French election could reshape Europe’s political landscape

Anti-immigrant, pro-Putin and Eurosceptic. French far-right leader Marine Le Pen is on the verge of reshaping Europe’s political landscape if the Front National can sustain the electoral gains of last Sunday in today’s second round of regional elections.

Last week, Le Pen’s far-right party won a 30% share of the vote nationwide and more than 40% in some regions, putting it ahead of the mainstream parties in six out of 13 regions.

The result is neither a fluke nor a result of the terrorist attacks that killed 130 people in Paris last month. Security was high in voters’ minds, and was predictably exploited by Le Pen’s anti-immigration and anti-Muslim rhetoric. But Le Pen’s surge is a direct consequence of the social and economic inequalities in France.

Whatever the result in today’s election, Le Pen’s gains in France are a timely wake-up call for Europe’s leaders. However, this is not the first alarm bell. In last year’s European elections, the FN came first with 25% of the vote.

Yet, these results have been largely ignored and the traditional elites of the centre-right and centre-left seem intent on sleepwalking into the next political crisis.

If the Socialist Party’s decision to pull out from regions in which it placed third in the first round prevents Le Pen and FN to make further gains it will still leave the far-right in pole position to reach the second round in the 2017 Presidential election.

More worryingly, Le Pen is not alone. The far right is already in power in Hungary and Poland. Elsewhere, the Flemish nationalist and separatist party, the New Flemish Alliance is now the strongest party in Belgium. In Denmark, Sweden, the Netherlands, Austria and Switzerland, far-right nationalist movements are all leading in the opinion polls as the single most popular parties. Other parties, such as Italy’s Northern League, the Finns Party already a coalition partner in the Finnish government and the neo-fascist Jobbik in Hungary are gaining popularity and posing a threat to mainstream parties on both sides of the political divide.

This does not necessarily mean that far-right parties will govern more European countries but they are already shaping policy-making and setting the agenda across much of Europe. In Eastern Europe, the centre-left has been annihilated and the opposition to nationalist parties in power mainly comes from parties to their right.

Europe’s main concerns centre around immigration, security and the economy and in many countries there is little to separate the far-right from the centre-left, with Czech President Milos Zeman and Slovakian premier Robert Fico increasingly moving towards the right on welfare and immigration.

The established political elites are losing ground to populist parties who share a dislike for Muslims, the Euro, and multiculturalism and advocate state interventionism, full employment, generous pensions and welfare systems for natives but not for immigrants.

Le Pen aims to lead a Europe-wide coalition of like-minded far-right and ultra-conservative movements with strong Eurosceptic views, and her electoral success will come as a spectacular illustration of how the European project is in danger of imploding.

Europe has never looked so fragile since World War II and the values of solidarity, respect for human dignity, liberty, democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect for human rights are at risk and the traditional parties on the left and on the right have a lot of thinking to do.