The longstanding effort to keep extremist forces out of government in Europe is officially over.

For decades, political parties of all kinds joined forces to keep the hard-right far from the levers of power. Today, this strategy — known in France as a cordon sanitaire(or firewall) — is falling apart, as populist and nationalist parties grow in strength across the Continent.

Six EU countries — Italy, Finland, Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia and the Czech Republic — have hard-right parties in government. In Sweden, the survival of the executive relies on a confidence and supply agreement with the nationalist Sweden Democrats, the second-largest force in parliament. In the Netherlands, the anti-Islamic firebrand Geert Wilders is on the verge of power, having sealed a historic dealto form the most right-wing government in recent Dutch history.

Meanwhile, hard-right parties are dominating the polls across much of Europe. In France, far-right leader Marine Le Pen’s National Rally is cruising at over 30 percent, far ahead of President Emmanuel Macron’s Renaissance party, according to POLITICO’s Poll of Polls. Across the Rhine, Alternative for Germany, a party under police surveillance for its extremist views, is polling second, head-to-head with the Social Democrats.

  • DouchePalooza@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    Simple really - stop importing people from countries incompatible with western culture, like most muslim countries.

    Most of the discourse is around anti Islamic immigration so the people might be somewhat discontent with that…

        • Hugucinogens@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          6 months ago

          Race and religion are absolutely just smoke and mirror scapegoats and panic-triggering red buttons, for the far-right.

          People vote far right because of strongman propaganda (Great Leader will solve it all!!!), combined with feelings of anger, frustration and powerlessness.

          Any country that keeps it’s people poor and/or let’s rich fucks get rich enough, will get a blooming field of far-right politicians, vying for the privilege of getting more power, to suck the rich people’s dicks better, and get richer themselves.

          • DouchePalooza@lemmy.world
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            6 months ago

            If the religion itself is discriminatory towards the tolerant, why should we be tolerant of them?

            • theprogressivist @lemmy.world
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              6 months ago

              Nice. Generalizing an entire group of people to fit your narrative. Can you say the same about Christians? You sure can, but again, you’d sound stupid because you’re generalizing.

              • DouchePalooza@lemmy.world
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                6 months ago

                I don’t think you can… In majorly Christian and atheist nations in Europe, there isn’t much prejudice against women and people from the LGBT group, unlike in the middle East.

                I’m no fan of any religion but some have clearly stopped in the middle ages.

        • Thorry84@feddit.nl
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          6 months ago

          Just give in to the hate and give the fear mongers exactly what they want to make them stop must be the dumbest thing ever posted on Lemmy. Congrats!

        • Honytawk@lemmy.zip
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          6 months ago

          Also religion is not race.

          That is semantics. It doesn’t change anything about the point they were making since both race and religion are protected from discrimination.

    • acargitz@lemmy.ca
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      6 months ago

      Sure, provided that the EU, pays reparations to the countries that it gouges the last 50 years, and provided that former colonial European countries, pay reparations to their former colonies.

      What, no?

      You can’t colonize Algeria and then complain about Algerians in France. You can’t import gastarbeiter and then complain about Turks in Germany. You can’t genocide the Kongo, Namibia, etc and then complain about Africans. You can’t keep West Africa in a perpetual chokehold with the franc and complain about the Senegalese.

      Basically, you simply can not fundamentally alter the rest of the world to serve your interests and then pretend that you don’t have to change yourself.

      The funny thing is that the European project as a supra national project is actually perfectly placed to overcome these old wounds by promoting peace and prosperity and encouraging regional integration outside Europe. The basic tenets of Europeanism are wildly successful at promoting peace and prosperity internally. The European experiment seems to have worked and Europe could very well foster similar projects around the world. Instead, they play the role of Vikings…

      • Buelldozer@lemmy.today
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        6 months ago

        Sure, provided that the EU, pays reparations to the countries that it gouges the last 50 years, and provided that former colonial European countries, pay reparations to their former colonies.

        Congratulations, you just succinctly demonstrated why Far-Right parties are rising. Turns out that many voters do not want to do either of those things.

    • katy ✨@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      6 months ago

      white ppl have some nerve whining about “importing people from countries incompatible with culture” considering their history of colonisation

    • SuddenDownpour@sh.itjust.works
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      6 months ago

      There is no correlation between your area receiving immigration and people turning far right. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t, and sometimes they turn far right in some backwater town where no one wanted to move into anyway. Muslims are just a scapegoat that people too lazy to think about the root of their own problems are fast to attack.