• 1 Worley Matthew and Copsey Nigel, “White Youth: The Far Right, Punk and British Youth Culture,” JOME (...)
• 2 Renton David, Never Again. Rock Against Racism and the Anti-Nazi League 1976-1982, London, Routledg (...)
• 3 Lescop Gildas, “‘Honnie soit la Oi!’ Birth, emergence and decline of a form of social and musical p (...)
• 4 Brown Timothy Scott, “Subcultures, Pop Music and Politics: Skinheads and ‘Nazi rock’ in England and (...)
• 5 Anti-Defamation League, “The Sounds of Hate: The White Power Music Scene in the United States in 20 (...)
• 6 For example, Petrova Youra, “Les skinheads: solidarité de classe ou combat national,” Agora débats/ (...)
• 7 For example, Peralva Angelina, “Être skinhead. Une identité politique?”, L’identité politique, Pari (...)
• 8 Hein Fabien, Do It Yourself! Autodétermination et culture punk, Congé-sur-Orne, Le passager clandes (...)

1A racist music scene that emerged from punk and skinhead subculture, Rock Against Communism (RAC) appeared in the United Kingdom in the early 1980s1 in reaction to the Rock Against Racism movement. The latter movement was itself created in response to racist (Clapton) or ambiguous (Bowie) statements by British rock stars and the electoral rise of the National Front.2 A political reaction, RAC was also a musical reaction: its participants, almost exclusively male, thought that punk had become too intellectual and preferred oi!, a rawer musical style that was supposed to reflect working-class values and street culture.3 From 1984 onwards, RAC spread throughout Europe, in the West as well as the East,4 and later in North America, where local activists favored the expression “white power.”5 While the skinhead subculture, and in particular its far-right minority, was the subject of numerous studies in the 1990s, particularly in sociology6 and political science,7 the French RAC music scene has rarely been studied. Its workings, based on DIY practices originating in the punk scene, raises questions about the supposedly emancipatory nature of these practices,8 given that in this case self-produced records and fanzines are used to promote xenophobic discourse.

• 9 Parisian oi! group active from 1981 to 1994.
• 10 Lille-based oi! group active from 1982 to 1987.
• 11 Brake Mike, “The Skinheads: An English Working Class Subculture,” Youth & Society, vol. 6, n^o. 2, 1 (...)

2The aim of this article is to examine the evolution of the French RAC scene, from its emergence in 1984 to its current – albeit marginal – forms of preservation. The groups considered to be RAC are those that have left a trace, either audio or written, in which a racist ideology is openly expressed. Groups deemed problematic in the 1980s for presenting themselves as “nationalists, nothing more” are not included in my corpus (Tolbiac’s Toads,9 Snix10), as declaring oneself a nationalist was already a prerequisite for English skinhead subculture from its origins.11

• 12 Becker Howard S., Art Worlds, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1982.
• 13 Bennett Andy and Peterson Richard A., Music Scenes: Local, Translocal, and Virtual, Nashville, Vand (...)
• 14 Gosling Tim, “Not for Sale: The Underground Network of Anarcho-Punk,” Music Scenes, Nashville, Vand (...)

4The concept of the music scene comes from Howard Becker’s work on art worlds12 and that of sociologists Andy Bennett and Richard Peterson, who distinguish between local, translocal, and virtual scenes.13 The concept of the art world, of which the music scene is a specific subset, involves looking not only at artists but also at all those involved in the production, distribution, and reception of works (labels, mailing lists, concert organizers, fanzine authors, audiences). Becker distinguishes between two extreme cases based on the degree of institutionalization of the scene studied: art worlds where each task is performed by a specialized person and those where the same person is responsible for all tasks related to the production of a cultural work. The RAC scene, like the vast majority of underground music scenes,14 is closer to the second. In their work on music scenes, Bennett and Peterson distinguish between three types of scene: the local scene, which brings together a core group of people who animate a given scene in a limited geographical area; the translocal scene, which involves loose but real links between dispersed actors; and finally the virtual scene, which essentially brings together the activities of fans and – especially since the early 2000s – online activities, whether or not they involve a direct link between the artist and their audience.

• 15 Pfahl-Traughber Armin, “La scène skinhead. Une sous-culture de jeunesse d’extrême-droite et un phén (...)
• 16 Hebdige Dick, Subculture. The meaning of style, London, New York, Routledge, 1979.
• 17 Vant André (ed.), Marginalité sociale, marginalité spatiale, Paris, Éditions du CNRS, 1986; Séchet (...)

