Julien Rochedy, 32, is a former rising star in French politics. As a member of the Front National (FN), the young Ardéchois achieved his highest responsibilities when he became Marine Le Pen's political advisor for the 2012 presidential campaign, and then became head of the FN youth wing the same year. However, the ideological evolution of Marine Le Pen and the party gradually disgusted him - as he explains in a long-form video posted on his YouTube channel. So, in 2014, Julien Rochedy gave up all political involvement.
Today, he's fully committed to metapolitics, where, he says, the battle is fought on the terrain of ideas. To this end, he publishes books, gives lectures and posts videos on the Internet. It was on the internet, without knowing anything about his political commitment, that I discovered Julien Rochedy before asking him for an interview.
Le Regard Libre: In 2014, you left the Front National to throw yourself exclusively into metapolitical combat. Why did you make this choice?
Julien Rochedy: I got into politics quite young, and I didn't want to become just a politician. Politics is a world that's hard to get out of once you're in: you enter it with ideals and passion, and generally lose them after a few years. But you can't leave it just because you're making money. Today, I even think that most politicians don't particularly like what they do, but are forced into it, sucked in by their milieu. I don't think tomorrow's world will necessarily be structured by politics. Politics is no more than a cash register for the great cultural and social movements taking place in Europe and the West. It is now society that prevails. Consequently, to have power over what will happen tomorrow, we need to acquire what we call «influence». Influence on youth, on intellectuals, on the ruling classes. Influence that's acquired more through the battle of ideas than through pure «party politics».
You used to be an influential member of the Front National, but you no longer recognize yourself in the sovereignist political line adopted by Marine Le Pen. Nevertheless, there is a rather liberal-conservative line within the party, in the wake of Marion Maréchal. Do you identify with this line?
Yes, that's one of the reasons why I left the Front National. Marine Le Pen has chosen a strictly sovereignist-populist stance, whereas - if I absolutely had to be given a label, which is necessarily reductive - I'm actually closer to the liberal-conservatives.
What is a liberal-conservative right?
Let's just say that, as far as France is concerned, it's a right-wing that is first and foremost aware of the problems of identity - the most serious we have to face. It's a right that focuses on our civilizational roots, while considering the necessary reduction of taxes and social charges that weigh terribly on French economic players - particularly our small businesses, workers and craftsmen. I feel close to these ideas. I think it's the best thing we can do right now. Before promising that French society will be much better off once we've changed the world and Europe, we need to sort out the Franco-French problems linked to our omnipotent state and our very leftist culture. Of course, at the same time, we can try to breathe new life into Europe, but we can't blame the European Union for all our problems - which is what sovereigntists tend to do all the time. It's not only demagogic, it's also wrong.
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You talk a lot about identity. Is that what completes the Liberal-Conservative label, which you consider simplistic?
Yes, the intellectual framework of liberal-conservatism as I see it is a rather national one, requiring a homogeneous civilizational context. Free enterprise works to the extent that people are able to regulate themselves morally, without being dependent on laws and regulations emanating from a state, because they derive these rules from themselves and from community organization. One model of this liberal-conservatism is America, at least in parts of it, where people are free but «the church is in the middle of the village» - that is, there is effective community regulation. Without it, liberalism loses all its moral brakes and enters a negative process. This is known as «libertarian liberalism» or «progressive liberalism». Consequently, because liberalism needs to be built on a coherent foundation in order to function, liberal-conservatism must necessarily incorporate a certain dose of ’identitarianism«.
Speaking of conservatism, you often criticize the traditional conservative right - the right of the Figaro for example - which attracts a significant share of public opinion. Why this criticism? After all, identity-related themes have been very much in evidence for several years now.
I criticize traditional conservatism for its «pusillanism» and lack of courage. It's a right-wing movement that doesn't dare draw the full consequences of its thinking. It often lags behind in its reasoning, and is so keen to be seen to be right by the progressive elites that it is ultimately afraid of its own name. As soon as she puts forward a slightly radical idea, she immediately backtracks, to avoid being branded an extremist. And it is precisely this fear that gives power to the left, who delight in hurling anathemas at the right, rendering it ineffective. What I criticize most about conservatism is that it doesn't dare to face the left head-on, not assuming what it is: a right that can learn from counter-revolution, anti-modernism and the English «Burkean» tradition. Out of fear, this right dares not enter the ideological battlefield with all the ammunition it possesses.
On the ideological level, you say you're fighting nihilism - obviously using the vocabulary of Nietzsche, on whom you've written a book: Nietzsche today. What do you mean by this?
We often speak of «systemic racism» to describe Western society; I speak of «systemic nihilism». This nihilism is embodied in the West's conscious or unconscious desire for self-suppression. Nihilism is the desire for nothingness, for nothingness within oneself - for suicide, as it were. The West and Western Europe often seem to do everything in their power to suppress themselves, to suppress what they are in their flesh, in their materiality.
Where does Nietzsche fit into this analysis?
