International Far-Right Fight Night Comes to Budapest

Michael Colborne 
May 3, 2023

This weekend, Budapest is due to play host to an event that far-right extremists have bragged online will be “the biggest radical nationalist event since coronavirus.”

Scheduled for 6 May, the organisers of ‘European Fight Night’ boast that the event in the Hungarian capital will feature up to 15 combat sports fights with participants from 12 different countries.

According to social media posts promoting the event, it will also play host to concerts and opportunities to buy merchandise from far-right fashion brands. Yet despite the publicity push, secrecy remains a priority. Similar events in Germany have previously been banned. Organisers have also stated attendees won’t be allowed to take photos or videos, and that they’ll kick out anyone who does or who shares the exact location of the event.

Observers have long sounded the alarm on the international far right’s use of combat sports to train up for physical confrontation and prepare for attacks against their perceived foes.

Some experts like Robert Claus, who wrote a book on the far-right martial arts scene, even say that combat sports events like European Fight Night also help facilitate international networking and recruitment.

Past research by anti-facist groups has linked the organisers of European Fight Night to some of the most secretive far-right extremist groups in Europe — including violent neo-Nazi groups that have been banned in several countries. One of the organisers of European Fight Night has even discussed links to local chapters of these banned groups in previous media interviews.

Meet the Organisers

European Fight Night, at least publicly, presents itself as having three primary organisers: Hungary’s Legio Hungaria, Germany’s Kampf der Nibelungen (“Battle of the Nibelungs”), and Pride France.

In a video released on multiple Telegram channels on February 27, members of each of the three main organising groups appeared side by side to promote the Budapest event and encourage their far-right comrades across Europe to attend.

A screenshot of a February 2023 promotional video for European Fight Night, featuring Legio Hungaria’s Béla Incze (left), Kampf der Nibelungen’s Alexander Deptolla (centre) and Pride France’s Tomasz Szkatulski (right). The video was filmed in Sofia, Bulgaria: a far-right extremist march organiszed by the Bulgarian National Union took place two days before the video’s release, and this video was filmed near their headquarters.

Béla Incze heads up Legio Hungaria, a small far-right extremist group from Hungary. Incze once served as an assistant to a far-right member of Hungary’s parliament before reportedly losing his job for assaulting a police officer. Legio Hungaria, while not a large group, has managed to garner attention for their actions since being founded in 2018, including vandalising a Jewish community centre in 2019, destroying a Black Lives Matter statue in Budapest in 2021 and reportedly assaulting journalists covering a far-right event in 2023. Bellingcat also revealed in a 2021 investigation that a senior Legio Hungaria member played a key role in racist and homophobic displays at Hungarian national team football matches.

Hungary fans display a sign during the EURO 2020 match between Germany and Hungary. Bellingcat later revealed the banner had been in the possession of a member of Legio Hungaria prior to the match. Pool via REUTERS/Kai Pfaffenbach.

Alexander Deptolla is the public face of Kampf der Nibelungen. Started in 2013, Kampf der Nibelungen — often referred to by the abbreviation KdN — was once the largest far-right combat sports event in Europe, with its October 2018 version hosting an estimated 850 fighters and spectators. However, authorities in Germany banned the event in 2019, and KdN’s 2020 ‘online’ version saw fewer than half of the planned fights broadcast thanks to a police raid where some were being filmed ahead of time. Deptolla even took to social media afterwards to state that KdN wouldn’t be organising any more events in the immediate future. Nonetheless, German authorities reportedly restricted an abortive attempt at a September 2021 ‘National Fight Night,’ as a September 2022 court ruling upheld the ban on KdN’s events. Despite this, they are still the biggest of the three organisers of European Fight Night. Some German observers have argued that European Fight Night is essentially planned as a “replacement” event for KdN outside German borders.

Alexander Deptolla (left) interviewing French far-right lawyer Pierre-Marie Bonneau (right) at a far-right extremist event in Sofia, Bulgaria on February 25, 2023

 (Michael Colborne).

Tomasz Szkatulski of Pride France is a Polish-born French neo-Nazi who is reported to have helped organise and even participate in events like European Fight Night for several years. Szkatulski emerged from violent football hooligan scenes in the city of Lille, though now appears to spend much of his time in Bulgaria. Covered in Nazi tattoos, Szkatulski was reportedly convicted and sentenced to a year in prison in 2008 for assaulting a man of African origin with a bicycle chain; he has also reportedly been involved in other acts of violence, including alleged attacks on LGBT+ establishments. Szkatulski is also an associate of American far-right extremist Robert Rundo, who was arrested in Romania in March 2023 and is awaiting extradition to the United States.

Szkatulski did not respond to requests for comment from Bellingcat asking about his involvement in European Fight Night, past reports about his 2008 conviction (or alleged involvement in other apparent acts of violence), as well as his relationship and contacts with Rob Rundo.

When contacted by Bellingcat on Telegram to ask if he would like to respond to the details in this story, Deptolla of KdN said simply: “Hi. No thanks. Bye.” Legio Hungaria similarly declined to answer Bellingcat’s emailed questions about the details contained in this story and about Incze, citing unhappiness with Bellingcat’s reporter’s previous reporting on the group.

Behind the Scenes

There’s also a much less public side to European Fight Night and other far-right combat sports events, where some of the most secretive, publicity-averse extremist networks in Europe operate.

Germany’s Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), the country’s domestic intelligence agency, has publicly stated the members of the Hammerskins, an international white supremacist gang, have been involved in organising Kampf der Nibelungen events since 2013. Journalists and researchers have also extensively documented the Hammerskins’ links with KdN.

As noted in Bellingcat’s 2022 investigation of a planned far-right extremist concert in Belgium, the Hammerskins have a significant presence across Europe. They tend to be secretive about their activities but are organised, with chapters, hierarchies and different patches for prospects and full members. Members of the Hammerskins have been extensively involved in criminal activities, including assault and even mass murder.

But it isn’t just Kampf der Nibelungen that works with the Hammerskins. In a February 2023 interview with an American far-right extremist website, Incze stated that his Legio Hungaria organisation had “a strong relationship” with the Hungarian Hammerskins, evidenced by their appearance and central role in previous events Legio Hungaria has hosted.

Incze also said in the same February 2023 interview that Legio Hungaria cooperates with the Hungarian branch of international neo-Nazi organisation Combat 18. Founded in the UK in the early 1990s, Combat 18 is closely associated with the Blood and Honour neo-Nazi group that is banned in several European countries.

In his 2020 book on Europe’s far-right combat sports scenes, German author Robert Claus reported that Tomasz Szkatulski had been affiliated with Blood and Honour structures in France; his Blood and Honour affiliations have also been discussed in other reports, although Szkatulski did not respond to Bellingcat questions asking about this. Claus also told Bellingcat he had knowledge that Blood and Honour associates would be hosting a concert the evening of 6 May for European Fight Night attendees.

