Category Archives: The far right

Macron takes on far-right presidential rival in visit to Vichy

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President warns about ‘manipulation’ of history after Éric Zemmour claims Vichy regime protected French Jews from Nazis

Emmanuel Macron has warned against the “manipulation” of history in a clear message to the far-right presidential candidate, Éric Zemmour, on a symbolic visit to Vichy.

After the German occupation in 1940, the spa town was chosen for Marshal Philippe Pétain’s puppet regime, which collaborated with the Nazis and ensured the deportation of Jews to death camps. Zemmour has angered historians by claiming, instead, that Pétain saved French Jews.

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Far-right French presidential candidate put in headlock by protester – video

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The far-right French presidential candidate Éric Zemmour appeared to be put in a headlock by a protester at his first campaign, days after he formally declared his candidacy in a video highlighting his anti-migrant and anti-Islam views.

Videos online appeared to show Zemmour being grabbed by a man at the heated rally near Paris on Sunday, during which anti-racism activists were also reportedly attacked. He was later reported to have suffered slight injuries

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Far-right French presidential candidate put in headlock by protester at rally

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Éric Zemmour formally declared his candidacy on Tuesday, highlighting his anti-migrant and anti-Islam views

The far-right French presidential candidate Éric Zemmour appeared to be put in a headlock by a protester at his first campaign, a few days after he formally declared his candidacy in a video highlighting his anti-migrant and anti-Islam views.

Videos online appeared to show Zemmour being grabbed by a man at the heated rally near Paris on Sunday, during which anti-racism activists were also reportedly attacked.

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Far-right TV pundit Éric Zemmour to run for French presidency

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It is time to ‘save’ France, controversial figure says as he reads video speech posted on social media

Éric Zemmour, a controversial French far-right TV pundit who has convictions for inciting racial hatred, has declared he will run for president next spring, claiming he wants to “save” traditional France from “disappearing”.

In a 10-minute video posted on social media, Zemmour sat at a desk reading a speech in front of an old-fashioned microphone, designed to look like Charles de Gaulle’s famous June 1940 broadcast to Nazi-occupied France – provoking anger from the traditional Gaullist right.

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Michael Flynn appears to have called QAnon ‘total nonsense’ despite his links

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Trump ally reportedly says conspiracy theory a ‘disinformation campaign’ created by CIA and the left, apparent recording reveals

Michael Flynn, Donald Trump’s first national security adviser, appears to have called QAnon “total nonsense” and a “disinformation campaign” created by the CIA and the political left – despite his own extensive links to the conspiracy theory and seeming eagerness to serve as its hero.

Flynn’s apparent statement was revealed by Lin Wood, a pro-Trump attorney and QAnon supporter once allied with the disgraced former general.

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Matteo Salvini: ‘I refuse to think of substituting 10m Italians with 10m migrants’

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Exclusive: Far-right politician is in campaign mode and says he has no regrets about draconian policies he introduced when he was interior minister

Whether they’re camped outside in freezing temperatures or stranded at sea, Matteo Salvini exhibits little sympathy for the asylum seekers blocked at European borders. The Italian far-right leader, who as interior minister attempted to stop NGO rescue boats landing in Italian ports, in one case leading to criminal charges, will travel to Warsaw next month in a show of solidarity with his Polish allies who have deployed hardcore tactics to ward off thousands of refugees trying to enter from Belarus.

“I think that Europe is realising that illegal immigration is dangerous,” Salvini told the Guardian in an interview conducted before 27 people drowned attempting to cross the Channel in an inflatable boat. “So maybe this shock will be useful.”

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Jury awards $25m in damages over deadly 2017 Charlottesville far-right rally

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Nine people who were physically or emotionally injured during the two days of demonstrations will receive payment

A jury has awarded more than $25m in damages against white nationalist leaders for violence that erupted during the deadly 2017 far-right rally in Charlottesville.

The defendants were accused of promoting and then carrying out racially motivated violence during the “Unite the Right” rally. After a nearly monthlong civil trial, a jury in US district court in Charlottesville deadlocked on two claims but found the white nationalists liable on four other counts in the lawsuit that was filed by nine people who suffered physical or emotional injuries during the two days of demonstrations.

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Fox News to interview Kyle Rittenhouse amid protests over not guilty verdict

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Sit down with Tucker Carlson, one of Fox’s most extreme hosts, is likely to cement Rittenhouse’s popularity among conservatives

Kyle Rittenhouse, the teenager acquitted of murdering two men during anti-racism protests, is set to appear next week on Fox News’s Tucker Carlson show amid fears that the not guilty verdict in the Kenosha killings might encourage militia violence.

Rittenhouse’s shooting of three people, including two he killed, during demonstrations in the Wisconsin city split the US. For some it made him a vigilante out to make trouble while for others he was a gun-toting hero defending property from a mob.

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Support for populist sentiment falls across Europe, survey finds

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YouGov/Guardian poll finds ‘clear pattern of decreasing support for populism’ in European countries

Support for populist sentiment in Europe has fallen sharply over the past three years, according to a major YouGov survey, with markedly fewer people agreeing with key statements designed to measure it.

The YouGov-Cambridge Globalism Project’s annual populism tracker, produced with the Guardian, found populist beliefs in broadly sustained decline in 10 European countries, prompting its authors to suggest the wider electoral appeal of some may have peaked.

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French presidential hopeful Éric Zemmour begins race hate trial

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Far-right TV pundit on trial for calling unaccompanied child migrants ‘thieves, killers and rapists’

Éric Zemmour, the far-right TV pundit who is preparing to run for French president claiming that Islam and immigration are destroying France, has gone on trial in Paris on charges of incitement to racial hatred.

