Brigitte Gazel – TROLL OF THE MONTH

The Troll of the Month is an incident we choose every month to expose racist and anti-religious haters and to show positive outcomes in the fight against intolerance in Europe.

©Capture d’écran France 3

During the annual congress of the National Rally party held in July, a NR candidate for the departmental elections in Haute-Garonne, Brigitte Gazel, said that a terrorist attack can be beneficial for Marine Le Pen's candidature for the presidential elections in 2022. "Between now and the presidential election, there will be many attacks," Gazel said to publication Le Parisien. The party has said they are looking into the case.

The statement by Gazel is troubling on several fronts. Firstly, it seems to be some call to, or at the very least an invitation to violence. Reacting to the case, Green Party MEP David Cormand said: "It is not the first time. The far right theorized that chaos was profitable for it. She speculates on Islamic terrorism and, from this point of view, shares their objectives. Both have an interest in a 'terrorized', brutalized, fragmented France.”

Moreover, Gazel’s statement seems to target the Muslim community in France indirectly through her words. The NR party is known for the anti-Muslims and anti-immigration stance, and so this comes as no surprise. Le Pen in the past has called for the “de-Islamisation” of French society, playing into the common far-right trope of Islamisation. At the annual congress, Marine Le Pen was re-elected as the leader of the far-right NR party.

With the French elections coming up in 2022, many are expecting heightened tensions around topics like immigration and religion in the country. Within the project we will continue to monitor and expose serious incidents like this one.