Far-Right French Group‘s ’Wine-and-Pork Strategies’ Finding a More Mainstream Audience
- Posted on December 11, 2011 at 5:37pm by
Christopher Santarelli
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(The Blaze/AP) They feasted in the verdant back country of picture-postcard Provence, the delight of tourists and the pride of France.
But it was no ordinary country idyll. The extreme right Bloc Identitaire, or Identity Bloc, was lashing out at Islam while dining on pork roast and local wine — off limits to practicing Muslims.
The group, an emerging force on France’s far-right scene, likens Muslim immigrants to invaders threatening the identity of the French heartland and menacing European civilization. The movement — with a wild pig as its logo — is gaining traction through its blend of Islam-bashing and romanticizing of French rural culture.
Increasingly, it is being used as an “idea box” for the National Front, a well-established far-right party and force in European politics that could play a crucial role in French presidential elections five months away.
The Bloc’s campaign against mosque building and its wine-and-pork strategies are also finding a more mainstream audience in the country with western Europe’s largest Muslim population, estimated at 5 million, the majority with origins in France’s former colonies in North Africa.
A group of lawmakers from President Nicolas Sarkozy’s conservative UMP party has formed a hard-right wing, the Popular Right, that berates immigration and has espoused anti-Muslim themes in a low-key echo of Bloc Identitaire.
“The combat is urgent. We don’t have the choice,” said Bloc Identitaire member Jean-Christophe Oberlaender, whose arms are tattooed with what he said are ancient religious sayings.
He was among some 50 people attending a daylong Bloc meeting outside this small Provencal town whose origins date from Roman times.
“These products will soon be very rare in France,” he said of the pork and wine being served at lunch.
Bloc Identitaire, also opposed to multiculturalism and globalization, has the largest footprint of myriad groups on the extreme-right fringes of France, and appears to be harnessing influence beyond its numbers.
Bloc officials put membership at some 4,000 — a figure experts say is exaggerated. Regional alliances with other “identity” groups in France and their heavy use of the Internet to spread their word to the mainstream public make a real count difficult.
The movement opposes violence in its bid to erase all traces of Muslim culture in France. But violence has been known to follow its members — something they blame on neo-Nazi hangers-on.
Earlier this year, a rally in Lyon called the “march of pigs” turned into a clash between Bloc Identitaire supporters and extreme leftists — kept apart by hundreds of police called in ahead of time. Several local businesses were damaged, including a kebab restaurant.
Bloc Identitaire militants ferret out plans by Muslim communities to build mosques and campaign to stop them. An “identity guerrilla” pamphlet spells out how to raise awareness of Muslim initiatives, from mosques to halal food restaurants, and infiltrate culture or sports clubs popular with Muslims.
A mosque project in the village of Tourrette in southern France was their latest target and, they claim, success.
After discovering plans by a Muslim association to convert a villa into a mosque, Bloc Identitaire militants flooded the area with protest fliers, met with the mayor and organized a demonstration. The mosque project was scrapped in October, days before the rally was to be held.
Nourreddine Benzirar, a dentist with Moroccan origins who led plans for the mosque, claimed the project collapsed over funding, not because of Bloc Identitaire, and vowed to press forward with a mosque once money is available.
“Pressure doesn’t scare us,” he said by telephone.
France has passed laws in recent years banning Islamic headscarves in schools and banning Islamic face veils anywhere in public, laws embraced by the mainstream left and right as upholding secular French traditions but that many see as stigmatizing Muslims.
The recent gathering of Bloc Identitaire revealed an ideological and religious mix, from pagans who worship the gods of the ancient Norse peoples, to devout Catholics and others simply searching for a voice that reflects their worries about France’s future.
“Masters at home” is their motto, but “revolution” was the watchword at the gathering near the city of Brignoles, where a National Front member is mayor.
The Bloc Identitaire denies any formal alliances with the National Front. Unlike the bigger movement it is pro-European and wants to keep France in the 27-nation EU. It spins ties with other European far-right groups in Britain and some other European cities.
The national treasurer, Dominique Lescure, recently traveled to Russia, with its burgeoning and violent extreme right, to meet with groups in cities as far away as Vladivostok on the Pacific coast.
National Front presidential candidate Marine Le Pen, meanwhile, is trying to tame her party’s image to appeal to a broader public after decades under the helm of her father, party founder Jean-Marie Le Pen, a scrappy, charismatic figure repeatedly convicted for racist and anti-Semitic remarks. He stunned the world by reaching the runoffs in 2002 presidential elections, before being trounced by a rare coalition of France’s mainstream parties, assuring victory for incumbent Jacques Chirac.