Bellingcat was not able to independently confirm this claim. However, Blood and Honour’s Hungary branch has also promoted European Fight Night on its Telegram channel.

“These networks are generally very much involved in [far-right combat sports] events, either by hosting them themselves or by providing important organisational aspects,” Claus told Bellingcat, referring to the Hammerskins, Combat 18 and Blood and Honour.

A ‘Fundamentally Violent’ Ideology

But barely a week ahead of the event, European Fight Night’s main organiser had already run into trouble. On April 28 Deptolla took to KdN’s Telegram channel to tell fans that he and other German far-right extremists had been banned by authorities from leaving the country to travel to Budapest. Claus told Bellingcat that this German travel ban could seriously impact the event, since KdN and its German comrades are the largest of the three main organisers.

Even if European Fight Night doesn’t go on quite as its organiszers have hoped, Claus says it is still a dangerous event. “Violent key figures and groups of the neo-Nazi scenes from different parts in Europe are expected to come to Budapest,” Claus told Bellingcat. “Their ideology is fundamentally violent, fascist activists [who] use combat sports to train for racist attacks and other kinds of brute force.”

With a concert and other events alongside the fights, Claus warned, “the international neo-Nazi scene gets its combination of violence and sports, political hatred and music, the cultural package which pre-terrorist neo-Nazism has to offer.”

Bellingcat asked Hungarian national police about the European Fight Night event, whether they were aware of it and whether they had taken or planned to take any steps to prevent the event from taking place, or prevent any specific foreign extremists from attending. They did not respond before publication

Michael Colborne is a journalist and researcher at Bellingcat; he leads Bellingcat Monitoring, our project to research and monitor the far-right in central and eastern Europe. He tweets at @ColborneMichael.

Bellingcat is a non-profit and the ability to carry out our work is dependent on the kind support of individual donors. If you would like to support our work, you can do so here. You can also subscribe to our Patreon channel here. Subscribe to our Newsletter and follow us on Twitter here and Mastodon here.

Far Right Win in Dutch Elections Shows How Quickly the Right Is Rising in Europe

Geert Wilders’s election is an ominous harbinger. The hour has come for Europe to stymie the spread of the far right.

By C.J. Polychroniou , 

TRUTHOUT

December 2, 2023

Leader of the Party for Freedom (PVV) Geert Wilders speaks to press after a conversation with scout Ronald Plasterk as he invites all the party chairmen for an interview in The Hague, Netherlands on November 29, 2023

The dramatic victory of the far right provocateur Geert Wilders in the recent Dutch elections is yet another extremely worrisome sign that Europe is shredding the veil of tolerance and becoming more brazenly exclusionary. Indeed, the spread of far right radicalization across the continent signals that Europe is engulfed in a profound political, social and moral crisis.

Wilders’s Party for Freedom, or PVV, which has been on a long ascent, took 37 of the 150 seats in the Second Chamber. This was 20 more seats than it won in the 2021 elections, while the other parties lost seats, making the extreme right the largest party in the national parliament. The radical left was hit the hardest, losing nearly half of its elected representatives.

Wilders’s political career has been built around anti-Islam and anti-immigration rhetoric. In fact, in 2016 he was charged with inciting hatred and discrimination against Dutch Moroccans. He always had a solid base of voter support, though it was never previously strong enough to allow him to become a power broker in Dutch politics. Obviously, the political dynamic has now changed, and Wilders is in the process of seeking possible governing coalitions. Eager to become prime minister, Wilders said he is willing to moderate his positions, but that’s only because he is having a hard time luring partners to form a coalition government with his far right party.

As undoubtedly one of Europe’s most blatantly racist politicians, Wilders’s campaign called for an end to asylum for all refugees, the “de-Islamization” of the Netherlands and a Brexit-style referendum on the European Union (EU). He was seen as a political outsider, but pollsters got it wrong. Nonetheless, that more Dutch voters turned to Wilders’s message at this point in time should not come as a surprise to anyone. Across Europe — north, south, east and west — far right parties have broken into mainstream political consciousness as many voters are fed up with establishment parties. Italians were hardly surprised when Giorgia Meloni’s radical right Brothers of Italy won a clear majority in Italy’s 2022 snap general election.

Once considered fringe organizations destined to political invisibility, Europe’s far right movements and parties have gained ground with frustrated working-class and disappointed middle-class citizens, including youth voters. Moreover, they are having an impact as both right and center-left mainstream parties have adopted an anti-immigration stance while they push the neoliberal agenda even harder, catering to the needs and interests of the rich and the business class. The result of all this is that more voters turn to the far right as anti-immigration policies gain increased support and neoliberalism shreds the social safety net and widens the gap between the haves and the have-nots.

Europe’s War Against Refugees Is Fueling the Far Right’s Ascension

The international guaranteed rights of refugees are eroding on both sides of the Atlantic. By David Goeßmann , TRUTHOUT May 29, 2023

The Netherlands endured 13 years of neoliberal rule led by the People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy, or VVD, a center-right party which promoted the interests of private enterprise and big business and paid little attention to the needs of the average citizen. A scandal over government efforts to reduce child welfare payments by subjecting thousands of low- and middle-income families to scrutiny and falsely accusing them of obtaining benefits illegally alienated a sizable segment of voters, as did the Groningen gas affair, in which the authorities put gas profits before the safety of surrounding communities. Such scandals, along with rising concerns about the cost of living and housing shortages, played a major role in the growing mistrust of the government and fueled the perception that a wind of change was needed in Dutch politics. Moreover, the VVD had decided to make immigration a key campaign issue, so one should not be surprised, as Dutch author and editor Auke van der Berg told me over email, that many voters ultimately opted to select “the original (PVV–Wilders) and not the copy.”

Naturally, Wilders’s victory stiffened other far right leaders’ resolve to carry on with their campaign against a cosmopolitan and multicultural Europe. Congratulations poured in from Hungary’s Viktor Orbán; the Italian deputy minister and leader of the extreme-right party, Matteo Salvini; and France’s Marine Le Pen. But as French Minister Bruno Le Maire said of Wilders’s election win, this was a consequence of “all the fears that are emerging in Europe” over immigration and the economy.

Indeed, while fearmongering around immigration is surely a factor behind the rise of the far right in Europe, economic issues such as declining standards of living and economic inequality may in fact be the key driver behind the spread of anti-immigration sentiments. The European Union integration project has long been seen by large segments of the continent’s citizenry as undermining national sovereignty and strengthening neoliberal economic policies harmful to the working class. Still, we can’t ignore the role racism and Islamophobia have played, as it is specifically migration flows from non-European countries that have been touted as a threat, and none more so than Muslim migration. The unjustified fear among those who are calling for tougher immigration laws, as many Dutch citizens have been doing over the years, is of Islam. The problem, for them, is that the immigrants are Muslim, not that they are immigrants. Europe welcomed Ukrainian refugees. But as political scientist Lamis Abdelaaty said, “Europeans see Ukrainians as White and Christian, similar to the way that many in European countries see themselves.”

