EU discussion / and other European countries

European elections 2024: France's far right shows off star turn Fabrice Leggeri


Ahead of next month's elections to the European Parliament, France's far-right National Rally is boasting a star new recruit.

Until two years ago, Fabrice Leggeri was executive-director of the European Union's border agency Frontex.

For the National Rally (RN), already riding high in the opinion polls, the arrival of such an important figure is a major coup.
 
VorZakone said:
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We're currently at a turning point and I personally can't see the AfD being stopped from gaining more votes in the future.

It's not specific to Germany. In my opinion, continental Europe is sleepwalking to a far-right takeover with potentially dramatic consequences for the EU in the coming years. Hungary and Italy are long past the no-return point, Sweden, Austria, Netherlands and Finland are almost there, France and Germany are on the way. Spain and Portugal are the last resisting countries but even there the far-right is on the rise.

The COVID pandemic, the ever growing islamophobia, as well as the war in Ukraine and its economic consequences are the main catalysts, fuelling all the european far-right movements and the left/right traditional parties fail to present any appealling alternative.
 
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That_Bloke said:
We're currently at a turning point and I personally can't see the AfD being stopped from gaining more votes in the future.

It's not specific to Germany. In my opinion, continental Europe is sleepwalking to a far-right takeover with potential dramatic consequences on the EU in the coming years. Hungary and Italy are long past the no-return point, Sweden, Austria, Netherlands and Finland are almost there, France and Germany are on the way. Spain and Portugal are the last resisting countries but even there the far-right is on the rise.

The COVID pandemic, the ever growing islamophobia, as well as the war in Ukraine and its economic consequences are the main catalysts, fuelling all the european far-right movements and the left/right traditional parties fail to present any appealling alternative.
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They already have the tools to quash all these movements, both practically and legally, typically with emergency powers which are established to protect democracy, rule of law, etc. I think it's still an open question whether these RW parties can actually take control of the state apparatus in these countries with any meaningful effect, considering how much power has been devolved from the national parliaments.

The other option would be to actually do something about these issues fuelling these movements, but that doesn't seem to be an alternative for them.
 
I don't understand why democratic leaders are so weak. The portuguese constitution clearly states parties and associations that promote racism are illegal. Yet we have a party with 50 mp's being racist everyday and nothing is done. Make them illegal ffs.
 
pierrethesnack said:
They already have the tools to quash all these movements, both practically and legally, typically with emergency powers which are established to protect democracy, rule of law, etc. I think it's still an open question whether these RW parties can actually take control of the state apparatus in these countries with any meaningful effect, considering how much power has been devolved from the national parliaments.

The other option would be to actually do something about these issues fuelling these movements, but that doesn't seem to be an alternative for them.
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This "hammer/nail" approach has showed its limits for a very long time. There's legitimate concerns amongst the populations which won't go away by outlawing the AfD, or the RN. On the contrary.

The far-right doesn't really need to actually be in power. In a desperate but predictable move to counter them, every traditional party is borrowing "measures" from the far-right notebook which in itself is a victory. The whole of western Europe has found a common scapegoat enemy and just just need a nudge at the moment.

Should Trump win the next US elections, watch the Western democracies go to shit.
 
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Buster15 said:
Italy is allowing Britons who can work remotely to apply for a year-long "digital nomad" visa. Read this and the rest of today's consumer and personal finance news in the Money blog, and leave a comment or home gym hack in the form below.

Excerpt from a headline in Sky News.
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It's the new trend. Stay and spend while not taking the local jobs.

Bali has a special visa as well for digital nomads. Mostly are just people on long term holiday and doing rounds vlogging living the dream
 
IMHO if only politicians employs a common sense and not pushing towards one extreme or the other they'd get alot of votes, majority votes.

The way i see it there's no middle ground in everything you'd have to choose between open border or expel all, it's either full abortion or no abortion at all cost (US)

I dont even think most are supporting full heartedly the political spectrum they're voting for but really there are no middle ground.

