The French ‘finishing school’ educating the far-right leaders of tomorrow

As an overtly right-wing student, Smith felt it was hard to find his place at the university he attended — Nanterre University, just outside Paris — which he perceived as “very, very on the left” — so he joined the Union Nationale Interuniversitaire (UNI), the right-wing national student union. It was during those early days of his studies that one of his mentors at UNI suggested he should consider training at IFP. Offering practical and theoretical classes in journalism, politics and business, IFP has become something of a “finishing school” for right-leaning youth in France. Having fostered networks and community for a new, politically minded class of right-wing — or even far-right — activists and professionals, the school has trained alumni who are sitting MPs, are organizing electoral campaigns, speaking on CNEWS — France’s equivalent of Fox News — or even working as far-right influencers on social media.In a year when France’s far-right had its However, for many on the right, they represent the mainstreaming of leftist teaching — and some are disparaging of what they offer. “It’s a lot freer at IFP,” Lafont told CNN. “Sciences Po really just teaches you a one-track way of thinking, it’s very mainstream, some things you can say and some you cannot,” he added.Zemmour, who came in fourth in the first round of voting in the presidential election, has called IFP the “counter-Sciences Po,” underlining the reactionary nature of the kind of teaching it provides. “The idea had sprouted in the right that one of the reasons for their political defeat was the absence of an elite of intellectually formed executives,” said researcher and far-right expert Jean-Yves Camus, “and that the cause of this absence was that even if you enter university as a right-winger, you are shaped by a dominant teaching that is oriented to the left.””Today, the right faces a certain censorship,” said Alice Cordier, 24, an IFP alum and now instructor. “We see woke ideology and other extreme ideologies that aim to censor people who think like me.” IFP advised her as she was laying the foundations of what is now the far-right feminist and anti-immigration group “Collectif Némésis,” with chapters all over France and in Switzerland. IFP, on the other hand, “facilitates the creation of ties between politicians and young people, something which, on the right, is not necessarily very developed,” said Cordier. Moreover, IFP encourages students to be more ambitious by showing them they “all have a role to play, no matter our status,” she said. Currently, the right is the majority in France, said Camus, but “nevertheless I have the impression that they still feel as if they are the minority.” This may have played into IFP’s creation, he added.Right-wing politicians of tomorrowWhile some analysts are reluctant to credit IFP with any impact on French politics, the presence of its alumni in the political scene speaks volumes. Chief among them is perhaps Zemmour’s digital strategist Lafont, along with some 20% of Zemmour’s inner circle around election time — as identified by Le Monde — with links to IFP. Twenty-three-year-old IFP alum Stanislas Rigault founded the youth wing of Zemmour’s campaign, Génération Z. Zemmour’s closest team members even called IFP directly to recruit young people trained there in the runup to the presidential race, according to the student Jacques Smith. “I think during the launch of Zemmour’s campaign, IFP was at the center of the game,” he said. Marion Maréchal, the niece and potential successor of far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen and former member of the French National Assembly, has even created her own school modeled on IFP, in Lyon. Lafont and Cordier agree that a lot of what makes a school relevant in France is the power its name holds. They acknowledge that the “grandes écoles” so despised by the right still hold great power in the job market and political arena. “If you are in a good school you can relax,” said Lafont. However, they say that the IFP brand now carries the same weight in French right-wing circles. “It’s the best school that presently exists for truly educating oneself about themes that are important to the right,” Cordier told CNN. She often sends young women from her collective to follow seminars at the school. The school says demand for places outstrips supply. “The right-wing politicians of tomorrow will all have gone through IFP,” said Cordier. “Of that I am almost certain.”