From “Defending Democracy from its Christian Enemies” by David P. Gushee
Today, on outward appearance, French politics is resolutely secular, and democracy seems stable. Religion is not widely practiced and the Catholic Church has little public role. However, as the Economist noted in November 2021, “France is seeing a disconcerting revival of ultranationalist thinking, and with it the rehabilitation of once-ostracized reactionary writers, “like Charles Maurras.
Right-wing figures, notably Marine Le Pen, have never won more votes in a post-World War II French presidential election than in the two rounds of the Spring 2022 election and the follow-up parliamentary elections of June 2022. Reactionary, even arguably fascist voices, like Eric Zemmour, now inflamed by anti-Muslim sentiment along with earlier resentments, are increasingly significant in French politics.
Reactionary Catholic voices are among those surging. They have been increasingly visible since the Manif pour tous (“protest for everyone”) movement of 2012-2013. According to journalist Harrison Stetler, these heavily Catholic, white, and mainly upper-crust protests were triggered by the French government’s move to legalize same-sex marriage. Themes of an “eternal France” beset by forces of internal decadence (now what Zemmour calls “the LGBT lobby”) and by threatening alien enemies (now mainly substituting Muslims for Jews) remind one of the painful political history we have been describing.