I used to think the west was ok in the early 00s still resembling developed nation that actually promotes common sense and logical approach to world problem.

Now it's just a shouting contest with no party resembling any sort of common sense government
 
stefan92 said:
Did you expect anything else? After all that's happening in German politics I'm not surprised at all.
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Not at all. But it’s still shocking to see.
However, I don’t see the issue within German politics in itself. It’s the same pattern everywhere in similar democracies. The drift towards authoritarianism is not a German phenomenon. Disinformation is destroying our democracies.
 
HTG said:
Not at all. But it’s still shocking to see.
However, I don’t see the issue within German politics in itself. It’s the same pattern everywhere in similar democracies. The drift towards authoritarianism is not a German phenomenon. Disinformation is destroying our democracies.
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I'm not sure it's disinformation. To be clear, I fully disagree with the AfD (it was actually the last place of all parties in the Wahlomat for me :lol: ). But what I massively dislike is the tendency to disregard everything they do as "Nazi" and calling for the AfD to be officially forbidden. It's narrowing down the "allowed democratic discourse" and that's terrible. Far to few parties try to challenge them in an open debate, most just resort to name calling.
 
stefan92 said:
I'm not sure it's disinformation. To be clear, I fully disagree with the AfD (it was actually the last place of all parties in the Wahlomat for me :lol: ). But what I massively dislike is the tendency to disregard everything they do as "Nazi" and calling for the AfD to be officially forbidden. It's narrowing down the "allowed democratic discourse" and that's terrible. Far to few parties try to challenge them in an open debate, most just resort to name calling.
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I am not german so I won't comment directly on that party or german law, but in portugal we have an openly racist party. The constitution says racist parties and associations are illegal. I don't understand why the law isn't followed. Democracies have to be stronger in defending its principles.
 
VorZakone said:
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Kind of a strange one. Sounds like it was a spur of the moment kind of thing. The assailant was visibly intoxicated and punched her on the arm, so doesn't sound pre-planned or like he wanted to do serious harm. Probably never would have happened, if they didn't cross paths randomly.
 
maniak said:
I am not german so I won't comment directly on that party or german law, but in portugal we have an openly racist party. The constitution says racist parties and associations are illegal. I don't understand why the law isn't followed. Democracies have to be stronger in defending its principles.
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The German consitution sets very tight rules about banning parties, but it would be possible. But the issue is that the AfD ("Alternative für Deutschland" - "Alternative for Germany") does not really call for anything that's beyond our constitution, nonetheless a lot of people act as if they do. Yes, they are right wing and call for stricter rules about migration etc, call for a clearly different course in international politics (less EU integration, closer ties to Russia...) but that should all be considered a legitimate (but stupid) political position.

It shouldn't be treated as "literally Nazi" like most leftist parties in Germany do, so those who don't agree with them actually see them as a bigger danger to democracy than the AfD itself. People are not stupid. After all the AfD is lead by Alice Weidel, a lesbian who has a spouse from Sri Lanka. That's not really the face of a classic racist party (although they have such people among them as well).
 
Carolina Red said:
Oh good. Isn’t this just dandy
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And there were loads and loads of scandals surrounding the AfD before the election. They still managed to get this strong. It’s frightening.
 
HTG said:
And there were loads and loads of scandals surrounding the AfD before the election. They still managed to get this strong. It’s frightening.
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It seems regardless of the country, far right voters don't give a shit about scandals.
 
HTG said:
And there were loads and loads of scandals surrounding the AfD before the election. They still managed to get this strong. It’s frightening.
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Yeah, you’d like to think when Der Spiegel points out that they’ve been cavorting with neo-Nazis that it would turn people away, but here we are.
 
Carolina Red said:
Yeah, you’d like to think when Der Spiegel points out that they’ve been cavorting with neo-Nazis that it would turn people away, but here we are.
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I never really expected that, to be honest. Their voters are deeply racist. I thought the scandals regarding their ties to Russia and especially China would hurt more.
 