At this point, the question is not whether the far right is surging in Europe, but rather how national governments and the EU alike intend to counter fascism and far right extremism. Fear of the “Other” and the consequences of neoliberalism (economic insecurity, poverty, inequality and deteriorating living standards) are among the main causes behind the increasing public support for far right parties. Left unaddressed, and especially amid organizing conducted via the internet and social media, hard right politics will only grow, and far right violence will likely increase. What took place recently in Dublin, where hundreds of radical right rioters went on a rampage over unconfirmed reports on social media that three children had been stabbed by an “illegal immigrant,” may be a prelude to what the future holds for Western societies unwilling to address the factors that contribute to the spread of far right ideologies.

The rising tide of the far right is terrifying and monstrous, but it’s still possible for effective resistance to interrupt this nightmare. Europe’s far right ideologues mix nationalistic and social stances, just like their predecessors did in the 1920s and 1930s. The answer to the threat they pose in the 21st century is clear: tackling the root causes of economic inequality and ensuring that no one is left behind. The return of the social state and the expansion of democracy are the best tools available for fighting fascism and far right extremism. They worked in the past and can still work today.

The far right is a menace to decent society. The hour has come for Europe to face the monsters.

Copyright © Truthout.

C.J. POLYCHRONIOU is a political scientist/political economist, author, and journalist who has taught and worked in numerous universities and research centers in Europe and the United States. Currently, his main research interests are in U.S. politics and the political economy of the United States, European economic integration, globalization, climate change and environmental economics, and the deconstruction of neoliberalism’s politico-economic project. He is a regular contributor to Truthout as well as a member of Truthout’s Public Intellectual Project. He has published scores of books and over 1,000 articles which have appeared in a variety of journals, magazines, newspapers and popular news websites. Many of his publications have been translated into a multitude of different languages, including Arabic, Chinese, Croatian, Dutch, French, German, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and Turkish. His latest books are Optimism Over Despair: Noam Chomsky On Capitalism, Empire, and Social Change (2017); Climate Crisis and the Global Green New Deal: The Political Economy of Saving the Planet (with Noam Chomsky and Robert Pollin as primary authors, 2020); The Precipice: Neoliberalism, the Pandemic, and the Urgent Need for Radical Change (an anthology of interviews with Noam Chomsky, 2021); and Economics and the Left: Interviews with Progressive Economists (2021).

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Spain’s Vox Party Is the Center of the Global Far Right

Last Sunday, Spain’s Vox party hosted a rally featuring far-right leaders from around the world, including everyone from Marine Le Pen to Javier Milei. It shows how coordinated the movement is becoming — and how Vox is playing a central role.

By Eoghan Gilmartin

May 26, 2024

Source: Tribune

Argentina's far-right president Javier Milei addressed the Vox rally.



Three weeks before the European parliament elections, the global far-right gathered in Madrid last Sunday in an unprecedented display of its international coordination. Hosted by Spain’s neo-Francoist Vox, the three-day event ended in a mass rally with speakers that included France’s Marine Le Pen, Portugal’s André Ventura, Argentine president Javier Milei, Israeli Likud minister Amichai Chikli — as well as via videolink Italian prime minister Giorgia Melonia and Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán.

The closing event, attended by more than 10,000 people, kicked off with a video denouncing the United Nations’ development goals as an ‘ecofeminist’ conspiracy while distorted images of Bill Gates and Greta Thunberg flickered on screen. If such imagery plays on traditional antisemitic tropes of cosmopolitan elites orchestrating a new world order, it was quickly followed by the ex-Trump official Mercedes Schlapp leading a pro-Zionist chant of ‘Viva España! Viva Israel!’

Indeed, while clear contradictions between the various far-right discourses were on display, the collective animosity towards shared, overlapping enemies and an allegiance to forms of reactionary authoritarianism outweighed any differentiating factors. Vox could both invite neo-Nazi Holocaust denier Pedro Varela and declare Israel ‘an international reference in the fight against Islamic terrorism’, while Milei’s anarcho-libertarianism and Le Pen’s chauvinistic protectionist rhetoric could both be warmly received.

‘We patriots must remain united’, insisted American Conservative Union chairman Matt Schlapp at the rally. ‘We are not going to let George Soros or Biden divide us.’

In this respect, Sunday’s rally was also further proof of Vox’s increasingly central role in linking reactionary political movements from across the world. It not only operates as a key bridge between the European and Latin American far-right but, ahead of the European parliament elections, is also pursuing closer ties between the two major far-right families within the EU: Meloni’s pro-NATO and more traditionalist European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) and Le Pen’s more pro-Russian and extremist Identity and Democracy grouping.

As polling shows the far-right making significant gains in June’s elections, Vox’s Santiago Abascal is now positioning himself as a central figure within this ‘reactionary international’ — even as his own party has lost ground domestically over the last year. One party official even went so far as to boast that ‘only Vox is capable of holding such a [far-right] gathering.’

An Anti-Communist International

News headlines around the convention have been dominated by the diplomatic row that erupted after Milei called the wife of Spanish prime minister Pedro Sánchez ‘corrupt’ on stage. Yet the Argentinian president’s relationship with Vox predates his entry into frontline politics, having been one of the signatories of the 2020 Madrid Charter alongside the likes of Eduardo Bolsonaro and Peruvian extremist Jose Antonio Kast. This was the founding document of the Vox-led, anti-leftist alliance, the Madrid Forum, which seeks to combat the spread of ‘communist-inspired totalitarian regimes’ in Latin America.

As Podemos founder Miguel Urbán notes in his 2024 book Trumpismos, the Madrid Forum is looking to achieve something distinct from that of CPAC in the United States. Whereas the latter organises periodic events bringing together international right-wing leaders and activists, the Madrid Forum aspires to be a permanent ‘international organisation of far-right parties’, with a yearly plan of action. As Urbán writes, ‘Vox has maintained a frenetic agenda of networking, trips and events with the objective of constructing the first stable framework for the coordination of far-right Latin American forces, one, moreover, which would have [itself] at the centre.’

This cross-border organisation remains somewhat incipient. Yet according to a recent report from the Progressive International, the Madrid Forum’s ‘most important impact’ so far ‘has been its ability to create and mobilise a network…to undermine left-wing governments in the region.’ In this respect, a major investigation by a consortium of Latin American publications found politicians associated with the alliance have engaged in coordinated campaigns aimed at ‘delegitimising the electoral results in several countries’ — working across borders to amplify fake news stories of electoral fraud in Peru, Columbia and Chile and backed up by organised online trolling campaigns.