5The concept of subculture is particularly well-suited to the RAC milieu, where music is one element of identity among others (dress style, body ethos, iconography, slogans, etc.15). Hebdige’s seminal work recalls that skinheads, whether politicized or not, have constituted “an identifiable subculture” since the late 1960s.16 They sported an “aggressively proletarian, puritanical, and chauvinist “style [implying] the “suppression of any imagined bourgeois influences (suits, ties, lacquer, “prettiness”). Finally, the notion of marginality, which has been explored in social geography since the mid-1980s,17 seems relevant insofar as, regardless of the period under consideration, the actors of the French RAC scene combine several forms of marginality (musical, political, and sometimes geographical and social).

• 18 Many thanks to Gildas Lescop for providing me with several issues of the fanzines RAC Charles Marte (...)

6As I have so far been unable to establish contacts with actors within the scene – which has been wary of academic investigation from its inception – this article relies solely on data accessible online. The Discogs discography database was used to document the activity of labels and collect album covers and, where available, booklets. Almost all of the albums released can be found on specialized forums, which also contain a large number of demos recorded by bands not listed on Discogs. Many English-language RAC fanzines are available on archive.org, where one can find fanzine addresses, interviews, and reviews of records and concerts. Unfortunately, French RAC fanzines are not available18 on archive.org, nor are they kept at the Fanzinothèque de Poitiers. Finally, on a more random basis, interviews were found on the Facebook pages of certain contemporary bands or by browsing archived websites on the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine, particularly the websites of labels active in the 2010s.

• 19 Bunker 84, a band from Méru (Oise), active from 1984 to 1989. Reformed in 2018 with only one origin (...)

7The corpus consists of several hundred diverse recordings (demos, EPs, LPs, compilations) relating to around 100 bands active between 1984 and 2024. In the best cases, the biographies of both the band and its members and the discography are known, the album booklets are available, and it has been possible to retrieve interviews and reviews of any concerts. However, these cases are few and concern only the least obscure bands in the corpus studied (Bunker 84, Evil Skins, Légion 88,19 etc.). There are a large number of bands about which I know almost nothing (origin, years of activity) and of which only a virtually inaudible demo remains, with no known cover, and whose tracks sometimes have no title.

• 20 Translator’s note: The lyrics cited in this article have been translated from the original French.

8The methodology adopted combines prosopography (biography, career and output of artists, managers, label creators and managers, etc.) and content analysis (iconography of fanzines, records, photographs of bands and concerts). Lexical analysis of song lyrics was conducted on a limited corpus, as many recordings are of such poor sound quality that transcription of the lyrics was impossible. Only the analysis of “audible” texts and of song titles was carried out.20

• 21 The number of unemployed people in France reached one million in 1977, two million in 1982, and thr (...)
• 22 Lescop, “‘Honnie soit la Oi!’ Naissance, émergence et déliquescence d’une forme de protestation soc (...)
• 23 Parisian punk band active from 1976 to 2015.
• 24 Arno Rudeboy, Nyark nyark! : Fragments of the punk and alternative rock scene in France (1976-1989)(...)

10The beginning of this decade in France was marked, among other things, by François Mitterrand’s victory in the 1981 presidential elections, the presence of communist ministers in the government (1981-1983) in the context of the Second Cold War, and the rise of mass unemployment, partly linked to the brutal dismantling of certain industries, such as steel.21 The Socialist Party’s shift towards reform was accompanied by the first spectacular successes of the National Front: the municipal elections in Dreux in March 1983 and Jean-Marie Le Pen’s appearance on the television show L’heure de vérité in February 1984. From 1983 onwards, part of the Oi! music scene became more radical, and bands promoting far-right messages began to appear.22 This emergence closely followed that of the so-called French alternative scene, and there was a certain porosity between musicians and within the audience: La Souris déglinguée,23 for example, is known for having an audience that included some far-right skinheads in the mid-1980s. Numerous accounts from those involved in the alternative scene recall that France at the time had few medium-sized concert venues and lacked distribution channels.24 These difficulties affected the entire French rock scene at the time and were, of course, exacerbated for the RAC scene, which saw very few concerts during this decade.

• 25 Kimmel Michael, Healing from Hate. How Young Men Go Into—and Out Of—Violent Extremism, Oakland, Uni (...)
• 26 Interviews often indicate the age of group members: they are rarely over 20. Photographs from the p (...)
• 27 In his autobiography, the repentant singer of the US white power bands Final Solution and White Ame (...)

