Chapter 1: Collaborators

3      More than ten million viewers “Viewers React to Marine Le Pen’s Vision of France,” 60 Minutes, CBS News, March 11, 2017, www.cbsnews.com/news/60-minutes-viewers-react-to-frances-marine-le-pen/.

3      the oldest news magazine on American television “60 Minutes,” Media Matters for America, accessed November 21, 2024, www.mediamatters.org/60-minutes.

3      largest number of seats in Germany’s legislature Deutscher Bundestag (German Bundestag), “Parliament: National Socialism (1933-1945),” accessed June 4, 2025, www.bundestag.de/en/parliament/history/parliamentarism/third_reich/third_reich-200358.

3      passed the Enabling Act See “The Enabling Act,” Holocaust Encyclopedia, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, accessed November 21, 2024, encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/the-enabling-act.

3      bodies of the dead, most of them White No person in history is responsible for the deaths of more White people than Adolf Hitler. Historian Timothy Snyder estimates that Adolf Hitler was responsible for the deaths of between eleven and twelve million noncombatants, and that Joseph Stalin was responsible for the deaths of between six and nine million noncombatants. Timothy Snyder, “Hitler vs. Stalin: Who Killed More?” New York Review of Books, March 10, 2011, www.nybooks.com/articles/2011/03/10/hitler-vs-stalin-who-killed-more.

3      “story about a populist politician” “Le Pen,” 60 Minutes, CBS, March 5, 2017, www.cbs.com/shows/video/W5gAaj5H4IwSI8AhN0pejoJlIb8UA25d/, 0:01–0:05.

3      dictatorship of Marshal Philippe Pétain “France,” Holocaust Encyclopedia, accessed November 21, 2024, encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/france.

3–4   rounded up and deported Jews “In all, some 77,000 Jews living on French territory perished in concentration camps and killing centers—the overwhelming majority of them at Auschwitz—or died in detention on French soil. One third of these victims were French citizens.” See “France,” Holocaust Encyclopedia, encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/france.

3–4   paid tributes “Germany seized much of France’s agricultural production and raw materials for use by the soldiers of the Third Reich,” including “fuel, coal, meat, flour, [and] butter.” “A national rationing system came into force in September 1940.” Audrey Mallet, “Local Rationing Centre,” Vichy 1939–1945, accessed November 21, 2024, vichy1939-1945.com/en/lieu/local-rationing-centre.

3–4   persecuted anti-Nazi dissidents Lorraine Boissoneault, “Was Vichy France a Puppet Government or a Willing Nazi Collaborator?” Smithsonian Magazine, November 9, 2017, www.smithsonianmag.com/history/vichy-government-france-world-war-ii-willingly-collaborated-nazis-180967160/.

3–4   forced labor “The Vichy Government in June 1942 began pushing a voluntary program for French to go to Germany to work. Such labor was made mandatory for male workers in February 1943. By war's end some 600,000 French workers and another 600,000 French prisoners-of-war were either sent to Germany or were forced to work in French mines and industries deemed essential to the Germans.” Holocaust-Era Assets; Records of the U.S. Embassy, Paris, France; General Records 1936-1941, 1944-1953 (Entry 2452A); Record Group (RG) 84: Records of the Foreign Service Posts of the Department of State, “France,” National Archives, accessed November 21, 2024, www.archives.gov/research/holocaust/finding-aid/civilian/rg-84-france.html.

4      liberated their nation “France,” Holocaust Encyclopedia, encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/france.

4      French collaborators marched into a new political party CBC Radio, “How Marine Le Pen Made a Party Co-Founded by Nazi Collaborators Mainstream,” CBC, May 5, 2017, www.cbc.ca/radio/day6/episode-336-sidney-crosby-s-concussion-awesome-mix-vol-2-marine-le-pen-captain-canuck-and-more-1.4099052/how-marine-le-pen-made-a-party-co-founded-by-nazi-collaborators-mainstream-1.4099073?__vfz=medium%3Dsharebar.

4      co-founded by Jean-Marie Le Pen “French Far-Right Figurehead Jean-Marie Le Pen Dies,” France 24, January 7, 2025, www.france24.com/en/live-news/20250107-french-far-right-figurehead-jean-marie-le-pen-dies.

4      French father of White nationalism Nicolas Lebourg, “René Binet, the French Father of White Nationalism,” Illiberalism Studies Program, George Washington University, November 2, 2020, illiberalism.org/rene-binet-the-french-father-of-white-nationalism.

4      killed in a car crash René Benet was born on October 16, 1913, and died on October 16, 1957. Lebourg, “René Binet, the French Father of White Nationalism,” illiberalism.org/rene-binet-the-french-father-of-white-nationalism; and Philip Rees, Biographical Dictionary of the Extreme Right Since 1890 (New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1990), 36. Find the library book at search.worldcat.org/title/22347303.

4      edited . . . before enlisting Lebourg, “René Binet, the French Father of White Nationalism,” illiberalism.org/rene-binet-the-french-father-of-white-nationalism.

