England’s Express newspaper has a piece on the “Shocking march of the far-right across Europe.” Among the highlights:
AUSTRIA: The far-right Freedom Party (FPO)… have also consistently performed well in national opinion polls this year, with most carried out since May showing the far-right party in the lead – some by as many as 10 points.
DENMARK: The far-right Danish People’s Party (DF) has been so successful in recent elections that it now has the balance of power and could topple the Danish coalition government. The party finished second in June’s general election after securing 21% of the vote and 37 seats in the country’s 179-seat parliament.
FINLAND: The Finns Party (PS) – known as the ‘True Finns’ – has enjoyed a meteoric rise similar to the Danish People’s Party (DP) and is now a major player in Finland’s coalition government. The nationalists became Finland’s second largest political party when they won 17.7% of the votes in April’s general election and entered into a pact with the ruling Conservatives.
FRANCE: The Front National (FN) party stunned Europe and the world when it stormed to victory in the first round of the French local elections earlier this month. Led by the charismatic Marine Le Pen, daughter of its founder Jean-Marie Le Pen, the far-right party tapped into concerns about high immigration and home-grown extremism in the aftermath of the bloody massacre in Paris… It scooped an astonishing 28% of the national vote in the first round of the elections, polling first place in six of France’s 13 administrative regions and winning more than six million votes.
GERMANY: The right-wing Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party [is] making huge gains off the bank of anti asylum-seeker statements. The party – whose name means Alternative for Germany – is campaigning under the slogan “Asylum requires borders – Red card for Merkel”. It scored 8% of the electorate in an opinion poll published this month, which marks a doubling in its support since September… Elsewhere the openly far-right group Pegida held one of its biggest ever rallies in Dresden in October, with 20,000 people taking to the streets to protest against immigration.
GREECE: Despite electing a radical socialist government Greeks have also voted in their droves for the openly fascist Golden Dawn party this year. The violent group was one of the biggest winners in the country’s September general election [and] polled third overall with more than 7% of the vote.
HUNGARY: Another nation feeling the extreme pressures of the migrant crisis, one in five Hungarians turned to an ultra far-right party in last year’s election. The central European state, which is governed by populist right-wing president Viktor Orban, has built a huge 110 mile long fence along its border with Serbia in a desperate bid to keep hundreds of thousands of German-bound migrants out. But despite Mr Orban’s hardline stance against immigration, 20.7% of Hungarians voted for anti-semitic Jobbik in last April’s general election. A year later the party won its first by-election in the country, with Lajos Rig beating Mr Orban’s candidate despite sharing an article which accused the Jews of using gipsies as a “biological weapon” against native Hungarians.
ITALY: Despite being ruled by the socialist government of Matteo Renzi, it is the far-right Northern League party which has made real strides in recent elections. The nationalist party, whose candidates have made xenophobic comments towards Roma gypsies and immigrants, secured its best ever results in this summer’s regional elections. Standing on an anti-immigrant platform, the Northern League won the regions of Veneto – with a landslide 50% of the vote – and neighbouring Lombardy.
THE NETHERLANDS: Opinion polls in Holland suggest that the country’s main far-right party, Party for Freedom (PVV) could be on track to storm to victory at the next general election. Support for the anti-immigration party has risen to record highs this year, with it opening up a cavernous 18 point lead on all its rivals. On current predictions the eurosceptic group would win 37 seats in the Dutch parliament if there was an election tomorrow, securing around a quarter of the vote in a country known for being governed by coalition. Pollsters say that the party’s popularity is growing outside its traditional working class base, with the number of graduates willing to vote for it tripling in just a few months. The PVV is run by controversial politician Geert Wilders, who has previously said that Europe should close its borders to Muslims and described the refugee crisis as an “Islamic invasion”. More recently he has supported Donald Trump over his similar proposed policy for the United States, saying he hopes he becomes the country’s next president.
SWEDEN: Another Scandinavian country seeing a huge surge in the popularity of the far-right, once more largely brought about by the European migrant crisis. Sparsely populated Sweden, home to just 9.5 million people, will take in a record 190,000 refugees from the Middle East this year alone. Fears over how the predominantly Muslim migrants will integrate into society has seen traditionally liberal Swedes turn their backs on socialist politicians and instead embrace the anti-immigrant Swedish Democrats (SD). The SD – which wants to close Sweden’s borders to immigrants and has neo-Nazi ties – has seen a surge in support with eight separate opinion polls this year placing it as the largest party in the country. Seven of those have put its support at over 25% – comfortably ahead of the ruling Social Democratic Party.
SWITZERLAND: Even though Switzerland is neither part of the EU nor the Schengen free movement zone, concerns about the ongoing migrant crisis have played strongly on people’s minds. The small Alpine country, known for its chocolate, time pieces and secretive banks, lurched to the right in recent elections as centrist parties haemorrhaged support. The ultra-conservative Swiss People’s Party (SVP), which has warned of “asylum chaos” in Europe and wants to impose strict immigration quotas, secured its best ever result in October’s election winning 29.4% of the vote. The party’s rise has been fuelled by anger over a number of Switzerland’s bilateral agreements with the EU, including its pledge to take in Syrian refugees as part of the wider quota system agreed by member states.