In reality, the Madrid Forum also forms part of a broader far-right infrastructure of extremist Catholic associations, Latin American exiles, and reactionary think tanks in the Spanish capital , which have also helped turn the city into a key meeting point for authoritarian forces globally. Madrid regional premier Isabel Ayuso, from the radical wing of the conservative Popular Party, has adopted the Cuban exile slogan ‘Liberty or Communism’ while during a month of violent street protests over Sánchez’s reelection last November, the same far-right network and insurrectional rhetoric was mobilised in an attempt to cast doubt on the legitimacy of his parliamentary majority.

Tipping the Balance of Power

Milei carried over these tactics into Vox’s convention as he flew into Spain looking to pick a fight with the country’s centre-left prime minister — even going so far as to denounce Sánchez’s ‘totalitarianism’ and describing him as an ‘arrogant and delirious socialist’ on his return to Buenos Aires. The ensuing diplomatic row, which saw Spain withdraw its ambassador to Argentina, kicked off Vox’s European election campaign with a bang.

Yet Abascal had also hoped to launch the campaign with both Le Pen and Meloni present on stage with him as he sought further protagonism internationally through fostering increased cooperation between two existing wings of the European extreme right. Both Meloni’s post-fascist Fratelli d’Italia and Le Pen’s Rassemblement National are currently leading in the polls in their respective countries, while the combined projected seats of their two EU-wide groupings would make the extreme right the second largest force in the European parliament.

Furthermore with the Greens and Macron’s liberal Renew grouping expected to both suffer heavy losses, the European parliament could potentially have a right-wing majority of MEPs for the first time in its history. This would not necessarily displace the dominant grand coalition of centrist parties but could allow the conservative European People’s Party (EPP) to secure an alternative majority in certain votes — such as those around environmental issues, civil liberties or immigration.

Yet as academic Cas Mudde notes, this historic far-right surge ‘could become a Pyrrhic victory, if [the] parties remain so divided.’ The ECR, which includes Fratelli, Vox and Eric Zemmour’s Reconquête diverges most from Le Pen’s Identity and Democracy group on foreign policy — as well as, as a result of that, on their degree of mainstream respectability. With her strict pro-NATO positioning, Meloni has cultivated closer links with the EPP since becoming prime minister and wants to keep the door open to a pact with Ursula von der Leyen over her re-election as head of the European Commission after June’s elections.

In this respect, her decision not to attend last Sunday’s event in person saw her seeking a difficult balancing act, with her videolink intervention designed to neither shut down Vox’s overtures to Le Pen or align herself with them. ‘We will see what happens after the elections’, one Vox official insisted — with the party seeing itself as best placed to operate as a pivot between the various groupings over the coming term.

In particular, the announcement this Tuesday from Le Pen and Matteo Salvini that their parties would no longer sit in the same group as Germany’s AfD opens up the possibility of a significant realignment on the European far-right after the elections — as does the expected incorporation of Orbán’s Fidesz into ECR.

In any case, the threat of a major far-right advance is clear. ‘We the patriots must occupy Brussels’, proclaimed Orbán in his intervention at Vox’s convention while Chega’s Ventura asserted: ‘Europe is ours. Europe is ours!’ In the wake of the 9 June poll, it will become clear how realistic this prospect is.

Populist radical versus traditional extremism

Not your father’s far right


All over Europe, the new, populist far-right parties have become part of the political scene. They’re not defined, as the old far-righters used to be, by what they want, but by what they don’t want.

by Jean-Yves Camus

Extensive research into far-right populism over the last 30 years has yet to find a precise, workable definition for this catchall term, and we need more information on the political category it covers. Since 1945 Europeans have used “far right” to mean a range of very different phenomena: xenophobic and anti-system populism, nationalist-populist political parties, and even religious fundamentalism. But the term should be used with caution because, for militant rather than objective reasons, movements labelled as far-right are often assumed to be a continuation (adapted to contemporary circumstances) of nationalist-socialist, fascist or nationalist-authoritarian ideologies, which is not the case.

German neo-Nazism — and to some extent the National Democratic Party — and Italian neo-Fascist movements (CasaPound Italia, Fiamma Tricolore and Forza Nuova, which together represent only 0.53% of voters), certainly follow their models’ ideology. So do the modern avatars of movements that emerged in central and eastern Europe in the 1930s: the League of Polish Families, the Slovak National Party and the Greater Romania Party. But in western European elections, only the now defunct Italian Social Movement, which became the National Alliance in 1995 after its leader Gianfranco Fini steered it in a more conservative direction, has managed to bring the far right out of marginality (1). In eastern Europe the far right is stagnating (see map): though the success of Golden Dawn in Greece and Jobbik in Hungary (2) show it is not dead, it is very much a minority.

The values of this traditional far right are unsuited to an age that does not seek grand ideologies preaching a new humanity or a new world. The cult of the leader and of the single party does not satisfy the demands of fragmented, individualist societies in which public opinion is formed by televised debates and social networking. But the ideological legacy of the old-fashioned far right remains fundamental. It is primarily an ethnic view of peoples and national identity, from which stems a hatred of enemies both external (individual foreigners and foreign states) and internal (ethnic and religious minorities and all political opponents). But it is also an organic, often corporatist, social model founded on a political and economic anti-liberalism that denies the importance of individual freedoms and the existence of social antagonisms, except those between the “people” and the “elite”.

To the populist and radical right

In the 1980s another category of populisms began to have electoral success, and the media and commentators called them far-right too. Yet some sensed that comparing them with the fascist movements of the 1930s was no longer valid, and would prevent the left from developing a proper response. How were we to refer to xenophobic populism in Scandinavia, the Front National in France, Vlaams Blok in Flanders or the Freedom Party of Austria? The political scientists’ battle over terminology began: “national populism” (used by Pierre-André Taguieff) (3), “radical right”, “far right”. It would take a whole book to analyse the semantic arguments, so let us just say that these parties shifted from the far right to the populist and radical right. The difference is that formally, and usually sincerely, radical-right parties accept parliamentary democracy and elections as the only route to power. But though their institutional plans are vague, they emphasise direct democracy through popular referendum, rather than representative democracy. They all have slogans referring to a clean sweep, and to removing from power elites (meaning social democrats, liberals and the conservative right) they deem to be corrupt and out of touch with the people.

To these parties, the “people” form a trans-historical entity that includes the dead, the living and generations yet to come, linked by an unchanging, homogeneous cultural background. This leads to a distinction between “pure-bred” nationals and immigrants (especially non-European), whose right of residence and economic and social rights the parties wish to restrict. The traditional far right remains anti-Semitic and racist, but the radical right has found a new enemy, internal and external, in Islam, with which it associates all who come from countries with a Muslim culture.

Radical right parties defend the market economy because it allows individuals to exercise a spirit of enterprise, but the capitalism they promote is exclusively national, which explains their hostility to globalisation. They are national-liberal parties, believing that the state should intervene not only in areas of traditional state competence, but also to protect those left behind by a globalised economy; this is evident from the speeches of Marine Le Pen, leader of the Front National.