HTG said:
I never really expected that, to be honest. Their voters are deeply racist. I thought the scandals regarding their ties to Russia and especially China would hurt more.
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Authoritarians are drawn to one another like flies to a light.
 
Oh wow, Macron dissolves parliament and announces new parliamentary elections for 30 June & 7 July.
 
Far right on the rise everywhere it seems. We'll never learn. Every time there is a crisis it will be blamed on the immigrants and other minority groups, even though the blame lies somewhere else entirely. It such an easy message to sell, and people want to hear it.
 
VorZakone said:
Is this a presidential election as in could Macron lose the presidency?
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No, his party already lost their parliamentary majority in 2022 and have been running a minority government since then.

My first impression is he's taking a ridiculously risky move that hopes to diffuse the legitimacy rhetoric that the far-right would naturally have banged on for the next couple of years -- as in to dare the French public to face the prospect of far-right governance. It feels worryingly reminiscent of Cameron calling the EU referendum with the intention of finally shutting down the eurosceptic debate within the party.
 
Mike Smalling said:
Far right on the rise everywhere it seems. We'll never learn. Every time there is a crisis it will be blamed on the immigrants and other minority groups, even though the blame lies somewhere else entirely. It such an easy message to sell, and people want to hear it.
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Events like this don't help though. Memory is hazy but I remember a lot of criticism on how this was covered initially. I agree that the problem is that people unnecessarily blame immigrants or "other" groups for their troubles but I disagree that that's the only angle in all this. People are distrustful of how events are covered and feel like the traditional centre or left-wing parties or other institutions ignore or downplay stuff like this.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015–16_New_Year's_Eve_sexual_assaults_in_Germany
 
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VorZakone said:
Events like this don't help though. Memory is hazy but I remember a lot of criticism on how this was covered initially. I agree that the problem is that people unnecessarily blame immigrants or "other" groups for their troubles but I disagree that that's the only angle in all this. People are distrustful of how events are covered and feel like the traditional centre or left-wing parties or other institutions ignore or downplay stuff like this.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015–16_New_Year's_Eve_sexual_assaults_in_Germany
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Of course, that's a shocking event and something that people should rightly be outraged and concerned about. It's just frustrating that people so willingly turn to politicians that are often authoritarian, corrupt, and conservative in extreme as a solution.
 
Portuguese far-right dropped almost 10% from the last election. Center-left will win by a small margin over center-right. Most of europe with shit results all around.
 
Nothing has changed since this trend started. If anything it’s gone the other way with more people being fed far right stuff on their algorithms, and worse housing etc. that people can blame on the easy targets. This is the sign of things to come for a while yet.
 
Not much gained for the right-wing in Denmark, based on the latest exit polls. One such party established since the last EP election takes around 8%, but partly from another very similar party that goes back 4%. Arguably biggest story of the night, is that a left-wing party takes the most votes, which is usually reserved for the center-left party currently in government.
 
jadaba said:
No, his party already lost their parliamentary majority in 2022 and have been running a minority government since then.

My first impression is he's taking a ridiculously risky move that hopes to diffuse the legitimacy rhetoric that the far-right would naturally have banged on for the next couple of years -- as in to dare the French public to face the prospect of far-right governance. It feels worryingly reminiscent of Cameron calling the EU referendum with the intention of finally shutting down the eurosceptic debate within the party.
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It does seem incredibly risky. Especially as they have gone beyond a fringe UKIP style protest vote to a party that individually holds the second most votes in parliament and came 2nd in the presidential election very recently.
 
africanspur said:
It does seem incredibly risky. Especially as they have gone beyond a fringe UKIP style protest vote to a party that individually holds the second most votes in parliament and came 2nd in the presidential election very recently.
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In 74 Heath called a general election with the question 'Who governs Britain?'. The answer was 'not you mate'.
 
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