11The RAC scene of 1984-1994 was almost exclusively male, which seems to be a constant feature of violent fringe movements.25 It operated through a network of very young26 and often provincial actors. Two labels structured the scene: the German label Rock-O-Rama, founded in 1979, which specialized in the RAC scene from 1984 onwards, seemingly more for economic than ideological reasons,27 and the Brest-based label Rebelles européens, active from 1987 to 1994. In keeping with the logic of underground scenes, the same person tended to fill several roles: the creator of the Rebelles européens label, Gaël Bodilis, was also the manager of the Brest band Brutal Combat (active from 1984 to 1988), a producer (he is credited as producer for 32 of the label’s 72 releases) and, occasionally, a concert organizer. He is one of the few to have forged lasting links with the English scene, his productions being systematically reviewed in English RAC fanzines (see fig. 1).

• 28 On “skinhead hunters” and the mythical account of the Paris clashes, see the documentary Antifa, ch (...)
• 29 Bunker 84, see above; Totenkopf, a group from Mennecy (Oise), active from 1985 to 1986, founded by (...)
• 30 Excerpt from an interview with Laurent from Bunker 1984 by the fanzine RAC Boots and Braces Solo Zi (...)
• 31 The group released a self-produced demo in 1985, which was reissued in 2015 by Rappel à l’Ordre Pro (...)
• 32 To my knowledge, the group left no recordings.
• 33 Interview with Brutal Combat published in the fanzine RAC Zine mécanique n^o. 1 in 1986, reproduced (...)
• 34 Camus Jean-Yves, “Les skinheads: une contre-culture néo-nazie,” La Pensée, n^o. 304, 1995, p. 127-13 (...)

12With around thirty active groups and fifteen fanzines, often short-lived, throughout France, the RAC scene was too small to give rise to local scenes in the strict sense of the term. In Paris, there were few explicitly RAC groups, and the environment was an obstacle to their activities: gangs of “skinhead hunters” (“chasseurs de skins”) active in the 1980s and 1990s effectively banned all concerts.28 The small group in Essonne around the musicians of Bunker 84, Totenkopf, Ratten Gift, and Nouvelle croisade29 initially had around twenty members.30 In small towns, cases such as the Aurillac group Palo Alto31 were not uncommon: there were four members in the group, which was the total number of skinheads in the town (RAC Charles Martel fanzine, n^o. 8, 1986). The situation was echoed in Moulins, where the town’s four skinheads, aged between 17 and 21, formed the group Doc Struthof (Charles Martel, n^o. 1, 1986).32 Moreover, the RAC scene appears to be a subculture with working-class origins, as indicated by the occupations given by its members: two high school students and two unemployed people (Palo Alto, op. cit.); a piercer working in printed circuit boards, three members working in ship repair and a delivery driver (Brutal Combat in 198633); three workers and a student (Baygon blanc in 199334).

• 35 Fights were common at Oi! concerts: the apolitical Rouen band Skinkorps (1982-1994) said in an inte (...)
• 36 See the example of the discontinuation of a RAC fanzine: “L’Ordre Noir s’arrête [sic] l’armée l’app (...)

13Most groups struggled to gain access to proper recording conditions, which only those signed to Rock-O-Rama or Rebelles européens managed to achieve. Concerts were rare, clandestine, and often cut short by fights in the audience35 and/or the police intervention. Distribution was limited to mail order, as no radio stations played these recordings. The fact that the vast majority of participants faced the impossibility of envisioning any form of musical career contributed to the ephemeral nature of the bands. Engagement in the RAC scene was rarely long-lasting, and military service appears to be a frequent reason for giving up music.36

• 37 Shaffer Ryan, “From Outcast to Martyr: The Memory of Rudolf Hess in Skinhead Culture,” Journal EXIT (...)
• 38 Angers group, active from 1985 to 1991.
• 39 Translator’s note: Lyrics translated from the original French.
• 40 Eribon Didier, Retour à Reims, Paris, Flammarion, 2010. Notably p. 145 et seq.

15The themes of the lyrics are surprisingly similar in the few hundred songs studied, mixing racism, antisemitism, glorification of the Third Reich, and a fantasized vision of French history. The memory of the Second World War is very present, particularly through figures such as Rudolf Hess, who is the subject of dozens of songs in European RAC scenes37. In addition to praise for the Nazi regime, the dominant political themes are, on the one hand, the classic themes of the far right (antisemitism and Holocaust denial, racism, particularly anti-Maghreb racism, apology for warrior values, advocacy of the death penalty and individual self-defense, mythification of the past and heroic figures such as Charles Martel and Joan of Arc), and, on the other hand, a very dark vision of contemporary France, supposedly plagued by immigration, unemployment (caused by the former) and drugs. Islamophobia is barely mentioned at the beginning of the period, but its influence grows over the years. Some texts seem emblematic in the way they condense the countless racist stereotypes associated with a despised population. In the song “Mohamed” by Kontingent 88,38 first recorded in 1987, we see, for example, the portrait of an Algerian immigrant, a polygamist and participant in the “migrant invasion” (“He brought his family, all his wives and children”), living on welfare (“He’s registered as unemployed”), who doesn’t speak French (“He only speaks Kabyle”), is fanatical (“And only reads the Koran”), hence the refrain repeated three times (“Mohamed, shit fly, we don’t want you, Mohamed, shit fly, we’re going to send you back home”39). While the lyrics may seem scandalous, it is worth remembering that anti-Maghreb racism, like homophobia and support for the death penalty, was widespread in the 1970s and 1980s, including among the communist electorate.40