4      joined . . . the Waffen-SS Lebourg, “René Binet, the French Father of White Nationalism,” illiberalism.org/rene-binet-the-french-father-of-white-nationalism; and J. G. Shields, The Extreme Right in France: From Pétain to Le Pen (Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2007), 58. Find the library book at search.worldcat.org/title/63703942.

4      a brief postwar imprisonment Binet was imprisoned for “half a year.” Jean-Yves Camus and Nicolas Lebourg, Far-Right Politics in Europe, trans. Jane Marie Todd (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2017), 65. Find the library book at search.worldcat.org/title/979560556.

4      “the end of the white world” René Binet quoted in Sarah Bracke and Luis Manuel Hernández Aguilar, “The Politics of Replacement: From ‘Race Suicide’ to the ‘Great Replacement,’” in The Politics of Replacement: Demographic Fears, Conspiracy Theories, and Race Wars, eds. Sarah Bracke and Luis Manuel Hernández Aguilar (Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2024), 9. Find the library book at search.worldcat.org/title/1399572660.

4      “anti-racists of the crime of genocide . . .” “imposing on us . . .” René Binet, L’Unité, December 18, 1948, quoted in Lebourg, “René Binet, the French Father of White Nationalism,” illiberalism.org/rene-binet-the-french-father-of-white-nationalism.

4      “uniform barbarity” René Binet, Théorie du racisme (Paris: Les Wikings, 1950) 16–35, quoted in Lebourg, “René Binet, the French Father of White Nationalism.” illiberalism.org/rene-binet-the-french-father-of-white-nationalism. Find the Théorie du racisme library book at search.worldcat.org/title/45043608?oclcNum=45043608.

4      “global replacism” . . . “all the same . . .” Renaud Camus, You Will Not Replace Us! (Plieux, France: Renaud Camus, 2018), 114. Find the library book at search.worldcat.org/title/1091051149.

5      found . . .  New European Order (NEO), led by . . . Lebourg, “René Binet, the French Father of White Nationalism,” illiberalism.org/rene-binet-the-french-father-of-white-nationalism. “Amaudruz was one of the first to claim . . . that the gas chambers of the Holocaust were a figment of the imagination.” Rees, Biographical Dictionary of the Extreme Right Since 1890, 10. Find the library book at search.worldcat.org/title/979560556.

5      “non-native” people to be deported Déclaration de Zürich, Déclarations du Nouvel Ordre Européen, 1958, 1–3, quoted in Lebourg, “René Binet, the French Father of White Nationalism,” illiberalism.org/rene-binet-the-french-father-of-white-nationalism.

5      oversees decolonization to ensure “race purity” Lebourg, “René Binet, the French Father of White Nationalism,” illiberalism.org/rene-binet-the-french-father-of-white-nationalism.

5      “a few thousand Jews and degenerates. . .” NEO quoted in Shields, The Extreme Right in France, 61. Find the library book at search.worldcat.org/title/63703942.

5      “not particularly inhumane” Jean-Marie Le Pen quoted in Amelia Gentleman, “Nazi Occupation Not Inhumane—Le Pen,” The Guardian, January 12, 2005, www.theguardian.com/world/2005/jan/13/secondworldwar.france.

5      “was not France” Marine Le Pen quoted in James Masters and Margaux Deygas, “Marine Le Pen Sparks Outrage Over Holocaust Comments,” CNN, April 10, 2017, www.cnn.com/2017/04/10/europe/france-marine-le-pen-holocaust/index.html. 

5      France’s most polarizing politician “The September 2025 IFOP survey for LCI [La Chaîne Info] reveals a mixed perception of Marine Le Pen. On a personal level, some positive traits stand out: 66% of French people recognize her as ‘a natural authority’ and 62% consider her to be ‘hard-working’, a score that rises to 74% among blue-collar workers. However, her image remains marked by negative adjectives: 59% find her ‘aggressive’ and 55% ‘arrogant’. Only 44% consider her ‘sincere’ and 41% ‘honest’. On the political front, she is seen as capable of ensuring French security (54%), defending rural communities (52%) and ‘reforming France’ (50%). However, a majority also consider her ‘worrying’ (52%) and the bearer of ‘dangerous ideas for France’ (52%). Finally, only 45% consider her capable of bringing the French together.” “How the French View Marine Le Pen Objective 2027,” Ifop Group, October 14, 2025, www.ifop.com/en/article/how-the-french-view-marine-le-pen-objectif-2027.

5      one of the most popular “National Front’s Marine Le Pen Takes Lead in New Opinion Poll,” France 24, January 20, 2017, www.france24.com/en/20170120-marine-le-pen-takes-lead-opinion-poll-le-monde-ipsos-france.

5      introduces her to many American viewers for the first time “Viewers react to Marine Le Pen’s Vision of France,” 60 Minutes Overtime, www.cbsnews.com/news/60-minutes-viewers-react-to-frances-marine-le-pen/.