Happy to participate

The radical right differs most from the far right in showing less hostility towards democracy. Political scientist Uwe Backes (4) has shown that German law accepts radical criticism of the existing economic and social order as legitimate, but defines extremism — which rejects the values embodied in basic law — as a threat to the state. So we could define movements that totally reject parliamentary democracy and the ideology of human rights as belonging to the far right — and those that accept them, to the radical right.

The two groups also occupy different political positions. The far right is in the position of what Italian researcher Piero Ignazi calls the “excluded third” (5). It glories in its non-participation and draws strength from it. The radical right would be happy to participate in government, either as partners in a government coalition — like the Northern League in Italy, the Democratic Union of the Centre in Switzerland or the Progress Party in Norway — or to vote with a government in which it does not participate — like Geert Wilders’s Party for Freedom in the Netherlands or the Danish People’s Party. These parties exist between marginality, which if prolonged prevents them from winning many votes at elections, and normalisation, which if too obvious can lead to a decline. Can they survive?

In Greece’s 2012 legislative elections, the neo-Nazi movement Golden Dawn won nearly 7% of the vote (6), after nearly 30 years as a tiny group. This does not mean that its esoteric Nazi racism suddenly won over 416,000 voters: those voters had initially preferred the traditional far right, the Popular Orthodox Rally (LAOS), which had held seats in the Greek parliament since 2007. But there was a key development between the two elections in 2012: LAOS joined the national unity government led by Lucas Papademos, whose goal was to get parliament to approve the new rescue package agreed by the troika (7) in return for drastic austerity measures. Having become a radical right party (8), LAOS had lost some of its appeal compared with Golden Dawn, which had refused to make any concessions.

But in most European countries, the radical right has either supplanted its far-right rivals (Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands) or succeeded, like the True Finns (now the Finns Party), in establishing itself where the far right has failed.

Lately, the radical right has met electoral competition from parties founded on sovereignty agendas that centre on leaving the European Union, and exploit national identity, immigration and cultural decline, yet are not regarded as extremist or racist. They include the Alternative for Germany, the UK Independence Party, Team Stronach in Austria and Debout la République, led by Nicolas Dupont-Aignan, in France.
Defined by dissent

The term populism is often misused, especially to discredit criticism of the neoliberal ideological consensus, questioning of the polarisation of European political debate between conservative neoliberals and social democrats, or any expression at elections of popular discontent with the failings of representative democracy. Academic Paul Taggart, despite his fairly precise definition of rightwing populism, cannot resist comparing it with the anti-capitalist left, overlooking the basic difference between it and the radical right — the right’s explicit or latent racism (9). For Taggart, as for many others, the radical right is not defined by ideology but by its position of dissent within a political system where the only legitimate choice is seen as between liberal and centre-left parties.

Giovanni Sartori’s theory is that the political game revolves around the distinction between consensus parties and protest parties. Consensus parties can exercise power and are acceptable as partners in a coalition, and they illustrate the problem of democracy by co-option in a closed system: if the source of all legitimacy is the people, and a significant proportion of the people (15-25%) vote for a populist and anti-system radical right, how can we justify protecting democracy from itself by keeping that right away from power — though without, in the long term, managing to reduce its influence?

This question is important: it also concerns the attitude of opinion leaders to the alternative and radical left, which is delegitimised because it wants to transform society rather than adjust it. The radical left is often referred to as the mirror image of the radical right. Political scientist Meindert Fennema has defined a vast category of protest parties, opposed to the political system and blaming it for all ills, while offering no specific answers. (Is there, in fact, any specific answer to the issues the social democrats and neoliberal-conservative right have failed to resolve?)

Europe’s problem may be the rise of the radical right, or it may be a change in the right’s ideological paradigm. Significantly, over the past decade, the traditional right has become less reluctant to accept radical groups as partners in government (10). This is more than electoral tactics and arithmetic. In France, voters now often move back and forth between the Front National and the Union Pour un Mouvement Populaire, and the old model of rightwing movements with different ideologies no longer gives a true picture. France will probably now have two competing right wings — one nationalist-republican (morally conservative and grounded in sovereign issues, synthesising the plebiscitary tradition and the radical right in the form of the Front National, a return to the idea of the national family); the other a federalist, pro-European, pro-free trade and socially liberal right.

All over Europe, the power struggle between rightwing movements is happening along similar lines, with local variations — nation state versus European government; “One land, one people” versus multicultural society; “total subordination of life to the logic of profit” (11) or primacy of the community. Europe’s left will have to recognise that its adversaries have changed before considering how to beat the radical right at the ballot box. And there it has a long way to go.


Jean-Yves Camus
Translated by Charles Goulden


Jean-Yves Camus is a research associate at France’s Institut de Relations Internationales et Stratégiques (IRIS). His latest book is Les Droites Extrêmes en Europe (The Far Right in Europe),Seuil, Paris (forthcoming).


(1) His current party, Future and Liberty for Italy, won 0.47% of the vote in the February 2013 election.


(2) See G M Tamas, “Hungary without safety nets”, Le Monde diplomatique, English edition, February 2012.


(3) Pierre-André Taguieff, L’Illusion populiste (The Populist Illusion), Berg International, 2002.


(4) Uwe Backes, Political Extremes: a Conceptual History from Antiquity to the Present, Routledge, Abingdon, 2011.


(5) Piero Ignazi, Il Polo Escluso: Profilo del Movimento Sociale Italiano (The Excluded Pole: a Profile of the Italian Social Movement),Il Mulino, Bologna, 1989.


(6) The May 2012 legislative election failed to produce a majority capable of forming a new government and a further election was held a month later.


(7) The International Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank and the European Commission.


(8) Its leader, Georgios Karatzaferis, was formerly a member of Prime Minister Antonis Samaras’s New Democracy party.


(9) Paul Taggart, The New Populism and the New Politics:New Protest Parties in Sweden in a Comparative Perspective, Palgrave Macmillan, London, 1996.


(10) The Northern League in Italy, the Freedom Party of Austria, the League of Polish Families, the Greater Romania Party, the Slovak National Party and the Progress Party in Norway.


(11) Robert de Herte, Eléments, no 150, Paris, January-March 2014.

Wilders' win sets 'textbook' example for European populist right: analysts

Tom BARFIELD and Cecile FEUILLATRE
Fri, 24 November 2023

PVV leader Geert Wilders stunned observers by claiming first place in the Dutch vote (JOHN THYS)

Anti-EU, anti-immigration firebrand Geert Wilders' surprise victory in the Dutch general election this week shows right-wing populism's success in gobbling up support from traditional conservative parties and taking its pet themes mainstream, experts said.

