Tag: Far right

Britain’s far right is booming on Elon Musk’s Twitter

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Changes on the social media platform have been described as a “dream come true” for extremist parties.

Some people are pretty pleased with Twitter right now.

After US president Donald Trump caused a furore by retweeting its anti-Muslim content, one of the UK’s most notorious far-right groups Britain First was banned from the social media platform in 2017. Facebook followed suit months later.

Losing this huge reach crushed Britain First’s public visibility, membership and fundraising.

But that all changed when Elon Musk took over Twitter last October.

Calling himself a “free speech absolutist”, the tech billionaire granted an amnesty to hundreds of accounts that had been kicked off the platform.

Within hours, those belonging to Britain First leader Paul Golding, along with former deputy Jayda Fransen and the party itself, reappeared.

“We’re absolutely pleased,” Golding told Euronews. “Now that we’re back on Twitter, our following is growing very, very rapidly.

“The amount of people we’re reaching is huge. It’s millions all around the world.”

He claimed his Twitter following has lept from around 30,000 to more than 100,000 in little over two months since being reinstated.

“If the rate of growth carries on this way, I’ll be in the millions within a year or two,” Golding added.

“This is freedom of speech in action. This is democracy in action.”

‘Bogie man’

According to Golding, Britain First is a party of “patriotism, traditionalism, Christianity and national sovereignty,” with a current focus on “mass migration”.

However, the far-right party has been accused of promoting violence, hatred, sexism, racism and Islamophobia.

Golding was jailed in connection to a series of hate crimes against Muslims in 2018, with he and fellow supporters known to invade mosques and abuse worshippers.

“Britain First is a vile and hate-fuelled group whose sole purpose is to sow division,” London Mayor Sadiq Khan said following Golding’s online ban back in 2018. “Their sick intentions to incite hatred within our society via social media are reprehensible.”

Shut out from Twitter and Facebook, Britain First eked out an online existence on fringe platforms, where audiences are much smaller. But now it is back in the mainstream.

“Elon Musk… has made sure [Britain First’s] content is much more prominent on the platform,” head researcher Callum Hood at the Centre for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) told Euronews. “That’s a real helping hand to accounts like Golding’s.”

He explained that Britain First’s “extremely sharp” follower growth means an ever-increasing number of people are being exposed to his content that “foments hatred”.

Golding’s account also now carries a blue tick, formerly a badge of authenticity, giving his tweets “more credibility”, continued Hood – even though the only barrier to entry has become a “willingness to hand Elon Musk money”.

“That blue badge gives Golding a range of perks he has never had before. This is a dream come true for him.”

But Britain First isn’t the only hate group to benefit from Musk’s chaotic reworking of Twitter’s policies.

A report by the CCDH found the number of accounts pumping out toxic hate and abuse on Twitter has exploded since Musk’s takeover, with usage of slurs like the racist n-word soaring 202%.

‘His mission of whipping up division’

In an interview with Euronews, Golding claimed his content was not hateful, maintaining that his tweets – often a dozen per day – were “completely legal”.

“When the media or politicians talk about the word hate on social media, they mean political beliefs or opinions that they don’t like,” he said.

“The real reason we got closed down is that we were getting too big, our following was too large,” suggesting the British government pressured Twitter to do so.

There is no evidence to support Golding’s claim that the closure of his account was politically motivated. His platform was closed for repeated hate speech.

On what he called the “old Twitter”, the far-right leader alleged there was “blatant, naked censorship of opposing views”, which were replaced with “distorted narratives” on major political issues.

“That’s why Musk stepped in to restore freedom of speech. Now we can say what we want,” he told Euronews.

Yet Golding has been repeatedly called out for sharing outright fake or wildly misrepresented information, especially surrounding the recent unrest in France.

On 2 July, he shared a video of a group of armed and masked men, claiming rioters in France were “show[ing] off” their arsenal of weapons”.

Scrutiny by BBC verify journalist Shayan Sardarizadeh revealed the footage in the tweet – which was viewed more than a million times – showed men in Dijon from 2020 defending their neighbourhood after a teen was assaulted by a rival gang.