Marine Le Pen has told Jews they have nothing to fear from the National Front and even briefly met Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations during a recent trip to the United States.
Instead, she has pointedly targeted Muslims and the spread of Islamic culture, in the name of the French principle of secularism — mimicking the message of Bloc Identitaire.
The Bloc “uncovers the themes for the National Front,” said Erwan Lecoeur, a sociologist who studies the extreme right.
The National Front has for years played the role of spoiler in French elections, and candidates from the mainstream right typically try to woo voters away from the extreme party. Polls put Marine Le Pen in third place behind Sarkozy, in second, with Socialist Francois Hollande in the lead.
Bloc Identitaire, born in 2003, raised its profile several winters ago by dishing out pork soup, so-called “identity soup,” for the homeless.
It thrives on evoking the legends of France’s history.
“For me, France has a reason to exist because of its past … its knights, its chateaux, the France of the Gaulois, the France of the Romans,” said Michel De Susanne, a 34-year-old computer technician who heads the Bloc’s Marseille chapter.
The bloc has held street parties featuring aperitifs of wine and sausage. Some were canceled by authorities, but last year, chased from a heavily immigrant Paris neighborhood, they managed to recamp on the famed Champs-Elysees, near the Arc de Triomphe.
Bloc officials claim their group is neither racist nor anti-Muslim but contend that the Muslim population in France has reached an unacceptable critical mass with designs on supplanting the local culture.
“We’re here to make a revolution … We’re not here to scare our grandmothers or the candy salesman,” Richard Rudier, a member of the Bloc’s executive board, said in a speech before the crowd at the Provence gathering. “We want to scare the establishment.”
For Oberlaender, the target isn’t just Muslims.
“Today, it’s the Arabs. If it’s the Chinese tomorrow, I’ll combat the Chinese.”
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Comments (67)
The Third Archon
Posted on December 12, 2011 at 3:37am““These products will soon be very rare in France,” he said of the pork and wine being served at lunch.”
Report Post »Probably not–the French people don’t strike me as likely to give up their fondness for wine…or secularism, any time soon.
GETLIFE
Posted on December 12, 2011 at 5:56amTrue, true…
Report Post »it’s not so much Muslim vs Christian,
as Muslim society vs secular society.
GETLIFE
Posted on December 12, 2011 at 3:19amRural France has somehow escaped the noose of “political correctness.” Perhaps it is because the radicalization of the local Muslim populations is more visible against the backdrop of the French countryside. Rural France is very aware of what’s going on and not afraid to talk about it.
Of course, there is NO real conservative media to speak of. It’s pretty amazing that Sarkozy was elected– given the totally liberal media. Imagine if they had a little “fair and balanced” in support of the word on the street….
Report Post »twistin
Posted on December 12, 2011 at 12:39amHeck, the Australians can’t even get rid of those giant toads that have infested their country.
Report Post »Talmid of Yeshua
Posted on December 11, 2011 at 11:52pmSounds like a party I could get behind and join if I was a Frenchman. For European countries, being overran by muslims and their sick twisted Satanic death cult, these types of parties and groups are the only hope to drive the invaders out. Multi-culti and diversity is the fastest way to destroy a culture.
Us Americans better quit being pansies and form some of our own parties as well, but we aren’t quite as over-ran by muslims as much as the European countries are, but why wait until the last minute, when it may be too late.
The only good muslim is… well, there are no good muslims.
Report Post »twistin
Posted on December 12, 2011 at 12:32amactually, there ARE good Muslims. Many educated, modern men and women who also happen to be Muslim. I know many of them. Unfortunately, the vast majority of those funnily dressed weirdos with the henna dyed beards and turbans in the Islamic villages of the world are NOT quite so cool. There‘s the problem and there’s the rub….it’s very difficult to condemn ANY group in its totality. That, is definitely not cool.
But, having said that, wiping out the maniacs, IS cool.
Report Post »The Scarecrow
Posted on December 12, 2011 at 12:58pm@twistin
Report Post »Do a little research and read the koran. Also find out how to read it. It says it’s honorable to lie to infidels, so how can you trust any of them? It also says if you are an infidel it is honorable to kill you. Specific verses replace older verses so sometimes it’s hard to really figure out what it is telling them to do. Islam is not a religion it is a political party.
RightPolitically
Posted on December 11, 2011 at 11:22pmI agree. Muslims have done a “soft” invasion of France and much of Europe. Eventually, with their numbers growing by leaps and bounds, bought and paid for by EU socialism, twenty-five years from now they will have control of the continent. Well done you socialist PIGS. We are doing the same thing here, slightly with Muslims but mostly with illegals coming over the southern border. Like Europe, we will get our own JUST DESSERTS soon enough!