• 41 Raposo Ana and Sabin Roger, “New Visual Identities for British Neo-Fascist Rock (1982-1987). White (...)
• 42 8 refers to the eighth letter of the alphabet, 88 means Heil Hitler. This reference does not apply (...)
• 43 Blank SS, a punk band from Saint-Etienne, active from 1982 to 1984; Reich Orgasm (the name being, a (...)
• 44 Ballet Nicolas, “Symphony for a Genocide. Industrial Music and Totalitarianism,” Marges, vol. 26, 2 (...)

16The iconography is more varied, ranging from the revival of skinhead aesthetic canons (dress style, attitudes, nods to A Clockwork Orange), regionalism, references to a mythical past (Gauls, Crusaders, Vikings, knights) and the use of far-right symbols (Celtic crosses and swastikas, Nazi iconography) (see fig. 2). The iconography is very similar to that of the English neo-fascist scene studied by Ana Raposo and Roger Sabin41 – with the exception of the cult of the English band Skrewdriver, which is common in English RAC but absent from the iconography of French groups. References to World War II and Nazism are not limited to lyrics; they can also be found in the names of certain groups (Kontingent 88,42 Légion 88, Totenkopf) and fanzines (Bras tendu, renamed Le Rebelle blanc in 1986, Extermination totale, Stormtrooper, Gestapo, Swastika, etc.). These characteristics are common to all European RAC scenes (see fig. 1, the English group The Fourth Reich or the Swedish group Dirlewanger) and we find exactly the same characteristics today in NSBM (National-Socialist Black Metal) scenes. It should be noted, however, that a name evoking the Third Reich is not, in itself, a sufficient criterion to classify a group within a given political-musical scene, as many punk and post-punk groups in the 1970s and 1980s readily adopted ambiguous names43 (e.g., Blank SS or Reich Orgasm in France; London SS, Joy Division, or New Order in England), and the industrial scene of the 1970s frequently used iconography combining extermination camps and totalitarian architecture.44

• 46 Thanks to one of the reviewers for bringing this to my attention. For a quick history of this font, (...)
• 47 Band from Essonne, active from 1988 to 1992.
• 48 Brutal Begude, a Marseilles-based RAC metal band active from 1995 to 2015; Mauvais troquet, a Breto (...)

17One last point is worth noting: the frequent use of the Fraktur font, a Gothic typeface used to print Mein Kampf and associated in the neo-Nazi imagination with the Third Reich.46 The logos of some groups use it, including Bunker 84, Ultime Assaut,47 and Nouvelle Croisade. Many albums have used this font since 1984 (Péril rouge by Brutal Combat), and it is also used for RAC concert flyers. This aspect is not specific to the French scene and can be found from the outset in English RAC fanzines and flyers. The use of this font remained common among RAC groups in the following decades, such as Brutal Begude and Mauvais troquet.48 In the latter case, the band’s name is in Fraktur, except for the s, which imitates the SS’s Sieg Rune.

• 49 Pseudonym of a connoisseur of the French RAC scene, he wrote the liner notes for several reissues f (...)

18A young, male scene, distributed by mail order, whose main groups never sold more than a few thousand copies, the French RAC scene of the late 1980s was nevertheless the most radical and one of the most respected in Europe. As the liner notes of the Ratten Gift reissue indicate, “in Germany [Rock-O-Rama label], political records (from far right) were banned. British bands were far less extreme lyrically. Evil Skins have been the first to [put] ‘Sieg Heil’ on a song, Légion 88 to put a Rudolph Hess picture on a cover and Bunker 84 to glorify the ‘Nacht und Nebel’” (English liner notes by Sacha Beerbellies49). However, this active and internationally renowned scene gradually lost much of its vitality in the 2000s.

• 50 Thomas Jonathan, La propagande par le disque. Jean-Marie Le Pen, éditeur phonographique, Paris, Édi (...)
• 51 Mathieu Lilian, “Une musique groupusculaire: le rock identitaire français,” Art et contestation, Re (...)
• 52 Collective, Rock Haine Roll. Origines, histoires et acteurs du Rock Identitaire Français, Paris, Éd (...)
• 53 Frakass, a band from Lyon active from 1986 to 2020; Fraction, a band from Nice active since 1994 (n (...)
• 54 Anti-fascist magazines and websites make it possible to identify many of the members of these group (...)
• 55 For the group Fraction Hexagone (renamed Fraction in 1999), RAC in 1995 stood for Rock Anti Capital (...)

