Support for nationalist parties with xenophobic sentiments is on the rise across Europe. Radical right politics have proven their strong influence particularly in Austria (where the Austrian Freedom Party and the Alliance for the Future of Austria won 28 per cent of the vote) and in France, where polls have shown National Front leader Marine Le Pen could even lead in the first-round of next year’s presidential election.
Some 38 current members of the European Parliament represent far-right parties – a record high at a time when the economic status of many European states is at its lowest.
Although they may differ in their views regarding globalisation, public service, protectionism and Europe, the issues on all far-right parties’ agendas are redundancy, outsourcing and bankruptcy. More and more they are seen as fighting for the weak and the poor and blaming the crisis on the established political framework that they say fails to hear the voice of the people.
By borrowing a few socialist ideas, far-right parties have managed to secure a part of the working-class vote usually attracted by the left. The idea that people are losing their jobs or that wages are falling because of cheaper workers coming from Africa and Eastern Europe is increasingly accepted as the truth. Thus the radical right is seen as a good, if not better, alternative to protect people from the ‘invasion’ of foreigners such as Roma or north Africans.
At the same time, as Islamic terrorism has become a focus of the western world, people also see such parties as forming a protective barrier against the rise of Islam in Europe. The far right often uses to its own advantage people’s insufficient knowledge of the Arab-Muslim world, hence the confusion between Muslims and radical Islamists critical of the west.
To lead its struggle against the ‘Muslim enemy’, the far right has buried the hatchet with its former ‘Jewish enemy’. Although it’s not so long since it proudly promoted anti-Semitic ideas and revisionist history, the far right now shows support for Israel in its conflict with the Palestinians.
Of course this rise of the radical right has not gone unnoticed, and Europe at first fought to curtail its malign influence, either by ignoring the parties or ostracising extremists, hoping to dissuade them from gaining any political foothold. But when that failed, many EU member states decided instead to embrace some of the far right’s less extreme ideas and to bring such parties to Government, in the hope that it would reduce their appeal.
French president Nicolas Sarkozy broadened the appeal of the ‘respectable’ right by dealing with issues such as national identity, headscarves and the presence of Roma in France. It allowed him to secure more votes from far-right supporters, but at the same time he gave weight to extremist views on immigration and nationalism. The same occurred in Italy, where the coalition of ministers from the centre-right People of Freedom (led by Silvio Berlusconi) and far-right North League also legitimized hostility towards Muslim immigrants.
Ireland has not yet suffered that same fate. Although the increasing numbers of immigrants, the economic crisis and the inequalities between rich and poor seem to create favourable conditions to the development of xenophobic ideas, far-right parties have not yet managed to make an impact on the political landscape here.
According to Dr Eoin O’Malley of DCU’s Faculty of Law and Government, “those who might otherwise be likely to support a radical right party tend to vote for the most nationalist non-mainstream party, Sinn Féin, which is in fact a left-wing party.”
Dr O’Malley also argues that, considering the historical nationalist discourse, Sinn Féin is a party “very supportive of minorities’ rights” and thus cannot be compared to other radical right parties.
However, the absence of strongly anti-immigrant parties does not mean that ethnic minorities in Ireland do not suffer from discrimination. When it comes to such virulent xenophobic sentiments, they often don’t need political support to spread.
Céline Loriou is a French student currently studying for a BA in Journalism at Dubin City University.
