The ominous resurgence of Europe’s far right

But today as France goes to the polls in a cliffhanger run-off parliamentary election that could see Marine Le Pen’s far-right, Eurosceptic, anti-immigration National Rally (RN) leading a French government for the first time since the Second World War, many are now taking such warnings a lot more seriously. 

This renewed sense of concern has only been underscored by the surge in support for Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party in last week’s British election and it would appear that the far right has been ­significantly elevated in two ­countries that until now have deprived them of what broadcaster Euronews described last week as a “breakout moment”.

But the reality is that for some time now those “breakout moments” have come with increasing regularity with six EU countries – Italy, Finland, ­Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia and the Czech Republic – now having hard-right parties in government. 

READ MORE: The reasons why Nigel Farage and Reform UK have picked up political momentum

Some are also consolidating the far-right presence in Europe by attempting to create political blocs among themselves.

Just last Friday, Dutch far-right ­leader Geert Wilders announced that his party would join a European ­parliamentary ­alliance dubbed the “Patriots for ­Europe” recently formed by Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban, which already ­includes Austria’s far-right Freedom ­Party (FPO) and the populist Czech ANO ­party led by Andrej Babis.

“Historians will decide in a few years’ time how important this day was – we think this is the day when European ­policy begins to change,” Orban said a week ago at a press conference in ­Vienna to mark the launch of the new far-right faction that has pledged to end support for Ukraine and push for peace talks with Russia. 

Orban’s announcement came as ­negotiations to form political blocs ­entered their final days following ­European parliamentary elections last month in which far-right parties made gains across the continent. 

To become fully recognised in the EU parliament, the Patriots for Europe will need to sign up parties from at least four other countries, but Wilders’s decision to bring his Dutch party into the alliance has only bolstered the determination to complete the far-right bloc.  

For its part, however, Le Pen’s RN ­party in France, in an effort to secure more votes at home, has for the moment sought to distance itself from the position of some other far-right parties in Europe and in some cases a rift has emerged over certain issues. 

In particular, attitudes towards ­Russia have emerged as a crucial ­dividing line within Europe’s right with ­ultraconservative parties such as ­Poland’s Law and Justice (PiS) and ­Giorgia ­Meloni’s ­Brothers of Italy staunchly ­opposed to any ­rapprochement with ­Moscow over Ukraine.

Some political observers point out that the term “far right” is not entirely ­appropriate when applied to some of those in Europe.

Speaking to Euronews last week in the wake of Reform UK’s surge in support in the General Election, Tim Bale, professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London, said that for all its often overt xenophobia and ­Islamophobia, Reform UK is a “populist radical right party” rather than on the “extreme right”.

(Image: PA)

Other observers, however, are less ­convinced by such a definition, ­arguing instead that certain European ­parties are simply trying to shed ­associations or ­parallels with certain extremist ­counterparts because it’s politically ­expedient to do so in terms of winning over more votes. 

Once in positions of power – such ­critics say – these parties’ “true colours” will almost certainly come to the fore.

Le Pen’s RN and their relationship with Germany’s notorious Alternative for ­Germany (AfD) is a point in case. 

RN, for example, refused to tolerate AfD’s membership of another right-wing bloc, the European Parliament’s Identity and Democracy (ID) group, after a ­leading parliamentarian, Maximilian Krah, told an Italian newspaper that he would ­“never say that anyone who wore an SS uniform was automatically a criminal”.

When Krah’s remarks were published, RN, along with several parties from ­other countries’ delegations, voted to kick AfD out of the group.

But dig deeper into RN and their own far-right “credentials” become ­unmistakeably apparent, says French ­journalist and ­writer Nabila Ramdani, whose book ­Fixing France gives a very different ­insight into a country so ­often depicted as the land of equality and ­fraternity for all. 

READ MORE: Warning of 'far right' advance after Reform General Election success

“If you look at their history, the RN are a terrifying party,” Ramdani told ­Euronews in a recent interview.

“Nazi nostalgia ­remains strong among some of their rank and file. So does prejudice against Arabs and Muslims, not least because of the ­bitter resentment over the loss of France’s colonial empire in Africa and North ­Africa, and especially Algeria, in the 1960s.”

“The FN was founded in 1972 by ­Marine Le Pen’s father, the now ­convicted racist and Holocaust denier Jean-Marie Le Pen,” Ramdani explained.  

“Those who made up the original FN leadership committee included men who had fought in the Waffen SS ­during the Second World War or else served with the Milice, the French paramilitary ­ police units that collaborated with the Third ­Reich.”

It’s precisely this malign background that this weekend still casts a ­shadow over RN as, just weeks before the ­showcase summer Olympics begin in ­Paris, the ­party seeks to double down on its first-round victory last week by ­pushing through to an outright majority in today’s second round. 

Some political observers say that the ugly incidents that marked the past week running up to today’s vote are an ­indicator of the troubles France would face were RN successful in their bid to get their hands on the levers of power.

As the tense campaign was wrapping up, France’s interior minister Gerald Darmanin said that at least 51 candidates and their supporters had been physically harmed, quite a few of them while putting up campaign posters.

