In order to avoid any confusion, I'd like preface this by saying that I don't subscribe to any aspect of national socialist ideology. I do, however, think that it's an important part of the historical record, and its place in metal is especially interesting to me.

Recently I've been wondering how we distinguish NSBM from intensely nationalist black metal bands like Peste Noire and Forteresse. If we're equating national socialism with Nazism, then the distinction makes sense. Still, there's a great deal of similarity between national socialism and extreme nationalism: collectivist sensibilities, a superiority complex that is often militaristic, and a reverence for folk traditions. Using my francophone examples, all of these qualities apply.

To take it a step further, there's that picture of Famine in front of a sign that says "Jean-Marie le P.N.," clearly referencing the extremely conservative, racist, and anti-semitic French politician Jean-Marie le Pen. It's hard to take this seriously since Famine's actual sociopolitical views are so enigmatic, but for all his jokes, he is as patriotic as they come, and it's not difficult to imagine him supporting le Pen. Even if he doesn't, his lyrics, combined with the French folk musical elements, echo the aforementioned links with national socialism.

Forteresse are less controversial, but their music is equally nationalist. Pretty much all of their lyrics concern either a québécois revolution or the valor of their ancestors. While there isn't any direct racism, race is mentioned in "de Sang et de Volonté": "Et cette terre vit enfin . . . Appartenant à notre race [And this earth lives again . . . Belonging to our race]." Their emphasis on folk traditions (both musically and lyrically) is similar to Peste Noire, but also reminds me of bands like Perterricrepus, which some have classified as NSBM. "The Dark Age of Carpathia" references the Aryanism with regard to pagan, pre-Christian Europe -- not necessarily in a hateful way, but to celebrate European folk traditions.

What do we think? Are these all different shades of the same neo-völkisch sect? Or are NSBM, nationalist black metal, and pagan black metal completely different? I suspect that I'm completely off the mark here, but I mainly just want to initiate a conversation. Removed from their ideological leanings, Peste Noire and Forteresse are two of my favorite black metal bands, and I'm trying to get a sense of how they fit into the bigger musical and historical picture.

For the record, threads like these almost never work.

To the populace: post dumb shit in this thread. I dare you.

Yes these threads almost never work because of those who want to post dumb shit. However, I do think the OP makes a valid point and if people truly wanted to, they could have a civilized discussion on the topic. A while back, there was a discussion in the band genre thread in suggestions where a band member wanted the NS removed from his band. His lyrics were HIGHLY nationalist and full of Germanic pride but they were in no way National Socialist, which was a 20th century political movement that became synonymous with racism and did take ancient myths and symbols and distorted them to fir their agenda. There is a difference.

Being someone who was a practicing heathen for years (and I still consider myself heathen although not practicing in a kindred) I do think that a distinction should be made. Nationalism and pride in one's ancestry does not make one NS. If that's the case then every pagan metal band, including Tyr and Falkenbach need to be tagged as NS....and we know that is ridiculous.

Which is contrasted by profoundly individualistic sensibilities of those artists. The character displayed in interviews for instance, is often in contradiction with collectivist ideas, folk traditions, etc...

The insistence by these guys that they are unique, alone, misunderstood, do not want to answer to anybody and so on... isn't very compatible with folklore, respect of traditions, collectivism.

This individuality is also why it's tough to answer your question. Cryptic interviews (sometimes containing contradictory statements) where people insist they walk their own path makes it tough to lump them together into movements.

There's definitely a clear difference between "national socialist" and "nationalist". Nationalist really doesn't mean anything at all except the promotion of one's nation/culture. It doesn't necessarily even refer to race, or any particular political ideology unless that nation in question has some historically consistent political stance. I guess if I was needing clarification (beyond just reading a band's lyrics), I might file a band under, say "French Black Metal", as opposed to just "Black Metal". NSBM for me refers to a specific ideology, and nothing really about the country of origin.

