“2015 created the perfect storm for the radical right”
CAS MUDDE
Overview
Islamophobia & the construction of the Muslim other
The 2015 attacks in Paris carried out by ISIL drive Islamophobia. Meanwhile, the situation in Syria leads to a refugee crisis in Europe.
Mainstreaming of Far Right politics
HUNGARY - The rise of Viktor Orban.
Europe’s Far Right: Russia’s trojan horse?
HUNGARY - The rise of Viktor Orban.
Islamophobia & the construction of the Muslim other
“The Muslim is the new symbol of the enemy”
RAMA YADE
In France, Marine Le Pen, daughter of Jean-Marie, had taken over as leader of the National Front, shifting its emphasis to a centre ground that had already shifted to the right.
The National Front would amplify its anti-EU credo under Marine Le Pen and in a bid to exploit the perceived mood of the French people, she renounced her father’s anti-semitism, and reclaimed the anti-Islamic rhetoric now part of mainstream politics.
The twin-pronged attack on Muslims and the European Union gave Marine Le Pen 18% of the vote in the 2012 French Presidential elections – proving that she was not only capable of emulating her father’s achievements, but also had a chance of going beyond them…
The political mood in France was volatile, but in 2015 it would be darkened by violence in its capital city,
2015 would begin and end with targeted attacks in Paris that would make Europe’s Muslim ‘other’, Europe’s enemy No 1.
In 2015, attacks in Paris would claim 146 lives. In May 2014, a French gunman shot and killed four people at a Jewish museum in the Belgian capital Brussels.
The attacker had returned from the war in Syria where he had fought with rebel groups against President Bashar al-Assad’s forces.
The Syrian conflict would also bring more than a million refugees to Europe’s doorstep, while European economies remained mired in troubles of their own.
Europe was ill-prepared for a mass intake of new people as weaker nations, many at the coalface of the refugee crisis, continued to struggle economically.
For the European Union, the confluence of crises around violence, refugees and failing economies was a troubling brew that called for tighter control.
For Europe’s far right, it would yield timely opportunity.
Mainstreaming of Far Right politics
“Terrorist attacks produced a very powerful image for far-right parties to be the scapegoat a lot of the problems”
RAMA YADE
GERMANY
In Germany, the far right Alternative fur Deutschland (AfD) Party looked to challenge Angela Merkel’s willkommenskultur refugee policy.
A welcoming culture was far removed from what the AfD stood for.
HUNGARY
Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban openly championed illiberalism, challenging press freedoms, the independence of the judiciary and the idea of open borders.
His right-wing policies appealed to populist fears, and disregarded EU authority.
Orban signalled his vision of a Christian Europe, but also looked to check the advance of the extreme right Jobbik party.
Hungary’s political landscape was now being shaped by far right forces competing for power.
Hungary’s prime minister stepped up and changed the game, talking up the merits of illiberalism, undermining the key principle of European solidarity.
Europe’s Far Right: Russia’s trojan horse?
“The Kremlin has developed a network of influence across Western and Eastern Europe that can be activated almost like Trojan horses across the region”
ALINA POLYAKOVA
Western Europe’s liberalism was being challenged by right-wing governments and far right radicals.
For Russian leader Vladimir Putin, long regarded as an illiberal force by the West, this would be an opportunity to serve Russia’s interests and widen cracks in Europe’s unity.
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