The far right made huge gains in EU elections over the weekend. So much so, that French president Emmanuel Macron has called snap legislative polls in a high-risk move.
Though centrist mainstream parties kept an overall majority in the European Parliament, across the bloc extreme right parties notched a string of high-profile wins. They finished first in France, Italy, and Austria and came second in Germany and the Netherlands, according to preliminary results.
More than 360 million Europeans across 27 countries were eligible to vote to elect the 720-seat legislature. The next parliament, and the next commission, will have to deal with Russia’s continuing war in Ukraine, global trade tensions marked by US-China rivalry, a climate emergency and the prospect of a disruptive new Donald Trump presidency.
EU elections signal… more of the same
European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen’s centre-right European People’s Party (EPP) scored top place. She said:
We will build a bastion against the extremes from the left and from the right.
Err, all right then. Very normal behaviour to see a swing to the far right and mention the left. Let’s not forget, this is the same von der Leyen which the Geneva International Peace Research Institute (GIPRI) accused of being a war criminal. Last month GIPRI said:
Reasonable grounds exist to believe that the unconditional support of the President of the European Commission to Israel – military, economic, diplomatic and political – has enabled war crimes and the ongoing genocide in Gaza.
Von der Leyen could still be on her way out as EU leaders are to decide who will lead the commission as early as 17 June, ahead of a 27-28 June summit. Given the current commissioner’s nonsense centrist comments and propping up of settler colonists Israel, her potential departure could be no bad thing.
However, that’s not to say her replacement would be any better.
French scramble
In France the far-right National Rally (RN) party of Marine Le Pen dealt such a blow to Macron that he called national legislative elections for 30 June, a month before the Paris Olympics.
“I cannot act as if nothing had happened,” he said in a national address. The French people, he said, must now make “the best choice for itself and future generations”.
The RN won 31.5% of the vote to 15% for Macron’s centrist Renaissance Party. That means they gained 58 seats, compared to just nine seats five years ago.
Macron is set to serve out his current, and final, term until 2027. Then, it would be no surprise if Le Pen herself wished to succeed him. Le Pen’s father and founder of RN, Jean-Marie Le Pen, has been repeatedly convicted of antisemitism, and downplaying the Holocaust. His daughter has attempted to make herself more palatable to mainstream French voters in recent years.
But, the rot doesn’t fall far from the tree.
Mainstreaming
Human rights researcher Rim-Sarah Aloune has the measure of Le Pen:
At the head of a party that long housed Nazi collaborators, Ms. Le Pen is an authoritarian whose deeply racist and Islamophobic politics threaten to turn France into an outright illiberal state. She may pretend to be a regular politician, but she remains as dangerous as ever. For the good of minorities and France itself, she must not prevail.
Aloune also points out that Le Pen’s attempts to normalise are because being right wing is more normalised:
If Ms. Le Pen looks more mainstream now, it’s because the mainstream looks more like her. In the years running up to the last election, she ran on a hard-right platform, stoking antagonism toward immigrants and French Muslims under the guise of protecting public order.
What’s more, the French have taken to Islamophobia with the same fervour they do posh cheese and fancy bread. It’s become a regular populist tactic to target Muslim lifestyles, and Macron himself has overseen bans on burkinis and headscarves. The problem is not only down to Le Pen, or to RN.
The actual problem is that centrist French politics have normalised far-right politics, not just far-right figures.
Widespread swing
In Germany the scandal-plagued, fiercely anti-immigrant AfD party handed dismal news to chancellor Olaf Scholz by beating his Social Democrats 16% to 14%.
The charmers at AfD were judged too extreme for Le Pen who broke off an alliance with them just before the elections. AfD were kept in place by the opposition CDU-CSU bloc, which won 29.5 percent, while the Greens won 12%.
Far-right parties in the Netherlands and Belgium both also gained ground. That said, they still came up short compared with voter intentions credited to them before the elections.
In Austria, the far right Freedom Party led the count according to exit polls. This is the first time the group has topped a nationwide ballot in the Alpine country.
In Italy, the ruling post-fascist Brothers of Italy of prime minister Giorgia Meloni did better than predicted, coming out on top with 28%. Meloni’s apparent dalliance with fascism has not gone unnoticed.
In Hungary, almost-final results showed prime minister Viktor Orban’s far-right Fidesz party headed for what could be its worst score in its 14-year rule, a still substantial 44% but well down on the 52% it won in 2019.
No matter how you slice it, then, the EU elections showed a huge swing to the far right across Europe.
EU elections: no surprise
The reason none of this should be a shock is that Black and Brown people have been warning of creeping fascism for some time. If you understand the white supremacy that governs Europe, if you can see past the corporate media, and the corrupt politicians, none of this is a surprise.
Border abolition researcher Harsha Walia said:
Anyone surprised at far-right gains in EU Parl – esp in Germany, France, Italy, has willfully ignored how critical anti-migrant xenophobia (connected to anti-Black, anti-Muslim, anti-Roma, anti-Palestinian racism) has been in the rise of fascism. Border is a linchpin in fascism.
— Harsha Walia (@HarshaWalia) June 10, 2024
The people facing the brunt of the types of racism Walia describes have patiently, and at great personal cost, been pointing out far-right politics.
Unfortunately, the majority of white people are more comforted by the idea that fascism only comes in an impolite and monstrous guise, more akin to Donald Trump than the likes of the well-bred and well-spoken politicians that grace EU parliaments and compete in EU elections.
Anti-colonial researcher Sara Salem explained:
Nothing more boring than liberals expressing ‘shock’ at far right gains year after year after year. The rise of fascism and the right is deeply entangled with liberalism, not separate from it.
— Sara Salem (@saramsalem) June 10, 2024
Far-right politicians cannot function without liberalism and centrism making excuses for them and equipping their fascism. A vote for the lesser evil is clearly not good enough anymore. If you’re shocked by any of this, you’re not paying attention at all.
Additional reporting by Agence France-Presse
Featured image via YouTube screenshot/Guardian News