However, one of the first things I learned when I started reading MA was a very precise (almost too-precise) attention to genre. It's entirely plausible to imagine BM bands who are both nationalist and NSBM, and in neither case does it actually tell you what their music sounds like (other than the category for "black metal", which at this point, seems pretty varied).

It's entirely possible that Nationalist metal bands can be differentiated from their National Socialist brethren. Both tout the values of their individual groups, their folklore, their history, and their goals. The reason they tend to be mixed together is because NS makes a "logical" step from pure nationalism in that they take their implicit assumption of their group's superiority and apply it by inferentially coming to the conclusion that others not involved in their culture are by default, inferior. Now, it's not engrained in stone that pride in one's own culture necessarily means others are inferior but it is an extremely fine line. A value judgment of superiority has to be made in contrast to something else and I do not believe it is a coincidence that racists defend their racism by touting the superior qualities of their own group.

That all being said, I still find both childish at a fundamental level. Culture and race are traits that people are randomly born into. Touting the superior qualities of one's own culture is pointless because culture by default is the accumulation of habits that allow an entire people to survive long enough to give birth to a subsequent generation. Touting one's own culture is great can essentially be reduced to: I like this because this is what I know and this is the group I belong to. Nationalist lyrics then become ridiculous because the fundamental value of heavy metal is distorted from one supporting individuality to individual choice to belong to a specific self-proclaimed superior group. It's just absurd.

An additional note: I would differentiate nationalist metal from heavy metal bands that employ folklore and myth. Myth and folklore can be extremely rich source materials for lyrics and stories because they take particular human frustrations and flavor them differently. Yet even then, I still find it silly to be proud in the flavor because ultimately the flavor was shaped by history and circumstances far beyond the control of the individual.

One of the reasons this site no longer labels bands as "NS black metal" is because it was not and could not consistently be applied. We had a concept of the sound that was somewhat functional (BM+RAC, or really rough punkish BM with the shouty, dumbed-down preaching of RAC) but that proved to not be consistently applied. There were a number of problems with objectively and consistently using the term:
1) There were notable NSBM bands often referred to as such who played a style very similar to definitely "black metal" bands (i.e. early Blazebirth Hall bands being Burzum worship),
2) There were bands who were not NS who have been labeled in some places as NSBM, for example, one of droneriot's bands was raw punkish black metal with none of those ideologies but was occasionally labeled as NSBM.
3) The term was absolutely and almost fully tied to the ideology, not the musical style. NSBM, as a label, is much more a matter of self-identification than a coherent music genre.



The term "national socialism" is inseparable from associations to Nazism. The term as inseparable as the swastika - sure, it has other meanings, but one of those is the elephant in the room. The distinction would best be made between neo-Nazism and non-authoritarian nationalism and socialism. The difference, and the most objectionable part, is fascism.



Wasn't the explanation of things like the "Aryan Supremacy" demo that it was a vehicle of artistic expression, not a political statement? Nightgaunt had some interesting commentary on how bands use things like this to carefully sculpt their image with highly suggestive "borderline" things like this without definitively crossing the line. It's angsty, cowardly shock rock nonsense to me, but it seems to be popular in black metal.

No it isn't... I don't think you understand what pride means. Here's a silly example: You sign up to run a marathon despite being in poor physical shape and still manage to finish it. Wouldn't you feel proud of yourself? Or if it's your sister for example running the marathon, wouldn't you feel proud of her? Does it mean you think she's superior to everyone else? Last time I checked, being proud of oneself wasn't looked down upon. Why would feeling proud of one's culture be?

I'll even give another more crude example: Do gays feel that their culture is superior to others when they prance around half-naked during their gay pride parades? If it did mean they do feel superior then feeling superior is evidently not seen as a bad thing.

And why would feeling that a culture is superior to another culture be a bad thing? Am I harming anyone by feeling that way? What if I feel a race is superior to another race, why is that so bad? Cultures and races are all different, this means that for some people certain aspects will be superior and others will be inferior. Why is this bad? I thought you guys loved diversity. You can't have everyone be different and pretend we're all equal.


