French far right and loyalists team up for pro-rape hate message

Content warning: This article contains terms of misogynistic and racial abuse, alongside descriptions of sexual violence

The “protectors of women and children” are at it again, proving their credentials once more with a vile pro-rape message daubed on a wall in the loyalist Sandy Row area of Belfast.

The message reads:

Gisèle Pelicot
Salope
Free Dominique

‘Salope’ is a French misogynistic term of abuse that translates as ‘whore’ or ‘slut’.

The revolting vandalism targets Gisèle Pelicot, a French woman whose husband Dominique drugged and repeatedly raped her over a period of 10 years. He invited other men to the couple’s home, who also raped her while she was unconscious.

Gisèle bravely waived her right to anonymity as part of her husband’s trial. In December 2024, a French court sentenced Dominique Pelicot to 24 years in jail for his crimes.

Nearby, racist graffiti had also been sprayed. Without the asterixes, it read:

N*ggers out
P*kis fuck off

Alongside it there also appears to be a crudely drawn star and crescent with a stop sign drawn over it, indicating Islamophobic hate.

Belfast: French racists given VIP treatment in city

The racist and Islamophobic graffiti are sadly par for the course at this point, in a region where overt racism, bleeding into ethnic cleansing, is rapidly becoming the norm. In contrast, the attack on a heroic French feminist icon seems a little incongruous and inexplicable.

However, sources have told the Canary that a group of French racists have recently been given the VIP treatment by local loyalist bigots.

The Ainsworth Drive Facebook account are another group of frauds who tout their eagerness to “protect women and children”, merely as an excuse to vomit out racist, anti-migrant bile. On 9 July, they posted the following:

I have a group of French patriots/activists coming into the area over the 12th period, some are part of the Turning Point movement, the legacy Charlie Kirk left behind.

They wish to speak to local people/parents concerned about the mass enforced movement of immigration being forced into deprived working class areas like Ainsworth/Woodvale.

If anyone wishes to be interviewed, can be off camera and can academically speak well then please drop this page a private message, thank you.

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The Canary has previously covered the US-based Turning Point’s intention to make inroads in the north of Ireland. That French racists are now also drawn to the region proves a point we’ve previously made. That is, the extreme chauvinism of loyalism, like that of Zionism, is a huge lure to reactionaries the world over.

The capacity of these two twin settler-colonial ideologies to deploy violence as a means of achieving their supremacist goals also has obvious attraction to would-be ethnic cleansers.

An Ainsworth Drive post on 12 July describes the:

…good company of around 20 french [sic] patriots from Normandy and other surrounding towns in southern France.

Leaving aside the geographic impossibility of the northern French region of Normandy having surrounding towns situated in southern France, the post goes on to boast of a joint mural effort between the groups.

The weird ideology of ‘The Normal Ones’

Activists monitoring the far right identified the French group as attending the Sandy Row bonfire marking the 12 July Battle of the Boyne commemoration. They are believed to be linked to an outfit called Les Normaux, translating as ‘The Normals’ or ‘The Normal Ones’.

According to StreetPress, a French investigative team that track the far right, Les Normaux are:

…a small far-right identitarian group based in Rouen, established in the spring of 2021.

The group fixate on Norman identity specifically and hold a March of the Normans event each year, despite authorities banning it. Far-right actors from across Europe are known to attend.

StreetPress also report Les Normaux are active within “traditionalist Catholic circles”, so it would be interesting to know what they made of the torrent of sectarianism loyalists produced over the 12 July hate carnival.

The French group has previous in terms of hatred directed at women, with StreetPress saying in June 2021 the group:

…disrupted a lecture by elected official Alice Coffin, directing misogynistic remarks at her.

The foolishness of identitarian politics

Many of the group members have taken down their social media accounts since news of the Sandy Row graffiti emerged. However, sources who spoke to the Canary got a look at some of them beforehand.

They told us many previously displayed an enthusiasm for Irish republicanism, presumably mistakenly believing it would embrace the prejudices often found in nationalist ideologies elsewhere. That is rarely the case in republican circles, so the racists seemingly switched to loyalism.

That absurd trajectory, of stumbling hopelessly around for some purist notion of identity, underscores the folly of identitarian politics more broadly.

All human culture, and the movement of peoples that form it, is a process of constant transition. Chauvinists insist on freezing time at an arbitrary point, around an arbitrary group of people, and rule that all who exist outside those bounds must be excluded.

To see the degeneracy that mode of thought produces, one need only look at what was scrawled on the walls of Sandy Row.

Featured image via the Canary

By Robert Freeman

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