The case relates to remarks the 63-year-old polemicist made on television last year when he called unaccompanied child migrants “thieves, killers and rapists”.

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Jair Bolsonaro booed and cheered as he is honoured by Italian town

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Far-right Brazilian president given honorary citizenship by Anguillara Veneta

Brazil’s president, Jair Bolsonaro, was met with cheers and jeers as he visited a small Italian town on Monday to collect honorary citizenship.

Bolsonaro’s great-grandfather was born in Anguillara Veneta, a town of 4,200 people in the Veneto region. Tensions have been brewing since its far-right mayor, Alessandra Buoso, approved granting honorary citizenship to the far-right leader.

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FBI failed to act on tips of likely violence ahead of Capitol attack – report

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The FBI and other key law enforcement agencies failed to act on a host of tips and other information ahead of 6 January that signaled a potentially violent event might unfold that day at the US Capitol, the Washington Post reported on Sunday.

Among information that came officials’ way in the weeks before what turned into a riot as lawmakers met to certify the results of the presidential election was a 20 December tip to the FBI that supporters of Donald Trump were discussing online how to sneak guns into Washington to “overrun” police and arrest members of Congress, according to internal bureau documents obtained by the Post.

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Rise of far right puts Dreyfus affair into spotlight in French election race

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As Emmanuel Macron opens a museum dedicated to the exonerated Jewish soldier, ultra-nationalists led by Éric Zemmour again question his innocence

More than a century after he was exonerated, Alfred Dreyfus, the Jewish army officer whose false conviction for treason sparked bitter controversy, has erupted into France’s presidential race amid far-right attempts to question his innocence.

Emmanuel Macron last week personally inaugurated the first museum dedicated to the Dreyfus affair, a historical collection exhibited in the house of Émile Zola, the writer and best-known defender of the persecuted officer, in Médan west of Paris.

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‘This is their time’: post-Golden Dawn, is far-right reviving in Greece?

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Extremist party’s demise has left a gap that it is being filled by far-right groups in north of the country

“They were big and brawny and struck like a thunderbolt,” says Aphrodite Frangou, an activist and leftwing journalist recalling the moment a group of far-right Golden Dawn sympathisers went on the attack. “They kicked us and punched us and broke everything, tables, chairs, even the loudspeakers we had set up. Four of us spent the night in hospital.”

October was meant to be a month of celebration for Frangou and other members of Keerfa, Greece’s pre-eminent anti-fascist movement.

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German police halt armed far-right vigilantes on Polish border

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Weapons seized after call from far-right party for members to prevent migrants from entering country

German police say they have stopped more than 50 far-right vigilantes armed with pepper spray, a bayonet, a machete and batons who were trying to patrol the Polish border to stop migrants entering the country.

The vigilantes were following a call by the Third Way, a far-right party with suspected links to neo-Nazi groups, for its members to stop illegal crossings near the town of Guben.

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Macron and the ‘French Trump’ trap Gaullism’s heirs in a political vice

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With just months to go before presidential polls, the centre-right Les Républicains, under pressure from both flanks, are scrambling for a suitable candidate

Six months before a presidential election and France’s mainstream right finds itself squeezed – between the hammer and the anvil as they say here – without a candidate and facing an existential threat from either side.

On one flank are the far-right Marine Le Pen and Éric Zemmour, a polarising television pundit who wants to talk about immigration, identity and Islam – the three i’s – and ban “non-French” names such as Mohamed.

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Far-right Covid conspiracy theories fuelling antisemitism, warn UK experts

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Organisers of exhibition on history of British fascism say parallels can be drawn with current thinking

A surge in Covid-19 conspiracy theories risks boosting antisemitism, hate crime campaigners have warned after the opening of an exhibition shedding light on interwar British fascism and its parallels today.

The Wiener Holocaust Library in London is staging the exhibition – focusing on the motivations and propaganda of British fascists and their European peers in the 1920s and 30s – out of concern about the recent growth of far-right ideas and populism in the UK and abroad.

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Calls to ban neofascist groups after violence at Rome Covid pass protests

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Founder of far-right party among 12 arrested after mob storms A&E department and trade union HQ

Calls are growing in Italy to abolish neofascist movements after violent protests against Covid-19 vaccine passes in Rome, during which demonstrators tried to force their way into the official residence of the Italian prime minister.

Twelve people, including Roberto Fiore, the founder of the far-right Forza Nuova party, were arrested in connection to Saturday’s unrest, in which a group of about 30 raided a hospital accident and emergency unit – injuring four medical workers – and the offices of a trade union were stormed.

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Sebastian Kurz departure is further blow to Europe’s centre-right

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Resignation of Austrian chancellor follows Germany’s CDU crashing to its worst federal election result

Europe’s ailing centre-right is mourning the departure of a second high-profile conservative leader in the space of a month, as Austria’s chancellor, Sebastian Kurz, announced he would resign over allegations he encouraged the use of public funds to buy himself positive media coverage.

The fall from grace of the 35-year-old leader of the Austrian People’s party (ÖVP) comes just weeks after its German sister party failed to fill the space left by the outgoing chancellor, Angela Merkel, and crashed to the worst result in its history at federal elections.

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‘Tyranny’: US rightwingers portray nightmare vision of Australia’s Covid response

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The feedback loop between US conservative media and Australia’s fringe right has intensified as New South Wales and Victoria have struggled with outbreaks

At a rowdy rally to protest against mask mandates in New York on Monday, some participants carried Australian flags and joined in with chants such as “Save Australia”.

Many Australians were puzzled by what seemed a sudden, unbidden show of support, but this spectacle was the culmination of a months-long effort in conservative US media to portray Australia’s coronavirus response as having brought the country to the brink of authoritarianism.

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