Green is the new brown : ecology in the metapolitics of the French far right today

Abstract: In this thesis I examine the metapolitics of the French far right, a sphere of organisations and personalities that are waging a counter-hegemonic cultural fight, thought to be a precondition to political change. In France, singularly an incubator for a green nationalist narrative, this “Gramscianism of the right” is today embodied by countless media outlets. This research, grounded in a socio-constructivist realist approach, critically investigates the trends formed within this sphere in relation to ecology, and analyses the main discourses around this topic. The results reveal a diversity of articulations to ecology, in line with the variety of trends identified in the far-right metapolitics. From remains of climate denialism to right-wing degrowth, ecology revolves around an opposition to immigration, perceived as a symbol of a wider left globalist ideology that threatens European identity at large. “Rootedness” and “localism” are described as requirements for a “true ecology”, along with the affirmation of natural limits applicable to nature but also to humans alike. Such instrumentalisations of ecology come to justify ethno-differentialist, anti-egalitarian and conservative visions of the world, feeding an identitarian and cultural racist political agenda. This research emphasises the convergence of climate and racial issues, and the urgent need for far-right ecology to be further studied through intersectional lenses.