France is rich in pauvres.
Jérôme Leroy, La petite fasciste, Manufacture, 2025.
France is this rich country full of poor people.
La petite fasciste Jérôme Leroy's novel explores the ideological conditioning, social determinism, and personal emancipation of the protagonist, Francesca Crommelynck. It portrays a young woman growing up in a far-right environment who initially identifies with its ideology before personal experiences and losses lead her into a process of critical reflection. In a sense, it can La petite fasciste It can be read as a deconstruction of extremist thought patterns. The novel paints a bleak picture of a polarized France where social tensions, political radicalization, and cultural conflicts are escalating. Leroy describes a society characterized by latent violence and ideological struggles. Thus, it joins the ranks of... La petite fasciste into the literary work of the author, who in works such as The block It addresses similar themes. In particular, the entanglement of extremism, power, and personal fate is a recurring motif. Genre-wise, the novel moves between political novel, coming-of-age story, and social drama. The mixture of realistic milieu studies and philosophical reflections gives the work a hybrid structure that is typical of Leroy's style.
The novel opens with a dark scene that immediately establishes an atmosphere of menace. Contract killer Victor Serge enters a villa in Fort Mahon, where he is to carry out a bloody mission. But a mistake leads to a massacre, setting in motion the political intrigues of the story. In parallel, the youth of Francesca Crommelynck is reconstructed. She grows up in a nationalist environment, influenced by her brother Nils and her father. Her first encounters with the extreme right are marked by admiration for her brother, but also by underlying doubts.
The choice of Fort-Mahon as the setting is no accident: the town on the French coast symbolizes the fragile boundary between tranquility and chaos, between idyllic holiday scenery and violent reality. The heat described in the scene intensifies the feeling of oppression and inevitability. Victor Serge is portrayed as a seasoned but increasingly nervous contract killer. He is a pragmatist who views his profession as a cold-blooded necessity. Yet, in this scene, cracks appear in his professional facade: he feels uneasy, senses the chaos in France, and realizes that the structures he has relied on are crumbling. His plans to flee to Portugal suggest that he himself no longer believes in a long-term future in this environment.
The scene takes a dramatic turn when Victor Serge enters the wrong house and finds himself in the middle of a party full of young people. This moment is a stark contrast: instead of a high-ranking politician or official, Victor encounters a group of celebrating youths, unknowingly stumbling to their deaths. The grotesque and surreal quality of this scene recalls the absurdity and arbitrariness of political violence, a theme Leroy explores throughout the novel. The opening scene of La petite fasciste The film brings to life central themes of the novel: the unpredictability of political violence, the moral ambiguity of the actors, and the erosion of ideological certainties. Jérôme Leroy employs a precise, almost cinematic narrative style to depict a world in which violence takes on a life of its own and develops its own logic. Through the mistaken identity of the house and the resulting massacre, the film demonstrates that political intrigues can have unforeseen consequences that extend far beyond the intentions of those involved.
The child is in a young woman with très longs, who is recroquevillée in a coin in the fœtale position, but she has little attention in her son's abondance capillaire comme si cela pouvait la protector. C'est Laura Saline, vingt-quatre ans, collègue d'Océane Bellanger à l'école primaire Marceau-Pivert de Rouen. Elle ne saura jamais que son roman, Les Fillettes contradictoires, qu'elle a envoyé au printemps dernier chez différents éditeurs, vient d'être accepté et qu'un mail qu'elle ne lira pas arriverara demain sur son smartphone.
Les Fillettes contradictoires, malgré leur aspect expérimental et leurs 1 200 pages, seront an immense success in librairie, contemporary de l'effondrement de notre République. It is difficult to understand the reasons for success – a prize for Goncourt posthumous, a quarantine of translations, two adaptations of cinema, a Spanish and an Italian, the French cinema industry is retrofitted as soon as possible chute de notre République.
Est-ce the destin tragedy de l'autrice, victime fauchée dans ce les chains infos appelleront "la tuterie de Fort-Mahon" et dont on devait découvrir assez vite qu'il s'agissait d'un dégât collatéral de l'affaire Bonneval, this Laura Saline, surnaturellement belle, unanimement pleurée sauf par CNews qui s'interrogea sur la décadence de l'Éducation Nationale composée de drogués partouzeurs qui n'étaient pas pour rien dans la nécessité de l'ordre nouveau qui succéda à notre République.
