When the current French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, began his campaign in 2007, it was difficult to distinguish some of his rhetoric from Le Pen's. For example, he suggested that people who "slaughter sheep in their bathtubs" were unwelcome in France, and he won the election because he brought together votes from the right. Now Sarkozy will probably soon be confronted with a new National Front, a toned-down -- but perhaps more dangerous -- version of its former self. Marine Le Pen, the daughter of the party's founder, will campaign for the party's chairmanship in January and intends to create a party that could also appeal to the political center.
The transformation of the National Front is only one example of the new anti-Islamic mainstream among Western Europe's right-wing populist parties. This is the issue that unites all of these parties throughout Europe, which have even taken to borrowing each other's marketing ideas. For example, the Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) copied a game from the website of Swiss People's Party (SVP), in which players shoot at minarets popping up in their familiar landscape.
It is the shared concept of Islam as the enemy that now makes them ideological allies. Still, it is unlikely that these parties will continue to cooperate across borders in the future, despite Wilders' dream of spearheading such a movement throughout Europe. The "International Freedom Alliance" he established in July has two goals: to "defend freedom" and "stop Islam." In a video which is currently the only content on the alliance's website, Wilders says that he wants to pool the existing forces against Islam, in Germany, France, Britain, Canada and the United States.
For more: Continent of Fear: The Rise of Europe's Right-Wing Populists - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News - International
No comments:
Post a Comment