Europe’s Far-Right Anger Is Moving Mainstream

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Anti-immigrant, anti-Europe, anti-Muslim sentiment is resonating with more and more voters in Europe.

In the wake of the Brexit vote in Britain and the recent Italian referendum, and with national elections looming in 2017 in the Netherlands, France, and Germany, there is concern that Europe may be inundated by a populist wave, driven in large part by right-wing parties exploiting anti-globalization, anti-immigrant, and anti-Muslim sentiments. Indeed, the strategy seems to be working: Polls show that people who have a favorable view of the National Front (FN) in France, the Alternative for Germany (AfD) in Germany, and the Party for Freedom in the Netherlands tend to be more negative about immigrants, refugees, and Muslims than their fellow countrymen. In addition, they are more euro-skeptic and more wary of globalization than their compatriots.

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None can now deny that the refugee crisis that descended on Europe over the last year has changed the continent’s political landscape. The arrival of millions of migrants, mainly from the Middle East and Africa, with the encouragement of some European leaders, has birthed a political earthquake that promises to reshape Europe’s politics in important ways.

Even Europeans who initially supported the efforts of Angela Merkel, Germany’s chancellor and the most powerful politician in the European Union, to welcome millions of refugees have begun to express public doubts about this enterprise. This week, Austria’s foreign minister, whose country only months ago was welcoming tens of thousands of migrants, expressed Vienna’s position concisely: “The concept of no borders is not going to work.”

Europe may be witness to a new political era

The success of Marine Le Pen and the National Front (FN) in France underlines the shifting plates of European politics.

She is far right, anti-Europe and anti-immigration, but many of those who voted for her once voted for the Communists and the Socialists.

She has attempted to reinvent the FN as the party of the voiceless, the left-behind and the angry.

Marion Maréchal-Le Pen: the new wonder-girl of France’s far-right

File photo: Far right National Front party regional leader, Marion Marechal Le Pen, delivers a speech during a campaign meeting, in Toulon, southern France Photo: AP

 

The niece of Marine Le Pen won her first election at the age of 22 and trounced a former prime minister, Alain Juppe, in a televised debate

She is the new girl wonder of the French far right, a glamorous 25-year-old poised to break down many mainstream conservatives’ qualms about casting their vote for the Front National.

Since she was elected the youngest MP in French parliamentary history, aged 22 three years ago, while a second year Sorbonne law student, Marion Maréchal-Le Pen, niece of Front President Marine and grand-daughter of its obstreperous founder Jean-Marie, has had the fastest learning curve in French politics since Bonaparte’s.