No, it really can't, and I don't see why anyone would even think this for a second. It honestly baffles me that anyone would think this. Are you implying that anyone who feels proud of their own culture is automatically ignorant of everyone else's? That praising their own culture means they don't know any other? If I admire a culture that is not my own, does that mean I don't know my own culture? This argument of yours does not make any sense.


So to sum it up: Nationalism and racism are not interlinked and nationalism is not the same as national socialism. Example: Forefather.

Jean-Marie le Pen and his daughter, Marine le Pen, are not so extreme in sense that very few people give attention to them. In 2012 Marine le Pen won 17% of votes in presidential elections, and it's presumed party is supported by 10-15% of voters at the moment.
Famine supporting le Pen seems so natural for member of band like Peste Noire, he might wish some Indoeuropean heathen politician to appear and support Famine's views on Satanism, Christianity and heathenism, but that's not gonna happen, right? So he opts for most similar option.

I'd say Famine is just typical modern right-wing European, who love their country above all, despise Christianity and all similar religions, no matter Christianity is part of French identity for centuries. They worship past of their countries, and want to return their country to former glory which, combined with their anti-Christianity, means wanting to return his country to heathen pre-Christian times as religion but not to tribalism which goes with primitive religions. They hate modern 'decadence', but fail to see how 'decadence' comes from rejecting Christianity and Christian values, thinking they can have medieval chivalry, code or whatever if they'd make people worship their respective nationality. Worshipping your nationality is same shit as worshipping Jesus or Allah, believing what benefits your country will benefit you. It really requires leap of faith, modern nationalists require stronger faith than your local churches to be accepted.

Which makes him very, very close to views of modern neo-nazis, which hate Jews, Muslims, gays etc. but also Christianity. Only thing they don't hate is their image of greatness of their countries. Most common neo-nazi view is that Christianity is some kind of Jewish hoax which enslaved poor white Europeans who now need to return to their heathen roots to break free.

So, for me, Famine's views are practically bullshit Varg spews out. It might be more rafined (with less logical fallacies popping out, not outright hate of others ) but when applied to reality you'd get the same shit - some kind of fascism. I even think that Famine's views are more dangerous than average white neo-nazi, who believe in some kind of white brotherhood or whatever thinking that's what Hitler was about (think of Varg) - whites against others. While failing to realize Hitler was above all German nationalist who despised everythin non-Germanic. Hence Hitler's hate of Christianity and love of other Germanic (Aryan) countries.

So, for me he's not enigmatic. He just spews same shit better than Varg.

Excellent post that mirrors my own thoughts on the issue. The point that Denkar seems to have misunderstood is this:

While pride itself isn't by default something negative, where it gets silly is when it's applied to things that you very certainly did not have a hand in doing. Being proud of your own accomplishments is fine. Being proud of the accomplishments of friends or family when your support (even if it was just emotional) contributed to their accomplishments makes sense, as does "pride" as some sort of empathic proxy emotion for the accomplishments of people you care dearly about.

Gay Pride parades aren't a celebration of *being* gay, they're celebrations of one's own acceptance of sexuality.

But then you go here:



And just...ugh. Yes, you are harming the people you are calling inferior by feeling that way. If you don't understand why racism is bad, I'm not sure there's really much anyone can tell you to make you understand.

The distinction is probably in how obviously prejudiced and political the lyrics and image are. One thing is celebrating heathen traditions and examining historical events, another is directly attacking certain collectives and nationalities or calling for the implementation of a political doctrine.
That is my excuse for listening to Burzum without feeling too guilty...

