I was interviewed by Monique El-Faizy from France24 English, about my recent writings about Marion Le Pen’s speech at CPAC.

You can read the entire article here.

Here is an excerpt:

“This idea that she is sort of more moderate, that really is confusing,” said Brussels-based libertarian pundit Bill Wirtz. “I’m not sure where they got that idea.”

More than her aunt Marine Le Pen, whose base lies in the decaying industrialized north of France and forces a focus on economics, Marion Le Pen, whose political base is in the south of France where immigration is a more resonant issue, spotlights issues of racial and religious identity. She has said that she worries that the French Riviera is “becoming a favela” and that Muslims cannot “be given the same rank as the Catholic religion.”

“You couldn’t have imagined Marion Le Pen being invited two years ago,” Wirtz said. “Some people have been invited to say things that you can’t say yet as a Republican. That’s where I am very worried –for the future condition.”

 

[…]

What was on the table at CPAC this year was nothing short of “the redefining of conservatism,” Wirtz said. “I think the idea of the conservative movement today, or at least the part that attends CPAC, is really to replicate a European-style nationalism or nativism.”