Whether in power -- often in coalition -- in countries including Italy, Hungary or Slovakia, or steadily gaining, as in France, Germany and Spain, momentum appears on the side of far-right parties.

"Election after election, we're seeing the far right win immense successes," French MEP Raphael Glucksmann told broadcaster France 2 on Friday.

"The European Union is in danger of death from within and without," he warned.

In recent months, observers "were very focused on elections in large countries in the EU... Spain this summer or Poland in October" where populists suffered setbacks, said French political scientist Thierry Chopin.

"(But) the reasons that explain the strength or even the rise of far-right parties in some European countries have not gone away," added Chopin, a researcher at France's Jacques Delors Institute.

Rooted in nationalism and opposition to immigration, the rise of far-right parties began in the late 1970s, surging in 2015 when hundreds of thousands of Syrians fleeing civil war arrived across the continent.

Geert Wilders' career has been built on anti-Islam rhetoric.

Italy's Giorgia Meloni mostly campaigned on anti-immigration themes.

And Sweden is governed by a coalition supported by the far-right that promises to reduce arrivals.

France, Germany and Spain's politics are often dominated by rows about identity and immigration.

- Anti-elites -

In the Netherlands, the traditional centre-right VVD party "had no power to set the terms of debate on Wilders' preferred themes", said Johannes Hillje, a German electoral strategist and author of "Propaganda 4.0: how far-right populists do politics".

"Other parties in the conservative spectrum across Europe have lost their hegemony on the right."

Chopin pointed to classic themes of populist right politics in Wilders' campaign -- anti-elite rhetoric that breaks with bipartisan consensus, fears about immigration and cultural change, and questioning of welfare and redistribution.

"Times of economic and social insecurity favour far-right parties," said Gilles Ivaldi, a researcher at Paris' Sciences Po university.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, the groups "mobilised a lot of people based on fear, frustration and rejection of the health measures... banking support" for the future, he added.

The Netherlands was also "a textbook example of how not to deal with the radical right", as other parties and the media took their policy positions mainstream, Hillje said.

In the Netherlands, VVD leader Dilan Yesilgoz left the possibility of a coalition with Wilders open before the election, only to rule out being a junior partner when he won.

"Everything they did made Wilders stronger and contributed to his electability," Hillje argued.

- Increasingly mainstream -

Wilders and Italian premier Meloni have followed the "de-demonisation" strategy of French far-right figurehead Marine Le Pen, moderating their rhetoric when it looks electorally useful.

"It's not that they've changed their positions, but they express them a little differently to be more appealing, to overcome the emotional barrier to the middle ground," Hillje said.

Meloni has backed Ukraine and trimmed her hostility to the EU, with one French diplomat recently telling AFP she had been "a welcome surprise" on international issues.

"(But) in domestic politics she's doing just what she promised, cutting welfare benefits, taking a hard line against refugees," Hillje pointed out.

"All these parties signal respectability. They have learned or are learning how to exercise power," Ivaldi said -- while cautioning against handing them "a democratic blank cheque".

Many mainstream conservative parties are also absorbing far-right ideas or considering cooperation.

Politicians from Germany's CDU sometimes openly mull regional coalitions with the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), while France's right-wing Republicans often try to outdo the far-right National Rally (RN) in shows of toughness against migrants.

At the European level, "an alliance between the far right and the (centre-right) European People's Party (EPP) is not impossible", Ivaldi said.

"That would be a big shift... on migration policy but also on the environment" given far-right denials of climate change.

Ivaldi nevertheless warned against overstating the common ground between far-right parties in different European countries.

"There are very clear fault lines" on support for or hostility to Russia, economics and values, he said.

"Fundamentally, what holds these right-wing populists together is shared enemies and things they all reject, like migration or ambitious climate policies," Hillje said.

"There are conflicts within this camp that will not lead to unified policy, and that may be the hope for the mainstream camp in Europe".

tgb-cf/sjw/gil

The Resistible Rise of the Far Right in Europe

By NPA Antifascist Commission

May 24, 2024

Source: International Viewpoint


Image by Elekes Andor, Creative Commons 4.0

In Italy, the far right, with Giorgia Meloni’s Fratelli d’Italia party and the Lega (formerly the Northern League), have together led the government since the parliamentary elections of 25 September 2022, in addition to the right-wing Forza Italia party of the late Silvio Berlusconi.

In Sweden, two weeks earlier, the Sweden Democrats (SD) were among the winners of the parliamentary elections of 11 September 2022. [1] Winning 20.5%, the SD became the country’s second largest political force in terms of votes, behind the Social Democratic Party (30.3%), now in opposition. The Moderate party (classic right, 19.1%) then succeeded in forming a coalition with the Christian Democrats, the Liberals and the SDs. Although the latter party did not hold any ministries, it did have a governmental parliamentary majority dependent on it and a seat on the “coordination” committee of the coalition parties. The governmental agreement largely bears its signature on immigration and security.

In Finland, following the parliamentary elections of 2 April 2023, the True Finns party became the second political force with 20.1% of the vote, nipping at the heels of the traditional right-wing party, the National Coalition Party (20.8%). Here, the far right has entered the government of the conservative Petteri Orpo, occupying ministries alongside the main right-wing party as well as the Christian Democrats and the Swedish minority party. The True Finns hold the ministries of Economy, Finance, Interior, Justice and Social Affairs. Remarkably, since the summer of 2023, Finland has been gripped by a succession of strikes and university protests against the anti-social “reforms” implemented by this government, the latest of which was a strike described as political (even though a draft law is intended to ban so-called political strikes) lasting fifteen days from 11 March 2024, against new employment legislation.

In other European countries, the far right is in a strong position. In the Netherlands, Geert Wilders, founder in 2008 (and legally the only member to date) of the Party for Freedom (PVV), emerged as the leader of the leading electoral force in the last parliamentary elections on 22 November 2023, with 23.49% of the vote, after having obtained 10.79% in 2021. Although the PVV subsequently failed to form a government with Wilders as Prime Minister due to a lack of parliamentary support, the Netherlands appears to be moving towards a coalition government with the PVV as the leading force. In addition to the PVV, a future coalition is expected to bring together a farmers’ party that protests against environmental standards (the BBB), a right-wing liberal party (the VVD) and a split from the Christian Democratic Party.

In Austria, the fragile federal government has brought together the conservative right (ÖVP) and the Greens since January 2020. But the far-right FPÖ party is expected to win the forthcoming general election in autumn 2024, where it is projected to receive around 30% of the vote. [2] In the meantime, the FPÖ is currently in government in three of the country’s eight regions.