Report Post »toto
Posted on December 12, 2011 at 2:26pmOddly enough, only an abundance of pigs can save them.
Report Post »spfoam1
Posted on December 11, 2011 at 11:12pmMuslims are like an invasive species. The political correctness today, and the media, assures them no natural enemies. They reproduce and spread and overwhelm the natural inhabitants. An invasive species has to be stopped early or the invaded habitat sufferes incredible and sometimes irreparable damage. France, and many other countries including the USA, have the same problem.
Report Post »dnaburns
Posted on December 11, 2011 at 10:59pmWow Europeans with a back bone to stand up to the multiculturalism bs of the far left leadership standard and to top it off they are French amazing miticles do happen!!
Report Post »Komponist-ZAH
Posted on December 11, 2011 at 10:34pmElles sond Nazis.
Report Post »Komponist-ZAH
Posted on December 11, 2011 at 10:42pmWow, my French sucks. I think I just called them all women…lol…
Report Post »THETAXMAN
Posted on December 11, 2011 at 11:42pmKOMPONIST-ZAH
Methinks you be an Islamist apologist or ignorant of the Prophet, his life and the Koran
Report Post »Komponist-ZAH
Posted on December 12, 2011 at 12:06amNot at all.
I know very well that many of Islam’s teachings are quite barbaric, and there are many Muslims who have no qualms about following those teachings. But I happen to believe in Liberty, and that includes Liberty for Muslims—who have *NOT* commited acts of violence, of course.
Bloc Identitaire clearly does not (e.g., their trying to prevent a private individual from building a mosque on private property)—do you?
Report Post »Shamrock241
Posted on December 11, 2011 at 10:26pm@ Baikonur
Report Post »Those Skin heads you refered to are not Russian they come to Russia to train and learn tactics from the White Russian Nationalist who simply believe Russia is for ethnic Russians not muslims and not chinese, i see nothin wrong with that.
Komponist-ZAH
Posted on December 11, 2011 at 10:40pm…except that it’s racist, jingoistic, collectivistic nonsense.
Report Post »Johnny2Guns
Posted on December 11, 2011 at 9:58pmI’m weary of the Nazi-like overtones of the article: far right wing, ancient supposed symbols all sounds like what Hitler tried to do. But there is no doubt that Islam is pure EVIL and there are no good Muslims. Either you‘re practicing the evil it teaches or you’re not. I’m all for these Bloc guys … So far. I really like the pig symbol and the pork and wine parties. I may even start my own. :)
Report Post »Large Eagle
Posted on December 11, 2011 at 10:21pmI have been saying turn the hogs loose for three years
Report Post »Love it
RepubliCorp
Posted on December 11, 2011 at 10:40pm“We are socialists, we are enemies of today’s capitalistic economic system for the exploitation of the economically weak, with its unfair salaries, with its unseemly evaluation of a human being according to wealth and property instead of responsibility and performance, and we are all determined to destroy this system under all conditions.” –Adolf Hitler <<sounds like the 99% to me
Report Post »thomas242007
Posted on December 11, 2011 at 9:49pmAwsome i love this idea! long live identity bloc, ive been considering starting somthing similar here in the us about time somebody decided to step up and try to stop islamo-fascism great job identity bloc! support 100%
Report Post »DESKOCCUPANT
Posted on December 11, 2011 at 9:10pmLibeerte! Egalite! Fraternite!
Report Post »MrButcher
Posted on December 11, 2011 at 9:37pmfin de civilisation!
Report Post »The Third Archon
Posted on December 12, 2011 at 3:56amThat’s the other side.
Report Post »layosh
Posted on December 11, 2011 at 7:27pmTo make sure a minority is kept alive and strengthen it is to put mild to moderate pressure on its members and culture. Just enough to differentiate them from the rest and not enough to annihilate the individuals. This will lead to clear division between US and THEM. The movement this group started is in actuality will strengthen the Muslims and does nothing to stop the invasion.
Report Post »There are two ways to eliminate a smaller group from a society.
The first one is assimilation. This is a bribery, making the group interested to accept the majority culture, because it is attractive, gives them real advantages or at least the feeling of belonging to a more powerful group. An essential part of it is the making the majority language official and making it inconvenient to use their own.