Est-ce part que ce roman, pourtant difficile d'accès, parut au moment où tout s'effondrait autour de nous et que l'aspect lyric et prophétique, pornographique et utopique des Contradictory fillets Fit écho, malgré son abord Ardu, à l'angoisse d'un people tout entier? Ou que ce roman, assez lumineux malgré tout, fut le dernier témoignage de la beauté souveraine de la langue française et l'ultime témoignage d'un certain genie universel d'une nation dont on sait désormais ce qu'elle est devenue, et c'est d'ailleurs thistte seconde hypothèse que privilégierait plutôt, au bout du compte, le narrateur.
Jérôme Leroy, La petite fasciste, Manufacture, 2025.
He then kills a young woman with very long hair, who is curled up in a corner in the fetal position, literally drowning in her own hair as if it could protect her. It is Laura Saline, twenty-four years old and a colleague of Océane Bellanger at the Marceau-Pivert primary school in Rouen. She will never know that her novel The contradictory girls, which she sent to various publishers last spring, has just been accepted, and that tomorrow an email will arrive on her smartphone which she will not read.
Despite its experimental nature and 1200 pages, The Contradictory Daughters became an immense success in bookstores, coinciding with the collapse of our republic. It is difficult to understand the reasons for this success – a posthumous Prix Goncourt, some 40 translations, two film adaptations, one Spanish and one Italian, since the French film industry came to a relatively quick standstill after the collapse of our republic.
Is it the tragic fate of the author, this Laura Saline, mowed down as a victim in what the news channels called the "Fort Mahon murder," which, as it soon turned out, was collateral damage of the Bonneval affair? Supernaturally beautiful, unanimously mourned, except by CNews, which marveled at the decadence of the national education system, comprised of drug-addled partygoers who were not entirely innocent of the necessity of the new order that followed our republic.
Is it because this novel, although difficult to access, appeared at a time when everything around us was collapsing, and because the lyrical and prophetic, pornographic and utopian aspects of The contradictory girls Did it reflect the anxieties of an entire people despite its difficult accessibility? Or was this, despite everything, quite bright novel the last testament to the sovereign beauty of the French language and the last testament to a certain universal genius of a nation whose fate we now know, with the narrator ultimately favoring the latter hypothesis.
A central chapter depicts the protagonist's relationship with Jugurtha Aït-Ahmed, a young man of Kabyle descent. Their love becomes a provocation within their community. A poetic scene on the beach portrays the innocence and happiness of this love—a stark contrast to the later tragedy when Jugurtha becomes the victim of a crime. As the novel progresses, Francesca becomes increasingly disillusioned. She actively joins far-right circles but begins to question their violence and internal contradictions. In the end, Francesca leaves her milieu, but the question remains whether she can ever truly break free from it.
Jugurtha Aït-Ahmed is one of the central characters in Jérôme Leroy's La petite fascisteAs a counterpoint to the protagonist Francesca Crommelynck, he embodies a worldview fundamentally different from her right-wing nationalist environment. His Kabyle heritage, his communist upbringing, and his tragic love story with Francesca make him a complex and symbolically charged figure. Jugurtha grows up in a Kabyle family in the northern French town of Frise. His father is a dockworker and an active member of the French Communist Party. From an early age, Jugurtha is exposed to socialist and anti-racist ideas that shape him. Despite his North African roots, Jugurtha does not conform to the racist stereotypes propagated by Francesca's family. This means that he is not initially perceived as an enemy—a circumstance that facilitates his relationship with Francesca. Jugurtha is naturally gentle, reflective, and idealistic. His worldview differs significantly from that of Francesca and her family, yet he approaches her not with hatred, but with curiosity and affection. He believes in social justice and equality, which makes him an enemy in the eyes of Francesca's far-right circle.
After the bath, Francesca and Jugurtha restaient ensuite étendus côte à côte, la main dans la main, au soleil qui brille plus souvent que l'on ne le dit sur la mer du Nord. Ils léchaient mutuellement les traces de sel sur leurs bras, leurs joues, leurs cuisses. Cela les fasait rire. C'était bon. On this is a song by Jean Ferrat or Isabelle Aubret.
Jugurtha était d'une famille Kabyle et communiste. Son père travaillait comme docker sur le port de Frise. Mais son physique de blond aux yeux gris, au teint pale, pouvait prêter à confusion. C'est pour cela que la petite fasciste laissa parler son cœur tout en tenant par ailleurs des propos d'un racisme décomplexé qu'elle entendait chez elle. On this note, this is not the case, that the adolescents have an art consumption of the dialectique when the s'agit de satisfaire leurs désirs paradoxaux.
Ils faillirent être separés par le système éducatif qui révèle chez nous, comme dans all other domaines de la vie, une appartenance de classe.
