In a historic first for France, a monument equating Nazism with Communism has been unveiled, continuing the European trend of intensifying anti-communism.
Details. The memorial stele was unveiled on August 23 to commemorate the so-called "victims of communism." The right-wing mayor of the Riviera town of Saint-Raphaël, Masquelier, claimed the monument shows that "Nazism and communism... are two sides of the same tragic coin."
► This is the first memorial in France dedicated to the "victims of communism." To justify it, the mayor cited the debunked “100 million deaths” statistic from Robert Conquest’s The Black Book of Communism, a figure rejected even by several of its own authors for uncritically relying on Nazi sources.
► The unveiling was met with protests from left-wing groups such as Les Écologistes, La France Insoumise, and the French Communist Party (PCF). The PCF in particular highlighted the decisive role French communists played in the resistance against Nazism, noting the irony that the monument was placed beside one commemorating French Resistance fighters. They declared, "In France, the only 'victims' of communism are the Nazis and collaborators.”
► Masquelier, however, stressed that the memorial aimed not only to honour alleged victims in France but to contribute to the global “destruction of communism.” In line with this, PCF's departmental secretary, Pierre Daspre, explained that "the mayor knows very well that we have long condemned the crimes of Stalin."
Context. Anti-communism has been rising across Europe, from Germany, where Soviet flags were banned during Victory Day, to more hardline measures such as in the Czech Republic, where support for communism has been criminalised by equating it with Nazism.
► This trend continues beyond Western Europe. Recently, the Armenian and Azerbaijani leaders both blamed the USSR for the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. In reality, the dispute long predated the Soviet Union and, under socialism, was managed diplomatically rather than through war. It was only with the weakening and collapse of the USSR that the conflict flared into military violence.
► Communist movements in France, as in much of Europe, remain dominated by social-chauvinism, reformism, and revisionism. In this case, they even find agreement with right-wing politicians on alleged Soviet “crimes.”