Index and understand extreme right-wing symbols with Indextrême

What do Thor’s hammer, pigs, the Lorraine cross, The North Face, the sacred heart and the number 88 have in common? These are graphic symbols hijacked by the French far right, as listed on indextreme.fr. Far from being fascist symbols at the outset, they have been reappropriated by this ideology and its variants as vectors for tattoos, graffiti, flags, badges…

With a pedagogical and encyclopedic vocation, the site’s two co-founders explain that “by knowing their history, we can better understand the semiotic mechanisms of these extreme right-wing symbols and their impact on our society.” Geoffrey Dorne, who came up with the idea, the design and the concept, is an activist and committed designer. He collaborates with photojournalist Ricardo Parreira, who handles research, writing and documentation. Each acronym is deciphered by them to explain its origin and reappropriation, and its use is sourced through photos and articles. As the platform is collaborative, new symbols can be submitted for analysis before publication.

We learn, for example, that the Némésis, racist, Islamophobic and white supremacist “identitarian feminists”, display the face of the goddess Frigga (mother of Thor and Lokki) on their logo. They denounce immigration as the cause of sexual assaults in France, their collective having been created, according to indextrême, “following Marlène Schiappa’s proposal to deport sex offenders of foreign nationality”. We also learn that the Templars, an order of military and religious soldiers from the 12th century, are symbolically the fantasy of certain virilist priests or police officers who promote violence to promote the “holy battle” against Muslims or homosexuals, in order to protect “roots, an identity, a history, an eternal destiny”, as the very disturbing Abbé Matthieu Raffray proclaims on his instagram account (which we won’t share with you, but which you can report for “violence or dangerous organizations” if you come across it. ..).

You’ll also find on indextrême the hijacking of runes and other Celtic symbols and even certain brands, the particular use of the number 88 or the OK sign, or the “nationalist, fundamentalist, racial and homophobic” symbolism of the sacred heart. We leave you to discover all the categories of symbols hijacked by the extreme right on indextrême.