On your first point, there's a difference between pride in your own accomplishment and empathy for others. There's nothing wrong with feeling pride in your own accomplishments and the same goes for empathizing with the pride of others. Yet, at some point there's a line drawn in which it becomes silly to have a pride because you are neither involved personally nor is there a concrete reason why you should feel particular pride to one person and yet not another. I condemn the second one because it's not often where someone can walk that fine line without erring. The reason feeling your own culture is superior is not a positive thing (other than it is arbitrary and based purely off of familiarity) is because you contrast it to another culture. By placing your own culture as superior you place others into a position of inferiority. The people of that "inferior" culture are devalued by simply calling that culture their own. Arguing that then they can use their individual accomplishments to make up the ground which they have lost in your eyes ignores the fact that they had to climb not from the status quo but from an inferior position that you assigned them for being a member of a different culture. It bleeds through your actions in how you act with them, what you believe, what comes to mind etc., all with a negative implication at the beginning that is not healthy for an equitable society. You as an individual might choose to not exercise them to a huge degree but others will and that's when the true danger manifests.

Although normally the usage of the word diversity in these contexts indicate that I likely shouldn't bother responding, there's nothing wrong with diversity. There's nothing wrong with learning about other cultures, including your own. I do believe there is something wrong with assigning values to cultures because it ignores the individuals within the group. I am not advocating for a monoculture, I am advocating that individuals of different cultures understand that they live life through different flavors that are not inherently superior or inferior to others.

On your second point, I think you're engaging in a bit of hyperbole in regards to my comment. I don't assume you're ignorant of all cultures but you do not wear their culture chemise as tightly as you wear your own. How can you truly appreciate the culture of others as you do your own if you don't live it through theirs? It simply isn't possible. The trap here is because of your familiarity with your own culture, you gain all the insights into your own culture that you wouldn't in others. It's easier then to pinpoint the positive values of the culture which then you have chosen to feel proud in. My issue, and the issue I'm bring forward, is that there is no logic behind it. It's emotionally driven by your own familiarity to your own culture to which you make a value judgment simply because you are aware of it. You may be worldly in other cultures, which will aid in avoiding the full extent of the trap but as long as you believe that there is a logical reason to be proud outside that you're aware of it, you'll still make those value judgments with all their troublesome complications. The severity of those complications increase as the individual becomes more ignorant of others with real consequences.

Lastly, whatever you may believe, nationalism and racism are engaged in the same primordial human mechanism of collectivization and categorization. They might not be logical conclusions of each other, but don't pretend that racism isn't fueled by distrust of others outside of their own group. Both fundamentally deal with the notion of us vs. them, and both assign value judgments to both groups purely on the fact of familiarity. The only thing I concede is that one is clearly more extreme than the other but both are still emotionally driven to making judgments on objectively absurd premises.

"While failing to realize Hitler was above all German nationalist who despised everythin non-Germanic."

That's absurd. Many nazi officials (Rudolf Hess for example) weren't german, and Hitler had many non-germanic friends and allies.

"Hence Hitler's hate of Christianity and love of other Germanic (Aryan) countries."

What are you talking about? http://www.nobeliefs.com/Hitler1.htm

"Most common neo-nazi view is that Christianity is some kind of Jewish hoax which enslaved poor white Europeans who now need to return to their heathen roots to break free."

Only a minority thinks that way.

ahahahahahahahahaah....ahahahaha....haahahaha hey, i thought the mod said not to post dumb shit!
but hail, brother! are you the loud, mead-from-the-cowhorn type of heathen? or the quieter, more-serious-than-necessary type?
in any case, may wotan watch over you in battle, and may your traditional celtic/norse design duvet cover keep you warm at night!

I sure did.

I seem to recall reading and/or hearing that Forteresse and some other "Métal Noir Québécois" bands support (or supported) a party called Option Nationale who are supposedly centre-left and somewhat less extreme than many of the more popular separatist parties. They've also stated (on Facebook) that they hold neither NS nor racist views (though many bands of different stripes have done this), and one of the main members supposedly left a former band due to them turning blatantly NS (though the only source for this I can find is here on the Archives).

