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Long live theExtreme Left ! (Chronic by Michel Visart)

Posted on 7 February 2025

Publi­shed in La Libre – Februa­ry 04, 2025.

You, I don’t know, but Ihave like a ball in the tum­my. A small ball, which becomes more and more these past few years, these last few months, these last few days. A ball made of fear, and ofin­crea­sing concern and anger. But I can tell you the­sure, Ihave hard­ly any vio­lence lur­king in my depths.

When I’ve been approa­ched by The Free to take this column, ithas been asked ‘das­sume a strong posi­tion’. Not obvious when one is an avid abso­lute nuance in a world that has less and less. This wri­ting, no need to force me, for once : the shade in the trash !

Why this rant ? Sim­ply because the situa­tion is serious and tha­tit couldbe more if we conti­nue to turn a blind eye to double tower, or even to open them with kind­ness where it would take just the stare ofawe. I did­not exag­ge­rate, be certain !

Nis nei­ther a poli­ti­cal scien­tist, nor a his­to­rian, nor clai­med to be a spe­cia­list in any­thing, cis as a citi­zen that Iwrite. A citi­zen who has always been very hap­py to ful­fill his duty elec­tion in a demo­cra­tic coun­try where theexer­cise of free­dom in the res­pect of fun­da­men­tal rights of the indi­vi­dual, is an abso­lute value. For­tu­na­te­ly, it is not neces­sa­ry to use theimperfect.

This is a small phrase, see­min­gly insi­gni­fi­cant glea­ned on a social net­work well known : ‘Trump scares me. But is it demo­cra­tic to pro­test against someo­new­ho was demo­cra­ti­cal­ly elec­ted ?’. But not, of course, dear Sir, your rea­so­ning is short but unas­sai­lable. The Ame­ri­cans have had the choice of the pri­ma­ry day-to‑J. Eve­ry­thing is in order, nothin­ghas dis­tur­bed theyou still dare to call the oldest demo­cra­cy in the world. The gon­do­la of the green­backs, the lies, the most for­mi­dable one than the other, the insults, the fake news to sho­vel, all of this is anec­do­tal, and still more, per­haps, is the fact that the new tenant of the White House is a mul­ti-condem­ned. As said in his time, a minis­ter among us : ‘All is well’.

So let the Ame­ri­cans swim in theeu­pho­ria, cis their affair. Well, almost. With us, in Europe, eve­ry­thing is going well also. It’s rai­ning a lit­tle too much, the prices increase, theU­kraine nis not far away, not enough to take the lead. Poli­ti­cal­ly eve­ry­thing is moving too. Let us take at ran­dom a few examples : in Ita­ly, as I recent­ly told a friend, Geor­gia Melo­ni did a good job with the two par­ties wel­co­ming, Fra­tel­li dIta­lia and the Lega. In Aus­tria the sym­pa­the­tic Her­bert Kickl of the FPÖ leads to the prom. In Ger­ma­ny (yes in Ger­ma­ny !) the conser­va­tives allied with theAfD to vote on a text-har­de­ning immi­gra­tion poli­cy. In the nether­lands, Fin­land and Slo­va­kia, theex­treme right is in govern­ment. In France, Le Pen approach to theE­ly­sée. Not to men­tion of course thei­nef­fable Vik­tor Hun­ga­rian a demo­crat from first choice.

Let’s call a spade a spade. An extre­mist, a radi­cal. If dan­ger there is, todayis today in Europe as in the Uni­ted States, cis to theex­treme right asit comes. And not of theo­ther side ! Stop put­ting sys­te­ma­ti­cal­ly on the same pla­teau far left and far right. Intel­lec­tual­ly and his­to­ri­cal­ly, we can dis­cuss, but poli­ti­cal­ly and honest­ly, say that theex­treme left is now threa­te­ning us is a lie, or even a move. That weighs on ? By contrast, in the lan­guage and the pro­noun­ce­ments of some, all demons­trate the drift conti­nues and some­times uncons­cious towards the end of the end of the right.

So yes I am wor­ried, yes I’m angry, yes I’m afraid. The threat is a rea­li­ty. The­ba­lance left-right is heal­thy for a demo­cra­cy. Add the word ‘extreme’, even in non-dits, and cis fucked up. This is why, apart from the fact tha­tit does not mwor­ried about not today,today, I say, ‘long Live theex­treme left’. I am not voting for her, but Ihear words like soli­da­ri­ty and jus­tice for all. Let’s end on this beau­ti­ful mot­to : ‘Liber­ty, equa­li­ty, fraternity’.