It remains on his page despite being flagged as false.

Even Golding himself recognised that not everything he posts is always accurate.

“If we see a video that’s trending and it says this is happening in France and it looks shocking, then we will share it,” he said. 

“Sometimes we get stung with inaccurate videos.”

But, according to Hood, this does not mean the group is simply inept.

“If you look at the content Golding produces that has been quite successful on social media it is toxic, dangerous, rubbish,” he said. 

“They [Britain First] know exactly what they’re doing. They create controversial content, with a complete disregard for the facts, that whips up hatred of minorities.”

“Fortunately, on today’s Twitter, that is a recipe for success,” he added.

‘This stuff causes harm’

Golding may have a blasé attitude towards the truth, but digital hate and misinformation have real – and deadly – real-world consequences.

Dangerous protests outside asylum centres have broken out in the UK, at times on the basis of completely fabricated stories, and online content can help agitate violence against many different groups in society. 

At the same time, as social media grows more vitriol-ridden, it is actually stifling freedom of speech online, with many groups increasingly driven off the platform by abuse, Hood told Euronews.

He claims the boundaries of acceptable speech on Twitter are now largely dependent on the “whims of Elon Musk by diktat”.

“That is clearly a worse situation for freedom of speech,” he adds.

Musk has repeatedly deleted accounts that are critical of him, including one which tracked all of his private jet flights.

Back on Twitter, Golding believed Britain First had a “very promising future”.

“Musk has put all political parties not just Britain and first of all political parties in Britain on an equal and level playing field. Five years down the line, we will see who’s popular and who isn’t.”



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In the most recent election, Greek far right made a sinister comeback

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By Georgios Samaras, Assistant Professor, King’s College London

An obscure extremist party’s surprising result represents uncharted territory for Greece as it grapples with the resurgence of extreme right-wing ideologies just three years after the conviction of Golden Dawn, Georgios Samaras writes.

On 15 June, just two weeks before the second round of the Greek general election, a cryptic photograph posted on Twitter by Ilias Kasidiaris, the imprisoned neo-Nazi politician and former member of parliament for Golden Dawn, sent shockwaves through the political landscape. 

Kasidiaris urged his supporters to rally behind a mysterious political entity known as Spartiátes, or Spartans.

Fast forward two weeks, and the unimaginable had happened. Spartans, an obscure political party that had previously flown under the radar, managed to secure a notable 4.64% of the total vote share, earning twelve seats in the 300-seat-strong Greek Parliament. 

How did this happen, and who exactly are Spartans?

Racism, Holocaust denial and prison endorsements

The roots of the party can be traced back to 2017 when its leader, Vasilis Stigkas, made a noteworthy appearance on a far-right YouTube channel hosted by neo-Nazi author Konstantinos Plevris. 

Eager to expand their influence and solidify their presence, Spartans made a bid in the 2019 European Parliament election. However, their alliance with the Énosi Kentróon, or Union of Centrists party failed to yield the desired outcome.

The party’s close association with Ilias Kasidiaris, who sought to establish the far-right extremist political entity Hellenes (“Greeks”) upon his departure from Golden Dawn, cannot be ignored. 

Despite serving a prison sentence for his involvement in a criminal organisation alongside Golden Dawn, Kasidiaris assumed sole leadership within Hellenes. 

The party quickly gained traction through its active presence on various social media platforms, attracting attention and amassing a following among far-right circles.

Kasidiaris took advantage of his access to social media platforms, utilising them to unleash his distinctive podcast and regularly disseminate provocative statements via Twitter and YouTube. 

His content focused on his self-proclaimed status as a political prisoner, vehemently criticising the government’s lockdown policies and spreading anti-vaccination propaganda.

Hellenes also dabbled in overt racism, Islamophobia, and Holocaust denial — talking points all shared with Golden Dawn.

Hellenes ban brings on Spartans

The government attempted to curb the influence of convicted politicians associated with Golden Dawn by passing a law in 2021 barring them from assuming leadership positions in political parties. 

However, Kasidiaris boldly revealed his intention in early 2023 to run for a parliamentary seat, prompting the government to enact emergency legislation that banned him from participating in the upcoming election.

