Catholics and the Far Right in France

This chapter is about the ambiguous relationship between religion and far-right politics in France. The French Rassemblement National (RN) is increasingly referencing Christianity in the context of its ethno-cultural right-wing identity politics. Recently, the RN has been joined in this endeavor by Éric Zemmour, a former journalist turned far-right presidential candidate, who, although being Jewish, has called himself "steeped in Christianity" and proclaimed that Catholicism has a "birth right" to cultural hegemony in France. However, closer inspection suggests that such references are driven less by an appreciation of Catholic values, beliefs, and institutions than by a desire to employ a cultural Christianism as a secularized ethnic identity marker against Islam. This chapter investigates the ambiguous rise of a new Christian right, how it relates to far right identitarian movements and the right-wing populist campaigns of Zemmour and Le Pen.