Last weekend, it was the landslide re-election of the godfather of the global ethno-nationalist movement, Hungary’s Viktor Orbán. This weekend, it’s the first round in the French presidential elections and the opportunity for the movement’s great white hope, Marine Le Pen.
The results and the polls combine to suggest that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is helping, not hindering, the rise of right-wing authoritarians — Putin’s allies — in Europe as they position themselves as the voices of “peace”.
The result? In France this Sunday, there’ll be less interest in whether Scott Morrison’s bête noir, President Emmanuel Macron, comes in first (which all the polls indicate), than just how close a second-place finish Le Pen’s post-invasion polling surge can deliver — and how much of a springboard that will give her into the head-to-head second round in two weeks’ time.
The latest Politico poll of polls shows Macron leading by five points in the first round, translated into a surprisingly narrow predicted 54-46% lead in the second round. (Macron defeated Le Pen by two-thirds to one-third in 2017.)
Le Pen famously said of Putin at the time of the first Russian incursions into Ukraine back in 2014 that he was a “defender of the Christian heritage of European civilisation”. Now, she’s more circumspect, saying the invasion is “a clear violation straight of international law and absolutely indefensible”.
Meanwhile, Le Pen’s links with the Hungarian right has strengthened with news last month that her party was funding its campaign courtesy of a €10.7 million loan from Hungary’s MKB Bank, largely owned by Orbán’s business supporters.
Le Pen will be hoping that some of Orbán’s success rubs off on her. In Hungary, six months of polls showed a tight four-point lead for Orbán’s right-wing Fidesz party. Then Russia’s February 24 invasion sent the lead soaring up to Sunday’s shock 20-point margin over the United Opposition, electing Orbán to a fourth term with a two-thirds control over the Parliament.
On the same day in neighbouring Serbia, his right-wing ally, Aleksandar Vučić, was comfortably re-elected as president on a policy of keeping the country disengaged from the sanctions against Russia. Orbán similarly has held off sanctions and has blocked arms for Ukraine being delivered through (or over) Hungary.
Claiming the win, Orbán bragged in a dig at his critics: “We won a victory so big that you can see it from the moon, and you can certainly see it from Brussels.” A day later, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen announced the commission would trigger proceedings to cut funding to Hungary for its persistent eroding of democratic (or “rule of law”) standards.
Orbán’s model of illiberal democracy has been enabled by what journalists and press freedom activists have called “the most advanced model of media capture ever developed within the European Union” with private media taken over by state-dependent industries or Orbán-friendly oligarchs. The public broadcaster has been turned into another arm of state propaganda.
Control is powered by exorbitantly large state advertising budgets, which make only pro-Orbán media financially viable.
A handful of independent media survive in the digital space, dependent on donations and subscriptions, like the journalist-controlled Telex, set up in a revolt against the takeover of their former newsrooms by government-friendly oligarchs.
Orbán’s party used its control over media to position itself as the pro-peace party. (Vučić did the same in Serbia.) Most notoriously, state-supporting media widely promoted false claims by Fidesz figures that the opposition intended to commit Hungarian troops to fight in Ukraine.
The obsessions of Orbán — and the ethno-nationalist right in general — with migrants and population decline of “real Europeans” has been brought together through Hungary’s biennial Budapest Demographic Summit. In 2019, Australia’s own Tony Abbott spoke at the summit to warn of military-age migrants “swarming” into Europe. He was joined by soon-to-be-ex Liberal MP Kevin Andrews. Last year’s summit featured Trump’s vice-president, Mike Pence.
Right-wing media are returning the favour, promoting Orbán as a leader of world standing. Last August, the Murdochs’ Fox News flagship Tucker Carlson Tonight broadcast from Budapest for a week, with Carlson praising Hungary as a “small country with a lot of lessons for the rest of us”.
This worldwide networking is paying off, with each supporting each — and all watching Sunday’s French elections to see what comes next.
The last time we let the far-right, rule and an empire to flex its military muscle, we had to fight for five long, bloody years to get rid of them, and detonate two nuclear weapons in the process. Both deserve to remain in the political abyss for the rest of time. Sadly, younger folks have no direct connection to those who did the fighting, who saw the horror, who had to withstand pain of those long years.
The rise of the Right was/ is being funded and supported by Putin and a number of aligned Far Right leaders and it is creeping me out.
Putin and friends hate the EU and NATO.Putin and Xi probably aren’t phased by the AUKUS agreement.
Putin via his emissaries including the man who runs the laundromat for dirty Russian mafia funds, our Prime Minimal’s Loon Giggler in Chief, Boris, a clear example of too much inbreeding, thought he had scored a win with Farange and the Brexit fiasco.
I am sure there is a percentage paid into a British Virgins/ Cayman islands /Singapore/ CCP/ Indo- China Bank account which belongs to Putin’s facilitators.
Now, Boris has had a clear choice and decided that he didn’t want Philby’s flat in Moscow.
The “Brexit thing” is proving very difficult because if, Boris doesn’t want the real IRA or some other para-military group to become very upset about hard borders.Bombing and shooting, crazy upset about borders.
The casual wave of hand, “We’ll put a border in the middle of the Irish sea”, worked for a time, but, not for much longer. A bit like the balding hair disguised as a Toddlers are us” hair mess.
Boris has lost his Putin supporter in chief in the White House, The Trumpster, and he may be very lonely if Smirko joins the Trumpster on the talking circuit in the US or the preaching circuit for his best mate Brian Houston in a little while.