Undeterred, Kasidiaris patiently waited until mid-June, strategically timing the completion of the party registration process ahead of the Greek General Election in June 2023. 

With calculated precision, he unveiled his endorsement of Spartans on Twitter. 

This move had been carefully orchestrated over several weeks, with the ultimate goal of aligning himself with an unknown political party that would act as Kasidiaris’ Trojan horse. 

Most importantly, several candidates of Spartans who secured seats in the Greek Parliament have ties to the Hellenes, while others are closely associated with the neo-fascist Golden Dawn.

Leading from the shadows of a prison cell

It is no coincidence that, on the eve of the election, Vasilis Stigkas, the leader of Spartans, expressed gratitude to the convicted neo-Nazi politician Kasidiaris, heralding a transformative era in Greek politics. 

With Kasidiaris’ unwavering support, Spartans became his indirect representation within the Greek Parliament. 

Without his backing, the far-right party would have struggled to gain such a significant share of the votes in a Greek electoral contest.

Spartans now find themselves joined by two additional far-right parties that have secured seats in the Greek Parliament: the ultraorthodox Niki (which stands for Democratic Patriotic Movement – Victory) and the pro-Russian Greek Solution. 

Together, this far-right bloc has garnered a shocking 34 seats out of the 300 available, commanding a formidable presence with 12.77% of the total vote.

No left to speak of

The rise of the far-right in the country can be attributed to the ongoing normalisation of extreme practices in Greek politics, in particular by the ruling New Democracy and PM Kyriakos Mitsotakis. 

The government’s involvement in pushbacks against refugees and the accusations of wiretapping political opponents and journalists have played a crucial role in the gradual conservative shift within Greek society.

The composition of the parliament is unsettling and suggests uncharted territory for Greece as it grapples with the resurgence of extreme right-wing ideologies just three years after the conviction of Golden Dawn. 

The declining influence of the former party in parliament seems to have been supplanted by Spartans within this newly formed far-right bloc.

Greece now faces a critical question: Is the country prepared to combat far-right extremism for the second time in a decade? 

Compounding the challenge is the weakened state of the left and the prevailing dominance of conservatism in Greek politics. 

As the fight against the remnants of Golden Dawn intensifies, Greece must confront a more formidable challenge than ever before.

Georgios Samaras is an Assistant Professor of Political Economy at the Department of Political Economy, King’s College London.

At Euronews, we believe all views matter. Contact us at [email protected] to send pitches or submissions and be part of the conversation.

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5 things we already know about Finland’s new right-wing government

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From tax cuts to climate change, increased VAT to Finland’s international reputation, here’s some key things you should know.

The setting and symbolism couldn’t have been more striking, or more different. 

After the 2019 Finnish election, the parties of the new coalition government presented their policy programme in Helsinki’s spectacular Oodi Central Library in the morning over coffee, and took questions from the public and journalists alike — before embarking on a tour of town halls up and down the country to have conversations with voters about the future direction of Finland. 

Compare that with 2023, when the four parties which make up Finland’s new coalition government summoned journalists at 6pm on a Friday evening, no members of the public allowed, to unveil their policy agenda — which came after seven weeks of fractious negotiations.

The right-wing National Coalition Party, known locally as Kokoomus, emerged from the April general election with the most seats in parliament, and partnered with the next biggest group, the far-right Finns Party. Also on board are the Christian Democrats and the Swedish People’s Party, with Kokoomus leader Petteri Orpo as Finland’s next prime minister. 

So what are some of the key things we know already about the new government programme, and how might it all unfold now: 

1. This is the most right-wing Finnish government in modern times

Kokoomus has a vocal EU-sceptic and immigrant-sceptic wing. The Christian Democrats’ best-known MP is anti-abortion, and became something of a cause celebre among the US Christian right when she carried a bible into court to face charges of being anti-LGBT. She was later cleared. 

Meanwhile, the Finns Party’s track record on immigration, the EU and fighting the climate crisis speaks for itself. 

There are also several Finns Party MPs, including senior party members, with convictions for race-related crimes, and the younger cadre of Finns Party politicians who came to prominence during the last two election cycles have a fondness for Donald Trump’s MAGA movement. 

