“The intervention of the army is an old fantasy of the extreme right”

Current values published on Wednesday a platform launched by former officer Jean-Pierre Fabre-Bernadac, calling on Emmanuel Macron to defend patriotism, signed by “twenty generals, a hundred high-ranking officers and more than a thousand other soldiers” , according to the far-right weekly. “We are ready to support policies which will take into consideration the safeguard of the nation”, specify the signatories, implying a possible intervention, impression reinforced by the date chosen by Current values : April 21, sixty years to the day after the putsch of Algiers by French generals.

A forum denounced by the Minister of the Armed Forces Florence Parly, reminding the military of their duty of reserve. For Jean-Yves Camus, political scientist specializing in the extreme right and researcher associated with the Institute of International and Strategic Relations (IRIS), we should not however overestimate the links between the army and the extreme right.

Is there any connivance between the army and the extreme right?

I do not believe in this thesis. The army is made up of professionals and has a much more diverse recruitment than during the attempted putsch in Algiers, for example. In the most perilous missions like Barkhane or Afghanistan before, or even in more routine missions like Sentinel, we have the proof of a socially very diverse recruitment and we have to wring our necks at the idea of ​​an army that par nature would be linked to the extreme right.

It doesn’t mean that there is nothing either. Gendarme barracks or regiments in particular have a higher than average proportion of votes for the National Rally, this has been attested, but this does not prejudge the attitude of hundreds of thousands of soldiers. That there are conservative right-wing officers, even very conservative and very imbued with a form of fundamentalist Catholicism, yes, but they are above all soldiers, and a soldier obeys and follows the head of the armies of France, that is to say Emmanuel Macron currently.

Several episodes in the history of France nonetheless show links between the army and the right or the extreme right …

Yes, but we are not there at all or we are no longer there, and France has an army which is overwhelmingly republican, loyal and respectful of democratic institutions, and which, from top to bottom, obeys the president. of the Republic. With I repeat a much more diversified recruitment.

Let’s go back to the story. The right has had in the past the temptation to resort to the army, as with the Dreyfus affair or Marshal Pétain, even if for the latter it is already necessary to qualify. A large number of senior officers and officers did not follow it in its policy of collaboration in particular. Second, the army is far from having always followed the extreme right. For example on February 6, 1934 (a riot by the far-right leagues wanting to invade the Chamber of Deputies), the army had not joined the movement at all, on the contrary it had defended the institutions.

And then there is the Algiers putsch of 1961 and the attempt to extend it to mainland France, but it should be remembered that this putsch was an absolute and resounding failure, which forced the delisting of a large number of army cadres. The army in any case has not forgotten it and today few soldiers are ready to embark on the adventure, both out of loyalty, but also because of this look at the past which shows that each time whether the army tries to take power or gets too involved politically, it turns against it and it comes out very weakened.

If the army does not necessarily have links with the extreme right, is the reverse true?

There are a lot of far-right fantasies about the idea of ​​military intervention. This idea was also circulating during the marriage for all protests, when a far-right newspaper called on the generals to overthrow the regime. The army had of course never intervened in this direction, and had indicated nothing to do with it.

In the tribune of Current values, it is about twenty former generals, most of whom were already known for positions and speeches similar to this one. We did not see any new headliners or media signing this platform, which would have been worrying. But as it stands, an intervention by the army in favor of the extreme right – or any political camp – remains a fantasy fueled by a very small and retired movement of the army, and not a threat. real.