Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

Macron steps up his war on identity politics

LUDOVIC MARIN/AFP via Getty Images

The lifestyle magazine Elle is best known for its beauty tips, fashion recommendations and recipe ideas but the latest issue in France contains what could be one of the more significant political statements this year.

In an interview with Emmanuel Macron, the publication asked what he thought of ‘identity politics’. His response was robust, a welcome change to the frequent cowardice of other Western leaders when confronted with the aggressiveness of this movement. ‘I see a society that is progressively racialising itself,’ said the French president, adding that ‘the logic of intersectionality fractures everything.’

It’s not the first time that Macron has waded into the culture war. In June last year he was an exception among Western leaders at the height of the Black Lives Matter protests in unequivocally stating in a television address that ‘the Republic will not erase any trace, or any name, from its history… it will not take down any statue.’

Then in the autumn he incurred the wrath of much of the Islamic world in launching a staunch defence of the Enlightenment principles after a schoolteacher in France had been beheaded by an Islamist for showing a caricature of the Prophet in class. Regrettably, Macron’s words were greeted with a stony silence from many of his British and European counterparts, reinforcing the impression that Macron is waging a lone war against Islamists and identitarians.

His latest input will earn him more respect among those who worry where identity politics is leading the West. ‘I am on the side of the universalist,’ Macron told Elle. ‘I don’t recognise myself in a fight which sends each individual into his identity or his own specific characteristic.’

In particular, explained the president, he had no time for the iniquitous concept of ‘white privilege’ so beloved amongst identitarians in America and Britain.

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