20Until the mid-1990s, the far-right music scene was relatively limited, composed primarily of a traditional offering (military songs, pop) promoted mainly by S.E.R.P., a label co-founded by Jean-Marie Le Pen,50 and the much rawer (both musically and lyrically) RAC scene. This offering diversified in the years that followed: a smoother rock scene, French identity rock, supported by the National Front, attempted without much success to reach a wider audience.51 The political message was euphemized, but not enough to allow it to be broadcast on mainstream media or performed at concerts in the traditional circuit.52 From the late 1990s onwards, the RAC scene also faced competition from an even more radical movement, in terms of both lyrics, which were generally incomprehensible to the listener, and music, known as NSBM. While a number of RAC bands continued to play Oi!, metal and hardcore influences became more prevalent. However, the bands were short-lived and only a few managed to stay together for long enough to record more than one album and find opportunities to play underground gigs in France and abroad (Frakass, Fraction, Lemovice, Match Retour,53 etc.). A handful of people, often linked to neo-Nazi groups such as Blood & Honour or the Hammerskins, managed to organize five to ten RAC concerts a year in France, mainly in the Lyon region, the south-east, and the east of the country.54 The very name of the RAC political-musical movement was questioned by some artists,55 as communism was increasingly seen less as a threat in France in the 2000s (fall of the Berlin Wall, breakup of the USSR, electoral marginalization of the PCF). RAC gradually became a catch-all label, bringing together musical groups that were very different from one another and united only by their ideological proximity to the far right of the FN/RN.

• 56 This example was not chosen at random: Laurent gave interviews very regularly and his career is wel (...)

21Most of the players in the early RAC scene ceased all activity after their military service, and many left behind nothing more than a demo or an interview in a fanzine. A small minority of musicians managed to build long-lasting artistic careers, often pursuing different musical projects. For example, Laurent,56 singer with Bunker 84, played in the RAC band Bifrost with the guitarist from Brutal Combat (one demo in 1995), had an electronic music project (BKR42, one album in 2016), wrote lyrics for the band Lemovice (four tracks on the album Le front des patriotes, 2013, including one dedicated to Rudolf Hess, “Chronique d’une mort annoncée”), reformed Bunker 84 in 2018 – he was the only original member – for a few concerts abroad, and has released new tracks on various compilations in recent years. This type of lasting activity is rare among RAC artists, also revealing of the aging of the scene.

• 57 Interview for the webzine https://ilfaudrabienvousyfaire.wordpress.com/2015/03/14/entretien-avec-le (...)
• 58 Interview with the far-right web media outlet breizh-info, https://www.breizh-info.com/2020/04/08/1 (...)
• 59 Interview with Martel, In Extremis, #74, 2024.
• 60 Dyck Kirsten, Reichsrock: The International Web of White-Power and Neo-Nazi Hate Music, London, Rut (...)
• 61 See the investigation into the French scene by Humeau Pierig, À corps et à cris. Sociologie des pun (...)

22Since the early 2010s, this observation has been made repeatedly by those involved. The Marseille-based hatecore (a contraction of hate music and hardcore) band Hold Fast stated in 2015 that “in terms of bands, France is really lagging behind compared to other European countries. Apart from a few ‘dinosaur’ bands that have been around for a long time: Frakass, Lemovice, and the return of Brutal Begude. There hasn’t really been anything new.”57 Nico, singer and guitarist with Lemovice, said in 2020 that French RAC “has unfortunately been losing momentum for the past ten years or so because there aren’t many bands taking up the torch […] Audiences have been at their lowest level since 2015 (when we played our last big concerts in France) for several reasons. First of all, there aren’t enough bands and almost no new bands are being formed.”58 This observation also applies to the RAC scene’s audience, as indicated by the creator and manager of one of the few French labels still in operation: “The RAC scene depends on consumers and players who are fewer and fewer and getting older and older.”59 The aging and decline of the audience can also be seen in the few concert photos posted online by some bands. This aging of the RAC scene is not unique to France, with similar phenomena observed in the United Kingdom, Scandinavia,60 and the United States. It is also not specific to the RAC scene and seems to apply to punk scenes more generally.61

• 62 In 2025, the peer-to-peer software Soulseek remains a good way to complete a RAC discography.
• 63 See the special issue of the journal Réseaux devoted to L’Internet des droites extrêmes (2017, n^o. (...)