“Petteri Orpo’s government programme is building a European, free and secure Finland that will not just sit on its hands,” insists Kokoomus MP Elina Valtonen, who is likely to land one of the big ministerial portfolios in the new government.

“A strong and caring NATO Finland, where consumer choice increases, entrepreneurship pays, skills are valued, living standards rise and nature is cared for,” she adds. 

But political analyst Juho Rahkonen says “we have a more right-wing government than perhaps ever before,” a stark contrast to outgoing Prime Minister Sanna Marin’s five-party center-left coalition.

Finns Party leader Riikka Purra said the Nordic nation should opt for a tougher immigration line, and called for stricter asylum policy, time-limited protection of asylum-seekers, mandatory integration, and plans to reduce the number of quota refugees, saying those policies would amount to “a paradigm shift.”

2. The Swedish People’s Party is taking a reputational gamble

No party has more at stake in this coalition government than the Swedish People’s Party SFP/RKP. 

With ten seats in parliament, they are the only party which was also in the previous government — an administration which put intersectional feminism at the heart of policymaking with Sanna Marin as prime minister.

Over the last four years they’ve moved further to the left on issues of internationality, multi-culturalism, human rights and immigration — an anathema to the Finnish right-wing.  

Before negotiations, SFP/RKP leader Anna-Maja Henriksson said she wouldn’t be in the government if it was doing Finns Party politics, but she seems to have capitulated and it’s difficult to see at this stage what she has actually won for her party — except perhaps to prolong Finland’s widely-criticised fur farming industry, which employs around two thousand people, many of them in her own constituency area. 

For a party that’s already divided between it’s Ostrobothnia ‘countryside’ voters and the southern coastal ‘city’ voters, the Swedish People’s Party might have lost the chance to appeal to other non-Swedish-speaking Finns, immigrants and young people as potential voters, by joining up with a far-right party in government — indeed their own youth group leadership quit the government formation talks in protest at cooperation with the Finns Party, and Henriksson admitted on Friday that still not all her MPs were in favour of being in government with them.  

3. Four billion in savings needed

Petteri Orpo promised to find €4 billion in savings to reduce Finland’s debt, and that means a mixture of cuts — which are never popular with the people on the receiving end — and cost savings or fundraising in the form of increasing items with a 10% VAT to 14%, making it even more expensive to buy medicines, take part in sports, go to the cinema or cultural events, or book a hotel room. 

“Before the elections, we promised to put the country’s affairs in order. We promised an adjustment of €6 billion and 100,000 new jobs,” says Kokoomus MP Sinuhe Wallinheimo. 

Most of the savings are coming from €1.5 billion cuts to social security, and by re-jigging how regional healthcare systems are funded from the central government to generate efficiency savings. 

There will be freezes for the next four years on earnings-related unemployment insurance, housing allowance and some other benefits. 

There’s cuts of €125 million for education and culture grants, and an adult education subsidy will also be scrapped. Some €250 million will be cut from funding for new roads projects and another €250 million from development aid budgets. 

Tax on beer will decrease, but taxes on wines, spirits and soft drinks will go up. 

“There is enough money for investors and high earners, but poor families with children, students and the elderly are being cut,” says Jussi Saramo, chair of the Left Alliance Parliamentary Group. 

“For example, massive housing benefit cuts will hit students, single parents and those working in low-wage jobs hard,” he says. 

4. Fighting the climate crisis

The previous Finnish government were enthusiastic about setting targets to meet and even exceed international agreements on carbon emissions – even if they were less enthusiastic about taking enough concrete steps to meet those goals fast enough. 

Within the new government, the Finns Party has been opposed to the idea that Finns — who they say are among the least polluting people on the planet — should have to take radical steps to fight the climate crisis when this should be done by big polluting countries instead. 

They’ve also wanted to lower the price of petrol and resisted calls to reduce the number of petrol cars on Finnish roads. 

“The new government is very much leaning towards the conservative right and takes Finland backwards when it comes to climate action and biodiversity protection,” says Ville Niinistö, a Finnish Green MEP. 

