A-Infos (en) France, UCL AL #349 - Anti-fascism, European Elections: The Brown Plague eyes Europe (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

Of all the electoral processes of bourgeois democracy, the European 
elections are those which interest the popular masses the least. They 
are also those that the far right chooses to mobilize its voters, in 
order to appear as the leading party in France. As libertarian and 
anti-fascist activists, we do not wish to participate in this charade, 
but it is important for us to remember that the far right will never 
defend our class, and that it never has.
Since 2019, two years after the failure of the FN in the second round of 
the presidential election, the far-right party, historically 
eurosceptic, has changed its political line regarding Europe. No more 
"Frexit"[1], which turned out to be a pushback, the far-right party is 
now calling for "changes from within". This new desire to create a 
"Europe of Nations" with its reactionary allies - and with a particular 
focus on the creation of white and Christian nations - finds an echo in 
France. The FN/RN came first in the 2019 European elections with 
5,286,939 votes (too many), or 23.34% of voters, thus obtaining 23 seats 
for the European Identity and Democracy group. Let us nevertheless 
remember the 50.12% abstention and that the addition of the scores of 
the "left parties" placed them ahead of the far right in terms of votes.

For the June 2024 elections, the FN/RN list aligns "figures" from "civil 
society" obviously dubbed for their racism. The gondola head Bardella of 
course, but also Malika Sorel-Sutter, essayist specializing in the 
"French decomposition" (which would be due to immigration of course) or 
the former director of Frontex, Fabrice Leggeri, who resigned from the 
The organization is subject to several scandals and is threatened with 
disciplinary sanctions. At the time, he tried to turn the organization 
into a border defense militia and swept away obligations to help exiled 
people in danger. The last trophy, another police unionist, Matthieu 
Valet, former spokesperson for the Independent Union of Police 
Commissioners (SICP - member like Alliance Police of the CFE-CGC...), 
also "under investigation by the service ethics of the Police 
Prefecture" as Le Canard chainé recalled, for having diverted for his 
own benefit a thousand euros of SNCF vouchers intended for "several 
peacekeepers".

The dream of a white and Christian Europe
In the European Parliament, a sanitary cordon still exists, unlike the 
National Assembly, preventing the group from carrying out all its views. 
But the FN/RN group is above all there for its own interest: Jordan 
Bardella in particular, sits on the petitions committee where he has not 
set foot since May 2022. Like any good apparatchik, he just needs an 
influx of money (public of course) to remain full-time president of the 
first neo-fascist party in France. Thanks to this, he can continue to 
spend his time on all TV sets spewing his contempt for immigrants, 
strikers, workers, especially the most precarious. Let us remember that 
Bardella's first "job" when he was 20 years old was already that of a 
European parliamentary assistant... suspected at the time of fictitious 
employment by the European Anti-Fraud Office! The FN/RN group actually 
travels to parliament mainly for the cameras, but also, of course, to 
meet lobbyists to get into their pocket. It also comes up against 
strategic rapprochements from the right on common subjects, for example 
very recently the questioning of the application of the law for "the 
restoration of nature".

In Parliament, the RN/FN in defense of the dominant
In its votes we can see that the FN/RN has not changed, despite its 
desire to demonize. For example, in 2020 he positioned himself against a 
resolution aimed at reducing the wage gap between women and men, as well 
as the questioning of the right to abortion by their Polish friends. If 
the party prides itself on having integrated the ecological question, 
during a vote in February 2023 on the ban on sales of new cars with 
thermal engines it again positioned itself against it. Parliamentarians 
also abstained on a carbon tax at the borders, showing that their 
protectionism does not apply to everything! They also find each time a 
good reason to approve the CAP (Common Agricultural Policy), even though 
it is responsible for the destruction of the small peasantry and 
encourages agro-industry by further subsidizing large farms.

