The Rise of European Populism

Henry Srebrnik, [Summerside, PEI] Journal Pioneer:

Throughout Europe, as issues revolving around economic stagnation and national identity become ever more salient, populist parties are becoming stronger. 

Though their specific policies may differ, they all share a rejection of the established liberal order, and demand strong governments to carry the fight against immigration.

The most visible is the National Front (FN), which some analysts think may even be poised to win power in the French presidential election next spring.

Marine Le Pen, the daughter of co-founder Jean-Marie Le Pen, has been the head of her party for almost six years.

Her followers insist that Islam constitutes a threat to the country’s very future. And like most of her fellow populists, Le Pen blames membership in the European Union, already weakened by the Brexit vote in Britain last June, for its troubles. “We want to destroy this EU,” she has declared.

If Le Pen becomes president, she will push for a referendum based on the British model. “I want to regain control over our currency,” she insists, “and our borders.” Le Pen is an economic nationalist who believes in a strong role for the state within the capitalist system.

Remarked Florian Philippot, one of Le Pen’s main advisers, “Their world is collapsing. Ours is being built.”

Another player in the populist surge has been Nigel Farage, the former leader of Britain’s UK Independence Party (UKIP), one of the main supporters of Brexit. “Our life has changed,” he boasts. “There are plenty more shocks to come.”

Some of these “shocks” are already potentially on the horizon. Parliamentary elections are scheduled for March in the Netherlands, where Geert Wilders of the radical anti-Islamist Freedom Party (PVV) is ahead in the polls, while Germans will vote in the fall of 2017 for the next Bundestag.

Frauke Petry of the right-wing populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) is planning to announce her candidacy for chancellor in the election, which is likely to see the AfD win seats in the federal parliament for the first time.

Even Czech President Milo Zeman, a social democrat, wants his government to pursue a “foreign policy based on our own interests” rather than kowtowing “to pressure from the United States and the EU.” He is also critical of what he considers to be the “organized invasion” of the continent by Muslims. 

In neighboring Slovakia, the Freedom and Solidarity (SaS) party came second in the March parliamentary election. 

SaS leader Richard Sulik told Slovaks that he did “not want to live in a Europe where more Muslims are born than Christians -- and I’m an atheist.”

Meanwhile, Austria held a rerun of its 2016 presidential election on Dec. 4. Last May’s result was declared invalid after irregularities in the counting of postal votes.

Norbert Hofer, the candidate of the Freedom Party (FPO), the far-right nationalist movement originally formed in the 1950s by former Nazis, had seen his support surge due to worries over immigration as well as weak economic growth. 

Hofer, who campaigned on an “Austria First!” slogan, asserted that he wanted to lead a country that was secure “for our children and grandchildren.” But he lost to a former Green Party politician, Alexander Van der Bellen, by 53.6 to 46.4 per cent.
Italy held a constitutional referendum the same day, with a different outcome. 

There, Prime Minister Matteo Renzi of the centre-left Democratic Party (PD) asked voters to approve a constitutional law that would streamline Italy’s government, including slashing the size of the Senate from 315 members to 100. 

It was opposed by the anti-establishment, anti-globalist and Euroskeptic parties: the Five Star Movement (M5S), founded in 2009 by Beppe Grillo, and the Northern League (LN), led by Metteo Salvini. 

The referendum lost by some 20 per cent, and Renzi resigned. Salvini called it a victory against “the bankers, the financiers,” while Grillo claimed that now “Sovereignty belongs to the people.” Both parties will be major factors when the country elects a new parliament.

American journalist John Judis, in his recently published book The Populist Explosion: How the Great Recession Transformed American and European Politics, contends that these European populists are benefitting from the current rage against their financial and political establishments.