Apparently, some people who don't know French had mistaken the song "Déluge blanc" ("blanc" meaning white) as being an NS song, though the lyrics are taken from an old work by a Québécois poet, and are basically a poetic description of a snowstorm. I think they had posted about this on their Facebook account once.

Granted, they do use an amount of almost "blood & soil" type lyrics, but then, when they use terms like "race" or "peuple" I'm inclined think it's more likely that they're referring to "people who are rooted in Québec" than anything racialist.

Hell, if your family lived in a certain state for generations, and you started a band that praised the natural landscape and history of said state, while referencing the struggles that your ancestors went through in the past, and used terms like "our people" to refer to people from that state that doesn't necessarily make you a Nazi or racist.

They've played live in the USA and in other (majority English) Canadian provinces, and mostly with non-political bands, without any issues as far as I know. Yes, they're a political band, but Nazis? I doubt it. Some of the other Québec bands like Akitsa may be though.

EDIT: Also, I'm guessing the song "Wendigo" on the recent split is about the creature from NATIVE AMERICAN culture.

Yeah, so? You say that like it's a bad thing! What could possibly be wrong with thinking: "this is the heritage of beliefs and traditions that I've lived by, and I'm happy with it. So I think it's worth preserving"? For me that's all nationalism is about. Not a stepping stone to genocidal evil.

Sure you don't see as much of that moderate nationalism in black metal. But I'd say it's more because you don't see moderate anything in black metal, and not an indication that they're really nazis in many cases. I'd wager that explains Peste Noire, fir starters. It just seems odd to me that nationalism can't be treated like any other lyrical theme. We have no trouble understanding that the personal Satanist leanings of most such bands is played up to enhance the extremity of their image. Many sing about burning churches and performing sacrifices, etc. but few actually do it. So why is it si hard to imagine that nazi symbology can be used for the same reason?

We had the same discussion here a few weeks ago. It's not the same when bands write about anti-religious topics or general evil stuff, the bands that write about racism or national-socialism are encouraging acts of hatred and discrimination that have impact in real life. NS bands hold a political agenda that is often way more important to them than their actual music.

The problem with Nazi Symbology is that its mostly (or totally) borrowed from other cultures. Nordic and Germanic cultures always had a strong sense of belonging and pride but not in the same way of nazism. As someone said, using a swastika and selling it as an ancient hindu symbol is ignoring the fucking elephant in the room.

True, but its about time to start making some justice to symbols that were not created by the NS movement, they are stolen by it and their rot meaning has nothing to do with this shitty political movement.

Preserve your culture by all means but do not make the foolish mistake of believing yours is in any way inherently better than anybody else's. Like I've articulated before, people ignore the second part and unintentionally (or even intentionally) consider others inferior because it's not their group. I personally find it more logical to simply eschew these notions in regard to culture because the dangers of valuing cultural traits beyond your control are not worth the dangers that might occur as well as that it is inherently silly.

I will also add on your second point about the nationalism in black metal. It seems to me that black metal was founded on a basis for rejecting mainstream social values in exchange for the freedom of individuality. The creeping nationalism in black metal arises from a misunderstanding of the ideology typical of it. They see the rejection of the mainstream values not as a call for individuality but as a cue to substitute, as is the freedom of individuality logically implies that the individual instead prefers the collectivism of a different cultural viewpoint. These musicians see individuality as the ability to choose another group when, at least I think, black metal has always touted the superiority of the individual over the group. Secondly, the fact that some bands engage in the romantic expression of nature is then again distorted by these people as a preference of prior eras where their preferred cultural conventions existed as opposed to modern society and the concrete jungle. Humanity is biologically hardwired to take pleasure in the natural but they use it as a justification to reject mainstream society (and all of the values such as egalitarianism etc.) in away that honestly is just extremely self-serving. Ultimately, I find nationalism in black metal as a distortion. That being said, they have the freedom of choice to make that kind of viewpoint but we return in full-circle to whether it is wise to promote nationalism despite the dangers of it.

