Extreme right political parties have been gradually appearing across Europe in recent years. Belgium’s Vlaams Blok, created in the 1970s and previously outlawed, has recently resurfaced as Vlams Belang. France’s National Front, founded in 1972, has emerged as the country’s most viable third party option in recent presidential elections. In Norway, the Progress Party received more than 22% of the vote in the 2009 elections. Anders Breivik, convicted of the Utoya Island attacks, spent several years climbing the Party’s ranks.
In Switzerland, the Swiss People’s Party pulled 29% of the votes in the 2007 elections. When the Austrian Freedom Party entered the country’s government in 1999, European Union (EU) member states were forced to file sanctions against its neighboring alpine republic. Similar examples can be found in Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Holland, Italy, Hungary, Bulgaria and Greece, all of which have extreme right parties that hold parliamentary representation.
–excerpted from a blog by Lourdes Sada, translated by Anna Williams, at GlobalVoicesOnline.org
