Category Archives: The far right

‘This could end up ugly’: after Macron’s gamble, will the far right seize power in France?

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Marine Le Pen’s party is breaking record high scores across vast areas of the country, polls show, with an increase in its influence inevitable

It is 8pm on Sunday 7 July. Polling stations have just closed after the second round of snap French parliamentary elections – the country’s most momentous ballot in living memory – and the first estimations flash up on the nation’s TV screens.

President Emmanuel Macron has lost his gamble. The National Rally (RN) of Marine Le Pen has more than trebled its tally of deputies in the assemblée nationale to just over 290: an absolute majority. France’s next government will be far right.

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Macron urges French parties to unite against far-right National Rally

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President warns against ‘spirit of defeatism’ as country prepares for snap vote to clarify far-right surge in support

The French president, Emmanuel Macron, has urged all parties to form an alliance against Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally and resist the “spirit of defeatism” after he announced a surprise snap election in response to the far-right’s large gains in European elections.

With the far right at a historic high and the French political class plunged into uncertainty with less than three weeks until the first round of the legislative vote, Macron said he had dissolved parliament and called the election in order to hold back “extremes”.

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Les Républicains leader says he wants alliance with France’s far-right National Rally

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Éric Ciotti’s announcement welcomed by Marine Le Pen as ‘brave choice’ but seen as betrayal by members of mainstream right

The leader of France’s mainstream right has said he would back an alliance with the far right in the snap legislative elections later this month, shocking opponents and party members and throwing French politics into further disarray.

Éric Ciotti’s announcement, welcomed by Marine Le Pen as a “brave choice”, is a historic departure for the opposition right and sparked accusations of betrayal from high-profile members of Les Républicains (LR).

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‘We’ve all got to mobilise against the far right’: inside a French town that voted for Le Pen

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In L’Aisne, where the National Rally won over 50% of votes in the European elections, there is unease about the snap election

“Everyone is in total shock,” said Baptiste Lopata, a radiologist, sitting in his trade union office in the small northern French town of Soissons. “Now we’ve all got to mobilise against the far right.”

When Marine Le Pen’s anti-immigration, far-right National Rally (RN) won a historic victory in the European elections on Sunday night, its highest scores were here, in the north-eastern département of l’Aisne, where it won over 50%, and even 60% in some rural villages, compared with a 31% score nationwide.

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Three possible outcomes of Macron’s shocking snap election

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President may slow the seemingly unstoppable far-right rise, but find himself trapped in a splintered parliament

Two years into his second term and with three more still to run, Emmanuel Macron’s ratings are not what anyone would call great: 65% disapproval, 34% approval. Since losing his absolute majority in the assemblée nationale in 2022, he has struggled.

Parliament has been increasingly paralysed, with the government relying on ad hoc deals with increasingly reluctant opposition parties or despised constitutional tools to pass unpopular legislation.

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Belgian PM resigns after crushing defeat by far right in general election

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Alexander De Croo notified King Philippe on Monday morning, but will lead until a new coalition is formed

The Belgian prime minister has formally tendered his resignation following a visit to the King, after his Flemish Liberals and Democrats party (Open VLD) suffered heavy defeats in Sunday’s general election.

Alexander De Croo will remain caretaker prime minister until a new coalition, involving seven parties, is formed, a process that could take months.

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European elections’ main impact likely to be felt in national capitals

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Mainstream groups hold on to majority in European parliament but far right gains weaken governments in France and Germany

So in the end, with a couple of alarming wobbles, the centre held. As polls predicted, the mainstream pro-EU alliance of centre-right, centre-left, liberal and Green parties in the European parliament hung on, quite comfortably, to its majority.

Europe’s national conservative and far-right forces made big gains, ending up with just under a quarter of MEPs in the 720-seat assembly – their highest tally ever. But they did not do uniformly well, and in some places fared worse than forecast.

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‘Mostly, they don’t vote’: Dutch far-right support in European elections depends on turnout

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Geert Wilders’ PVV party is predicted to go from one seat to eight in European parliament nonetheless

Elections to the world’s only transnational assembly get under way in earnest on Thursday as Dutch voters go to the polls in a four-day, 27-country ballot that will return 720 MEPs to the next European parliament.

The results of the elections, which will shape the makeup of the next European Commission and could have a major impact on the bloc’s political direction in key areas including immigration and climate action, are expected on Sunday evening.

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The EU is braced for a rise in the hard right. But will the centre normalise it?

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Veterans in bloc will have to adjust to new reality as rightwing groups expected to have real influence for first time

When the results of the European parliamentary elections start to emerge on Sunday night, polls suggest they will show that the world’s only directly elected transnational assembly will have tilted, unambiguously, to the right.

Yet, for all the talk of a significant surge in support for the forces of Europe’s hard right, their gains should prove broadly in line with a steady progression over the past couple of decades or more. The difference will be in the response.

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Rise of far right makes reparations debate tough, says Cape Verde president

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José Maria Neves says governments should still try to have such conversations and build solutions using diplomatic corridors

Cape Verde’s president, José Maria Neves, said the rise of rightwing populism has made it difficult to hold a serious debate about colonial reparations but argued that should not stop governments from having those conversations behind closed doors.

In an interview with the news site Brasil Já, published on Wednesday, Neves said debating reparations in the “public arena” could lead to more political polarisation in countries such as Cape Verde’s former coloniser, Portugal, where the far right is on the rise.

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Far-right AfD party candidate stabbed in Mannheim

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Heinrich Koch reportedly stabbed in altercation over election posters days after police officer died in attack in same German city

Politicians in Germany have pleaded for calm on the campaign trail after a candidate for the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party was stabbed in the south-west German city of Mannheim, less than a week after a police officer was killed in a knife attack in the city.

