He did indeed outline all this in his 1983 book L’Id?ogie Fran?se which said that

He did indeed outline all this in his 1983 book L’Id?ogie Fran?se, which said that France has a natural propensity to polarisation and extreme politics.In BHL’s analysis, Jean Marie Le Pen is not a temporary blip, an aberration caused by an odd electoral system and a divided left “No, the aberration in France was the 30 years of Gaullism. Now, Gaullism is dissolving and the natural currents of French politics are returning.”You must understand: France is not England It is not America We are different,” he elaborates. He placed a veil over the deep current of extreme right thought that has been the inescapable reality of France for 150 years.” Charles de Gaulle – the iconic war leader who assumed the presidency in 1958 and crafted the Fifth Republic in his own image – created an artificial glue to hold France together, BHL argues. In one immodest moment, he says: “I predicted 20 years ago what is happening today in France I predicted it. The rise of the extreme right, the extreme right moving to the centre of France’s political spectrum, the clash with the extreme left.” He is entitled to a degree of self-congratulation, however, despite the crassness of his bragging. In the 1930s, for example, hatred of America in France went with hatred of Jews. It was a hatred of jazz and black people, hatred of a country that mixed races.”L? is not a man afraid of blowing his own trumpet; in fact, it is permanently affixed to his lips so that he can blow it every other sentence.

There were a lot of things, even before the Iraqi war, that I hated about Bush George Bush is a serial killer. To execute 152 people [when he was Governor of Texas], this is disgusting to me. But I hate also – perhaps even more – the criticism of America not as a part of the world but as a territory of the mind We know this well in France. We have a strong tradition of anti-Americanism on the extreme right.

They think that Islamism can be embraced and put in the service of the left. This is a terrible mistake.”But is it just the far left that is badly misjudging this battle? The most powerful Western nations, whether they’re led by politicians from the centre left or the centre right, “are not on the right course today either Your country and mine supported the Taliban against Massoud. We supported the Serbian-Christian fascism against moderate Muslims for too long. We support Saudi Arabia, which is the origin of all the money for these anti-Western groups. We supported Pakistan with no conditions at all until very recently. I will never forget Massoud coming to France and the doors being closed in front of him.

[Jacques] Chirac – and [Lionel] Jospin, too – treated him like a dog.”BHL could not support the recent Iraq War because he believes it was going after the wrong target. “Saddam Hussein was a monster and overthrowing a dictator is always good, but are we sure he was the right target? Was he a danger? I think it was a great error.”BHL defines himself as an “anti-anti-American” He says: “I am not pro-American like a blind man. Hundreds of thousands have been killed by them in the last few decades: Algerian Muslims, Afghan Muslims, Pakistani Muslims These are the victims. They are our allies.”The philosopher made his name as a 25-year-old by writing a savage work of polemic, Barbarism with a Human Face, ripping into the French left for failing to see that Communism was the most cruel and dangerous threat to human rights on earth at that time. No less a figure than Sartre accused him of being a CIA agent. BHL now sees some parallels with the French left’s failure to see the danger of Islamic fundamentalism.