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Seriously – don’t mention the war. Macron’s victory has nothing to do with Vichy France Seriously – don’t mention the war. Macron’s victory has nothing to do with Vichy France
(about 1 hour later)
How we laughed in 1975 when Basil Fawlty, faced with German guests at his hotel, said: “Listen, don’t mention the war. I mentioned it once but I think I got away with it.” Fawlty could not repress his obsession with the war and kept blurting it out. At the time, that impulse was recognisable, but also laughable. Now, 42 years later, we are yet again living among those who can’t stop mentioning the second world war, and they make no attempt to hold themselves back. This is the prism through which they view contemporary politics. It is a strange pathology, and revealing that men who have not experienced war are the ones who seem to hanker for it.How we laughed in 1975 when Basil Fawlty, faced with German guests at his hotel, said: “Listen, don’t mention the war. I mentioned it once but I think I got away with it.” Fawlty could not repress his obsession with the war and kept blurting it out. At the time, that impulse was recognisable, but also laughable. Now, 42 years later, we are yet again living among those who can’t stop mentioning the second world war, and they make no attempt to hold themselves back. This is the prism through which they view contemporary politics. It is a strange pathology, and revealing that men who have not experienced war are the ones who seem to hanker for it.
When Emmanuel Macron beat Marine Le Pen in the French election last night, most of us just gave a sigh of relief. But Arron Banks, aged 51, was busy retweeting a message from the account of Leave.EU, the organisation he heads, which is a sort of Ukip gone awol without the charm: “The French rolled over in 1940. This time they’ve saved Germany the fuel and bullets.” This was accompanied by a picture of Philippe Petain who, as French prime minister, signed the Second Armistice whereby Germany occupied the north and west of the country, while he ruled over Vichy France. France would not be liberated until 1944. When Emmanuel Macron beat Marine Le Pen in the French election last night, most of us just gave a sigh of relief. But Arron Banks, aged 51, was busy retweeting a message from the account of Leave.EU, the organisation he heads, which is a sort of Ukip gone awol without the charm: “The French rolled over in 1940. This time they’ve saved Germany the fuel and bullets.” This was accompanied by a picture of Philippe Pétain who, as French prime minister, signed the second armistice whereby Germany occupied the north and west of the country, while he ruled over Vichy France. France would not be liberated until 1944.
Comparing Macron’s victory to this is, of course, utterly bizarre. But it’s par for the course for a generation of men who weren’t in the second world war but like to act as if they were. It was Macron’s opponent, Marine Le Pen, who denied that the Vichy government handed over Jewish citizens to the Germans. Her father is a Holocaust denier and allegedly tortured people during the Algerian war, claims that he has denied. These may be small facts to these warrior Brexiteers but the devil is truly in these details. Comparing Macron’s victory to this is, of course, utterly bizarre. But it’s par for the course for a generation of men who weren’t in the second world war but like to act as if they were. It was Macron’s opponent, Marine Le Pen, who denied that the Vichy government handed over Jewish citizens to the Germans. Her father is a Holocaust denier and allegedly tortured people during the Algerian war, a claim he has denied. These may be small facts to these warrior Brexiteers, but the devil is truly in these details.
