Beyond the joy following Nicolas Sarkozy’s election as France’s President on May 6, 2007, the last few hours made me experience first hand the connection between (extreme) leftism and tendencies toward fascism.

A Frenchman living in London, I watched the results to France’s Presidential elections in a room packed with people leaning to the right, who supported ‘Sarko’. Even though we were very excited right after the results were announced, we remained silent and respectful throughout the speech of Segolene Royal’s, the unfortunate socialist candidate. We even applauded Dominique Strauss Kahn, a senior Parti Socialiste figure, when he called for a modernization of the French left.

Later on, one of my friends from UMP (Sarkozy’s political party) was interviewed by France 2, the French public television. Behind him, a group of leftists started screaming “Sarko facho”, i.e. “Sarkozy fascist”, which quickly ruined the interview and brought it to an end. After that, we went to talk to them to understand their viewpoint, but they merely insulted us and accused us. They kept asking “Where do you live?” According to them, living in a posh or even normal neighborhood disqualified you and your ideas. The fact that most of us didn’t – I for example was raised in one of France’s ‘banlieues’ (i.e. lower class suburbs) –.was irrelevant.

As we went to an English pub, we came across some bitter socialists who could not spare disparaging gratuitous comments.

In the pub, as were celebrating joyfully, a fellow party member tells me that I should go and discuss politics with a young girl, early twenties, who does not share our opinions. He proposes to introduce her to me. Always open to debate, I accept wholeheartedly. She was talking politics with a guy at the time. My friend cordially introduces me and proposes that I join the discussion. She immediately gets very defensive, starts questioning his motives, and rejects him thoroughly. She talks to him as she would talk to one of her buddies, even though he was a middle aged respectable man. As two of the girl’s friends join us, I ask them in a friendly manner if they share the same opinions – which is a quite natural way to start a conversation on an election night. They get very annoyed, aggressively ask me why I should assume that. I don’t see the point of arguing in this way, so I cut the conversation short. Simultaneously, the young girl is joined by some of her friends, who start being very aggressive at the man who originally merely tried to introduce me. Obviously shocked by their behavior, their tone of voice, and their words, he makes a derogatory comment about them. Posing as victims, they now openly insult him. As he starts to respond, our friends have to intervene and tell him to back off.

This was instructive. Lots of people on the left will refuse to debate ideas, instead questioning our intentions, our personal interests, our kindness. Often loathing rightwing people, they will resort to bullying tactics and behavior. At this juncture, you have three options. Ignore them; appease them; join the fray (i.e. an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth). But a real discussion is too often impossible.

At the end of the night, as everyone goes home, people remove the stickers they had put on their shirts and t-shirts: “It would be dangerous, I could get mugged.” I ask them if someone carrying the equivalent Parti Socialiste sticker would have to be as careful: “Obviously not”. (PS: I later heard that gangs of angry leftists patrolled the streets of large French cities this night, beating up anyone whose preference for Sarkozy was apparent. These events were not reported in the mainstream media. Imagine the outcry if the opposite had happened.)

As I returned home after what was on the whole a very pleasant evening, I realized that the left constantly labels the right fascist, but real fascism, real suppression of political discourse, real suppression of dissenting voices, real intimidation, currently emanates primarily from the left. We truly live in an Orwellian world.