In Eastern Europe, while the national-conservative PIS party lost the parliamentary elections in Poland on 15 October 2023, Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s Hungarian Fidesz party, in power since 2010, still governs in Budapest. The two parties cover a spectrum that, in France, would encompass both the right and part of the far right. In Hungary, they are joined by a far-right party that is not part of the government, Jobbik (“The Best”); this party has tried to refocus in the most recent period, but at the risk of splitting off from a harder, more extremist current that gave rise in 2018 to the Mi Hazank (“At Home””) movement. The polls currently forecast Jobbik’s share of the vote to fall to less than 3%, compared with 6.34% in 2019 and 14.67% in 2014, but the new Mi Hazank formation is expected to break through with more than 8%.

TWO GROUPS IN THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT

The far right in the European Parliament is represented mainly in two separate groups. On the one hand, the Identity and Democracy (ID) group, created in 2019, which includes the French Rassemblement national (RN), the Italian Lega, the Dutch PVV, the Austrian FPÖ and the German AfD party. [3] On the other, the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group, whose backbone was initially made up of the British Conservatives until they left the European Parliament following Brexit, which includes Fratelli d’Italia, the Swedish Democrats, the True Finns and the Spanish party VOX. The Polish PIS is now the largest force.

However, in March 2021, Fidesz left the European People’s Party (EPP, which brings together the classic bourgeois right) and is negotiating to join other groups, including the ECR and ID. The Hungarian party could play a pivotal role, bringing these two groups closer together. Although there are noticeable divisions between the ID and ECR, particularly on economic issues, the majority of ECR members are more or less neoliberal on economic issues, even if part of the ID group emphasizes populist social demagoguery like the French RN – at least as long as these parties are in opposition in their respective countries.

Lastly, the French Reconquête party, which is also presenting a list for the European elections but is not guaranteed to pass the 5% vote threshold required to enter parliament, currently sits in the ECR group with its only outgoing MEP, Nicolas Bay, elected in 2019 on the RN list. However, in addition to belonging to different parliamentary groupings, there are deep divisions – apparent or real – running through the far right “family”.

CLEAVAGE OVER RUSSIA

The majority of these parties in the European Union, especially in the western part and in Germany, were historically very supportive of, and even explicitly linked to, the Russian regime in the years after 2000. But this position has become much more difficult to assume publicly since the start of the war against Ukraine.

The French RN is currently one of the most outspoken critics of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The reason is simple: France’s main far-right party believes it is so close to coming to power nationally that it cannot afford to adopt a stance that would put it at odds with majority opinion. As during the 2022 presidential election campaign, when, after the announcement of the start of the war in Ukraine, the RN was forced to throw out 1.2 million copies of an eight-page leaflet because it was illustrated with a photo showing Marine Le Pen with Vladimir Putin to demonstrate her qualities as a “stateswoman”. In the days that followed, Marine Le Pen claimed that Ukraine was a positive illustration of a “national liberation struggle”, claiming that her party was following the same logic.

Other parties, structurally allied to the French RN, are not taking the same position. This is the case of the FPÖ, which has also had a formal cooperation agreement with Putin’s United Russia party since 2016. Some of its representatives now claim that the agreement was “only formal”. However, Karin Kneissl, the foreign minister appointed at the end of 2017 at the suggestion of the FPÖ (although she does not hold a party card), invited Vladimir Putin to her wedding in August 2018. In September 2023, Kneissl announced that she was moving to St Petersburg. Moreover, since the arrest on 29 March 2024 of a former agent of the Austrian National Security and Intelligence Directorate for spying for Russia, the Austrian state apparatus has been rocked by revelations of pro-Russian activities.

At no time has the French RN questioned its alliance with the FPÖ, which is a pillar of its policy of European alliances. Worse for the RN’s current official position, their parliamentary group (ID) expanded its ranks at the end of February 2024 to include the Bulgarian party Vazradjane (“Renaissance”) and the Slovak National Party (SNS). Both are close allies of Vladimir Putin’s regime within the European Union. As far as the Bulgarian party is concerned, three of its deputies took part in a United Russia meeting in Moscow on 16 February 2024. As for the SNS, in Bratislava it is part of a coalition government which, along with Fidesz in Hungary, has the most pro-Russian foreign policy of all the member countries of the European Union.

PSEUDO-CLEAVAGE ON “REMIGRATION”

Another, largely artificial, divide emerged in February 2024. Since mid-January 2024, there had been massive demonstrations against the German AfD party, with over a million people taking part in various German cities. The motive was the publication on 10 January 2024 of a report shot on hidden camera about a meeting held behind closed doors between AfD party executives, members of the identitarian movement, representatives of the most right-wing wing of the CDU (Christian Democratic Union, classical right-wing) and a section of the employers’ association. At the conference, the Austrian identitarian activist Martin Sellner – who has since been banned from entering Germany – spoke out on the subject of “remigration”. [4] Sellner had fantasized about deporting two million people, including German nationals who were “poorly integrated” or “complicit in mass immigration”, to an unidentified model state in North Africa that would take them in.

Marine Le Pen then distanced herself from the German party, publicly questioning whether she should continue to work with it in the European Parliament. The co-president of the AfD party, Alice Weidel, wrote her a public letter, citing translation errors and claiming that her party was only calling for convicted foreign criminals to be deported “in accordance with the law”.

The fact remains that this divide is largely imaginary, with Marine Le Pen’s public stance due solely to her desire to put on a good show in the eyes of public opinion, wishing to avoid any “extremist” appearance. However, one of the pillars of the ID group in the European Parliament, the FPÖ, and in particular its president Herbert Kickl – who was Austrian Minister of the Interior from 2017 to 2019 – has been shamelessly using the term “remigration” for years, without Marine Le Pen having found fault with it, until now.

ANOTHER EUROPE, FREE OF FASCISM

The real divisions are not within the far right, whose positions can be very elastic, but between the far right and its opponents. European leaders need to revive and reorientate their national economies (budget cuts; increased exploitation; “structural” unemployment), against a backdrop of a race to war. In the face of popular discontent, reactionary, patriarchal and xenophobic demagoguery, combined with the repression of mobilizations, leaves plenty of room for the far right, which often appears to be the only real opposition party. In this sense, the necessarily neoliberal policies of the European Union are a stepping stone for European fascism.

It is up to us to fight on the basis of fundamental positions, rejecting their ideas, which remain unacceptable in all forms. We demand open borders and a Europe-wide redistribution of wealth. Immediately, we are in favour of a European minimum wage and equal social rights for all. This means breaking out of the shackles imposed by the EU, and will require major victorious mobilizations across the continent.

April 2024

FOOTNOTES

[1] Founded in 1988, the Sweden Democrats were initially an openly neo-Nazi party, which has now “normalized”.

[2] The FPÖ, the Freedom Party of Austria, was created in 1955 from the rubble of Nazism by transforming the “League of Independents”, itself created in 1949. Austria’s political life was controlled by the Allies during the Second World War until 1955, when the Treaty of Neutrality was signed, restoring full sovereignty to the Austrian Republic. Until 1955, it was impossible to reconstitute a party that was too close to historical Nazism. As soon as the obstacle was removed, the FPÖ was set up, its first president Anton Reinthaller (who died in 1958) having been Secretary of State for Agriculture under Adolf Hitler.

