This Friday, a rally of French supporters of Donald Trump is taking place in Paris, at the Tour Montparnasse, with special guest Mike Johnson for a special event (650 euros for the day day, 1,100 euros for the package with dinner). Johnson will share the podium with Éric Zemmour, failed neofascist Presidential candidate (7% of the vote), Nicolas Dupont-Aignan, another far right failed candidate, and Florian Philippot, once a bigwig at the Front National and a well-known Holocaust denier, who is now allied with Zemmour. Interestingly, Marie Le Pen and the other RN (ex-FN) executives declined to attend the event.
The MAGA network has for years been trying to build links with the French far right. For a long time, Steve Bannon played the intermediary, due to his proximity to Marion Maréchal, Jean-Marie Le Pen's niece and a notorious neofascist herself. In March 2018, he was received with great fanfare at the National Front congress.
But between the FN (renamed RN) and the MAGAs, the links weakened in 2020. In search of credibility in her take over of Sarkozy's right-wing Republican party, Le Pen saw herself obliged to condemn the Jan 6 events and distance herself from her previous extreme positions.
Éric Zemmour, OTOH, likes to display his connection with Trump. During the presidential election, the two men, put in contact by Randy Yaloz, an American lawyer in Paris who is the unofficial MAGA representative in France, spoke on the telephone. Yaloz is in fact the man who has organized the event.
MAGA is like a toxic weed that must be extirpated from wherever it grows.