The death last week of 96-year-old Jean Marie Le Pen has left behind, after a lifetime of virulent nationalist campaigning, a toxic legacy of racism and anti-immigrant prejudice that has helped lay the foundations for France’s and Europe’s ascendant far-right.
It is a legacy that was manifest in the opening in Vienna last week of talks likely to see the installation of a coalition government led by the once-taboo Freedom Party (FPÖ) and its firebrand leader, Herbert Kickl. He would become the first far-right chancellor in Austria since the end of the second World War.
And the rise of the far-right is also evident in Germany, where this weekend the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party launched its programme for next month’s election, proposing mass deportation of immigrants.
Le Pen, who for many years warned of the “submersion” of France by an “invasion” of “all the miserable populations of the world”, was one of the first proponents of what would be known as “great replacement” theory, long before it featured more widely on the far right in the US and Europe. Its advocates include the FPÖ which successfully campaigned on the issue in autumn elections, in which it topped the poll.
“As People’s Chancellor, I will initiate the remigration of all those who trample on our right to hospitality,” Kickl pledged in the manifesto, promising to build “Fortress Austria”.
Unlike in neighbouring Germany, where other parties have refused to include the AfD in federal ruling coalitions, Austrian parties have allowed the FPÖ to share power in the national government five times, but always as a relatively weak junior partner. The announcement by the centre-right People’s Party (ÖVP) that it is willing to serve under Kickl has shocked both Vienna and EU capitals.
The prospect of another leader joining the European Council’s awkward squad is viewed with dismay in Brussels. The FPÖ’s overt hostility to the EU, its migration policy, its opposition to aid to Ukraine, and to climate policy, will strengthen and embolden other far-right leaders like Italy’s Giorgia Meloni and Hungary’s Viktor Orban and make the union even less governable.
In Germany, while the AfD may be shut out of government, it is running second in the polls with record support of around 20 per cent. Its co-leader, Alice Weidel, said this weekend that it supported ” repatriations on a grand scale”. The AfD also wants to normalise relations with Moscow. Weider got unprecedented exposure last week in an interview on X with Elon Musk, who called for German voters to support the party. It may not form part of the next government, but growing support for the party is a further sign of the rise of far-right populism which has significant implications for the EU and for Europe.
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Publish date : 2025-01-12 12:46:00
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