[3] Founded in 2013, the AfD (Alternative for Germany) is a far-right party expected to win around 18% of the vote in the coming European elections.

[4] “Remigration” is a concept coined by Renaud Camus, a French far-right writer.

Translated by International Viewpoint from Revue l’Anticapitaliste.

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.

Far-right parties on the rise across Europe

PublishedShare

IMAGE SOURCE,

By Katya Adler

Europe editor

BBC

@BBCkatyaadler

France is on a knife edge.

Holding its breath as unrest spreads across the country, bursting out of the banlieues - the often socially-neglected suburbs - after the fatal shooting this week of a 17-year-old from a French-Algerian family by police near Paris.

These types of riots are not unheard of in France. But the intensity of feeling taking hold of the country, whether amongst those sympathising with the police or with the banlieues and the victim's family - hasn't been witnessed in France since summer 2005.

And while President Macron visibly struggles to get the situation under control, his political nemesis on the far-right - Marine Le Pen - with her tough-on-security, anti-immigration message - may well end up benefitting in the polls.

Look around Europe right now - north, south, east and west - and you see far-right parties of different flavours - nostalgic nationalist, populist nationalist, ultra conservative with neo-fascist roots and more - enjoying a notable resurgence.

IMAGE SOURCE,REUTERS

Image caption,

France's Marine Le Pen could benefit from Emmanuel Macron's challenges in getting the riots under control. She is pictured here in 2016

Old taboos dating back to Europe's devastating 20th Century war against the Nazis and fascist Italy - meaning most voters felt you shouldn't vote ever again for the extreme right and mainstream political parties refused to collaborate with far-right groupings - are gradually being eroded.

I was living in Vienna back in 2000 when the centre-right first jumped into a coalition government bed with the far-right Freedom Party. It made headlines the world over. The EU even slapped Vienna with diplomatic sanctions.

Now, the EU's third largest economy, Italy, is run by Giorgia Meloni, head of a party with neo-fascist roots. In Finland, after 3 months of debate, the far-right nationalists The Finns recently joined the coalition government.

In Sweden the firmly anti-immigration, anti-multiculturalism Sweden Democrats are the second largest party in parliament, propping up the right-wing coalition government there.

In Greece last Sunday three hard-right parties won enough seats to enter parliament, while in Spain, the controversial nationalist Vox Party - the first successful far-right party in Spain since the death of fascist dictator Francisco Franco in 1975 - outperformed all expectations in recent regional elections.

IMAGE SOURCE,JESUS MONROY/EPA-EFE/REX/SHUTTERSTOCK

Image caption,

Spain's Vox led by Santiago Abascal sees itself as the kingmaker and is up to 14% in the polls

There's talk about them possibly forming a coalition government with the conservatives after national elections in three weeks' time.

Then there are the ultra-conservative, authoritarian-leaning governments in Poland and in Hungary.

The list really does go on and on.

Including even Germany, still so sensitive about its fascist past.

Polls there now put the far right AfD just ahead of, or neck and neck with, Chancellor Scholz's Social Democrats (SPD). Last weekend an AfD candidate won a local leadership post for the first time. The SPD called it "a political dam-breaker".

So what's happening? Are millions upon millions of European voters really swerving far-right? Or is this more of a protest vote? Or a sign of the polarisation between urban liberal voters and the conservative rest? And what do we mean anyway when we describe parties as 'far-right'?

IMAGE SOURCE,FERDINAND MERZBACH/NEWS5/AFP

Image caption,

Germany's far-right AfD is riding high in the polls and scored its first district election victory last weekend in eastern Germany

Look at how hard-line some mainstream politicians can sound, especially before elections, when it comes to immigration - take centre-right Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, or security - I'm looking at you, self-described centrist Emmanuel Macron.

Mark Leonard, director of the European Council on Foreign Relations says we're looking at a huge paradox.

On the one hand, many a mainstream politician has in recent years grabbed slogans or stances from the far-right, hoping to rob them of their supporters. But by doing so they help make the far right seem more mainstream.

While at the same time, a number of far-right parties in Europe have intentionally moved more towards the political centre, hoping to entice more centrist voters.

Take attitudes towards Russia for example. A large number of parties on the far-right - like The League in Italy, Marine Le Pen of France and Austria's Freedom Party Far had traditionally close ties to Moscow.

That became more than awkward following Vladimir Putin's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, leading to party leaders to change their rhetoric.

Mark Leonard cites far-right relations with the EU as another example of their 'centrification'.

You may remember, after the UK's Brexit vote in 2016 that Brussels feared a domino effect - Frexit (France leaving the EU), Dexit (Denmark leaving the EU), Italexit (Italy leaving the EU) and more.

Many European countries had deeply Eurosceptic populist parties doing well at the time but over the years those parties have felt obliged to stop agitating to leave the EU or even its euro currency.

That seemed too radical for a lot of European voters.

IMAGE SOURCE,PA MEDIA

Image caption,

The UK's former Prime Minister Boris Johnson at a Conservative Party Conference

They looked at the social and political - never mind the hotly-debated economic impact - Brexit had in the UK and many concluded that exiting the EU would cause further destabilisation in a world that already feels very volatile.

Think: Covid pandemic, living next door to aggressive, unpredictable Russia, worrying about China, struggling with soaring living costs - with millions of European families still suffering the after-effects of the 2008 economic crisis.

Polls suggest the EU is more popular amongst Europeans at the moment than it has been for years.

And so far right parties now speak about reforming the EU, rather than leaving it. And they're predicted to perform strongly in next year's elections for the European parliament.

Paris-based Director of Institut Montaigne's Europe Programme Georgina Wright told me she believes the far-right renaissance in Europe is largely down to dissatisfaction with the political mainstream. Currently in Germany, 1 in 5 voters say they're unhappy with their coalition government, for example.

Wright said many voters in Europe are attracted by the outspokenness of parties on the far-right and there's tangible frustration that traditional politicians don't appear to have clear answers in 3 key areas of life:

1. Issues linked to identity - a fear of open borders and an erosion of national identity and traditional values
2. Economics - a rejection of globalisation and resentment that children and grandchildren aren't assured a better future
3. Social justice - a feeling that national governments are not in control of the rules that govern the lives of citizens

You can see these issues bleeding into the debate about green energy in Europe too.

In the Netherlands this year, the right-wing populist Farmer-Citizen Movement made headlines by grabbing the largest number of seats of any party in the upper house of parliament after provincial elections.

In France, Emmanuel Macron was faced by so-called yellow vest protesters, including far-right groupings, when he tried to raise petrol prices in an attempt to put people off travelling by car.

While in Germany, public concern and anger about finances is holding back the Green Party sitting in government from introducing environmental reforms it promised.