“We started to see not a Europe united but a Europe divided”
ALINA POLYAKOVA

Overview

Populist & Far Right parties on the rise across Europe

NETHERLANDS - Lijst Pim Fortuyn (LPF) Party

FRANCE - National Front Party

BRITAIN - UK Independence Party (UKIP)

2008 financial crisis & 2009 European sovereign debt crisis

Resentment builds in an environment of unemployment and recession. Immigration becomes politicised once again.

Populist & Far Right parties on the rise across Europe

A poster for the UK Independence Party (UKIP) adorns the side of a building on April 13, 2010 in London, England. | PHOTO BY OLI SCARFF/GETTY IMAGES

THE NETHERLANDS: LIJST PIM FORTUYN (LPF) PARTY

The Netherlands would see the far right, anti-immigration, anti-Muslim Lijst Pim Fortuyn Party win 17 percent of the vote in its 2002 General Election.

The assassination of its leader, Pim Fortuyn, days before the election propelled the party into the limelight and secured it a place in a coalition government. But like the FPO in Austria, the LPF would fail to consolidate the ground Pim Fortuyn had helped it gain.

FRANCE: FRONT NATIONAL PARTY

“It was a trial … the trial of immigrants”
RAMA YADE

In the same year France would also go to the polls, and a familiar voice would make a historic breakthrough.

In the 2002 French presidential elections, Jean-Marie Le Pen had beaten the sitting socialist Prime Minister Lionel Jospin, to win a place in a two-way run-off with the incumbent President Jacques Chirac.

French far right National Front party leader Jean-Marie Le Pen address the news media April 22, 2002 at his party's headquarters in Saint-Cloud outside Paris. | PHOTO BY PASCAL LE SEGRETAIN/GETTY IMAGE

Jean-Marie Le Pen had symbolised France’s existential crisis and posed as an existential threat to a European Union that, in 2004, embarked on its most ambitious enlargement.

It now included 10 new countries, eight from Central and Eastern Europe.

With more people moving from poorer European nations to richer ones in search of work, immigration, once again, was under the spotlight …

BRITAIN: UK INDEPENDENCE PARTY (UKIP)

“UKIP comes into British politics and quickly turns itself into a very serious political force”
MATTHEW GOODWIN

One fringe party in Britain put itself forward to stand up for the instincts of the ordinary, native people of the UK.

In 2006, UKIP elected a new leader, Nigel Farage, a man whose accession, according to the party’s founder, brought with it elements of far right support.

In 2006, UKIP elected a new leader, Nigel Farage, a man whose accession, according to the party’s founder, brought with it elements of far right support.
A billboard for the UKIP political party, featuring a picture of Winston Churchill, adorns the side of a house on May 28, 2009 in Bromsgrove, England. | PHOTO BY OLI SCARFF/GETTY IMAGES

Farage’s UK Independence Party tried to present a veneer of respectability, as it, and the far right movement it claimed to be removed from, made inroads into Europe’s political mainstream.

2008 financial crisis & 2009 European sovereign debt crisis

Protestors from the 'Occupy London Stock Exchange' demonstration continue their occupation outside St Pauls Cathedral on October 22, 2011 in London, England. | PHOTO BY DAN KITWOOD/GETTY IMAGES
“This idea that we in the north now have to pay for them in the south hit home hard”
CAS MUDDE

In 2008, the financial meltdown that had begun with a credit crisis in the US, would be a catalyst for political and social unrest across Europe that give the far right a chance to rush in, where the mainstream feared to tread.

In Greece, the simmering financial crisis boiled over into street violence.

Pensioners line up outside a National Bank branch on July 2, 2015 in Athens, Greece. | PHOTO BY MILOS BICANSKI/GETTY IMAGES

Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou committed to a bailout by the troika of the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund, that would total 130 billion euros ($139bn).

In return, Greece would be required to make drastic cuts to its public spending, reduce its budget deficit and liberalise its markets

The Greeks would pay for the money they received and the folly of a hasty integration.

Supporters of ultra nationalist party Golden Dawn hold party flag and Greek flag as they demonstrate on February 1, 2014 in Athens, Greece. | PHOTO BY MILOS BICANSKI/ GETTY IMAGES

The 2012 elections in Greece saw Golden Dawn, a violent, openly fascist party claim 21 seats in the Greek parliament.

But it was a coalition government of traditional left and centre right parties that held power in Athens, and, despite widespread disdain for the EU’s bailout plan, it soon set to work implementing the imposed austerity.

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