In France, the youth far right has its own neologism: the Fachosphère . Not unlike the manosphere and online alt-right communities across the West, the term denotes a subculture of young influencers who use social media, fashion and music to spread and promote their self-consciously edgy and authoritarian anti-immigration politics. The term has been in circulation for some years, but a case can be made that the movement behind it has now gone mainstream.
This is because the National Rally (RN) party of Marine Le Pen has substantially become the party of French youth, winning the votes of around a third of 18- to 24-year-olds at the recent European elections. With a French national election imminent, this young right could help propel the RN into government for the first time. To understand this unlikely political uprising, on a grey Sunday I set off to attend a National Rally demonstration at the Porte de Versailles in the south of Paris.
The star billing comprised Le Pen herself, the RN’s parliamentary leader, and the party’s president and France’s likely next prime minister, Jordan Bardella. As I queued to get in, and busloads of supporters arrived from the provinces, the atmosphere was excited and expectant, with spontaneous chants of “ on va gagner! ” (“We’re going to win!”). With a jolt, I remembered that the last time I had been at this venue was almost exactly 40 years ago to see a Smiths concert and then, with another jolt, I noticed that much of the.