Introducing Pepe Le Pen, the Face of the French ‘Alt-Right’
Image by Reddit
By Sam Kestenbaum December 16, 2016
In the hours after Donald Trump’s victory in the presidential elections, bloggers on the white nationalist “alt-right” were exuberant. Their hours of trolling on Twitter for The Donald had paid off. The flood of amateurish viral images — where they recast Trump as a white crusader or a dark Emperor in Star Wars or the smirking anti-Semitic Pepe the Frog — had real power. The message flew around on chat-rooms: “We memed a president into office.”
Now the alt-right wants to launch a similar campaign for another far-right candidate who they see as an ally in their vision of global revolution — Marine Le Pen.
Days after Trump’s win, a Reddit thread dedicated to France’s far-right National Front party leader Le Pen filled with memes. Users recast Le Pen as a green-skinned amphibian in the style of Pepe the Frog. “I understand you require memes,” a user named globalism_sux wrote. “I bring you Pepe Le Pen.”
One commenter wrote: “A meme has been born.”
Some commenters weren’t sure how to dub their new Frog-Le Pen. One user named normieman suggested “LePepe,” and another, SeanSeanstonIreland, suggested: “Le Penpe.”
Email Sam Kestenbaum at [email protected]
A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.
If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
