, in 1945, together with his colleague ValëryRadot, he had taken steps to win freedom for their former student, Maurer, who had never denounced them during their Resistance activities...

...No more cudgels, helmets, punitive raids against leftist students, or demonstrations such as the extreme right has traditionally staged...

...d'Harcourt, whose campaign consisted mainly of informing her constituents about her opponent's past, was elected in the first round of voting by a comfortable majority...

...Since the P.L.O...

...however, one finds that whereas the practical measures adopted by Solon and Lycurgus are cited, no mention is made of those practiced by the Hitler regime...

...J. J. Moureau published an article entitled "Historical Overview" in Nouvelle Ecole (JanuaryFebruary 1971) in which he listed and gave 294 some account of the various works that have dealt with eugenics from the time of Plato to the present...

...One distinguished contributor to the magazine, Raymond Aron, had been away when the interview appeared, and upon his return stated that he would not have favored its publication...

...To safeguard and promote the specificity of ethnic identity is . . . the foundation of a profoundly humanist and superhumanist action...

...Upon examination, you discover that for them the most totalitarian society is the egalitarian, leveling democracy we live in...

...La revolution liberale, by Phillippe Malaud, former Secretary of State for Information and one of the few men on the right with the courage of his convictions...

...The pope of sociobiology is Edward 0. Wilson, who when he is studying the social behavior of ants or termites or chimpanzees is a scientist of high caliber...

...It is apparent that while the new right's notions about order, hierarchy, and elitism are no more "scientifically founded" than all earlier racist ideas, they are generally presented in more measured terms...

...if the former perform less well in their studies than do the latter, the reason is that they are born of parents with lower IQs, which they have inherited...

...Readers may remember that Darquier was appointed to this post as successor to another professional anti-Semite, Xavier Vallat, whom the Occupation authorities had found insufficiently effective...

...Social egalitarianism cannot, then, from a scientific point of view [italics added], be anything but regression...

...As Alain de Benoit puts it, "An 'intelligent' racism that takes cognizance of ethnic diversity is less harmful than an intemperate, leveling, assimilative antiracism...

...They start out as real scientists, and then they inflate their extrapolations to compensate for the absence of hard evidence...

...One may, indeed must, qualify them as "blind" since even in a paper whose "leftism" is as rational and generous as that of Liberation, the Entebbe operation was held to be unwarrantable interference in the affairs of a sovereign nation...

...It is obvious that the only chance for these extremist movements lies in their being given an assist from outside (but Franco and Salazar are dead, and the Greek colonels have lost power) or in a profound political crisis that would suddenly push them to the fore...

...When Poniatowski's book came out, the press, with respectful astonishment, noted the author's broad knowledge of biology and sociobiology...

...it urges the need for a return to Celtic and "Indo-European" sources (Louis Pauwels hammers on this constantly...

...and a club called Nation-Army e, which was supposed to infiltrate military circles...

...The new right is not dallying with any such eventualities...

...Two other organizations soon rounded out this ensemble: the Club de l'Horloge, which was supposed to muster government officials...

...Such are the tenets and strategy of a right about which, patently, nothing is "new" apart from its name...

...It also shows that, on the scientific level—if that term can be used—one is confronting a kind of Lysenkoism in reverse: innate—ergo, "genetic"—characteristics take the place that acquired—ergo, "social"---characteristics occupied in the theories of the notorious Soviet agronomist...

...Lucien Goldmann in full daylight in the street...