ABSTRACT
The “French” chapter will discuss the “pro-separatist” mobilization of the elements of France's far right, and the role played in the process by facilitators or trailblazers, i.e. people who, after a set of often farcical predicaments (for example, being expelled from Russia into Ukraine and having to cross the front line to get to Donetsk), arrived relatively early in the conflict zone and attempted to set up international units fighting for the “separatists.” The story of their largely failed attempts at “transnational” mobilization, i.e. the construction of “Donbas International Brigades,” is largely a “French” story. Motivated by their anti-Americanism, and convinced that the war was in fact another example of U.S. imperialism at play, and an attempt to weaken Russia even further – which was, in their view, the only serious force capable of opposing America – they set up their “Continental Unity” unit and sought to stop the allegedly pro-American Ukraine from regaining its territory. Interestingly, the above-mentioned unit still exists but includes individuals who arrived in Donetsk much later and who are adamant in their anti-far-right political outlook.
Interestingly, some far-right French, and veterans of the Balkan wars from the 1990s, also fought on the other side of the war, and famously acted as prolific recruiters for the far-right Azov Battalion/Regiment. As it later turned out, this did not stop them from socializing with their compatriots who featured in the ranks of the “separatists,” and provided them with glowing references for future private military contractor/mercenary work. Such cases offer evidence of a temporary but actual split in the French far-right milieu, and demonstrate that continuity in “career” foreign fighting, a relative rarity for the jihadists, could be the case in the extreme right circles.