“The financing for nature protection is reduced by one-third from the previous Marin government and therefore we have no tools to protect our forests and waterways in line with global commitments to stop biodiversity loss,” he tells Euronews. 

Niinistö notes that while the new government doesn’t formally back down on the commitment to be carbon neutral by 2035, its policies are “leading away from that goal”. 

The new government plans to reduce tax on petrol by €100 million, and reduce vehicle taxes by €50 million. 

5. Finland’s international reputation could take a hit

In large part thanks to Sanna Marin’s profile, Finland has enjoyed unprecedented good press internationally over the last four years. 

From being the happiest country in the world to putting extra money into development aid for women and children when the Trump administration withdrew support, Finland has shored up its credentials as a reliable partner. 

But now there will be cuts to international aid, amounting to hundreds of millions of euros. Finland will also be less welcoming to asylum seekers and so-called ‘quota migrants.’  

And having a far-right party in power probably doesn’t do a lot to burnish Finland’s brand image as a friendly, welcoming country. 

Kokoomus MP Saara-Sofia Sirén says that in the new government programme, Finland “promotes the rights of women and girls across its foreign policy.” 

“The priorities of the government’s development policy are strengthening the status of women and girls, the right to self-determination, and sexual and reproductive health,” but doesn’t address whether budget cuts to international aid will impact the scope or scale of the services which Finland currently funds.



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Should Germany ban AfD? What impact could this have?

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Last year a German court ruled the far-right party was a threat to democracy, allowing it to be monitored by the country’s security services.

A recent study by Germany’s Institute for Human Rights exploring the possibility of banning the Alternative for Germany (AfD) has put the far-right political party under the spotlight. 

Published on 7 June, the study says the AfD now poses such a danger to the country’s democratic order “it could be banned by the Federal Constitutional Court.”

AfD can be legally banned because its explicit goals are “to eliminate the free democratic basic order” and “abolish the guarantee of human dignity” enshrined in Germany’s constitution, claims the institute.

Set up in 2013, the AfD has been accused of harbouring anti-democratic tendencies, though it officially supports democracy in Germany. 

Euronews has approached the party for comment. 

Banning the AfD has been floated in Germany before. A court last year ruled the party should be considered a potential threat to democracy, paving the way for it to be put under surveillance by national security services.

Earlier this year, Germany decided to label AfD’s youth wing, the Young Alternative for Germany, as an extremist group. The formal accusation of extremism is as far as the country can go without issuing an outright ban.

Domestic intelligence services have also labelled the Thuringia state chapter of the party a right-wing extremist group. Earlier this week, its leader Björn Höcke was accused of purposefully using a Nazi slogan at a May 2021 campaign event.

But while the Germany Institute for Human Rights’ study reignited a debate around banning the party in Germany, AfD took advantage of the situation, turning their condemnation into a call to arms for supporters.

The far-right party – which opposes Islam, immigration and the EU – is worrying Germany’s political class, with support climbing from 10% last June to 18% now, according to Politico’s Poll of Polls. 

A major backfire

The proposal to ban AfD has “backfired massively because the AfD took it upon themselves to paint a different picture in the media,” according to Una Ivona Titz, a journalist and researcher at the Amadeu Antonio Foundation, a group focused on extremism and the far-right. 

“Right now, they’re garnering a lot of support on Telegram because they’re rallying their supporters and they’re painting themselves as a persecuted party within an unjust system which they’re fighting from within,” she told Euronews. 

While the study aimed to increase awareness over the threats posed by AfD, “what we’re seeing is that it has emboldened them and actually helped them bolster the image of AfD,” Titz explained. 

“Germany has upcoming elections in Saxony, and right now the AfD is somewhere around 30%,” she added. “We’re fearing that it will further embolden or that it might lead to people who are sceptical or withholding their votes to actually go vote for the AfD because they perceive them as the sort of underdog who is treated unjustly.”

In the latest district elections in Sonneberg, southern Thuringia, last weekend, AfD’s Robert Stuhlmann received 46.7% of the votes, ahead of any other candidate but not quite enough to avoid a runoff, which has been scheduled for June 25.

