Herbert Kickl’s campaign ended as it began: in radicalism. On Sunday, September 29, the leader of the Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) celebrated his historic victory in the parliamentary elections, achieved with almost 29% of the vote, in a brasserie on the campus of the University of Vienna in the company of identity activists who printed a banner for the occasion bearing the slogan “29% for remigration.”
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Banned in France, where it is also considered too sulfurous by the Rassemblement National in its quest for de-demonization, the identitarian movement has spread widely in the small Alpine country, where it is particularly active. Since taking the helm of the FPÖ in 2021, Kickl, 55, has opened wide the doors of his far-right party to the Austrian prophets of the great replacement, a racist and conspiracy theory that is particularly absurd in a country with barely 8% of Muslims.
Like them, Kickl dreams of remigration and transforming Austria into a fortress to protect the homogeneity of the Austrian people. Thriving on the strong anti-vax conspiracy current that exploded in Austria during the Covid-19 epidemic, this radicalism enabled the FPÖ to come out on top in a legislative election for the first time in its history. But it is also likely to prevent it from coming to power, as all the other parties have so far refused to let Kickl become Chancellor.
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After celebrating with his radical friends, the leader of the FPÖ has understood this and, since Monday, September 30, has been playing up his party’s other image, a party that has already taken part in two governments in the last 25 years and remains deeply institutionalized at all levels of the country. Suddenly speaking of “common ground with the president [ecologist Alexander Van der Bellen],” who is to appoint the next chancellor, Kickl has been trying to make people forget that he recently described the head of state as a “mummy,” “senile” and “the greatest danger to democracy.”
Founded by former Nazis
The FPÖ was founded by former Nazis in 1956. It is regularly rocked by scandals reflecting its nostalgia for the Second World War. And in 2010, Kickl said that he “could not agree that the Waffen-SS was collectively guilty.” Despite all this, in Austria, the cordon sanitaire against this far-right party was broken long ago.
Back in 1999, the conservative Wolfgang Schüssel decided to form a coalition with one of Kickl’s predecessors, Jörg Haider [1950-2008]. This European first earned Austria sanctions from the European Union (EU), without much effect. In 2017, the conservative Sebastian Kurz again decided to form an alliance with the FPÖ, then led by Heinz-Christian Strache. Both experiments ended badly for the party, which was soon caught up in extensive corruption scandals and forced from power.
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Publish date : 2024-10-09 15:40:00
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