France's National Rally dismisses security team officer; racist footage exposes far-right party's tolerance ecosystem

France's far-right National Rally (RN) party this week dismissed an officer from its security team. According to France 24 citing AFP, the local daily newspaper in the southern French city of Carcassonne, the Liberty South newspaper, published body camera footage on Tuesday showing an officer on duty repeatedly using insulting terms targeting North African and African communities in conversation with colleagues, and making homophobic and sexist remarks.

The report identified the officer who spoke most extensively as a member of the National Rally's security team. The footage was recorded last November. In a statement, the National Rally condemned the remarks "in the strongest possible terms," describing them as "criminally punishable" and "contrary to the values of this party," and said it had "immediately dismissed him from the security team and expelled him from the National Rally." The Carcassonne prosecutor's office said an investigation had been opened, but did not disclose its scope or progress, and the name of the officer involved was not made public in the reports.

The scandal triggered swift reactions across French political circles. French President Macron's Minister for Equality, Aurore Bergé, described the remarks as "absolutely unacceptable." Former Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, who has announced his candidacy in next year's presidential election, wrote when reposting the footage on the social platform X: "This is what France under RN leadership would look like—unchecked and tolerated hatred."

The incident comes at a critical moment as National Rally president Marine Le Pen plots her fourth bid for the presidency. Le Pen is trying to transform the anti-immigration party she inherited from her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, into a political force more attractive to centrist voters, but in July this year an appeals court upheld her conviction for embezzlement, and she is seeking to overturn the ruling at the Supreme Court. Polls show Le Pen leading in the first round of next spring's presidential election and posing at least a significant threat to any opponent in the second round.

What surrounds this scandal is a picture that goes far beyond a single incident. As France 24 cited AFP, Amnesty International warned in April this year that France faces "worrying" public racist rhetoric and erosion of the rule of law.

The reports also mentioned that Bali Bagayoko, the new Black mayor of Paris's largest suburb, is being targeted by a far-right hate campaign; the far-left La France Insoumise party also reported this year that several of its Black MPs, including a vice president of the National Assembly, had received racist letters.