In Belgium, the Flemish far right is gaining ground ahead of the European elections

Agence France-Presse
April 22, 2024

Chairman of Flemish far-right party Vlaams Belang Tom Van Grieken delivers a speech at their programme congress in Ghent on March 24, 2024. © Kurt Desplenter, AFP

As Belgians prepare to cast their ballots on June 9 in the European elections as well as the country's upcoming federal and regional elections, recent polls show widening regional disparities among voters in Flanders, Wallonia and Brussels. While the far right attracts few voters in French-speaking parts of Belgium, it's dominating the polls in Flanders.

With seven weeks to go until the European elections, the far right is making its mark on the political landscape of several European countries, including Belgium.

In Flemish-speaking Flanders in the country's north, the wealthiest and most populous region, nationalist and pro-independence party Vlaams Belang ("Flemish Interest") is leading the polls.

According to the latest Ipsos-Le Soir-RTL-VTM-Het Laatste Nieuws "Grand Baromètre", a joint poll covering the European elections as well as Belgium's federal and regional elections, Vlaams Belang came out on top in Flanders with 27.4 percent of voting intentions.

Founded in 1979, the party – then known as Vlaams Blok ("Flemish Bloc") – enjoyed electoral success until 2004, when it dissolved itself after a court ruled that the party had violated the 1981 anti-racism law.

The party was then re-established under the name of Vlaams Belang.

But faced with the rise of a new Flemish nationalist and separatist party, the New Flemish Alliance (N-VA), which held a much more moderate view on immigration, Vlaams Belang struggled to find success until the 2019 federal elections, when it once again became Flanders' second-largest party, winning 18.65 percent of the vote and 18 seats in the House of Representatives (the lower house of the Belgian Parliament).

In Wallonia, the Belgian Socialist Party (PS), situated on the other side of the political spectrum from Vlaams Belang, is leading the polls with 21.3 percent, slightly ahead of the centre-right party Mouvement Réformateur (MR) at 20.5 percent, according to the "Grand Baromètre".

In this French-speaking region, the far-right Chez Nous (“At our place”) party, founded in 2021 and backed by Vlaams Belang, the French Rassemblement National ("National Rally") and the Dutch PVV, is hoping to win its first seat in the elections.

But the nationalist party is struggling to attract votes. In the latest polls, Chez Nous is classified in the "others" category, which altogether accounts for 10.4 percent of voting intentions in Brussels and Wallonia.

In a poll last year, the party accounted for a meagre 0.3 percent.

Independence, immigration and the "Great Replacement"

Although Vlaams Belang presents itself as a patriotic, radical, nationalist right-wing party, "it can clearly be described as an extreme right-wing party, and always has been", said Benjamin Biard, PhD in political science and research fellow at the Belgium Research and Sociopolitical Information Centre (Centre de recherche et d'information socio-politiques).

The top items on Vlaams Belang's agenda are the break-up of the country and the establishment of a Flemish republic with heavy restrictions on migration. The party seeks to stop immigration and tighten the conditions on granting Belgian nationality, as well as abolishing the parole system.

Vlaams Belang’s discourse "contributes to stigmatising either foreigners or Islam and people of the Muslim faith", said Biard, who is also a professor at the Catholic University of Louvain.

The party, which portrays itself as anti-establishment, aims to "create a divide between the people and the political, economic, cultural and even media elites", he added.

"Many people vote for this party not so much for its agenda, but because it signals a break with other parties," he said.

Other voters, however, are drawn to the ideas touted by Vlaams Belang. A recent poll showed that migration was still the number-one concern among Flemish people.

"Most voters turn to this party because they feel it is best placed to address this issue", Biard said.

Despite its 2004 condemnation, Vlaams Belang has espoused the far-right conspiracy theory of the "Great Replacement ", which it refers to by the Dutch term "omvolking" (a Nazi ideological term meaning "repopulation"), in reference to an alleged gradual replacement of "native" Europeans by non-European immigrants, mainly from Muslim countries.

Last year, the party invited French writer Renaud Camus, who developed the conspiracy, to give a lecture on "mass immigration" and "the Great Replacement" at the Flemish Parliament.

"It's a party that has very clearly adopted this theory and uses it a lot in its campaign", Biard said.