The second method is extirpate the minority by aggressive destruction of their culture, livelihood, history, and if necessary, the people themselves. The only way to survive is to move or assimilate. This one works too. I know. I grew up as a member of such a minority. We were almost completely eliminated in a mere half a century: It started with mass murder, than we were turned into second rate citizens, collaborators were put in charge, and the minority life become a kind of inconvenience, and go, and it was made sure that we will prefer leaving the country instead of rebuilding our culture. That is why I am here, in America, on my own choosing and ready to assimilate, on my own free will.
HappyStretchedThin
Posted on December 11, 2011 at 8:08pmYou speak wisdom, Layosh. I pray the more forcible option never needs to be used on American soil and that the American way remains so seductive that the 2nd generation of immigrants never fails to learn to speak English natively, and integrates fully into American culture–as they almost always do now.
Report Post »Big difference between the right there and the right here, though needs to be understood: Here ethnicity is politically unimportant. You’re expected to be free to celebrate your own, wherever you come from, but your foreign origin, your color, your former language, etc. doesn’t bestow any special citizenship rights upon you. THERE, the right is claiming homeland primacy, ethnic superiority and protectionism. It’s a force conservatives can agree with on SOME policies, but rarely on the motivations, which are much more akin to fascist nationalism than true right-wing conservatism, or classical liberalism, so to speak.
RepubliCorp
Posted on December 11, 2011 at 10:52pmWe have the Mexican the invasion.
Report Post »Komponist-ZAH
Posted on December 12, 2011 at 12:29amWell said, Happy.
Report Post »awiderview
Posted on December 11, 2011 at 6:57pmI just noticed the gathering was near Brignoles. My brother-in-law lives there…wonder if he was at the meeting. And Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie live nearby (in Carens- known for their “Bio” wines). There are worse places to live!
Report Post »Baikonur
Posted on December 11, 2011 at 6:48pmThese people want to provoke confrontations and violence. They want to offend. It is much better and much smarter to maintain the secular nature of society the way France is doing–by legislation.
Report Post »drattastic
Posted on December 11, 2011 at 7:12pmYou are a damn fool .
Report Post »lodgerat
Posted on December 11, 2011 at 9:49pmThey just want to keep their country French not Mooooslim. No Sharia
Report Post »Talmid of Yeshua
Posted on December 11, 2011 at 11:58pmSecular? God will defeat Islam. That is the one true God, of Isaac, Abraham, and Jacob, the God of Israel, Adonai, King of the Universe.
Keep your secularism.
Report Post »scout n ambush
Posted on December 11, 2011 at 6:45pmBlack Jaque Le Razorback ? Hey Blaze check out whats going on in Indonesia now a law student set himself on fire outside the palce in jakarta looks like maybe another jasmine revolution coming (cascading caliphate) .Those crazy peiceful kids in obamas home town need a leader their last one burntout..
Report Post »82dAirborne
Posted on December 11, 2011 at 6:33pmThey aren’t “like” invaders – they ARE invaders. It is their stated goal to convert or kill every non-Muslim. What is soooo difficult to understand? If you are counting on your irrational enemy behaving in a rational way you have lost before the real battle begins.
We cannot afford to lose this battle.
Report Post »HumbleMan
Posted on December 11, 2011 at 6:40pmYou left out “slave”. Convert, kill or enslave … those are your choices.
Report Post »82dAirborne
Posted on December 11, 2011 at 6:48pmMy mistake! I see all three as equally distasteful. (Distasteful as in I’ll go out fighting.)
Report Post »drattastic
Posted on December 11, 2011 at 7:15pmI predict that when Europe collapses and it soon will ,the invading hoards will be dealt with violently .It will then be flee or fry. Count on it.
Report Post »awiderview
Posted on December 11, 2011 at 6:28pmFor anybody who cares to learn a little bit more:
I live in Provence 5 months out of the year. I’ve never heard of the “Bloc Identitaire.” Marine Le Pen and the Front National, on the other hand is a serious political party (started by her father). Reading some of the links in the article, it’s clear the “Bloc” is very much an association of fringe groups…I doubt very much if any serious politician would identify with them.
Many in France do believe they have a ‘Muslim problem,’ but they deal with it in a pretty civilized manner (that‘s not to say there isn’t blatant racism in France). There are efforts to integrate Muslims in France (many are considered ‘more French than the average Frenchman’), but most believe it’s by adhering to French values, not by making France a Muslim country.
There are Halal butchers all over the place, but I don‘t think we’ll be missing pork and wine and any time soon! LOL
BTW: Political interviews are common on French TV- lasting several hours in duration. I enjoyed a lively interview with Marine Le Pen this summer. The interview was in several segments and included questions from panels composed of people very opposed to her (Front National) views. It was a level of discourse we never see here in the States.
