I mentioned it elsewhere, and thought I should here (while other things are in the works), what I know about the French royals regarding the current presidential election which has attracted international attention due to the very dramatic changes promised by one particular candidate. There are, as most monarchists know, several different rival claimants to the French throne, the only two serious ones being HRH Henri and Count of Paris and HRH Louis Alphonse, Duke of Anjou. There is also HIH Jean-Christophe, Prince Napoleon who is the head of the Bonaparte family but is, as far as I know, is attending school at Harvard. The one who most royal houses recognize as the would-be King of France is Henri, Count of Paris, who also gains more attention since he is French and lives in France. The Count of Paris has often made his political views known but this time said that he was not going to endorse a candidate and would have nothing to do with the whole nasty business. However, not long before the first round of elections, the Count of Paris overcame his aloof attitude and announced that he supported the conservative candidate of Les Republicains, Francois Fillon. The count said that Fillon was the only one who could straighten France out. As we know, Fillon did not win and has since called on his conservative supporters to back the leftist candidate Macron simply to oppose the dangerous "far-right" candidate Marine Le Pen. So far, the Count of Paris has not said whether or not he will do as his preferred candidate wishes and back Macron. It would certainly make news in a big way if he decided Le Pen wasn't so bad after all, it would be rather radical for the famously moderate Orleans branch of the French Royal House.
With the Count of Paris backing the failed Fillon, some have asked whether the legitimiste claimant to the French throne, the Duke of Anjou, had, perhaps, endorsed Marine Le Pen. The answer is, as far as I know, a resounding negative. I have not heard of the Duke of Anjou endorsing any candidate though I could certainly see many of his supporters also supporting the cause of Marine Le Pen. As far as I know, the Duke of Anjou has never endorsed a political candidate (though he may well have and I just never heard about it, I don't hear much about him and the last time I saw him in the news was a picture of him dancing with the former President's niece Lauren Bush). That is, perhaps, not that unusual since the Duke of Anjou is of the Spanish branch of the Bourbon dynasty, was born in Spain, married a Venezuelan and has never lived in France. After marrying, he and his wife lived in Venezuela but, not surprisingly, moved on from there as things went downhill and took up residence in the United States, where they had a little 'anchor baby' before moving back to the Prince's hometown of Madrid in the Kingdom of Spain. I cannot imagine that the current or former King of Spain would be too happy about the Duke of Anjou taking a side in the controversial French election as the Spanish royals have never been happy about him claiming the Crown of France at all and do not wish to be drawn into any royal-on-royal grudge matches. Just in case anyone is worried that a potential Le Pen presidency might see the Duke of Anjou prevented from entering the country, rest assured that, because of his paternal grandmother, the Duke is a French citizen (he is also related to the late Generalissimo Francisco Franco). In any event, failing to endorse a candidate may well be standard operating procedure for the Duke of Anjou.
The Bonaparte family has actually embraced republicanism and the father of the current head of the family, Prince Charles Bonaparte, has even tried his hand at politics on the local level though I don't know what, if any, affiliation he had with a major party. However, the House of Bonaparte did make the news in this election cycle as FN candidate Marine Le Pen stated that, if elected (and odds are she won't be), her administration would return the former French Emperor Napoleon III from his place of burial in exile in England back to the soil of France. Unless a major upset happens, however, it looks as though the second Emperor of the French will continue to take his eternal rest in the land of 'Perfidious Albion' rather than his own homeland.
One thing that I can and will say for certain is that I would prefer either the Count of Paris or the Duke of Anjou as King of France rather than the bureaucrat/banker Macron being President by a country mile. As far as I'm concerned, they could dig up poor old Louis Napoleon and name his corpse 'Emperor of the French' again and I would still prefer that to President Macron. At the very least, the sight of such a thing might at least frighten a few people into staying away from the country and the sight of the Bonaparte bones might get more French people to think about how much greater and more important on the world stage their country used to be and that might make them want to leave the EU or, oh, I don't know, at least more willing to simply survive.
I don't support the Bonapartist claim, however Louis Napoleon was the third Emperor, not the second.