So there is a problem with their grasp of history, but a bigger problem may be their grasp of reality. To be clear, we are not actually at war with Germany and thankfully for now the far right has been beaten in the Netherlands, Austria and France. Nigel Farage and Donald Trump may want to ally themselves with people with fascist views and to conjure up war imagery that is often historically incorrect but let’s be sure what is being aligned with here. Le Pen’s father said the solution to immigration was “Monsieur Ebola”. That’s right. Genocide as an electoral tactic … So there is a problem with their grasp of history, but a bigger problem may be their grasp of reality. To be clear, we are not actually at war with Germany and thankfully for now the far right has been beaten in the Netherlands, Austria and France. Nigel Farage and Donald Trump may want to ally themselves with people with fascist views and to conjure up war imagery that is often historically incorrect, but let’s be sure what is being aligned with here. Le Pen’s father said the solution to immigration was “Monsieur Ebola”. That’s right. Genocide as an electoral tactic …
Farage’s hobbies include touring battlefields, he is planning to write a history book for schoolchildren and continues to wallow in Dad’s Army imagery. Underlying all of this is the Brexiteers’ belief that English exceptionalism can take on and beat all of Europe. This is the myth. The Bad Boys of Brexit aren’t actually in mortal combat. They get drunk and go shark-fishing and the idea of active service is another prop to their masculinity. Real men don’t eat quiche. They wear tweed while smoking a cheeky fag. . Farage’s hobbies include touring battlefields; he is planning to write a history book for schoolchildren and continues to wallow in Dad’s Army imagery. Underlying all of this is the Brexiteers’ belief that English exceptionalism can take on and beat all Europe. This is the myth. The Bad Boys of Brexit aren’t actually in mortal combat. They get drunk and go shark-fishing and the idea of active service is another prop to their masculinity. Real men don’t eat quiche. They wear tweed while smoking a cheeky fag.
The cultural references are a window on the strange time warp the right lives in. In his 40s, David Cameron used to cite Benny Hill and Michael Winner as though he was a 75-year-old. The journalist Tony Parsons similarly speaks as if he survived the blitz. He is 63. His father was a war hero though, his body scarred from fighting on the island of Elba. Parson idealises him: “But he was a killer, you know, a trained killer.” Interestingly, he says that his father didn’t talk about the war. I say listen and learn son. The cultural references are a window on the strange time-warp the right lives in. In his 40s, David Cameron used to cite Benny Hill and Michael Winner as though he was a 75-year-old. The journalist Tony Parsons similarly speaks as if he survived the blitz. He is 63. His father was a war hero though, his body scarred from fighting on the island of Elba. Parson idealises him: “But he was a killer, you know, a trained killer.” Interestingly, he says that his father didn’t talk about the war. I say listen and learn, son.
The White House press secretary, Sean Spicer, 45, recently demonstrated his complete ignorance of the war and the Holocaust when he said that even Hitler didn’t “sink to using chemical weapons”. But that’s Spicer. He is so stupid that he doesn’t even know what he doesn’t know. He just knows he likes a second world war analogy, where possible. The White House press secretary, Sean Spicer, 45, recently demonstrated his complete ignorance of the war and the Holocaust when he said that even Hitler didn’t “sink to using chemical weapons”. But that’s Spicer. He is so stupid that he doesn’t even know what he doesn’t know. He just knows he likes a second world war analogy where possible.
There is one key question here. Why is a generation of men harking back to a war that was about fighting fascism, while in many cases cheering on those with far-right views? It’s as if the war they are fighting in their heads has nothing to do with what the second world war actually involved.There is one key question here. Why is a generation of men harking back to a war that was about fighting fascism, while in many cases cheering on those with far-right views? It’s as if the war they are fighting in their heads has nothing to do with what the second world war actually involved.
Parsons has tweeted pompously that were it not for us Brits, Jean-Claude Juncker, the president of the European commission, would be speaking German. Of course he already does speak German – along with several other languages. Such gung-ho ignorance recently had the tabloids evoking even older wars as we were about to take on the Spanish Armada over that rock of stubborn Britishness, Gibraltar.Parsons has tweeted pompously that were it not for us Brits, Jean-Claude Juncker, the president of the European commission, would be speaking German. Of course he already does speak German – along with several other languages. Such gung-ho ignorance recently had the tabloids evoking even older wars as we were about to take on the Spanish Armada over that rock of stubborn Britishness, Gibraltar.
Surely all these guys should just calm down and go paintballing or join some weirdo battle re-enactment society. If manliness can only be achieved through combat, lock these specific men in a room and let them fight to the death.Surely all these guys should just calm down and go paintballing or join some weirdo battle re-enactment society. If manliness can only be achieved through combat, lock these specific men in a room and let them fight to the death.
But leave the rest of us out of it. Because when it comes to knowing which side we are on when faced with fascists, we do.But leave the rest of us out of it. Because when it comes to knowing which side we are on when faced with fascists, we do.