Several prominent members of the French Right were unpleasantly surprised to see their Instagram accounts deleted on Wednesday, August 21st, even though they have several thousand followers and have committed no legal offence.
Instagram’s ban of accounts deemed politically incorrect is nothing new. A few weeks ago, the authors of an essay denouncing the tyranny of transgenderism, Dora Moutot and Marguerite Stern, bore the brunt of Instagram’s policy by being kicked off the platform in the name of accusations of alleged ‘transphobia’.
This time, it was accounts belonging to the right-wing movement that were targeted. Alice Cordier, president of the feminist collective Némésis and a leading figure in France’s right-wing resistance movement, has been banned from the platform.
ASLA, or Association de Soutien aux Lanceurs d’Alerte, which aims to fight against the repressive and judicial excesses suffered by enemies of the French government—nationalists, yellow vests, or farmers—has also been blacklisted.
Instagram even punished humour as it also deleted the parody account Une bonne droite. In French, the title of the account is a play on words, since the expression ‘une bonne droite’ (a good right-wing) of course means a politically valid right-wing, but it also means ‘an effective punch.’ ‘Une bonne droite’ defines itself as a right-wing generalist media outlet, advocating “positive and enthusiastic nationalism”.
The Institut de Formation politique, which has been dedicated to the training and involvement of young right-wing activists for the past twenty years, also had its account closed but was allowed to resume its activities following an appeal.
These various personalities and organisations are still active on other networks, in particular X, where they denounce the censorship of Instagram. Since the announcement of these mass cancellations, indignation has reigned in circles that deny any legal wrongdoing on the part of the cancelled accounts, and emphasise their right to freedom of expression.
Reconquête president Éric Zemmour came to the defence of the muzzled commentators. “I give them my support. They do remarkable work on social media. They defend France and the truth with more courage than so many politicians,” he said on X.
Rassemblement National MP Julien Limongi also offered his support, drawing a parallel between the censorship they are suffering and the efforts to ban C8 from the DTT network. “After C8 was withdrawn from DTT for political reasons, a series of patriotic Instagram accounts, essential for denouncing the excesses of our society, are being suspended. They won’t be able to erase reality,” he explained, according to Le Journal du Dimanche.
Alice Cordier, who a few months ago suffered discrimination when her organisation’s bank account was arbitrarily closed, points out that this targeting policy will achieve the opposite of the desired result, as it effectively mobilises the persecuted: “Cut off one head and ten will grow back,” she posted on X. She denounced the closing of her Instagram account as a particularly unfair attack, given that it regularly received testimonies from women who had been victims of violence—a fight that should not be coloured by politics.
Right-wing commentator Damien Rieu urged his followers to boycott platforms dependent on Meta, for whom “not being left-wing has become a crime,” in favour of X or Telegram.