ReplyDeleteRight...you don't support the Bonapartist claim but you still recognize the Duke of Reichstadt as an Emperor even though he was never proclaimed, never had a regent, never claimed the title etc. Well, please yourself...
DeleteIf you consider the Bonapartes to be de facto emperors and not de jure emperors, it makes no sense to acknowledge a de jure but not de facto second emperor.
DeleteJust out of curiosity, is it possible through marriage that the Orleanist and Legitimist royals could just merge and solve everybody's problems? I think we would all love a legitimate king of France who is actually French.
ReplyDeleteIs is possible? Sure, but some people just like to be difficult. For some, it's not really about legitimacy at all but simply personal preference. Look what happened to the Carlists, the course of nature solved their dispute for them but some still refused to give it up and some (especially on the internet) persist to this day.
DeletePerhaps the Bourbons never forgive the orleans for their act of parricide two centuries ago.
DeleteYou should probably look into Jean-Frédéric Poisson, I think he might be to your liking.
ReplyDeleteAlso, just as a side note, what is your opinion on the Bourbon-Naundorffs?
I don't get why you are supporting Le Pen. She is a fascist issued from a nazi party. She poses as a catholic only to get votes from the cultural catholics (i.e those who are catholic for cultural reasons but do not believe in God). Her economic policies are destructive.
ReplyDeleteI know Macron is terrible too, but he is probably better for France. The last thing we need is a civil war on our hands.
Miss Le Pen, a fascist? She is a nationalist, a watered down one at that, but a nationalist none the less. She is certainly the best choice at the moment for president of the French Republic. The French have little time left to reclaim their indigenous homeland before it becomes a Muslim Caliphate.
DeleteYeah. Actually if you look at demographics, although the government doesn't say so, as that would be offensive, figures, the Islam percentage is increasing massively in Western Europe, but luckily Eastern Europe remembers their heritage and for example Czech doesn't allow un-regulated refugees flow and the borders to refugees are closed. When liberals see that, they think oh the horror, that it's not tolerant. But in my opinion at this rate, the iron curtain will appear again, as Western Europe will be swamped with refugees and eventually the muslims will be a majority in Western Europe, while christians will be a majority in Eastern Europe and then instead of communism, religion will divide Europe with a christian east and a muslim west, which will be so ironic compared to a thousand years ago, when it was a christian west with a pagan east
DeleteI totally agree with you Adam.
DeleteHowever Charles, as a french, I know the history of the Front National. It has been created by an old member of the "Ordre Nouveau" (Jean-Marie Le Pen, Marine's father), an openly neo-fascist group. Its members decided to found a party so they could have a political influence: the "Front National".
Marine Le Pen, during all her life, stayed true and steadfast to her father's ideology, until he managed to nearly get elected on 2002. This created so many tensions and fears in the french people that Marine, when she became president of the "Front National", she continued, although more excessively, the "dédiabolisation du FN" her father tried, without success, to do. She began rejecting all the racist, fascist and negationist arguments of her father, in order to appear less extreme and to hide her fascist ideals.
The fact is, when you look at what she is doing (she already has a list of medias to forbid when she would get to the presidency, asking their security to stop FN voters to speak to the cameras...), and at what kind of people support her, and what kind of people she supports, there is no doubt left.
Although I tend to be a hard right-winger (and a far-right candidate getting to power wouldn't concern me that much), fascism isn't my thing at all.
Anyways, I think France is fucked whatever happens. Apart if we somehow manage to restore monarchy, of course, but I highly doubt it will ever happen.
As I said in another post comment, Louis Alphonse was my classmate back in the 80's in Madrid. I don't know if he really supports any candidate of the presidential election (as a king he shouldn't) but back to his early teenage years, he was a strong supporter of the memory of his great grandfather Caudillo de España por la Gracia de Dios. You are right that maybe he is too spanish for a French king but Louis Duke of Anjou was too french for Spanish king and became Philip V of Spain in 1700, and above all he is the legitimate heir of the traditional French Monarchy and not of some pseudo revolutionary cousin.
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