Previous attempts at banning an elected party in Germany have failed and backfired against its organisers — with a tentative ban on far-right party NPD in 2017 being rejected by the second Senate of the Federal Constitutional Court. 

Politicians also appear to be cautious about suggesting to ban AfD.

“The study has gained traction as an online debate and has then subsequently been picked up by politicians from the entire political spectrum,” Titz said. “So you had politicians from the CDU, from SBT, and from the left boycotting the proposal of a ban or being sceptical towards the ban because they saw it as a misplaced attempt.” 

“For example, Sebastian Hoffmann [from SPD] talked about the AfD as an anti-constitutional party, but, on the other hand, he sees the primary goal of politics as putting the AfD in a sort of political limbo where it becomes no longer electable and thus avoiding a ban.”

An impossible dilemma

The idea of banning a party is not only politically fraught, but also poses a moral dilemma for many. As Princeton professor Jan-Werner Mueller put it in a 2013 article, democracies are “damned if they do, damned if they don’t” ban extremist parties.

While forbidding a popular party can undermine the pillars of democracy, he says leaving a country exposed to the threat of extremism can be dangerous and “ultimately leave no democracy to defend.”

That’s why countries have generally avoided banning extremist parties, and have explored different approaches. 

“There’s a spectrum of how deep the state can go to act against extremist groups,” Lorenzo Vidino, Director of the Program on Extremism at George Washington University, told Euronews. “And that is based on different histories, different constitutional, different social and cultural approaches.” 

“There’s no right or wrong way.”

On one end of the spectrum, Vidino pointed to the US approach, which is based “on an extreme tolerance of the intolerant”, meaning domestic groups that are considered extremist can be tolerated.

“The Ku Klux Klan is legal in America,” he said. “They can hold rallies, burn crosses – they occasionally do that. That’s for a variety of reasons based on the Constitution and freedom of speech.”

These groups are still monitored by the state, “but it’s basically impossible to ban a domestic extremist group in America,” Vidino said.

At the other end of the spectrum, he points to countries like Germany. “There’s very low tolerance of extremist groups, even if not directly violent.” 

“That of course stems from German recent history.” 

Even in countries where extremist parties can be banned, the decision “is never one that’s taken lightly, for a variety of reasons,” Vidino said. 

“First of all, there’s a complicated legal process. But there’s also a political side to it, that leads to the question of whether we would also then ban extremist groups on the left, like environmental ones.”

There’s also a practical issue, Vidino said. “If you ban a group, it doesn’t just disappear. AfD has millions of supporters – the problem it poses isn’t solved after you ban the party. In fact, you might lose the control you have over it by dissolving the party.”

What to do then?

Vidino said the best tool to counter extremist parties is monitoring.

But there are others. 

According to Titz, one solution that has proven effective in weakening the appeal of extremist far-right parties like AfD is to strengthen media literacy towards democracy, especially in areas like the former DDR, in eastern Germany.

“You have a high level of scepticism towards democracy as a whole, and what really helps, statistically, is to invest in programmes right there, and keep them [AfD] on their toes with regard to their rhetoric,” she said. 

“Everything that the AfD puts out has to be documented and monitored and counterbalanced.”

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Le Pen’s far right served as mouthpiece for the Kremlin, says French parliamentary report

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Dogged by accusations of proximity to the Kremlin, Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally party had hoped to clear its name by setting up a parliamentary inquiry to investigate foreign interference in French politics. But a draft report on the committee’s findings, which was leaked to the press this week, shows the move backfired spectacularly, finding instead that Le Pen’s policy stances sometimes echo the “official language of Putin’s regime”.

After a six-month inquiry and more than 50 hearings, the cross-party parliamentary inquiry found that the National Rally (RN) party, formerly known as the National Front, had served as a “communication channel” for Russian power, notably supporting Moscow’s illegal annexation of Crimea, according to the leaked report.  

The text, due to be published next week, was adopted on Thursday by eleven votes to five – to the dismay of the inquiry’s chair and instigator, RN lawmaker Jean-Philippe Tanguy, who promptly dismissed the process as a “farce”.

