A prominent National Front politician hires a prominent Jewish counsel in his case against the State of Qatar.
Gilles William Goldnadel, a Jewish lawyer, will be a National Front leading politician’s counsel in a lawsuit initiated by the State of Qatar. Goldnadel, who chairs the France-Israel Association, sits on the board of the Representative Council of the French Jewish Organizations (Crif) and is a member of Les Républicains (LR, formerly UMP), Nicolas Sarkozy’s conservative party, says he has « no qualms » about that.
The whole matter goes back to June 1st, when the State of Qatar formally lodged a complaint against Florian Philippot, the National Front’s number two leader and the Front president Marine Le Pen’s chief political advisor, for what it termed his « defamatory remarks ».
Philippot had repeatedly stated that Qatar, along with Saudi Arabia, was on the one hand a chief sponsor of jihadism and on the other hand deliberately « preying » over major French cultural or economic assets and « corrupting » French politics. In fact, there was hardly anything sensational about such remarks : everything Philippot mentioned had already been hinted to, disclosed or debated in the mainstream media.
The State of Qatar’s move may backfire since it is widely seen as an attack on free expression in France. Moreover, the fact that it picked up as lawyers Jean-Pierre Mignard, a socialist sympathizer, and Francis Szpiner, a staunch gaullist, tends to reinforce the view that it is indeed exerting an undue influence on the French political process, both on the left and the right of the spectrum.
On the contrary, hiring Goldnadel is clearly a smart move by Philippot and the National Front. It reinforces the view that the Front is no longer a Far Right and semi-fascist party and can be trusted when it says that it will not countenance racism, antisemitism or attacks on Western style democracy. One reason why Goldnadel agreed to defend Philippot in court is that the latter took a particularly outspoken stand against the former National Front leader Jean-Marie Le Pen over his most recent antisemitic statements.
The National Front’s credentials were also somehow enhanced last week by the group it eventually was able to set up the European Parliament in Brussels. As long as such a group was not established, Marine Le Pen’s victory at the 2014 euro-elections (37 of the 74 French euro-MPs) was largely hollow : it is only through the agency of a group that euro-MPs get substantial financial support, are allowed to hire more assistants, are allowed into the Parliament’s commissions and have full and regular access to the European Union’s decision making bodies. Now, in order to establish a group, you need 25 euro-MPs at least, and one quarter at least of the member-States but be represented into it.
For months, Marine Le Pen’s party has been struggling in order to meet these requirements. It id not want to strike an alliance with Far Right extremists like the Hungarian Jobbik party or the Greek Golden Dawn party. It was however shunned by the British UKIP or the Swedish Democrats, which he saw as natural allies. Eventually, it succeeded setting up the Europe of Nations and Freedom group (ENF), which garners most French National Front euro-MPs, as well as représentatives from Geert Wilders’s Freedom party in the Netherlands, Vlaams Belang in Belgium, the Freedom Party in Austria, KNP in Poland, and Lega Nord in Italy. While clearly rightwing, these parties cannot be construed as antisemitic, fascistic or antidemocratic. Some are even seen as strongly pro-Israel.
Interestingly enough, several National Front euro-MPs, including Jean-Marie Le Pen, have declined to join ENF. A further indication that the group intends to distance itself from unpalatory extremism.
© Michel Gurfinkiel, 2015