23The digitization of music has had significant and contradictory effects on the French RAC scene. While it facilitates the circulation of content and promotes the emergence of virtual scenes, it also weakens labels. It is much easier today than it was in the 1980s and 1990s to build up a RAC record collection, whether through peer-to-peer sharing62 or specialized forums (rac-forum, 88nsm, etc.), self-produced cassettes put out in a few dozen copies in the late 1980s, or albums printed in 300 copies in the 2000s are easily downloadable today. The major groups on the RAC scene are generally present on generalist platforms (YouTube) and, when their lyrics are not too offensive, on music platforms (Deezer, Spotify, Bandcamp, etc.). However, content is regularly removed: as the audience grows, reports become more numerous and the risk of being banned from the platform increases. It is likely that virtual scenes may have formed in the 2010s around certain groups and on certain discussion forums known for hosting far-right topics (e.g., jeuxvideos.com)63; however, as I did not conduct online ethnographic research at the time, I cannot comment further on this point.

• 64 Marseilles duo founded by two high school students, active from 2001 to 2003 (quoted material trans (...)
• 65 Fanzine RAC Dur et pur #1, 2024 (quoted material translated here from the original French).

24As for labels, none have managed to achieve the international audience of Rebelles européens. Labels appear regularly but with lower print runs (from an average of 3,000 copies in the early 1990s to a maximum of 500 today) and often with lower production and longevity. Focusing on the least obscure labels, we find Pit Records (Evry, 35 productions from 1995 to 2005), Street Fighting Records (Vannes, 27 productions from 1998 to 2007), and Martel en Tête (Bourges, 39 productions since 2013). Among the labels with a shorter existence and a smaller number of productions are Good night left side (2008-2011, four productions), Lug records (1996-1999, six productions), Rage Records (2005-2017, fifteen productions) and Patriote Productions (2005-2013, nine productions). This abundance of often short-lived labels is partly misleading, as they are sometimes run by the same people, who regularly change the label’s name to limit the risk of crackdowns. A member of the Marseille-based RAC duo Chevrotine64 said in a recent interview that they had released albums under different label names (Musique & Tradition, Guerre promise, Pagan Pride) to “cover their tracks.”65 As labels are vulnerable, many groups release their albums on their own labels, such as Brutal Begude (two albums on their label Hitler was right), Cellule 23 from Pau (two albums in 2007 and 2009 on their label Zizi Koin Koink), and Hais & Fiers (three albums from 2005 to 2011 on their label Rac’n’Oi!).

• 66 Interview on September 13, 2018, in the webzine Wardance (https://wardancewebzine2.blogspot.com/201 (...)
• 67 Teitelbaum Benjamin Raphael, Lions of the North. Sounds of the New Nordic Radical Nationalism, Oxfo (...)

25Regardless of the label, CD sales collapsed in the 2000s, as evidenced by the Chevrotine member mentioned above (“In 2005 […] the death of CDs was already well underway, and I really saw sales collapse year after year”) and the creator of Martel en Tête (“Today, people want everything for free, and frankly I don’t see what would change that. […] With CD sales collapsing, we are constantly looking for new market segments, such as merchandising. And we are also betting on the return of vinyl”66). The few labels that have managed to survive have indeed focused on vinyl while promoting the past of the RAC scene. This decline of RAC labels is not unique to France and can be seen in most European countries: Teitelbaum cites Alternative Action in Finland, NS Records in Denmark, Boot Boys Records in Norway and Nordland, Ragnarock and Svea Musik in Sweden as labels that went bankrupt or dormant in the 2000s.67

• 68 The term “micro-labels” is justified both by the number of productions, which is often less than 10 (...)
• 69 This track appears on the self-produced album Une force, une cause, un combat (1987), which borders (...)
• 70 The second track on the self-produced EP Docteur Skinhead (1986) begins: “Communists must be killed (...)

27The influence and lasting impact of a band can be measured using three complementary indicators: tribute albums (compilations featuring songs by the band in question), album reissues by French and/or foreign labels, and, more difficult to identify, covers of songs by later bands. The existence of a Wikipedia page, possibly in several languages, is also an interesting indicator. For the most obscure bands, measuring their legacy is more difficult, as any reissues are likely to be the work of tiny labels. One example is the demo by Ratten Gift (1984), reissued in Germany in 2018 with no mention of a label. Other low-profile initiatives exist, and identifying them requires active monitoring (micro-labels such as Le Glaive, History Tape Records, Skinhouse Productions,68 etc.). Conversely, labels specializing in Oi! that have adopted a preservation approach rarely take the risk of offering overly radical artists in their catalog; the Parisian label Bords de Seine, for example, may reissue controversial bands, notably on the sub-label Rappel à l’Ordre Productions, but without including the most ideologically oriented tracks (see the Evil Skins compilation, which omits “Zyklon army”69 and “Sat Cong” 70; the reissue of Lemovice’s Oi! tribute, which includes covers of Oi! songs, but not the band’s other albums).

