NYTimes | It may seem bizarre that two far-right,
nationalist politicians — Marine Le Pen of France and Geert Wilders of
the Netherlands — have reached across borders to form a Pan-European
group dedicated to weakening the European Union. Their aim is a
transnational political alliance that would compete in the May elections
for the European Parliament; once in power, they would cooperate to try
to rein in the power of Brussels.
Are these politicians, who share an opposition to immigration and a
skepticism about the free flow of labor and capital across the
Continent, simply hypocritical opportunists, as many Europeans of the
left believe? Perhaps.
But in fact, since the early 20th century, Europe’s far-right
nationalists have often united in search of an “other” to oppose,
exclude, resist, restrict or oppress — historically, minorities like
Jews, homosexuals, the disabled, Roma, Marxists and, more recently,
Arabs, Africans and Asians. What emerged after World War I was a
philosophy that could be called Euro-fascist. The most extreme
proponents, of course, were the Nazis: Notwithstanding their doctrine of
racial supremacy, even they formed alliances with Mussolini’s Italy and
the militarists of Japan and found keen fascist collaborators in
nations they invaded.
This vision did not die with the end of World War II. Transnational
links among right-wing parties, based on common fears of minorities and
immigrants, endured. The right-wingers, while speaking different
languages, borrowed ideals, strategies, slogans and theorists from one
another. The National Front in France, founded in 1972 by Ms. Le Pen’s
father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, imitated the symbol and political tactics of
the original neo-Fascist party, the Italian Social Movement, which was
formed in 1946 by admirers of Mussolini and, in 1979, coordinated with
like-minded French and Spanish parties to compete (with little success)
in the first popular elections for the European Parliament.
So when observers marvel about the “new” nationalist parties of Europe,
they are capturing only part of the truth. These right-wingers mistrust
or even detest the Continent’s core institutions — the European
Commission, the European Central Bank and the European Parliament — but
they are perfectly happy to join up with extremists in other countries
to weaken those institutions.
Which raises a question: What makes the European Union so appealing as a target?
