Marc d'Anna, writing under the pen name Alexandre del Valle, is a French writer, professor, columnist, and political commentator. He is known primarily for his analysis of Islamic extremism, and his criticism of Erdogan's neo-Ottoman, Islamist, and post-kemalist Turkey. Del Valle is a proponent of the PanWest paradigm—the cooperation between the West and Russia against radical islamism—and coined the concept of "Red-green-brown alliance" in 2002. His domains of interest focus on Islamic extremism, new geopolitical threats, civilizational conflicts, and terrorism, as well as Mediterranean issues such as Turkey's proposed accession to the European Union. Alexandre del Valle wrote on international relations and geopolitics of the Arab-Muslim world.
Biography
Personal life
Del Valle was born in Marseille, France, on September 6, 1968 to Pieds-Noirs parents. His father was a Sicilian who settled first in Tunisia and later in Algeria and Marseille. His mother came from an anti-Franquist family partly settled in Oran, Algeria and after in Marseille.
Controversies
Del Valle's first book, Islamism and the United States: An Alliance against Europe, sparked controversy in France and in the United States. In the book, Del Valle claimed the U.S. government was deliberately using Islam to destroy Europe. This theory was criticized by Bat Ye'or in the Middle East Quarterly published in September 1998. Although Ye'or reproached Del Valle for his hostility to the Clinton administration, she congratulated him for his attempt to "courageously expose the dangers of Islamism." In another article published in the Middle East Quarterly in Spring 2000, French-American geopolitician Laurent Murawiec characterized Del Valle as hostile to Muslims and criticized his analysis of the United States' pro-Muslim strategy during the Cold War. In his response to Murawiec, Del Valle wrote that "history and the tragedy of September 11 have proven me right." He claimed that Murawiec omitted to mention that his later books, such as Le Totalitarisme Islamiste a l'assaut des démocraties, have been labeled as both "pro-American and pro-Zionist." Additionally, since the September 11 attacksin 2001, Del Valle has written articles published in Le Figaro and Politique Internationale where he calls for a union to be formed with the United States and in which he denounces all forms of anti-Western and anti-American feelings. Murawiec himself has written an essay which also deplores the present pro-Saudi and pro-Islamist strategy and politically correctness of American presidents who never dared nominating Saudi Arabia and Wahhabism as the real enemy and the supporters of radical Islam. In 2002, Del Valle was criticized by far-right, left-wing and extreme-left magazines such as Le Monde Diplomatique and the pro-Palestinian and anti-Zionist MRAP. Some extreme-right movements, believing that Alexandre del Valle had been close to their visions in his early writings on Islamism and America, denounce now his Zionism and the fact he was very close to the Jewish community. or The "outing" of Alexandre del Valle, reveals its close links with the Zionist ultra-right. In an article published in April 2002, French far-left-trotskyst organisation Ras l'front claims that Alexandre Del Valle had originally set out its arguments in far right-wing circles, especially during lectures at meetings of the ultra right or the New Right. Del Valle refutes the claims and bring the matter in courts. These trials with peripeteias eventually resulted in a decision from the 11th Chamber of the Court of appeal of Paris in 2005, which dismissed Del Valle who carried out an action for defamation against Ras L'front. In two other trials, Alexandre del Valle and his lawyer, Gilles-William Goldnadel, the French President of "Droit à la Sécurité" and "France Israël association", won two other cases : one in 2006 against the MRAP, an anti-racist organization led by French communist Mouloud Aounit, and a second against Canal+, in 2007. The 17th court of Paris dismissed the MRAP, who had published in 2003 a special report on anti-Arabs, Zionists and Far right networks in France. This MRAP Report blamed Alexandre del Valle and other intellectuals such as, Michel Darmon or William Goldnadel to be Islamophobes and to support Zionist organizations such as the UPJF, Likoud, KKL, or Bnai Brith. The 17th Court of Appeal decided that the MRAP did not have the right to accuse Alexandre del Valle to be "islamophobe" and was dismissed after having tried to make Del Valle and Guy Millière condemned for abusive action for defamation. Del Valle does not deny that he made errors in the past making speeches with controversial intellectuals from every political creed in the context of the presentations of his books. But he precises that his political "godfathers" were gaullists and former popular "resistants" such as, Pierre Marie Gallois, the former nuclear and geopolitical adviser of Charles De Gaulle, Gabriel Kaspereit and Jean Matteoli.