Vlaams Belang's campaign has largely played out on social media, targeting young people first and foremost. Belgium, where voting is mandatory, has recently lowered the voting age for the upcoming European elections to 16 – effectively creating an additional 270,000 eligible voters.

“Vlaams Belang has a younger electorate than the average for all the other parties combined," Biard said.

A recent poll by the Flemish High School PXL and TV Limburg showed that 24.9 percent of Flemish first-time voters intend to vote for Vlaams Belang, ahead of both the Flemish green party "Groen" and the nationalist N-VA.

According to the survey, friends and social media play a decisive role in young people’s voting behaviour – a detail that Vlaams Belang has not overlooked.

In 2023, the party spent 1.7 million euros to advertise on Meta (Facebook and Instagram), according to the latest AdLens report.

Difficult footing in Wallonia and Brussels

In Wallonia, Chez Nous is the third-most "influential" political account on social networks, at least measured in the reactions it generates.

Yet the far-right Walloon party, founded less than three years ago, is struggling to establish itself in the polls.

Apart the party's lack of maturity, Chez Nous remains on the sidelines partly due to the region’s different priorities.

"The Walloons are primarily concerned with socio-economic issues, purchasing power and the healthcare system", Biard said, adding that Wallonia has a relatively high unemployment rate (8 percent in the fourth quarter of 2023) compared with Flanders, which boasts of near-full employment (3.5 percent).

The political and media "cordon sanitaire" is another key factor.

Introduced in two stages in 1989 and 1992 among Flemish political parties, this particular agreement in Belgium is aimed at preventing far-right political parties from forming any political majority or coalition government by refusing to cooperate or even hold talks with them.

This precaution has also been extended to the media in French-speaking regions in Belgium – not the case in Flanders – meaning that the main media outlets there neither receive nor interview representatives from far-right parties.

Civil society is also very active in blocking the far right: anti-fascist activists regularly try to prevent Chez Nous meetings from taking place by obstructing events or calling on local authorities to ban them.

In addition to these external factors, internal discord also prevents Chez Nous from gaining ground, Biard said, highlighting what he described as "internal tensions within the party and difficulty in finding a charismatic leader".

Biard also noted a "weak sense of national identity” in French-speaking Belgium, which contributes to Chez Nous’s unpopularity.

As one of Chez Nous's backers, Vlaams Belang has agreed not to submit an electoral list in Walloon constituencies in order to avoid splitting the vote.

In exchange, Chez Nous leaves the field open to Vlaams Belang in the Brussels region, where the Flemish party is credited with 3 percent of voting intentions, far behind the Mouvement Réformateur (21.8 percent), according to the latest polls.
Gaining ground in the European Parliament

In the European Parliament, where Belgium has 21 seats – it will gain one more in the next elections – the far right currently holds three: Gerolf Annemans, Filip de Man and Tom Vandendriessche, all three members of Vlaams Belang.

"That's not bad if you consider that not all seats go to the Flemish constituency," Biard said. Only 10 out of the 21 seats go to representatives of the Flanders region.

The three Vlaams Belang MEPs belong to the Identity and Democracy (ID) group, formerly known as Europe of Nations and Freedoms (ENL), which the Flemish party co-founded alongside the former French Front National, the Italian Northern League, the Austrian FPÖ and the Dutch PVV.

Unlike the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group, which is composed of more disparate right-wing and far-right parties, including members of Fratelli d'Italia, Reconquête, Greek Solution and N-VA, the ID group consists only of clearly identified ultranationalist and far-right parties.

Given the number of seats allocated to Belgium and the proportional representation system that favors vote splitting, Vlaams Belang is likely to retain a minimum of three seats, Biard said, adding that the party may even hope to win a fourth.

Despite the relatively small number (compared with a total of 750 lawmakers), acquiring a fourth seat in the European parliament would show that the far right has the potential to gain more influence in the EU and in Belgium, Biard said.

Far from being an isolated case, the rise of Vlaams Belang reflects broader trends within the far right across Europe, from the Netherlands to Italy, Hungary, Finland and Bulgaria.

Polls predicting European election results show far-right parties taking first place in at least nine EU member states, and second or third place in nine others.

This article has been translated from the original in French.