In the 19th century, the West threw itselfth century into an entirely new adventure: that of the «death of God» - as Nietzsche called it. In this context, Nietzsche was one of the first to analyze the advent of Western nihilism. He is the philosopher who reflected on the consequences of a civilization that dispenses with God at all levels, whereas all civilizations in the world and throughout history have always believed in a divinity or religion - important to federate individuals and keep the nihilism they may have within them in check. Nietzsche analyzed what this could produce in our consciousness, in psychology. He saw that nihilism was threatening and could lead to the total ruin of European civilization, to its self-destruction. Nietzsche himself said that he would have to be read a century after his death; here we are. And that's what makes it so interesting: we're living exactly what he predicted and warned against. But if he had foreseen these things in his philosophy, we can also find elements in it that can save us.
So, beyond the passive observation, analysis and criticism of society, what battles do you think we need to «actively» wage? What is there to build?
It's a broad question. It's something I'm working on, reflecting on what could be a new ideal for European society, a new lease of life. It's clear today that the West doesn't know what to do, other than to do away with itself. Its deep crisis is the result of this lack of purpose and ideal. This is also why Western civilization has found substitutes for religion, in an attempt to keep dreaming and avoid sinking into nihilism. These were, for example, the totalitarian ideals of the twentieth century.th century, whether Communist or National Socialist. These ideals gave people something to believe in. But since the «liberal-progressive» society has won and communism is dead, people have nothing left to project themselves into the future. This can be seen in phenomena such as ecology, or rather «progressive ecology», which leads people to stop having children - a typical symptom of nihilism. It's the punk ideology: no future, because we think we are detestable and have made the world detestable. In this suicidal context, it's up to us intellectuals to look for what could give us a new ideal, restore our desire to live, to have children, to continue the destiny of our civilization.
At the heart of the decadent West, you often speak of the «postmodern individual», comparing him to the last man described in Thus spoke Zarathustra. What is this «postmodern individual»?
The postmodern individual is an individual reduced to his or her individualism. He is frighteningly naïve, believing that we are out of History, that History is no longer tragic. He focuses exclusively on his own health, and is no longer driven by a true philosophy of enjoyment, but is content with a mediocre enjoyment of well-being. This individual corresponds to the «European Buddhism» described by Nietzsche: not the great, beautiful, intelligent Buddhism of Asian civilizations, but Buddhism in the sense of mediocre thinking that concentrates on small sufferings, small virtues and small pains. We no longer do anything big, we no longer project ourselves, we only talk about love of neighbor. The post-modern individual is ultimately a Christian gone mad, to use Chesterton's phrase. He's a tiny individual who no longer dreams of much, or, as Jacques Brel put it when answering the question «qu'est-ce qu'un imbécile?», he's the one who thinks it's enough to live. In so doing, the individual goes completely mad.
Do you think this is the majority type of individual in Europe?
In the West, at least, that's the type of individual we've created. But we are in the process of witnessing the end of this post-modern individual - at the same time as its apogee - because times are once again becoming tragic. We're going to have to rediscover community, and we can hope, in our misfortune, to rediscover a certain common sense, a new lease of life for Europe.
You base much of your analysis on the thought of Nietzsche. However, you are profoundly at odds with the French tradition of «left-wing Nietzscheanism» - of which Michel Onfray is one of today's leading figures. What do you reproach him with?
Michel Onfray used to be a left-wing Nietzschean, but he's changing, as you can see. He himself told friends a year or two ago that he was only just beginning to understand Nietzsche. In other words, he had started from a relatively false Nietzschean base, which he is now questioning. As you can see from his career path, he's moving further and further away from the left-wing, progressive ideas he might have held ten or twenty years ago. I criticize so-called «left-wing» Nietzscheans for using Nietzsche to destroy the foundations of classical Western society - notably Christianity. In fact, these people use Nietzschean criticism to free themselves from a certain number of shackles they find oppressive, but which they forget that Nietzsche criticized them precisely in order to put us into even harsher, even more demanding, and totally anti-progressive shackles. So they take from Nietzsche only what suits them, without getting to the heart of the matter.
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But isn't this the same trap you face when you try to practice a kind of «right-wing Nietzscheanism»? Shouldn't we first consider Nietzsche as a poet, rather than using him for militant purposes?
Many people reduce Nietzsche to a poet, to someone who is not systematic, who contradicts himself, in order to avoid drawing all the consequences from his thought. For me, these people remain far removed from what Nietzsche really says, and I can't agree with them. I regard Nietzsche as a complete philosopher. Admittedly, he didn't dwell on producing a completely coherent system, but he did produce a work in which we find a relatively comprehensive worldview on all subjects. Nietzschean philosophy is also very useful for understanding the world we have to face. As I argued earlier, Nietzsche saw all the consequences of the new Godless era of Western civilization, which we are now coming to the end of. This is not to say that I am one hundred percent Nietzschean. I'm not saying that Nietzsche would have been at my side in all my political battles today - indeed, I try to go beyond his thinking on a number of points. I'm simply saying that there are elements in his philosophy that are absolutely essential if we are to fully understand today's world.
Write to the author: antoine.bernhard@leregardlibre.com
You have just read an interview from our METAPOLITICS folder in our print edition (Le Regard Libre N° 70).
Julien Rochedy
Nietzsche l'actuel. Introduction to Nietzschean philosophy, followed by Nietzsche and Europe
Independent publication
2020
224 pages
French 
German 
English