I am not frightened, I am terrified, that the my children and grandchildren do not understand just how dangerous and sophisticated a game is being played and how their lives as they know them, could be put at risk by this dalliance with the Right.
Does anyone remember the interviews with the ex-pats living in Ukraine, in the run up to this latest all out offensive on Ukraine?
I wonder what they have to say now?? I thought at the time that it is a form of denial.
The rise of the “Sovereign citizen” and “The Anti-vaxxer movement” all the other extreme right wing individualist’ rights/ anarchists? extreme Left, trump those of the well being of the society as a whole.
This BS, that has been imported via social media and dribbled like snot through our society with each “share” is a danger to the well being of our society as a whole.
Clive Palmer and Craig Kelly are welding together disparate groups and are intent on damaging our society as a whole, for their money grubbing, loose with the truth own political ends.
It is time to call this model out!
Your inchoate concern may be real – to you – but your scattergun screed has conflated too many unlike issues to be coherent.
You can pretty much trace it back to the fallout from the GFC in 2008, when the EU, taking a rare (but tardy) stand against neo-liberalism, set about reforming the tax system in order to make it more transparent and consistent across its jurisdiction (see The Anti-Tax Avoidance Directive – January 2016), so avoiding the scenario whereby global corporates had played EU members against each other and where too-big-to-fail private interests had, once again, been bailed out by public money.
It seemed to be a moment when the neo-liberal consensus split between the Anglo and European models
We can argue the toss about how genuine or successful this EU effort at tax reform was (or will be), but it did seem to spook the tax-evader class in both the UK and the US, arguably resulting in Brexit and Trump.
It also seemed to coincide with a marriage of convenience between the ‘wealth consolidation’ industry represented by right-wing parties in the UK and US, Murdoch and the tabloid non-noms in the UK (Richard Desmond, the Barclays, the Rothermeres), and the Russian oligarchs represented by Putin.
The ‘social’ glue for attracting adherents to the cause was a muscular white, Christianity rallying around a hatred of anything ‘left’, ‘woke’,’politically correct’ or in any way ‘effeminate’ or ‘environmental’.
Economically, the coincidence of interests (with the exception of the UK – which I guess had finance and tax avoidance as its main goal) was fossil fuels and the need to delay any action to mitigate the risk of climate change, tax avoidance and, essentially, unfettered crony capitalism (FREEDOM).
Orban, Le Pen, Trump and Brexit (see Aaron Banks) all had well-documented Russian money and support behind them. The Murdochs were fully behind Brexit and Trump, as were the US “Freedom Caucus” and Brietbart, and the tax-avoiding UK media moguls at the Times, Mail, Telegraph and Express.
Could all be coincidence, of course. But if you follow the money (start with The Panama Papers), it certainly looks less like one.
Better when you focus on the ‘money power’.
Unfortunately “not wrong” does not, necessarily, mean correct.
Then you blow it with para. 5 – it shows your true obsession.
There seems to be an anti imperialism flavour to the current right wing rise. In a way there is a convergence from the far right and the far left in this regard. Many Europeans are sick of being the meat in the sandwich of US/NATO hegemonic manipulations which are clearly not in Europes best interests.
“anti imperialism flavour to the current right wing rise”
Lol ….It’s all about imperialist nostalgia…Ukraine, mostly impotent old “white” men pining for the old days , when men were men and women knew there place, and church on someday and violence as a solution. Troglodytes The Pen only inherited her position from her father.
You might want to check your facts – Marine ousted her father, in quite a stoush, mainly for his anti-semitism and the current CEO is a pied noir descended gay Jew.
Ukraine, despite what some ignorant things like to tell you, is not in the grip of the far right. It’s people, especially it’s young people, fear exactly that as they look at the countries which surround them falling to the far right.
Really? Then why do so many smaller European nations queue up to join EU and NATO? Now the UK is a spectator…. while EU and US are now the main game.
Good analysis as even the BBC and The Economist when doing analysis of Le Pen vs. Macron, fail to mention Le Pen’s loans first from a Russian bank then more recently Hungary; Anglosphere right does not like Macron?
Further, one would not make direct comparisons on electors in Central Eastern Europe and/or Balkans compared with western Europe i.e. the former have low levels of education and literacy, but all share ageing electoral demographics and issues e.g. pension/retirement age reform.
Speaking about Putin’s willing enablers and supporters, the influential Anne Applebaum (formerly a GOP supporter pre Trump?) living in Poland sent out a Tweet last weekend highlighting the Danube Institute think tank in Budapest funded by the government and linked to Koch Network think tanks (like locally & UK); a former Oz Ambassador to Hungary, visiting fellow to Danube Institute and advisor to Tony Abbott had their profile removed (maybe after Applebaum’s Tweet):
‘Anne Applebaum (3 April): If you work for the Orban-funded Danube Institute, or are/were enjoying a fellowship there, your views on Viktor Orban and the Hungarian elections should be taken with a grain of salt and a raised eyebrow. Just saying.’
One guesses she was calling out US Hungarian ‘conservative’ Rod Dreher who will no doubt be attending the CPAC in Budapest, in May after being postponed due to Putin’s invasion of Ukraine; interesting guest list……
And of course Serbia also had elections on the same weekend as Hungary and the populist right wing government, which is supportive of Russia, was returned. Ukraine is ringed by governments with far right and authoritarian governments, all of which are sympathetic to Russia. And people wonder why the Ukrainians preferred the involvement of the EU and maybe NATO.