The FN/RN also shows in some of its votes an ambiguous attitude on 
subjects concerning workers. For example, its abstention on the 
regulation of posted work - which allows French employers to attack 
social law by putting it in competition with workers who depend on that 
of their country of origin - in 2018, under the pretext that she "did 
not go far enough" raises questions. Likewise, when the FN voted in 2016 
for business secrecy against "industrial espionage", it did not in any 
way ensure the risks that the text posed to whistleblowers, or to 
journalism. investigation. Once again, "protectionism" is mainly for the 
bosses.

Friendships for oligarchs and racists
The party stands out above all for its support for its Russian friend, 
Putin. In September 2020, far-right MEPs positioned themselves against a 
resolution condemning the attempted assassination of opponent Alexeï 
Navalny, and again in 2021 against a resolution condemning the violence 
committed by the Wagner militia. Same vote against the various motions 
condemning Putin's incursion into Ukraine.

The European Identity and Democracy group brings together several 
parties that some would consider unsuitable... but not the RN/FN. We 
thus find the AfD which in Germany has recently distinguished itself by 
organizing meetings with neo-Nazis planning the "remigration" of foreign 
people, provoking large anti-fascist mobilizations. Then the League, a 
member of the Italian coalition in power with the neo-fascist Giorgia 
Meloni, which leads a racist and anti-social policy, calling into 
question the right to exile as much as minimum income. There is also the 
Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ), created by former Nazis, whose elected 
officials had to be removed in 2018 for not having shared their 
adoration of Hitler discreetly enough, as well as the party for Freedom 
in the Netherlands (PVV), a racist neo-liberal party, which came first 
in the early legislative elections in 2023. Finally, the group is made 
up of smaller parties such as Le Vlamms Belang in Flanders, The Danish 
People's Party (DFP) , the Estonian People's and Conservative Party 
(EESTI), or Freedom and Direct Democracy (SPD) in the Czech Republic.

The European far right: between identity and liberalism
Note that the group's votes are not entirely uniform. The most 
interesting case recently is that of the vote on the free trade treaty 
with New Zealand. If the FN/RN voted against, in line with their 
protectionism of national capital, the majority of the group positioned 
itself in favor. This example clearly shows the opportunism of the far 
right depending on national contexts, and its porosity with the 
principles of economic liberalism (the FN has also long assumed itself 
as a liberal party on a business level).

The party also has support like Viktor Orban's Hungarian Fidesz, which 
was excluded from the right-wing European group, the EPP, for its 
radical positions against abortion, against democracy and now acting as 
non-member.

Extreme European right-wing
The rest of the European extreme right regroups within the Conservatives 
and Reformists of Europe where we find Reconquest! of Zemmour, Fratelli 
d'Italia of Meloni in power in Italy, the Law and Justice (PiS) party of 
Poland known for its reactionary anti-communist and viscerally 
anti-abortion positions, recently removed from power, the Democrats of 
Sweden, founded by neo-Nazis, or Vox in Spain, nostalgic for the Franco 
dictatorship.

With today 130 seats out of 705, the European far right (Eurosceptic 
conservatives and nationalists) seems able to win around fifty seats in 
the next European elections, according to projections concerning voting 
intentions. One thing is certain, however: the dikes are ready to give 
way and a significant gain in seats would make the far-right parties an 
essential movement and undoubtedly an appropriate ally of the EPP, which 
is hardening its discourse as the far right strengthens.

But the browning of the political landscape is not inevitable. In 
France, as throughout Europe and the rest of the world, the anti-fascist 
struggle of the popular masses is necessary to advance our interests in 
the direction of direct democracy, self-management of the means of 
production, and the socialization of wealth: of the class struggle in 
short, which the extreme right hopes to erase for the benefit of the 
national bourgeoisies. No Pasaran!

Judi (UCL Caen), Hugues (UCL Fougères), David (UCL Savoies)

To validate
[1]The "exit from the European Union" line was supported by the 
ex-Chevènementist Florian Philippot, former advisor to Marine Le Pen 
disavowed since the failure in the presidential election and who has 
since founded his own party, Les Patriotes, on sovereignist/conspiracy 
lines.

https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Elections-europeennes-La-Peste-Brune-lorgne-sur-l-Europe
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