• 71 Martel en Tête is reissuing Humungus’ album (origin unknown, active in the 2000s, includes two form (...)

29The list of reissues, which is undoubtedly incomplete, is available on Discogs. It is relatively predictable: the best-produced and most widely distributed albums of the 1980s and 1990s are the ones most frequently reissued, and this is particularly true of the Rebelles européens label’s catalog. It is worth noting, however, that these reissues may be initiated by French, European, or North American labels. The sometimes high number of reissues (nine reissues for the album Thulé by Légion 88 since 1998; seven reissues for the album Notre combat by Bunker 84 since 1995) should not lead one to imagine massive distribution, as the number of copies is limited. For example, the Portuguese reissue of Thulé in 2013 (no label mentioned) had a print run of 188 copies, while the Dutch reissue on the Bloody Punch Records label in the same year had a print run of 88 copies, and there are many other examples. The resurgence of vinyl is also encouraging commercial collector’s reissues; varying the color of the record has become a common marketing strategy.71

• 72 A band from the south of France active from 1999 to 2003.
• 73 Translator’s note: Quoted material translated here from the original French.

30As for covers, an exhaustive survey has yet to be conducted, but it seems, unsurprisingly, that the artists most widely broadcast at the time, and whose albums are most often reissued, are also those whose songs are most frequently covered. It is also common to start a musical career by covering famous RAC songs: the eight live tracks on Jeune Garde include four covers (three by Légion 88 and one by Evil Skins); Lemovice’s album Singles 1999-2002 includes a cover of Bunker 84 and one of Légion 88; Division Skinhead,72 live in Chambéry (2003), covers two songs by Légion 88, one by Ultime Assaut, and one by the English band Skrewdriver. These same bands are regularly covered by foreign RAC bands. Sometimes the lyrics are slightly altered, as in Fraction’s recent cover of Légion 88’s “Terroristes.” The original lyrics (“Funded by the far left, manipulated by Mossad, you plant bombs in Paris because it’s easy to kill kids. Terrorists, die! Immigrants, out!”) became, in 2023, “Funded by dirty money, manipulated by imams, you commit terror because it’s easy to kill kids. Terrorists, die! Islamists, out!”73 In a similar manner, lyrical attacks once directed at communists have mostly shifted toward anti-fascist groups.

• 74 Benetollo Anne, Rock et politique. Censure, Opposition, Intégration, Paris, L’Harmattan, 1999 (the (...)

31As an ultra-minority musical movement, even in the late 1980s, the relationship between the RAC scene and politics warrants examination. Since the values promoted by most of these bands are explicitly neo-Nazi, any incorporation into legitimate political spheres appears inherently problematic. In the book drawn from her dissertation, Anne Benetollo74 identifies three possible types of connections between music and politics: censorship links (a political current draws attention to an artist deemed problematic); oppositional links (an artist opposes a given political current); and integration links (artists being used for electoral purposes by a party, or the political engagement of the artists themselves).

• 75 See above, note 56.

32Vigilance regarding RAC scene activities – particularly the monitoring of concerts – is mainly carried out by anti-fascist groups.75 In this case, one can speak of censorship links, insofar as any RAC concert may be banned by prefectural decree for risk of public disorder. Censorship on digital platforms is more opaque, and it is difficult to determine the part played by individual reports, motivated by ideological reasons, as compared to the algorithmic decisions of the platforms themselves.

• 76 See, for example, the lyrics of “Sodomite” on Brutal Begude’s album Extrême retour (2015).

33The oppositional links are explicit: the RAC scene openly opposes communism and, more broadly, all minorities perceived as threatening a fantasized national identity (Jews, Muslims, North Africans, Freemasons) and the hetero-patriarchal order considered “natural” (homosexuals, feminists, transsexuals, etc.). The lyrics, often outrageous, cannot form the basis of any political program, and it would be tenuous to suggest any connections between the messages of these bands and the decline in electoral results of the French Communist Party (PCF) since the 1980s. Islamophobia, a discernible undertone from the earliest days of RAC, has become an omnipresent theme. Finally, greater societal tolerance toward gender minorities in France appears to have provided new sources of inspiration for some RAC groups.76

• 77 National Republican Movement, a political party created by Bruno Mégret in 1999 following a split w (...)
• 78 Bouron Samuel, “Un militantisme à deux faces. Stratégie de communication et politique de formation (...)
• 79 Quoted in Louis Patrick and Prinaz Laurent, Skinheads, Taggers, Zulus & Co, Paris, La Table Ronde, (...)
• 80 In particular, he noted that “the incidents following the FN march on May 1st, 1993, during which 3 (...)
• 81 Szele Áron, “Nemzeti Rock: the Radical Right and Music in Contemporary Hungary,” JOMEC Journal, n^o.(...)