Jugurtha Aït-Ahmed at one time at the college Valentina-Terechkova. The establishment is located in the Rouges-Barres district, on the hairdressers. The living room has two parents and two brothers and sisters, in a house of briques in a beautiful environment of other houses of briques with potager and remise, without the computer of the immeubles constructed by Auguste Perret that offers a view imprenable on the sea. Cela faisait saliver des promoters qui auraient bien vu à la place des Rouges-Barres un complexe with des hôtels de luxe et un golf, histoire de transformer Frise en ville touristique. On the other hand, you can find a grand capitalist for and installer of a contemporary art foundation that will allow you to find a place in the guides with the mention “Vaut le voyage”. Les promoters tentaient depuis des années de corrompre sans succès le député Bonneval, par ailleurs 1er adjoint à la mairie de Frize pour éviter le cumul des mandates, mais qui contrôlait de fait la municipalité et la communauté urbaine dont il était president.
Chez Francesca Crommelynck, the ambience of the family is plutôt neopaïenne que marxiste-léniniste. On the 21st of December, for the solstice of the winter, it returns to the table on a small tour on the ground that also contains a bougie. On the basis of the crèche of the Nazarene Vilain, which has access to the couilles of the Greek world and the Vikings' poetry. Mais, pour sauver les apparences, on mettait quand même un sapin où, discrètement, quelques svastikas stylisés se mélangeaient aux boules et aux guirlandes. Pourtant, en sixième, Francesca Crommelynck dut de son côté aller à l'Institut Notre-Dame-des-Douleurs, le fleuron de l'enseignement privé catholique de Frise, surnommé familièrement par les habitants la Doule.
La Doule allait de la sixième au BTS, plus les classes prepas, notamment une hypokhâgne et une khâgne qui se vantent d'avoir plus d'admissibles à Normale Sup que le lycée Faidherbe de Lille, la capitale régionale, and même que le lycée Jean-Bart de Dunkerque, la sous-préfecture portuaire, vieille rivale de Frise.
Jérôme Leroy, La petite fasciste, Manufacture, 2025.
After swimming, Francesca and Jugurtha lay hand in hand, side by side in the sun, which shines more often on the North Sea coast than one might think. They licked the salt from each other's arms, cheeks, and thighs. This made them laugh. It was good. It sounded like a song by Jean Ferrat or Isabelle Aubret.
Jugurtha came from a Kabyle and communist family. His father worked as a dockworker in the port of Frise. His appearance as a blond, gray-eyed man with a pale complexion could, however, lead to misidentification. Therefore, the little fascist let her heart speak and also spoke out about the blatant racism she heard at home. It is well known that young people possess a high degree of dialectics when it comes to fulfilling their paradoxical desires.
They were almost completely separated by the education system, which, as in all other areas of life, reveals a class divide.
Jugurtha Aït-Ahmed started attending the Valentina Terechkova School at the age of eleven. The school was located in the Rotbarsch district, on the hills above Frise. There, he lived with his parents and five siblings in a brick house surrounded by many other brick houses with vegetable gardens and sheds, not to mention the apartment blocks built by Auguste Perret, which offered breathtaking sea views. This made the mouths of developers water, who would have loved to see a complex of luxury hotels and a golf course built on the site of the Rotbarsch blocks, transforming Frise into a tourist town. Perhaps a major capitalist might even have been found to establish a contemporary art foundation there, which would have put Frise in the travel guides with the "Worth a Visit" seal of approval. For years, the promoters had unsuccessfully tried to bribe Member of Parliament Bonneval, who was otherwise the first deputy mayor of Frise to avoid holding multiple offices, but in fact controlled the municipality and the city council, of which he was chairman.
In Francesca Crommelynck's family, the atmosphere was more neopagan than Marxist-Leninist. They celebrated Yule on December 21st, the winter solstice, gathering around a small, openwork terracotta tower containing a single candle. This was preferable to the nativity scene of the evil Nazarene god who had supposedly slashed the Spartan rationality of the Greek world and the wild poetry of the Vikings. To maintain appearances, however, a tree was still erected, its decorations adorned with a few stylized swastikas mixed discreetly with baubles and tinsel. In sixth grade, however, Francesca Crommelynck was required to attend the Institut Notre-Dame-des-Douleurs, the flagship of the Catholic private schools in Frise, colloquially known to the locals as La Doule.
La Doule ran from sixth grade to high school graduation, plus preparatory classes, in particular a Hypokhâgne and a Khâgne, 1 which boast of having more applicants for the Normale Supérieure than the Lycée Faidherbe in Lille, the regional capital, and even more than the Lycée Jean-Bart in Dunkirk, the port city, Frise's old rival.