“Outbreaks of violence are to be feared on Sunday,” he told BFM TV, ­after he ­decided to step up the police presence that will see about 30,000 police ­deployed across the country and a ban on a planned far-left demonstration at the National ­Assembly on voting day. 

At the time of going to press, the ­indicators – according to an Ipsos poll – are that France is headed towards a hung parliament with the far right likely to fall short of the outright majority needed to form a government.

A survey published on Friday showed that RN and their allies would only ­secure ­between 175 and 205 seats in the 577-strong parliament. The projection, based on a sample of 10,000 people, shows a wider shortfall compared with other polls that came out earlier last week. 

Speaking to the Financial Times, Mathieu Gallard, a researcher at ­Ipsos, said the survey indicated that the ­strategy by France’s president ­Emmanuel ­Macron’s centrist alliance and left-wing parties to pull out more than 200 ­candidates from three-way races today in order to consolidate the anti-RN vote was working.

Galvanised by the RN’s early ­triumph, other parties, including Macron’s ­centrists, spent last week working ­frantically to prevent them from attaining an absolute majority – an outcome that would force Macron to install the party’s 28-year-old leader, Jordan Bardella, as prime minister.

Macron’s strategy, called the “front ­republicain”, requires voters to hold their noses and vote for parties they do not ­usually support so as to block the RN. 

“The front republicain held up ­surprisingly well in this poll and concerns that people would not follow the advice given by national parties seems unfounded,” Gallard told the Financial Times.

But whether or not Macron’s strategy of banding together opponents to blunt RN’s most ambitious aims succeeds, the party will still likely be in a position to ­politically harry and bog down the French president, who assumed his post in 2017 and still has three years ­remaining in his current term.

Should a hung parliament prove to be the outcome, then after the RN, the left-wing Nouveau Front Populaire (New Popular Front) bloc is on track to come in second with 145 to 175 seats, potentially just on the heels of the RN. 

The Ipsos poll suggests too that the power dynamics within the left are also shifting, with the previously dominant far-left La France Insoumise (LFI) led by anti-capitalist firebrand Jean-Luc ­Melenchon perhaps ending up with 58 to 68 seats, just ahead of the centre-left ­Socialist party on 51 to 61.

All this, though, is simply polling and the final outcome in France remains ­uncertain. What’s easier to predict is that the march of Europe’s far right is not ­going to end anytime soon. For years now, little by little, it has been gaining ground and nudging its way closer to the epicentres of power. 

As Ishaan Tharoor, foreign ­affairs ­columnist at The Washington Post, ­recently pointed out: “The ‘cordon sanitaire’ created by more mainstream parties against the putative ­descendants of Europe’s fascist movements has ­collapsed. The far right is on the march … and the initial results of the European Union’s parliamentary elections may point to a definitive arrival.” 

As France braces today for what could potentially be a political earthquake, there is a certain irony here.

(Image: AP)

Back in 2016, when Macron first ­decided to enter the French political fray, he did so by launching a new centrist-liberal ­political party called “En Marche” (On The Move).

Eight years later, however, it is ­embattled Macron’s far-right nemesis, Le Pen, who appears to be marching forward to power.

On June 9 this year, Macron gambled his narrow parliamentary majority by calling a snap election minutes after it became clear that France’s far right had won 40% of French votes in the European Union parliamentary contest.

In doing so, many observers believe he has put France’s democratic forces and republican ideals in jeopardy. 

For her part, meanwhile, Le Pen has worked hard to make the RN party more acceptable to voters by seemingly softening their edges. 

But as Cecile Alduy, professor of French studies and associate scholar at Sciences Po, in Paris, recently pointed out, “no-one should be fooled: the RN remain as ­radical as ever”.

“Despite its aesthetic softening, the ­party is still fond of Moscow and hostile to the European Union,” wrote Alduy a few days ago in Foreign Affairs magazine as France prepared to go to the polls.

READ MORE: Reform UK secure significant Scottish vote share – despite winning zero seats

“It remains discriminatory, bent on taking away rights from immigrants and their children. Regardless of its final ­margin in the runoffs, it will do ­everything in its power to make France less global, less democratic and more hostile to any resident who does not have French ­ancestors,” Alduy argued, ­echoing the similar concerns some have about ­other European far-right parties. 

Across the continent now these parties often broadly align or share an identity, be it over scepticism around the EU’s ­climate policies or migration or attitudes towards Islam, while at the same time increasingly converging with the centre right.

Speaking last week before today’s run-off in France, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights called for vigilance in the face of far-right political gains in Europe, citing narratives that dehumanise migrants and asylum seekers.

“We need to be very vigilant because especially history tells us, in particular in Europe, that the vilification of the other, that the denigration of the other, is a ­harbinger for what’s to come,” Volker Turk told reporters at a press conference in Geneva. “It’s an alarm bell we need to ring.” 

In the coming days as France’s election results become clear, it will be interesting to see just who, if anyone, takes notice of that alarm bell.