2023-10-05 17:23:41
Like rising waters that nothing can stop: poll after poll, election after election, the far right is gaining ground in European democracies. And establishes itself lastingly and solidly in the political landscape, to the point of dictating the terms of the debate and arbitrating the results of the ballots.
In Germany, the continent’s largest economy, the Alternative for Germany (AfD) has become the second political force in the country in the latest polls: with 21% voting intention at the national level, twice its score obtained in the legislative elections of 2021. If it remains behind the conservatives of the CDU, the AfD is now ahead of the social democrats in power.
For the first time last June, she won a canton in Saxony-Anhalt, in the former GDR. And in the West too, the AfD is making progress: for the regional elections this Sunday, October 8 in Hesse, this party is expected at 17%.
In more than half of European countries, far-right parties now represent the second political force, which places them at the gates of power. In France, the National Rally (RN) even tops the polls for the next European elections, scheduled for June 2024. The far right is part of the ruling coalitions in Sweden, Finland and Latvia. And for a year, a post-fascist party has ruled Italy.
The fear of downgrading
“The reasons for the success of right-wing populists are the same in France as in Germany, but also in Italy and Spain: it is the fear of social decline,” analyzes a note from the Jean-Jaurès Foundation. “Their growth is fueled by migration crises and the loss of purchasing power,” notes Eddy Vautrin-Dumaine, director of studies at Kantar Public.
“They benefit from a feeling of being downgraded,” specifies Jean-Yves Camus, political scientist specializing in the far right. “Compared to emerging countries, Europe no longer appears as the center of the world, as a continent capable of asserting its values. And domestically, states are no longer able to operate a model of guaranteed prosperity. »
Nationalist parties recruit mainly from the losers of globalization, “who are not only people whose jobs have been eliminated, but also those who find that the changes in cultural references are happening too quickly and who anticipate that their work will perhaps disappear”adds Jean-Yves Camus: “So this also concerns the middle class. »
In Central Europe too
The phenomenon affects the old democracies of the West as well as Central Europe. The Law and Justice party (PiS) in power in Poland or Viktor Orban’s Fidesz in Hungary use the same arguments as the classic far right, even if they should rather be characterized as national-conservative parties. PiS’s electoral base is found in small towns and the countryside, while large cities tend to vote for the liberal and pro-European right.
Like Fidesz in Hungary, or Smer-SD, which came first in recent legislative elections in Slovakia, the PiS wants to be the defender of national interests in the face of interference from Brussels. Poland’s ruling party promises to protect against migrant arrivals that Europe, it says, “wants to force” Warsaw to accept… During the next legislative elections, on October 15, the PiS seems in a position to retain power. But he will face competition from a party even more to the right than him, the Confederation, which could exceed 10%.
“In Central Europe, extremist parties are fueled by the feeling of having been abandoned by the West, after the Second World War, explains Krzysztof Soloch, professor at Paris-Sorbonne University. They stand as defenders of a particular central European identity and Christian values, in the face of liberal morals and Western cosmopolitanism. »
A nebula of parties
Parties which integrate traditional themes dear to the far right (security, immigration, nation) are now so numerous in Europe that they form a nebula in which it is difficult to navigate. Some have antagonistic positions: the Fratelli d’Italia are firmly on the side of NATO, while the French RN leans towards Russia; the Polish Confederation wants to dismantle all social policies when the Sweden Democrats want, on the contrary, to strengthen the welfare state (but only for the benefit of nationals); the Dutch Party for Freedom (PVV) is vigorously Eurosceptic while the Croatian Patriotic Movement is satisfied with European integration.
The very term “extreme right” party appears questionable: “By using it, we suggest that these parties are a continuation of pre-war fascism. However, this assimilation is no longer valid: these parties began a transformation in the mid-1990s, which made them populist, nationalist groups, campaigning on the theme of security and anti-migrants, but not necessarily racist. We must therefore rather speak of the radical right. suggests Jean-Yves Camus.
This radical right thus includes anti-system, national-conservative, identity-based or libertarian parties. All are riding on the promise of protecting their nationals against real or supposed threats. Which does not prevent them from dividing and confronting each other: in Greece, three small competing parties from the extreme right entered Parliament last June.
The radical right could win 50 seats in Strasbourg
In the European Parliament, the various elected representatives of these parties are divided into two groups: on the one hand, Identity and Democracy (ID), which notably includes the French National Rally and the Italian League, and on the other, the Conservatives and Reformists European Union (CRE) where the Polish PiS, Fratelli d’Italia and the Spanish elected representatives of Vox sit.
On the basis of available polls, two political scientists, Gilles Ivaldi and Andreu Torner, have calculated for The Conversation website that the elected representatives of the radical right could increase from 130 to 180 seats in the future Parliament, during the elections next June. Enough to profoundly change the balance.
“If the European People’s Party is followed by elected officials from the far right, the entire architecture of the right will be called into question, analyzes Jean-Yves Camus. The traditional right risks losing control of the ideological agenda. While the debate has already moved towards themes chosen by the radical right, the latter risks being able to impose its responses. »
However, it is difficult to see what could slow down the progress of these parties. “If we judge by the dynamics at work, the rise of the extreme right does not seem ready to stop, predicts Eddy Vautrin-Dumaine, from Kantar Public. Even in countries where it was traditionally low, such as Germany, it is growing. »
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