This is a term used in particular by supporters of the FN
(Front National), a blend of UMP (the center-right party of the shady
exhibitionist Sarkozy) and PS (the Parti Socialo of the ineffable Francois
Hollande). These have been the
traditional adversaries in French national politics for many years, passing the sceptre of office back and forth
from time to time, to little effect as regards such key questions as national
identity and unchecked immigration.
The point of the hippogriffic acronym is to suggest, in the immortal
phrase of the Le-Pen-ish George Wallace back when he nursed Presidential
aspirations, that there wasn’t a “dime’s worth of difference” between the two
major parties. An American
analogue to the blend is Republicrat.
This business of never have a practical choice between the
two major parties (Democrats & Republicans in USA, UMP and PS in France) is
called in French l’altérnance. In the run-up to the recent départementales, there
has been much disenchantment with the ruling Socialistes, and increasing
acrimony between PS and UMP, so that FN chief Marine Le Pen wisecracked that
her party might this time enjoy the role of “troisième larron” -- literally ‘third
thief’, but meaning tertium gaudens.
But it was not to be:
the FN trailed third, though the PS received a well-deserved thwacking.
~
There is an unfortunate sociohistorical dynamic that repeats
itself, whenever there is a swelling elephant in the room, which the major
parties studiously ignore; any
allusion to this pachydermal presence
is quickly suppressed.
To ignore the tacit gag order is to risk social and even legal
sanctions. In such cases, some percentage of those who wish to found a third
party to deal with the problem head-on, are those who in any case
have little to lose, being marginalized in one way or another -- which
reinforces the marginalization of the party as a whole.
In the case of the FN, the policy statements and public
presence of Marine herself have
been exemplary, far more adult than those of Taubira or DSK. But the press can always dig up
some Anhänger or other, with louche
views, to highlight, and to tar the party with that brush. Lately, one of the problem children has
been Jean-Marie Le Pen himself, who enjoys (in his old age -- a sort of hobby)
playing the provocateur. Alarmed, there have been repeated
calls for Marine to expel her father from the Front National -- the very party
he founded. (Uncomfortable echos
of Goneril and Lear.)
 |
| Daddy ... Daddy ... One of us has to die .... |
[Update 9 April 2015]
So: The daughter has now
publically called her father out.
His riposte:
We shall see, then, whether the upshot prove to be parricide, or filicide.
(For our essay on magistricide
(intellectual parricide), click here.)
[Update 11 April]
A WaPo blogger offers a chrestomathy of provocative one-lines by
European “Euroskeptic” third-party figures:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2014/05/24/8-ridiculous-racist-things-actually-said-by-far-right-eu-politicians/
The quote from J-M L-P was a reprise of something he had
said before, and thus not something to be dismissed as off-mike or
off-the-cuff:
En juin 2014, Jean-Marie Le Pen
évoque "Monseigneur Ebola", et explique que le virus, qui a
aujourd'hui causé la mort de plus de 4000 personnes, pouvait "régler"
la question de la surpopulation mondiale et le "risque de submersion de la
France par l'immigration"
What to make of such ejaculations?
Consider the background. In Europe, there is a heavy lid on public discussion of
certain subjects. It follows from
sheer physics that such jets of
steam as manage to escape this iron confinement, will tend to be superheated.
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