I think a large reason for the confusion/conflation of nationalism and Naziism also comes from the fact that most of these nationalistic bands are from countries that have political/colonial power or the bands are often comprised of privileged individuals (i.e. White cis- males). Their nationalism can be seen as springing from an unsubstantiated viewpoint since their cultures and livelihood are generally under less threat than oppressed people.

The problem with this, then, is when other bands express nationalist views, it becomes difficult to divorce them from Naziism/fascism. For example, I have seen Dressed In Streams being called a NSBM band despite the fact that the sole member is Indian and his music revolves around Indian history and is anti-British colonialism. His work is nationalist in that sense, but to conflate that with Naziism seems disingenuous to me, even if he is concerned with India's role in WWII and Azad Hind's "alliance" with the Axis countries.

I don't see it as a distortion. People are part of groups. And that fact doesn't have to contradict or overrule individuality. The freedom to substitute oneself into another group of one's own choosing, as you put it, is perfectly compatible with individualism; which imo just means you don't constrain yourself to the dominant thought process of whomever you identify with. Being in general agreement with a group of people is not surrendering your individuality.

You even illistrated that example, supporting my point without meaning to! You talked about nationalist bands rejecting egalitarianism, and also about bands with a primitive-naturist philosophy. These are not connected viewpoints, and the second especially isn't shared by a consensus of nationalist bands. So there is room for a variety of individual expression within the broad umbrella of nationalist black metal; just as nationalism itself isn't a one-size-fits-all.

Of course, I definitely agree with your assertion that individuals do have the freedom to make their own viewpoints in metal. Yet, I still would hold that it is absurd that someone would fight so hard to be an individual and then immediately preach about being part of the group. Individuality is about being apart from the group; the nationalist metal bands support individuality so far as it supports their ability to join another group. I find that this is a distortion simply because they're not interested in individuality as an ideal but as a means for achieving their specific collectivist ideal. I again will note that this is my interpretation and ultimately those that seek a communal message in black metal will prefer the uses of individuality than individuality as a priori, but I will note that the more expansive interpretation came in as those with more nationalistic/communal minds became introduced into black metal and attempted to discuss their beliefs by utilizing existing language.

On the second point, I probably should have gone more into depth. The reality in countries such as Sweden is that they are getting an influx of various different cultures in their borders which, under their society's egalitarian ideals, infers that the cultures of these new immigrants and the culture of the native Swedish are equal, an assertion that may simply not agree with. It is true that nationalist metal bands may want to return to an earlier time and perhaps they want to return to a time in which their society was so primitive that egalitarianism was the default rule. The implicit assumption in that case is that they want to return to a time in which egalitarianism isn't extended towards the different group because the different group didn't exist within their borders. They want to be equal without acknowledging others as equal but without stating that others are inferior. This is an intellectual gamut in which they are attempting to value their culture as superior to another without having to acknowledge an explicit denunciation of others. So even the most egalitarian of national bands are fueled with an ideal that implicitly utilizes the primordial us vs. them conflict with all those positive and negative social values that then bleed into their modern day interactions and all of those consequences. I won't mention bands that are clearly more extreme than this because on its face they clearly reject the notion of egalitarianism.

I have not read the other posts in this thread but yeah there is a difference in the three types of music you mentioned. NSBM is mostly about the Third Reich while Nationalist music is about where ever the band is from. Pagan is about having pride in being Pagan which could translate to European because that is what our people were originally. All of these genres are about having pride in what you are and I see nothing wrong with that.

It's fairly easy to associate nationalism with nazism because nationalist currents have become so marginalised in post-WW2 Europe that a nationalist has limited moving space to an extent that it is near impossible not to associate with nazis at one point.

It's also fairly easy to draw parallels between völkisch nationalistic currents, of which national socialism is an extreme example, but this unfairly bestows upon any nationalist the whiff of factory-like genocide that nazism is known for. In other words, when a band glorifies folk traditions, the fact that Hitler did that too does not make it a great idea to put said band in the same pool of ideas.

