On Thursday September 26, the left-wing newspaper Libération revealed that a neo-fascist militant had just been recruited as parliamentary assistant to the RN (Rassemblement National, far-right political party) deputy for the Var, Philippe Schreck.

The assistant in question, Raphaël Ayma (real name Rafael Ferron), is one of the leaders of the Provençal neo-fascist identity group Tenesoun, a racist movement focused on the opposition and stigmatization of non-European cultures and populations.

Another example is Ayma’s participation in podcasts by the Institut Iliade, a think-tank whose aim is to “defend our civilization, that of freedoms and roots”, of which RN MP Anne Sicard is one of its executives.

What’s more, in June 2023, Ayma was invited to speak at a conference in Spain organized by the Association culturelle des amis de Léon Degrelle, a Belgian Nazi figure who volunteered for the SS.

Is this a case of mistaken identity for RN MP Philippe Schreck? Not very likely, since this is not the first time that an MP from his or her political party has surrounded himself or herself with parliamentary assistants from extreme right-wing groups, as Romain Baubry, RN MP for Bouches-du-Rhône, surrounded himself with two members of the identitarian group Nemesis in his parliamentary team, Clémence Le Saint and Nina Azamberti. A dark practice that illustrates the normalization of far-right movements within republican institutions.