Posted on 04/21/2002 8:41:02 PM PDT by Timesink
Right-wing tide surges straight to the heart of Europe
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard in Brussels
(Filed: 22/04/2002)
EUROPE'S rising Right-wing tide swept into the core countries of the European Union yesterday, rocking Germany's Social Democrats and threatening France's socialist government.
Over the last two years, Austria, Italy, Denmark, Portugal, and Norway have all turned against the centre-Left consensus that had such a lock on Europe during the 1990s, opting instead for law-and-order parties promising tax cuts, deregulation, and a much tougher line on immigrants.
But the pace is now quickening as ever more radical figures build mass support, often outflanking the conventional centre-Right with wild rhetoric.
Even Holland, the model of easy-going tolerance, has fallen under the spell of Pim Fortuyn, an anti-Islamic populist who came from nowhere last month to take control of Rotterdam.
Just across the border, the Flemish Vlaams Blok far-Right movement is now the biggest party in Antwerp, much to the horror of Belgium's press and the political establishment.
In both Rotterdam and Antwerp, Muslim populations dominate very large quarters, living in uneasy truce with a white working class that has never accepted the legitimacy of mass immigration from the Third World.
Now France's industrial cities, led by Marseilles, are following suit, and the political earthquake can no longer be ignored.
The second-place finish of Jean-Marie Le Pen is all the more stunning given that the Right-wing vote was split so many ways - shared with the Hunting and Fishing Party; a rival National Front candidate; another candidate promising zero-tolerance on crime; and Jean-Pierre Chevenement extolling "sovereignty".
Taken together they amount to a devastating defeat for all the forces of the French Left, challenging the long-held assumption that the French nation is fundamentally committed to a bedrock welfare state in a "social Europe" with high taxes.
The shift to the Right is subtly different across the mosaic of Europe's tribal nations.
In Germany, the Christian Democrats increased their vote from 22 to 37 per cent in the depressed rust-belt land of Saxony-Anhalt, carving into the core support of the Left by turning the election into a verdict on Chancellor Schröder's failure to make a dent on Germany's four million unemployed.
The pro-business Free Democrats went up from four to 13 per cent.
While in Denmark last November, the free-market Ventre Party swept the country after 80 years in the wilderness, promising to preserve Denmark's public services, but also tapping into fears that mass immigration threatened the nation's cradle-to-grave welfare model, and the tight-knit feeling of Danish society.
In Brussels last night, European Union officials were remaining studiously silent about the surging fortunes of M Le Pen's French National Front.
Nobody wants to repeat the disastrous mistake made two years ago when the EU reacted precipitously to the triumph of Jorg Haider's far-Right Freedom Party in Austria by issuing a formal warning that Vienna would face punitive measures if Haider's party was allowed to join the ruling coalition.
The move was widely viewed as an attempt to overturn the result of a free democratic election in a member state before there had been any violation of civilized conduct or human rights.
In the end the EU was forced to climb down ignominiously.
At the time, the Left controlled most EU capitals. Now Silvio Berlusconi is in power in Rome, backed by a coalition including the "post-fascist" Alleanza Nazionale, which boasts Allesandra Mussollini as one of its leaders, as well as the anti-immigrant Northern League of Umberto Bossi, who recently excoriated the EU as a relic of "Stalinism".
In Madrid, Spain's centre-Right prime minister, Jose Maria Aznar, holds the chair as the EU's rotating president, and no EU initiative can get off the ground without his blessing.
They shall NOT CLEAVE ONE TO ANOTHER (despite any of various attempts to make them do so, that are shown...)
All I can see is the terms: "hard right, reactionary, extreme right" everything just short of calling him a Nazi.
What is his platform?
Pim Fortuyn is no extremist, he's a good man. The same cannot be said for Le Pen... the two are very different.
The article is hardly about France only. This tide is sweeping across Europe.
What is his platform, this time, or what does he really believe? Le Pen pretty much is an anti-Semite. But from what I can tell, he appears to simply dislike Jews on a personal level, while he absolutely DESPISES Muslims, blames them for much of France's current problems, and wants to completely cut off their ability to immigrate into France. For this reason, even some French Jews have supported him in this election, given the constant physical attacks Muslims have been making on Jews lately throughout the country.
I am unaware that any European nations have adopted the United States Constitution.
Lots of people I like and respect keep saying this, so I am inclined to believe it. That said, I haven't yet seen any hard evidence that Le Pen is an anti-Semite. Could you point me in the direction of some literature or links that will confirm it once and for all. If he is actually an anti-Semite, I want to be able to rid myself of all grudging admiration for the man.
*laugh* Okay, whatever. See ya.
Well, there's this. It's from the ADL, so standard disclaimers apply, but I doubt they just made the whole story up. Also, here's an old New York Times story.
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