Your description of NSBM is very simplistic and whitewashed. Most NSBM does discuss the Third Reich and other Nazi ideas, but it's specifically to glorify them, which then requires a denigration of opposing ideas and people based on extremely superficial ideas. Conversely, other band have discussed the Third Reich/WWII in general without glorification and from a critical or historical perspective and I doubt anyone would consider them NSBM. Basically, NSBM bands use black metal specifically to spread or express national socialist ideas.

Thanks for the thoughtful discussion, everyone. Lot of interesting ideas on here. Sorry if the topic was a bit overwrought -- I just find it fascinating and wanted to hear some different perspectives. I'm going to look up the other thread that people mentioned to learn a little more.

What a load of shit, man.

Nationalism and the pursuit/celebration of identity is either something worthwhile and moral for everyone or for no-one. Suggesting otherwise is duplicitous and divisive.

That's a great thing to say in a perfect world but ignores the reality that colonizing or conquering countries have done a lot to destroy or erase other cultures and identities. So attempts to recapture those cultures are markedly different than oppressors/conquerors reinforcing their privileged position.

And besides, I didn't say there was anything wrong with nationalism/patriotism, the pursuit of identity or culture, I was positing a possible reason for the conflation of nationalism with national socialism and fascistic or racist ideas.

Tumblr is in the other direction.

I had to check what white cis-male means.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cisgender




What the hell? So, being born with a dick and being male now requires special word to notify those two match?

The reality is that legitimating nationalism for some and not for others is in itself unequal treatment and a potentially oppressive act, if identity/nationalism were to be a good thing.

...and the thread starts to unravel haha

Basically. But fortunately this sugar-coated terminology has not really caught on outside the US (yet) except among practitioners of gender studies and other pseudoscientific disciplines.

I wonder if the so-called academics who use that kind of terminology realize how removed they are from reality, high up there in the ivory tower.

Ah yes. Because no one outside of "the ivory tower" identifies "trans-" (which cis- developed in response too).

But sorry for bringing it up I guess. I was just trying to think of some more reasons why nationalist black metal and NSBM often get treated as the same thing.

The derail stops now.

I'll be going a bit off-topic, but being French, I have lots of things to say about this.

First of all, no, the National Front (FN) in France isn't looked by very few people. It was on the second turn of the elections in 2002, and is always at the 3rd rank, sometimes the 2nd in peoples opinion. They suffer from the "well thinking" (don't know if there's an English word for this) view of French people, who really think that far right = nazism. In France, you only have the right to think left or right (no extremes) if you want to be looked at normally. It's almost like there are only 2 parties here (UMP - right, and PS - left, also known as the UMPS for they are the only two to have the power...).

Secondly, Famine stated recently that he liked the traditional aspect of French catholicism. Here's an extract of a recent interview you can find on his fb page and a raw translation :



I can say that if Famine doesn't despise French religion related traditions and identity, he really despises the christian religion. Famine never really speaks about pagan religions, he considers himself as a nationalist and a satanist (he often calls is music NSBM - national satanist black metal). Despite this, I don't think he's truly a satanist as might be other BM musicians, because he's not into the occult side of the thing. He considers himself as a satanist for its opposition to the christian religion.

So, I wouldn't consider him as spreading the same word as Varg. Varg clearly wants to go back to the pagan roots of European cultures (and this means getting rid of jews, muslims and christians, without meaning that he wants to kill them all...). There's only one point on which the state the same thing, and that is that they're not racists but ethno-separatists, because they like difference and don't want to see everything mix together. Famine used the exact term of "ethno-differentialist" in the interview.

Oh and one last thing : get better informations about Hitler. He wasn't really against christianity and never did anything against christianity. The SS on the other side, particularly Himmler, were against christianity. I think there was even a Division commander that made his division renounce christianism in the benefit of german paganism.