Europe’s “Identitarians” Put a Good Face on a Racist, Anti-Semitic Ideology

In France’s 2017 election, Marine Le Pen, leader of France’s far-right Front National, was the second most-popular candidate. The party’s surprising electoral success may be a testimony to Le Pen’s efforts to improve the party’s reputation by shedding some of its anti-Semitic and pétainiste rhetoric since taking over its leadership from her father five years prior. Yet, writes Bill Wirtz, most of the change has been cosmetic; the “identitarian” movement that drives the Front National and other likeminded European parties remains, at its core, ugly: