fascisation and how the interior becomes a distorted reflection of the exterior
In France, as across the Western nations, the global context of heightened imperialist tension is one we feel increasingly encroaching on daily life. It is no longer a distant abstract reality that we feel unconnected to, but something that imposes itself upon us. The pulse of the imperialist metropolis has intuitively sensed that what happens here is inextricably bound to what unfolds on the international stage — but with this shift, even the slumber of the villages, of la France profonde, has been jolted awake. Among the imperialist powers—towards rivals and allies alike—we see a hardening of postures: a shift from diplomatic management of contradictions toward the material preparation for their resolution by force.
Within the walls of the imperialist nations, this tendency is echoed in the internal front onto their own populations. Preparing for war imposes the reality of tightening control at home: for the ruling class, the risk of internal destabilization—and its magnified effect when faced with a hostile external front—cannot be dismissed.
In the heart of Western imperialist powers—the ‘free world’ as they used to call it— we see a decisive shift towards the reduction of democratic space. If, in the past, the super-profits siphoned from the ex-colonies were sufficient to fund a strategy of ‘the carrot’ ; buying peace with a portion of the masses (eg. welfare state etc.), today, as the West’s crisis deepens, the carrot is being put away and the baton taken up.
On 7 July 2026, the National Assembly passed, at first reading, a bill establishing a presumption of self-defence for law enforcement officers. Nicknamed the permis de tuer, the law reverses the burden of proof: officers no longer have to prove a shooting was necessary and proportionate—it’s now automatically presumed legal.
This law however is only the tip of the iceberg; If one is to focus solely on the state’s monopoly on violence i.e. the most visible and pronounced elements, one might miss the insidious web of state mechanisms and reforms, each incrementally expanding the state’s coercive power while simultaneously eroding the civic and democratic space in which we move and act. This straitjacket is a clear sign of fascisation. It is essential to state clearly here that we should not fall into the bourgeois illusion presuming that these laws and restrictions are applied equally across ‘civil society’. As we will see, it is precisely the class character of society that renders such restrictions inevitable for the ruling class in a period of crisis. The ‘dangerous classes’, the working-class neighborhoods, those who have not assimilated into French society—the question of how to contain and neutralize this threat is not new. It has long been brewing beneath the surface. What the current period adds is urgency: now it spills out into the open as a declaration of war—the search for the enemy in the interior.
To put this shift into perspective, let’s look back at how the treatment of this internal contradiction has evolved over the last few decades in France.
Social Integration
1981 L’été chaud des Minguettes
France witnessed the first nationally televised images of burning cars and riots in the banlieue. The sons and daughters of immigrants from France’s colonies, who came in the wake of World War II to fill an industrial labour shortage, now found themselves living in a post-industrialised world going through an oil shock. The promises of their parents’ generation during Les Trente Glorieuses had quickly given way to the stark feeling that French society had no place for them. As mostly French citizens, a growing collective feeling of being ‘ni bledard ni Français’ translated into a sense of being treated as second-class citizens—cut off, stigmatised and insistently policed by French society.
In contrast to the current period, the State’s direct response at that time was the rise of a social integration policy—the politique de la ville—which centred on youth work and social cohesion through various schemes and associations. The logic was to fix the ‘social fabric’ and integrate these volatile elements into the workforce. Hundreds of millions of francs were allocated for the task, during a period of economic downturn in France. One might ask: if it was possible then, why not now? But that crisis was seen as exceptional. Today’s crisis is systemic and prolonged, tied to the crisis of the Western bloc itself.
As we moved into the 2000s social policy shifted slightly, towards a policy of mixité sociale—the theory that concentrated poverty in the grands ensembles (that were mostly old and falling into degradation) was itself the driver of social dysfunction—so redesigning the physical fabric (demolishing towers, diversifying housing tenures, reconnecting neighbourhoods to the city) would resolve it. To this end, the Agence Nationale pour la Rénovation Urbaine (ANRU) was launched investing roughly €48 billion into hundreds of neighbourhoods. It was the largest construction project of the century in France—an ambitious plan to demolish 200,000 homes, build 200,000 new ones, and upgrade a further 200,000, all within roughly five years.
Social Fracture
In 2005 the death of two teenagers Zyed Benna (17) and Bouna Traoré (15) sent shockwaves across France’s urban centers. The two who died by electrocution after being chased into a substation by police struck a chord with youth, sick of police harassment in these neighbourhoods. Riots spread across the country on an unprecedented level across 300 towns and cities and continued for three weeks. A state of emergency was declared — notably, the first on mainland France since the Algerian War. Curfews were declared in the popular neighbourhoods and tens of thousands of police deployed with thousands of arrests following. For the state, having invested in these neighbourhoods since the 1980s, this was a moment to take stock—and it became the justification for a shift in framing: the problem was no longer a lack of investment, but criminality. This, combined with the international context of the post 9/11 world which focused on security risks and radicalization, marked the period in which security concerns began to supplant social integration as the dominant framework. This shift was embodied by Nicolas Sarkozy—then Interior Minister, soon to become president—who became associated with a much tougher rhetoric on the banlieues, as public discourse turned toward delinquency, the expansion of policing and surveillance, and tougher rhetoric on communautarisme[1].
This increasing use of the term communautarisme to refer to a distinct social bloc, seen as holding different values, in tension with mainstream French society was reinforced by the 2015-2017 terrorist attacks and the declaration of a state of emergency that followed. Focus was put on anti-radicalisation centres and republican-values programmes, which of course were not optional. communautarisme had now shifted from being merely in tension with French society to posing an imminent threat to it: the logic was if these populations could not integrate, they would have to be made to assimilate. From this point on, the state of emergency became a permanent reality. After successive renewals, its surveillance and control powers were folded into ordinary law with the passage of the SILT(Strengthening Internal Security and the Fight Against Terrorism) law. The past decade alone has seen a marked acceleration: since 2015, at least ten new laws on anti-terrorism and interior security have expanded the state’s powers over so-called ‘suspects’—in practice, ordinary citizens.
State of emergency becomes permanent
After the point-blank shooting of Nahel Merzouk in 2023, riots once again erupted across France’s urban centres—shorter than 2005, but considerably more explosive. As appeals from family, mosques, and community leaders within these youths’ own communities fell on deaf ears, it became evident that, for all the state’s talk of communautarisme, with regard to its influence on the youth, reality undercut this logic entirely. So the riots were framed as unfolding in a ‘political void’. In reality the political nature of them is significant: Though lasting a third as long, the 2023 riots caused nearly seven times more damage to public property than those of 2005. 273 police stations were targeted—a sharp increase—and some were firebombed with Molotov cocktails. Local government buildings were also targeted in far greater numbers, with 684 cases of elected representatives being targeted, sometimes at their private residences — itself a genuinely new phenomenon. If 2005 was an initial outburst against the immediate conditions of the neighbourhood—directed overwhelmingly at local infrastructure itself (schools, cars, buses, public buildings)—2023 shows something closer to an evolution: an attempt to trace these problems to their root, moving outward to target the institutions of the state directly responsible (mayors’ homes,local government buildings, police stations). While the underlying reasons for the 2005 riots; degradation and police violence in popular neighbourhoods etc. stayed the same, a few factors had compounded and heightened them: the constant suffocating presence of the state in daily life, not only from the increased powers of the state which we spoke of previously, but also during the years of COVID restrictions. We were living in the wake of the social upheaval of the George Floyd revolt which had ignited in part due to the material reality that made starkly visible the class divisions in society. This was equally felt in France; while emergency procedures were put in place, those who had the means retreated to their villas in the countryside and protected themselves. The urban proletariat however, had no other options than to continue to go on crowded public transport and expose themselves at work, or be confined to 70 m² with their children climbing up the walls. These class differences for certain, meant literally the difference of life and death and these youths could sense it. Three years on, the response to this social fracture is evidently different to previous eras of social integration, no big new social model of how to resolve these problems has been proposed. In contrast, more repressive measures have been introduced, exposing families to legal consequences for the actions of their children. Equally telling is another ‘solution’: the expansion of the Quartiers de Reconquête Républicaine—a fittingly, almost colonial, description of this new era’s view of popular neighbourhoods, one in which certain neighbourhoods are cast as existing outside the Republic and its values, to be reconquered by force. And with this title comes the predictable heightening of repression with permanent police reinforcements being attributed. And, soon with a licence to kill thanks to the new permis de tuer law.
The popular neighbourhoods – the origin of the internal enemy
We have examined the exponential militarisation of daily civic life in France in the past few decades with the state of emergency being permanently enshrined in ordinary law. A brief look at the statistics suffices to show the results: Lethal police shootings have risen sharply since the 2017 ‘sécurité publique’ law, which erased the old distinction between the gendarmerie’s broader, military-status ‘use of arms’ framework and the police nationale‘s stricter self-defence-only rule—placing both under the same regime. 55 deaths were recorded in 2024 alone, the highest figure in over half a century. Police-violence cases have likewise risen over the past decade while simultaneously the investigations into such cases by the IGPN have dropped significantly with 90% of them being delegated to local cellules déontologie often run by the accused officers’ own superiors. The result is that the clearance rate for police-violence cases has been falling and police impunity is growing. Incarceration numbers have also reached a record high with around 88,000 detainees as of summer of 2026 and an overcrowding rate of 140%. Like any state, it justifies its escalating repression of those already deemed ‘criminals’ as a means of protecting its citizens. Yet in a striking hypocrisy, it is simultaneously narrowing the democratic space in which its citizens can act—rendering more and more of them criminals, even for something as simple as speaking out against the war in Gaza.
Reduction of democratic space – especially for some
For mainstream France, the reduction of democratic space became strikingly visible with the use of Article 49.3 to force through pension reforms, in open disregard of democratic consensus. For the ‘other France’ that of the banlieue and working-class neighborhoods this reality had already been a tangible fact for a long time. Daily life had already confirmed that one law applies here and another to the rest of the population. For many, this was compounded by the banning of Palestinian solidarity protests and the violence used to repress them—producing the sense that they can have their protests, but we cannot have ours. We have also seen a rise in the banning of organisations—used disproportionately against Muslim and Palestinian associations. It should be noted that political parties themselves can be, and have been, dissolved under Article L212-1 of the Internal Security Code, most recently Civitas in 2023. To put this in perspective: in the US and UK, such a measure would be deemed unconstitutional or anti-democratic. Add to this the fact that many elected representatives like Rima Hassan have been accused of apologie du terrorisme (publicly defending or justifying acts of terrorism) and we can really start to see this attack on democratic space.
Next comes the wave of apologie du terrorisme charges deployed against French Muslims and pro-Palestinian activists. Interestingly, this offence originated in press law before being folded into criminal law—and today, in France, the so-called home of ‘freedom of expression,’ it serves precisely to curtail that liberty for a portion of the population that dares to see themselves and their struggles reflected in the struggles of the Palestinian people, or so goes the cries of the neighborhood ‘here is Gaza!’.
Assignation à résidence, like similar laws we have looked at, was converted from an emergency-only power into a permanent, ordinary-law tool in 2017. It is a measure that has been used against activists (e.g., COP21). It is ordered by the executive branch, not a judge, and it confines the person to a defined geographic perimeter—based not on conviction, but on mere suspicion of future danger. Meanwhile the propositionde loi Retailleau is another example of the expansion of state powers. It would allow for the freezing of an individual’s or organization’s funds and economic resources to be expanded far beyond the current requirement of ‘acts of terrorism’. Notably they would be able to do this with no prior criminal conviction required, and no judge involved beforehand.
Having examined the state’s accelerating tendency to grant itself ever more repressive legal powers—alongside a corresponding erosion of the democratic space in which the population can legally act—it is worth underlining a theme running through these laws: their deliberate vagueness.
It is important to understand this vagueness and why it’s important. Most left-wing analysis stops there: the absence of a precise legal definition of apologie du terrorisme for example results in the criminalisation of ordinary citizens. But we cannot permit ourselves to settle for this bourgeois reading of legality, with the presumption that the law applies equally to all. We know we live in a class-based system where repressive measures and reduction of democratic space are disproportionately used against the popular neighbourhoods and the working class. We know that apologie du terrorisme will be used against members of our class – like two of the members of our editorial team who had their apartment stormed at 6 am simply for speaking out about Palestine – but will never be used against the ruling class that funds and promotes the genocide there. So when we speak of the reduction of democratic space, it is not equally shared. For residents of the working-class neighborhoods, who already know what it is to be treated as second-class citizens in the eyes of the law, one would assume this would come as no surprise. However—while it’s true that they have lived through endless exceptional measures (curfews, restrictions on movement, constant stop-and-searches) applied collectively to their locality—one might rationalize this precisely because of its collective nature: after all, everyone is aware of the drug networks and criminality operating in these run-down areas. It is an entirely different story when the brightest and most upstanding individuals from these neighborhoods—those most civically and politically engaged, despite coming from a world abandoned by politicians—are specifically targeted for the sole fact of having dared to raise their heads and organize. This creates a ripple effect of politicisation throughout the surrounding community.
Fascisation
We have witnessed the reign of terror of ICE in the popular neighborhoods in the US, the shootings, abduction of children and the torture and inhumane conditions in the detention facilities.
There in the US like other Western imperialist nations the search for the internal enemy in the context of heightened global tensions has accelerated with the increase of the powers of the state and reduction of democratic space that go with it.
In the multitude of measures taken to repress popular neighborhoods a higher emphasis on immigration status has been used due to the composition of class influenced by the historical model of fluctuating temporary migration.
In comparison France has predominantly had a settled, family-based migration from its ex-colonies, (Maghreb and West Africa), where nationality is now predominant. The tool used therefore becomes more about creating a two-tier citizenship, where in theory the legal framework guarantees equality, but in practice due to the institutional Islamophobia and repression of the popular neighborhoods and the Palestinian cause nothing could be further from the truth.
It would however be an error to look upon the growing fascism, spectacle of violent repression and incendiary declarations of Trump and see ourselves as better off in France as we have managed to create a united front in order to keep the Rassemblement National out of power.
On the one hand we have a state that has openly declared war on our class. On the other hand, a technocratic government that wastes no breath on inflammatory remarks and spectacles of force, but instead moves quietly beneath the surface, spinning an insidious legal web in attempts to prevent us from stepping out of a forever approaching line. When we speak about fascisation this is a major element.
A second element is social conformity, this distinguishes itself from historical fascism which had mass participation ( rallies cultural groups and the mass party) at its center. Today in contrast the mass element is one of social conformity, which is passive rather than active. Contributing to this climate is the influence of capital-controlled media, whose role has become so evident it seems almost commonplace to say it. Yet its apparent banality does not lessen its function: in the post-truth era, amid a flood of contradictory information, it creates doubt and confusion, eroding not only trust in the state but also the very possibility of objective understanding ( and hence unity of collective action).
’Unity’ according to the capital-controlled media therefore can only be unity in the negative. That is to say for example the nation state against a common enemy in contrast to the class for a common programme. The common enemy today is no longer adversary nation states but the faceless terrorist irrational, unpredictable and inhuman. Onto this void of definition, on an individual level one can project what one wants. It is here that we can observe a second function of the ambiguity, and therefore double-standard embedded within these repressive laws. In the current climate of crisis and austerity in France, they serve to signal to a declining middle class that it is safer to keep one’s head down and be content with their diminishing status quo that can only be guaranteed by actively distancing themselves from the ‘dangerous class’ and their struggles. Parallelly, for those who have already joined their ranks, often less accustomed to the daily repression experienced by those who occupy such a position, the perceived arbitrariness in the application of these laws, combined with the almost inconceivable vastness of the exceptional powers that can be deployed against them, serves to destabilize and disorientate, throwing fear and panic into their ranks. On the contrary, as militant communists we know that, when confronted with the need for meaningful political action in the interests of our class —action that strikes at the heart of the very foundations of the imperialist state—the only way to guarantee ourselves against repression is to do nothing at all.
Western imperialist decline – the beast becomes more desperate
We have examined how, in a certain sense, France has turned the machinery of war inward—producing domestic securitization and democratic backsliding that echo the broader fascisation and preventive counter-revolutionary measures witnessed across the West as a whole.
If we wish to avoid the blind spots in political analysis of France’s situation—not only inherent to the left but running through the whole of French society—we must take off the blinkers of seeking the reasons for France’s internal crisis by looking only at the internal, and instead diagnose the organ in relation to the organism as a whole, that is to say, to be able to link the internal and the external with and gain a holistic perspective.
As we begin to peel back the layers, we start to see that it’s structured like a Russian doll: we must consider France’s relationship with its ex-colonies, its place within the EU, Europe’s place within the western imperial bloc and the West’s placement within the world order.
Firstly and most evidently we can see clearly France’s loss of influence in West Africa with the rise of the AES and the permeating influence they’ve established in the region. To this we can add the tensions with Algeria, which has felt this shift in the balance of power and reacted by asserting itself more forcefully. Likewise, the tensions that have been flaring up in New Caledonia are a further example of the discontent simmering below the surface in France’s overseas territories.
Secondly, France’s standing as one of the EU’s two leading poles, alongside Germany, is slipping. It lost fiscal credibility with a deficit that is nearly double the EU imposed ceiling of 3% of GDP. While Germany has not been sheltered from crisis, it has weathered it better than France, emerging as the stronger of the two—visible in how it is slowly undertaking its largest rearmament since time since World War II, and in von der Leyen, the German choice, sitting at the head of the European Commission.
Thirdly, looking further afield, if we locate France as a central power within the EU—from there we need to examine the EU’s standing within the wider Western imperialist bloc. This has been felt in many ways: from the US downgrading European security as a priority and pushing the EU to stand on its own two feet regarding its own defence, to the tariffs imposed on the EU by the US, and the diplomatic shifts between the two blocs.
Finally, the Western imperialist bloc itself is in decline, with its center—the US — is lashing out in desperate attempts to cling on to its position as central power, something which is continually slipping as it loses hegemony to China.
Looking at this ensemble, we are able to locate this encroachment on democratic space and repression in the interior—felt not only in France but across these different spheres—as symptoms. For, like a body that senses it has come under attack from an external virus, it responds internally in an attempt to purge itself of the perceived intruder, and in doing so begins to damage the very cells of which it is composed. These attacks have become more regular and more acute because western Imperialism is in a position of weakness, it is no longer the eclipse of the sun where for a moment the economy is briefly plunged into darkness of a crisis like in the past, but rather as we have seen, multiple planetary alignment. Its weakness uncovers the veil of bourgeois democracy and clarifies to all the brutality lying beneath.
They know the material factors are starting to align against them; for the decay of their dying order has left dry kindling piled high. All it would take is the lively fire of subjective agency to ignite it, and they would face a very dangerous situation indeed. We must however be prepared; although the beast may be weak it will not fall on its own accord. I can be very dangerous indeed during its period of decline as in its deranged state it lashes out. Senile as it may well be, it still controls the press and the legal system, and holds a monopoly on state violence among its vast arsenal. It is here that we must learn the true sense of internationalism not in symbolic gestures, when we are able to not just realise but put into practice that our liberty here depends on their liberty there and our coordinated effort realises the nightmare of our adversaries as the interior and the exterior come up against them, from the heart of the imperialist metropolis to the new pulse of continents that has awoken to rising up against their senile masters.
To prepare ourselves we must root ourselves in the legacy of the real attempts at socialism and internationalism. For the biggest lie our generation has told itself is that we need to start our own fire from scratch, rather than carry the torch that was lit long before us.
[1] A pejorative term in France for a minority community said to place its own identity and norms above those of the Republic. ie. those who resist assimilation.
Written by Supernova