34Examining the question of integration links yields a more nuanced picture, due to two major obstacles. First, both for the far-right parties participating in the electoral process (FN/RN, MNR77) and for the new generations of far-right activists,78 neo-Nazi skinheads are readily used as a foil, hence the nickname “gogol 88” often used on far-right forums. At best, neo-Nazi skinheads have sometimes served as poster hangers and security guards, as skinheads from Reims interviewed by Libération in 1988 confided: “We’re only good for sticking up their posters, then they kick us out because it gives them a bad image.”79 This rejection works both ways, with the political parties in question being considered far too soft by far-right skinheads, as noted by Jean-Yves Camus in 1995.80 Similar dynamics appear in other European RAC scenes: in the Hungarian case, Szele observes that, on one side, “the political radical right did not recognize the value of music to convey its message,” and on the other, “the [RAC] bands found the parties to be insufficiently radical.”81

• 82 Translator’s note: Quoted material translated here from the original French.
• 83 Source: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippe_Vardon (accessed May 9, 2025).

35Beyond the rejection of the bonehead (a term used for far-right skinheads), sometimes tinged with class contempt, both the lyrics and the imagery of the most radical groups make any political co-optation effectively impossible, since their messages could lead to criminal prosecution (incitement to racial hatred, antisemitism, Holocaust denial, calls for murder, etc.). At the start of the period under study, the only political outlets for actors within the RAC scene were fringe groups under heavy surveillance, such as the Jeunesses Nationalistes Révolutionnaires (JNR), Troisième Voie, or the Parti nationaliste français et européen (PNFE). This involvement seems to have left a bitter taste for some, as shown in this excerpt from an interview with Laurent of Bunker 84, a PNFE member in the 1980s: “Looking back, that party was nothing more than a dead end for young idealists, luring them into a folkloric splinter group, heavily monitored by the cops and serving as a foil for the system to show the good people”82 (interview published in Boots and Braces Solo Zine, Czech Republic, 2018). Some RAC band members later transitioned into activism within far-right parties participating in the electoral process, but such shifts always took place after their musical careers were over. The best-known case is probably that of Philippe Vardon, singer with Fraction from 1998 to 2007; he entered the electoral arena in Nice years after leaving the band.83

• 84 Peralva, “Être skinhead. Une identité politique?,” op. cit. (quoted material translated here from t (...)
• 85 Camus Jean-Yves and Lebourg Nicolas, Les droites extrêmes en Europe, Le Seuil, 2015, p. 122 (quoted (...)

36It is possible to regard the RAC scene and the far-right skinhead subculture as infrapolitical scenes. In the 1990s, Angelica Peralva noted, based on interviews with Parisian skins, that the “political project appears […] highly self-centered, grounded in a youth identity and a strategic relationship with the media, yet unable to establish its distinctiveness on anything other than violence.”84 More recently, studying not only the musical currents but also the political groupuscules themselves, political scientists Jean-Yves Camus and François Lebourg wrote that “neo-Nazism is more of a cultural phenomenon than a political one. It is often a form of juvenile expression of rejection of commonly accepted codes, imitating an ideology perceived as the most transgressive.”85 For most participants, the desire to shock is likely just as strong as any desire to campaign for a neo-Nazi France. Moreover, few bands have exclusively political lyrics; most also sing about the clichés of the urban skinhead way of life – beer, brawls, nights out, and skinhead girls.

• 86 The NSBM scene, while much more productive than the contemporary RAC scene, is also a very small an (...)

37RAC in France – a male, radical, young, and marginal scene, both politically and musically – was initially driven by a handful of versatile actors who were heavily invested in all aspects of its operation (songwriting, organizing concerts, distributing fanzines, etc.). This hyperactivity was generally short-lived, and only a small number of bands achieved enough longevity to secure recordings on a properly distributed label (Rebelles européens and Rock-O-Rama in 1990; Martel en Tête in 2020), with these bands later becoming the subject of a marginal but real form of preservation. After having been one of the most radical scenes in Europe – thanks in part to a surprising lack of censorship – the RAC scene was later marginalized by others offering a more polished discourse and sound (such as rock identitaire français), or, conversely, by scenes that were just as radical but musically more diverse (hardcore, NSBM86).