I recently finished reading the French novel Submission by Michel Houellebecq, and found the turning point of that novel quite interesting. In the 2022 French Presidential election, the Muslim Brotherhood lead by a charismatic moderate Islamist Mohammed Ben Abbes edges just in front of Manuel Valls of the Socialist Party into second place. Marine Le Pen's National Front gains first place. The second round runoff is now between a moderate Islamist party and a moderate nativist party, and after exhaustive negotiations the centre left and centre right fall in behind the Brotherhood in a "republican coalition" against Le Pen's National Front.
The Muslim Brotherhood are moderate Islamists who want to see a return to patriarchal values and spirituality. They don't want to convert or kill the inifdels and they don't want them to pay jizya. They hold Salafists in contempt. They're strong on law and order and seem able to stop both common crime and terrorism given their social power in the "ghettos". They also have grand plans for a reorientation and rejuvenation of Europe and their Gulf sponsors will bring in billions in investments. They see a society built around family and social welfare in line with zakat. They do however want a degree of Islamisation. Halal food everywhere, smoking restricted, alcohol heavily restricted, Islamic values in schools and even state funded Muslim education. They also want to reassert patriarchal gender roles. Women would be barred from certain professions, and certain degrees in university. Polygamy would be legalised and encouraged, immodest dress would be restricted and men would have more rights in the home and marriage legalised for girls as young as fifteen.
The National Front are far right nativists who want to see a return to cultural if not ethnic nationalism, in this election they draw heavily on the nationalist-secularist legacy of the French revolution, draping themselves in the tricolour. They don't want to send people to death camps, they probably won't send all the Muslims home. They too are strong on law and order and will probably seek to ramp up the police state and the military to crack down on internal enemies such as the MB, expect heavily patrolled "ghettos" and mass incarcerations. Borders will be heavily policed, non-citizens will be rounded up and forced out of the country. They want to leave Europe and re-establish France as a fully sovereign state in its own right, isolated to a degree from what they see as a dying Europe. They are traditionalist on social values, but nowhere near the extent MB is. They want a very much secular society that will probably crack down on external displays of Christianity as well as Islam in the interest of seeming even handed. They want a de-Islamisation of society. Accommodations to Muslims like Halal food in schools, prayer rooms etc. will likely be banned. On the issue of women's rights the National Front will not be feminists, but they will be nowhere near as patriarchal as the MB, they have a female leader after all. Expect no great changes here.
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My question? Who would you vote for in the second round? For rightists the choice may seem simple. Many of you already support the National Front or its equivalent party in your own country. For others, the shift, given the circumstances, would be easy. But for ultra reactionaries, a few of you apparently existing on NSG, surely MB policies wouldn't be the worst thing in the world? Of course it's not your team doing it, but you seem to have a lot of common ground.
But my question is more aimed at leftists, who despise groups like the National Front but are also typically very secular minded. If you had a gun to your head, if you could not spoil your vote or abstain, which would be the natural first choice for most of us, what would you do? Which devil would you choose? Gun to my head, I would pick the National Front myself.
