As the EU establishment struggles to make sense of last week’s revolt in the European elections, one thing is clear: our outdated vocabulary is not up to the task of describing today’s political landscape.
Gains for France’s National Rally, Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy and the Alternative for Germany (AfD) have been described as a ‘far-right surge’ in newspapers and TV reports, not just across Europe but around the world. Even before the election results came in, labels like far right and extreme right were bouncing off commentators’ keyboards. All agree that the far right is on the rise and ordinary people need to worry. This is Europe’s ‘Trump moment’, explained Politico. Some go further. Marine Le Pen’s National Rally is described as ‘neo-fascist’, while academics calmly ask if the AfD is the new Nazi Party. ‘Fascism has arrived’, declared French author Emilia Roig when the election results became clear. Yet with almost a quarter of Europe’s voters having backed a party branded ‘far right’, it is worth asking how accurate this label is and what purpose it now serves.
‘Far right’ reasonably describes the predecessor of France’s National Rally. Established in 1972, the National Front (as it was known until 2018) united several far-right groups under the leadership of Jean-Marie Le Pen, who had a record of Holocaust denial and anti-Semitism. In 2011, his daughter, Marine, took charge and sought to ‘detoxify’ the party. She expelled extremists, including her own father in 2015, after he made comments dismissing the Holocaust. She also denounced fascism and anti-Semitism, before renaming the party.
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