Russian President Vladimir Putin’s ghoulish massacre in Bucha has broken conventional wisdom that a tyrant must have a toothbrush mustache to be branded a fascist.

And nowhere outside Ukraine are Putin’s barbarous crimes oozing more than in France, where polls this week indicate 2022 fascist presidential candidate and Putin fangirl Marine Le Pen might capture nearly 49 percent of the vote in a likely runoff against incumbent Emmanuel Macron on April 24. “This is the first time two finalists are tested so close,” according to a Harris Interactive poll…

She became a full-time cast member of the Kremlin’s horror show 38 days after Putin invaded Ukraine, telling a French primetime TV news broadcast on March 31 that Putin “could become an ally of France again” if the war ends. “Russia’s not going anywhere,” she explained to the French public broadcaster France 2. “I’ve always said that a great power can be an ally in a number of situations.”

In the bloody riptide of Ukraine, Ernest Hemingway’s description of the genesis of a fascist is no longer shrouded in literary ambiguity. “There are many who do not know they are fascists but will find out when the time comes,” the Nobel laureate wrote in For Whom the Bell Tolls.