Europe and the far-right movements

Résumé du document

On Friday, July 22, 2011, two terrorist attacks occurred in Oslo, Norway. The first one was an explosion which happened at Regjeringskvartalet, government district of the city of Oslo, killing eight people and injuring several others. The second attack occurred two hours later in a youth camp organized by the Labor Youth League (AUF) from the Norwegian Labor Party (AP), on the island of Utoya: an armed gunman dressed as policeman opened fire on the campers, killing sixty-nine participants. Anders Breivik Behring, a 32 year old man allegedly responsible for the shooting in Utoya, was indicted for both attacks. The originality of these attacks is that they have to be placed in a new genre: the attacks perpetuated by extremist nationalists. Indeed, Anders Breivik Behring is a former member of the Progress Party (FRP) from the national right-conservative, and its youth movement. His acts symbolize the hatred of the far-right movements for the current governments and leftist movements.

The attacks have been unanimously condemned by the international stage: for example, Russian President Dimitri Medvedev said that Russia condemns "in the strongest terms these monstrous crimes, for which there can be no justification," while French President Nicolas Sarkozy described the Oslo attack as an "heinous and unacceptable act of violence." Finally, U.S. President Barack Obama offered his condolences to the Norwegian people and offers the assistance of the United States in investigating the attacks. He said that it is a reminder that the whole community has an interest in preventing this kind of terror to occur.

Extraits

[...] This is for example the case of Ataka in Bulgaria, which tends to stigmatize the Turkish minority (which still represents 12% of the total population). For members of this party, it can only live Bulgarians in Bulgaria: the recognition of another minority or another language is impossible and would jeopardize the national unity. For the German National Democratic Party, the Jews seem to be the cause of all evil. Its leader, Udo Voigt, did not hesitate to minimize the dead of the Holocaust and called the Shoah a "big alleged crime". [...]

[...] CRISP Carter, Elisabeth. The extreme right in Western Europe: success or failure? Manchester University Press Ellinas, Antonis A. The media and the far right in western Europe: playing the nationalist card. Cambridge university press Touchard, Patrick ; Bermond-Bousquet, Chrisitine ; Cabanel, Patrick et Lefebvre, Maxime. Le siècle des excès, de 1870 à nos jours. [...]

[...] Thus, the legitimacy of a movement of the extreme right in Europe is not obvious. Finally, the unification of European nationalist parties seem compromised by major methodological differences in the application of power. Thus, the National Party of Great Romania advocates the original model of national-communism, a system that is totally hostile to many Western nationalist movements: anticommunism is sometimes the reason for their movement. In addition, the Progress Party, in the Netherlands, promotes ideas unthinkable in many conservative movements such as gay marriage and equal rights for homosexuals. [...]

[...] We can also mention the case of the Austrian Freedom Party, who agreed to unite with the Conservatives to counter the Socialists. All Europe was moved by the return of the far-right to power in a country which knew Nazism. Even the European Union has decided to put the country under supervision. Finally, the success of the Democratic Union of the Center in Switzerland is unwavering: it is the first party in the National Council as it owned 54 of the 200 seats. Other far-right parties represent national political forces, but never really came to the national power. [...]

[...] Marine Le Pen, president of the main party of the French far-right, had visited the site accompanied by dozens of journalists. It does not seem impertinent to call this hype instrumentalization of the fate of these migrants for electoral purposes. If we can point out similarities between the far-right movements in Europe, as ideologies, communication strategies and the reasons why European citizens join the ranks of these movements, the fact remains that fundamental differences exist between the nationalist parties. FUNDAMENTAL MOVEMENTS DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE EUROPEAN FAR-RIGHT 1. [...]