Jugurtha's love affair with Francesca is the emotional core of the novel. Their connection is both an expression of individual longing and a symbolic transgression of ideological boundaries. While Francesca grows up in an environment that propagates racism and nationalism, her love for Jugurtha demonstrates that personal experience can be stronger than ideological dogma.
An attack on Jugurtha is one of the novel's central turning points, not only a personal tragedy for the couple but also a metaphor for the destruction of hope and reconciliation through ideological violence. Jugurtha believed in understanding, but this belief is crushed in an act of raw violence. His fate marks Francesca's first major loss and heralds her subsequent disillusionment. Jugurtha Aït-Ahmed is a tragic yet powerful figure. He represents an alternative to the racist and extremist ideology that pervades Francesca's environment. His gentle idealism makes him a beacon of hope, yet he falls victim to the reality of social division and violence that the novel explores. Through his love for Francesca, he becomes a key figure in her inner conflict and ultimately a symbol of what is lost when hatred and ideology triumph over humanity.
The novel interweaves different time periods: through flashbacks to the protagonist's childhood and adolescence, the mechanisms of her radicalization, as well as the familial and societal influences, are gradually revealed. This narrative technique not only highlights the complexity of the characters' psychology but also the fragility of their identity constructions. Francesca's ideological indoctrination by her family and social environment is a central theme of the novel. Her brother Nils and her father Eusebio are deeply entangled in right-wing extremist networks. The descriptions of their milieu, particularly the portrayal of organizations like the "Bloc Patriotique" and the "Lions des Flandres," demonstrate a detailed understanding of neo-fascist structures and their internal dynamics. Nils plays a special role, both admiring and manipulating his sister Francesca. He affectionately calls her "little fascist," a label that shapes her identity and suggests a political affiliation long before she is aware of her ideological position. However, while Nils is portrayed as a figure of hardening and fanaticism, Francesca is an ambivalent figure, torn between familial loyalty and intellectual doubt.
The ending of the novel in La petite fasciste The novel paints a bleak and symbolic picture of the downfall of a society plagued by political and social tensions: the collapse of the republic is triggered by a series of tragic events and political upheavals that destabilize the country and pave the way for the rise of an authoritarian state. Various acts of violence are not merely bloody crimes, but also symptoms of a deeper political crisis that threatens to drag the country into the abyss. The escalating violence and political assassinations lead to a radical transformation in which democracy is not only shaken but virtually disintegrated. Prime Minister Louise Michel's decision to impose martial law and place the country under authoritarian control underscores the final disintegration of the political order. The establishment of the "New State" and the government's violent suppression of opposition reflect the drastic change that becomes increasingly apparent throughout the novel. It depicts a grim future in which political and social structures are no longer governed by rational decision-making, but by violence and the pursuit of power.
À des milliers de kilometer de là, apprenant la chute de notre République, Bonneval se souvient des Memoirs de Blum racontant the arrival of Pétain au pouvoir le 10 July 1940: «Ainsi, pour se dégager du tourbillon, il n'aurait fallu qu'un moment de sang-froid, qu'un effort de réflexion. Mais on ne réfléchissait pas. On se laissait empporter, comme une foule en panic, par les courants collectifs d'épouvante et de lâcheté. »
Jérôme Leroy, La petite fasciste, Manufacture, 2025.
Thousands of kilometers away, when Bonneval learned of the downfall of our republic, he remembered Blum's memoirs, in which he reported on Pétain's takeover of power on July 10, 1940: "To free oneself from the maelstrom, it would have required only a moment of composure, only an effort of reflection. But no one reflected. Like a panicked mob, one allowed oneself to be swept away by the collective currents of terror and cowardice."
The final part of the text, which deals with Bonneval and his reflections on French history and the rise of fascism, points to the helplessness of a society that repeatedly plunges into authoritarian regimes. His recollection of Blum's memoirs and the memory of the events of 1940, when Pétain seized power, reveals a recurring spiral of political cowardice and an inability to resist the drive for power. Bonneval is disillusioned as he confronts the current situation in France and recognizes the failure of democracy. The conclusion of La petite fasciste It depicts the social and political disintegration of France and the ongoing threat from authoritarian and extremist forces.
This article is written in German and can be found at https://rentree.de. Automatic translations into English and French are available. English, French.
Notes- "In school jargon, Khâgne is the mocking nickname given in the 19th century to students preparing for military schools. The term refers to the second year, which was formerly the only one (officially 'première supérieure'). The first year (officially 'lettres supérieures'), which fell between the terminale and the première supérieure, was called hypokhâgne (from the Greek hypo, 'en dessous')." https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classe_préparatoire_littéraire.>>>