The attack, which took place on Tuesday evening but was confirmed by police on Wednesday, left the politician with non-life threatening injuries for which he is being treated in hospital.

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Giorgia Meloni has emerged as a kingmaker for the EU – but will she turn to centre right or far right? | Jon Henley

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Even her toughest opponents admit she’s played it cleverly. Yet the long-term aims of Italy’s prime minister remain unclear

When she became Italy’s prime minister in October 2022, Giorgia Meloni looked like Brussels’ worst nightmare. Until then, the fiery leader of the Brothers of Italy – a party with neofascist roots – had seemed anything but EU-friendly.

For years, railing against the bloc had been Meloni’s stock in trade: the euro amounted to enslavement, the European Commission was effectively a loan shark. “Bring down this EU!” she urged the 2019 conservative CPAC conference in the US.

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‘She just says blah blah’: why Italy’s downtrodden believe Meloni is doing nothing for them

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The PM is talking up her underdog credentials ahead of this week’s European elections. But many in an impoverished Rome neighbourhood are sceptical

Sitting in the dark, cramped dining room of her home in Tor Bella Monaca, a densely populated council estate on the outskirts of Rome, Giovanna has just returned from one of several cleaning jobs the 70-year-old does to keep her family afloat. Her husband works on construction sites intermittently. The couple, whose youngest son, Cristian, 26, lives at home, might be depicted as borgatara, a slur in Roman dialect that, loosely translated, means a poor person living on the socially deprived fringes of the Italian capital.

Referring to her own upbringing in Garbatella, a traditionally working-class district within easy reach of Rome’s famed monuments, the Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni said earlier this month she was “a proud borgatara”.

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German police shoot knifeman after attack on rightwing protest

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Suspect wounded and officer injured after stabbing of far-right activist at rally in Mannheim

German police have shot and wounded a man who injured six people in a knife attack on a rightwing demonstration in the south-western city of Mannheim.

Footage showed a bearded man wearing glasses attacking people in the city’s central Marktplatz. One person appeared to be stabbed in the leg and a police officer who tried to intervene appeared to be cut in the neck. Another officer then shot the attacker.

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French PM says voters for far right may end up like Britons ‘who cry over Brexit’

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Gabriel Attal cautions against backing Marine Le Pen’s National Rally, which leads solidly in polls for European elections

The French prime minister, Gabriel Attal, has said voters choosing the far right in the European elections next week risk becoming like British people who regret backing Brexit.

“Don’t be like the British who cried after Brexit,” he told RTL radio on Thursday. “A large majority of British people regret Brexit and sometimes regret not turning out to vote, or voting for something that was negative for their country.

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Revealed: how a US far-right group is influencing anti-gay policies in Africa

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US anti-pornography campaigning group has advised, promoted and endorsed anti-LGBTQ+ activists and politicians in Uganda

A long-standing US anti-pornography campaigning group has advised, promoted and endorsed anti-LGBTQ+ activists and politicians in Uganda, including a governing party member who endorsed anti-LGBTQ+ laws by saying gays “should be castrated”, and a virulently homophobic founder of a “militaristic” Christian boys camp.

The revelations about Washington DC-based National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE) and its spin-offs and affiliates – based on documents, audio and video recordings and open-source materials – raise questions about its recent disavowals of its history of anti-LGBTQ+ positions, and its role in Uganda’s passage last year of laws on homosexuality which are among the most punitive and restrictive in the world.

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Greens ‘will not back von der Leyen’ for re-election if she does deal with far right

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German Green MEP chair warns that EU plan to tackle climate crisis will be put at risk by agreement with hard right parties

Green members of the European parliament will not support Ursula von der Leyen for a second term as the commission president if she makes a deal with hard-right nationalists, the party’s joint lead candidate has said.

Terry Reintke, the German Green MEP chair, said her group would “absolutely” not support von der Leyen – the incumbent centre-right commission president who is seeking a second term – if she made a deal with the Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni’s group in the European parliament, the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR).

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Munich’s Oktoberfest to ban Italian disco hit co-opted by far right

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Managers say no place at beer festival for song adapted with Nazi slogan ‘Germany for the Germans, foreigners out’

The managers of Munich’s Oktoberfest have said they will seek to ban an Italian disco hit from being played at the world’s most famous beer festival after its hijacking by far-right revellers.

In recent months the schmaltzy love lyrics of L’amour Toujours, a catchy 2001 hit by Italian DJ Gigi D’Agostino, have repeatedly been drowned out at public gatherings by a Nazi slogan: “Germany for the Germans, foreigners out”.

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Le Pen invites Meloni to form ‘super-group’ in European parliament

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French far right leader suggests alliance of ID and ECR groups, including Italian PM’s Brothers of Italy

The French far-right leader Marine Le Pen has suggested the Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, join forces with her in a new alliance, as the EU’s resurgent but divided nationalist parties gear up for European parliamentary elections next month.

The move came as European centre-left parties reiterated a warning to the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, that they would not support her bid for a second term if it entailed the backing of hard-right parties – including Meloni’s.

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Italian anti-fascist goes on trial in Hungary accused of attacking neo-Nazis

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Ilaria Salis, 39, says she is being persecuted for her beliefs in case that has led to tensions between two countries

An Italian anti-fascist activist has gone on trial in Hungary for allegedly attacking neo-Nazis, in a case that has sparked tensions between the two EU allies.

Ilaria Salis, 39, arrived at the Budapest court accompanied by her father, with Italy’s ambassador and a throng of Italian journalists also in attendance. She left to applause after the court heard testimony from one of the victims and two witnesses. None of the three could personally identify Salis, as their attackers were masked.

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