Report Post »Thevoice
Posted on December 11, 2011 at 6:25pmYep ..Here it comes ..Because here is the one thing in this, the world of….. “Just can’t believe it” ….Short time in the future, at some point ….. It’s going to be the Muslims who get terrorized…Where can I send a check …..
Report Post »Chet Hempstead
Posted on December 11, 2011 at 6:42pmMuslims have already been terrorized by the French – in Algeria and all over North Africa. Of all the countries in Europe, if there’s one that actually deserves to have its culture wiped out by Muslims, it’s France.
Report Post »decendentof56
Posted on December 11, 2011 at 6:50pm@the voice…
“Short time in the future, at some point ….. It’s going to be the Muslims who get terrorized…”
That may well be. People of many countries – who’ve seen foreigners move in with no idea of ever assimilating- will get fed up. No question of that. This story is an example.
What disturbs me in this story is the use of “far right”. While the above-mentioned groups may have engaged in harsh rhetoric, at the core, they are attempting to save ‘their’ culture. They have every right to do that. Theres nothing ‘far’ about it.
Why should the French, English, Americans, heck, “any’ country for that matter, stand by and watch any group move in and establish the customs and/or laws of their homeland ,with absolutely no idea of embracing the host country?
This is, no doubt, orchestrated by radical groups under the guise of “multiculturalism’. That word is the most evil word I’ve seen used to impose the thinking of foreigners who move into a country.
Each time we hear the word ‘far-right‘ or ’racist’ used against people who are protecting their own identity we become more galvanized to fight against it.
Report Post »HappyStretchedThin
Posted on December 11, 2011 at 8:15pmChet, I’m an African culture scholar.
Report Post »Your talk of the French terrorizing Algeria is a breath-taking shortcut.
For someone whose post is ostensibly designed to make us conservatives review the historical record better before considering our opinions, your own view of the actual history is dangerously naive.
hidden_lion
Posted on December 11, 2011 at 8:23pmChet-
Report Post »Muslims Invaded the west long before the west invaded them. That is what started the crusades and this cycle of violence is still going on. When rats invade your storehouse, you break out the decon
DagneyT
Posted on December 11, 2011 at 6:12pmI just wish that the GOP could borrow some of this groups’ brass cojones! Instead, they cower and prefer to be PC!
Report Post »geonj
Posted on December 11, 2011 at 6:11pmcoming to a neighborhood near you very soon.
Report Post »copatriots
Posted on December 11, 2011 at 6:02pmVive le France
Report Post »biohazard23
Posted on December 11, 2011 at 6:12pmAmen à cela! (Amen to that!)
Report Post »Bull Dog
Posted on December 11, 2011 at 5:52pmShades of a former Nationalist movement in Europe 80 years ago
Report Post »Baikonur
Posted on December 11, 2011 at 6:26pm@Bull Dog
Report Post »Posted on December 11, 2011 at 5:52pm
‘Shades of a former Nationalist movement in Europe 80 years ago’
**************
Agreed! Very frightening. And the extreme groups they associate with in great britain and Russia are horrific. The skin heads in Russia are pretty much the scariest bunch out there.
momrules
Posted on December 11, 2011 at 5:48pmThe French Underground patriots helped defeat the Nazi’s in WWII and maybe they can gain a foothold to stop the Muslim invasion.
They are late but late is better than never. While they are trying to be peaceful that will not last long. There are already too many Muslims in France and Muslims are not a peaceful people. There will be blood shed because a bigger fight is coming.
Peaceful protests and talking do not work with Muslims. They will kill the protesters for daring to want to keep France French. The same thing will be happening in America sooner than later.
Report Post »Exrepublisheep
Posted on December 11, 2011 at 5:51pmSad but true.
Report Post »82dAirborne
Posted on December 11, 2011 at 6:06pmI feel faint. The French did something I agree with. Never thought I’d see the day!
Report Post »Gonzo
Posted on December 11, 2011 at 5:41pmStand up for your culture America or this could be you!
Report Post »oldguy49
Posted on December 11, 2011 at 6:02pmi use silver bullet gun oil {13% pork fat} so they can’t go to paradise and wear a knights templar pin………come get some
Report Post »Gonzo
Posted on December 11, 2011 at 6:22pmI like it Oldguy.
Report Post »randy
Posted on December 11, 2011 at 6:26pmHey OLDGUY I also use Silver Bullet gun oil….. Wish it smelled a little more like Bacon though :)
Report Post »scout n ambush
Posted on December 11, 2011 at 7:25pmGonzo…. Spank da Monkey is somewhere laughing right now ,but you are a man of your word .
Report Post »