Will French Politics Swing from Socialism to Fascism?

Far right Marine Le Pen’s strong showing at the recent Presidential runoff in France may have opened the door for politics of the extreme right.

Writes historian Eric Margolis at the Lewrockwell.com

Talk about déjà vu. Such a sweeping change would return France to its pre-war political landscape, when hard Left and hard Right were locked in bitter confrontation. Marine Le Pen could well emerge as the angry voice of many Europeans – a prospect that causes shudders across conservative-ruled Europe.

She could also prove the nemesis of the European Union. Le Pen has vowed to oppose austerity pacts, quit the Euro, restore the franc, and follow economic mercantilism. Her anti-EU, anti-free trade policies are attracting many people across Europe and even in Russia.

Fortunately, Francois Holland could prove a counter-balance to the ascendant Right. He is a moderate, cautious centrist politician given to pragmatism rather than ideology. His popularity and image of geniality and caring about people will help him withstand the forces of both Left and Right trying to pull him in different directions.

Even so, Marine Le Pen and her aggressive rightists are likely to become an ever-increasing threat to the French Republic as economic conditions worsen. It seems only a matter of time before fascism rears its head again in Spain, Italy, and Portugal. Greece is already on the way. Failure to implement austerity plans will bring economic convulsions and with them the bully boys in black

Mr. Francois Holland's victory has been negative enough for domestic entrepreneurs. Many of whom have reportedly been looking for refuge overseas from the prospects of punitive tax increases, if not from asset forfeitures, by the incoming socialist government, whom has openly declared war against the wealthy.

Yet if the prognosis of Mr. Margolis becomes a reality, then the rise of fascism (based on economic nationalism or mercantilism) elevates the risk of regional war.

As the great Ludwig von Mises once admonished,

What generates war is the economic philosophy almost universally espoused today by governments and political parties. As this philosophy sees it, there prevail within the unhampered market economy irreconcilable conflicts between the interests of various nations. Free trade harms a nation; it brings about impoverishment. It is the duty of government to prevent the evils of free trade by trade barriers. We may, for the sake of argument, disregard the fact that protectionism also hurts the interests of the nations which resort to it. But there can be no doubt that protectionism aims at damaging the interests of foreign peoples and really does damage them. It is an illusion to assume that those injured will tolerate other nations' protectionism if they believe that they are strong enough to brush it away by the use of arms. The philosophy of protectionism is a philosophy of war. The wars of our age are not at variance with popular economic doctrines; they are, on the contrary, the inescapable result of a consistent application of these doctrines.

The current trend of French politics seems locked into a wretched choice between the proverbial devil and the deep blue sea. Beautiful France may not be as beautiful as she is today in the future.

Democracy, as the great libertarian H.L. Mencken said, is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.