By Evi Tsakali,
What if I told you that there is a dating site where, whatever you do, you always swipe right? And no, it is not what you may think…
Research conducted in France in April 2022 (the time of the Presidential elections) has shown that 55% of the participants would not choose a voter of Le Pen as a partner, and 64% of them would reject a Zemmour voter. In order to combat this “stigmatization” Stéphanie Deniel and her husband, Yohan Pawer founded Droite au cœur (an ambivalent name, as in French it can mean “straight to the heart” but also “Right to the heart”), a dating site dedicated to “patriots, guardians and defenders of our civilizational wealth” according to the official website description. Before registering, users have to declare their political stance by explicitly positioning themselves in the political spectrum; however, the options are limited, and range from the Républicains to Reconquête (Éric Zemmour’s party).
The common enemy in this ecosystem that this site creates is one: woke culture, which is the object of the sarcastic critique of its users. In the profile bio of a 26-year-old man one may read “White male, cis-gender, heterosexual, Christian… the cause of all evils in this world.” The remedy to woke culture? “Education, culture or religion—our roots are unwavering beacons that guide us on the path of life in a deconstructed and unhealthy society that no longer resembles us,” write the founders on the website.
Of course, unlike other dating apps, Droite au cœur is not driven by the desire to love, but the desire to exclude. The goal of the platform is more than just creating matches; it is to polarize and to preserve a certain identity (the explicit mention of ending up having children on the website is indicative of a tentative not only of preservation, but also of reproduction of the identity in question and the ideology associated with it.
The founders promise women the man of their hearts, who will be characterized by traditional values. Nevertheless, according to data collected by the New York Times, a large majority of users are men; it seems that the platform that would bring women together with the traditional men they were so desperately looking for is lacking…women. The big demand to which Droite au cœur was supposed to be the supply is still to be found.
To anyone not in the conservative spectrum (to put it mildly) the existence of such a dating app may seem ridiculous, more like the comic relief of the day; yet the emergence of Droite au cœur and any platform similar to it is in fact very alarming. The creation of such spaces marks a shift for the far-right -whose spaces used to be traditionally exclusive- to the mainstream. Extreme right ideology and its transposition to anti-wokism is gradually legitimized by something so universal as the pursuit of love.
They seem to forget though. They seem to forget that “darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that” (~Martin Luther King Jr); and the hate they give looks nothing like that light…
A PS if you are in need of a (albeit serious) comic relief: being a facho was never sexy
References
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« Droite au cœur », le site de rencontre pour les célibataires « patriotes ». 20minutes.fr. Available here
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Swipe right: Is France’s new right-wing dating app for ‘patriots’ as romantic as it claims?. euronews.com. Available here
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“Droite au cœur” : un site de rencontre dédié aux “patriotes” français. courrierinternational.com. Available here
