Slap to Macron puts focus on ultra-right groups

Bubbling beneath France’s political landscape is an assortment of ultra-right groups, an invisible subculture that shot to the nation’s attention when a young man slapped President Emmanuel Macron and blurted out a centuries-old royalist cry

PARIS -- Bubbling beneath France’s political landscape is an assortment of ultra-right groups, a subculture that shot to the nation’s attention when a young man slapped President Emmanuel Macron and blurted out a centuries-old royalist cry. Ignored by most people, ultra-rightist groups are considered increasingly dangerous despite their small following and are on the radar of authorities. Numerous arrests have been made and several groups banned, including one this year. Challenges to the French identity are often at the center of their ideologies. During Wednesday's Cabinet meeting, Macron discussed the incident a day earlier in a small town in the southeast Drome region. “No violence can be considered banal in the country,” government spokesman Gabriel Attal said later. But Macron stressed it was ”an isolated act by a violent individual" that wouldn't stop his direct contact with the population. The town of Tain-l’Hermitage was the president's most recent stop on a tour designed to “feel the pulse of the country” that's been laid low by the coronavirus and trying to get back on its feet.