The vote came just days after Le Pen was grilled by members of the investigation, swearing under oath that she had no ties to the Kremlin while also reiterating her support for Moscow’s takeover of Crimea – which she referred to as a “reattachment”.  

That support is “visibly appreciated in Moscow”, wrote the report’s rapporteur Constance Le Grip, noting that the Russian press had given ample coverage to the far-right leader’s May 24 interview, “echoing with great satisfaction the assertion, in their view reaffirmed by Marine Le Pen, that Crimea is and always has been Russian”.   

Echoing Putin ‘word for word’ 

Twice a runner-up in France’s most recent presidential elections, Le Pen has in the past spoken admiringly of Russian President Vladimir Putin and his nationalist rhetoric. Prior to last year’s invasion – and despite Russian incursions into Georgia, Crimea and Ukraine’s Donbas – she laughed off suggestions that he posed a threat to Europe. 

In her 218-page report, Le Grip, a member of President Emmanuel Macron’s ruling Renaissance party, pointed to a “long-standing” link between Russia and the far-right party co-founded by Jean-Marie Le Pen, noting that the “strategy of political and ideological rapprochement” with Moscow had “accelerated” since his daughter became leader of the party in 2011. 

The report details frequent contacts between party representatives and Russian officials, culminating in the warm welcome Le Pen received at the Kremlin ahead of France’s 2017 presidential election, complete with a photo op with Putin. 

Russian President Vladimir Putin hosted Marine Le Pen at the Kremlin in Moscow on March 24, 2017, just weeks ahead of France’s presidential election. Mikhail Klimentyev, AFP

It also highlights the far-right leader’s “alignment” with “Russian discourse” at the time of Moscow’s illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014, the year the National Front obtained a loan from a bank close to the Kremlin. 

“All [Le Pen’s] comments on Crimea, reiterated during her inquiry hearing, repeat word for word the official language of Putin’s regime,” Le Grip wrote, noting that the National Rally had fiercely opposed then-president François Hollande’s decision to scrap the sale of two Mistral helicopter carriers to Russia over its takeover of Crimea.  

The pro-Russian stance “softened” in the wake of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, the centrist MP conceded, noting that Le Pen and her party had “unambiguously condemned” Russian aggression – though without changing tack on Crimea.    

The Kremlin’s payroll 

Despite Le Pen’s efforts to distance herself from Moscow, the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine exacerbated scrutiny of her party’s links to Russia, handing her opponents a line of attack in the run-up to France’s presidential election later that year. 

During a bruising televised debate ahead of their April 24 presidential run-off, Macron launched a blistering attack on his far-right opponent, accusing her of effectively being on the Kremlin’s payroll owing to her party’s links with a Russian bank. 

“When you speak to Russia, you are not speaking to any foreign leader, you are talking to your banker,” Macron told Le Pen, arguing that her party’s loan from a Russian bank with links to the Kremlin made her “dependent on Vladimir Putin” and incapable of “defending French interests”.  

Le Pen has repeatedly argued that she had no choice but to seek creditors abroad because French banks are reluctant to deal with her party – some on ideological grounds, others due to the party’s chronically unstable finances. 

The controversial loan was once again in the spotlight during her audition last week, a testy, four-hour-long grilling that failed to produce evidence of a political service rendered in exchange for the credit. Likewise, Le Grip’s report dwells at length on the Russian loan, without demonstrating a return of favours. 

“There is nothing, not a shred of evidence that would prove Russian influence over the National Rally,” Le Pen told reporters on Thursday, as rumours about the leaked report began to swirl. “This report passes judgement on my political opinions, not on any form of foreign interference,” she added, blasting a “political trial”. 

>> Read more: Trump, Farage, Le Pen: Why the West’s right wing loves Vladimir Putin

‘Boomerang’ 

By pushing for an inquiry late last year, the National Rally had hoped to deflect attention from its Moscow ties and put the focus on other parties’ links to foreign powers, whether Russia, the United States or China.  

Among the witnesses summoned to testify was François Fillon, the former conservative prime minister, who was quizzed on his role as an adviser to two Russian oil companies – one of them state-owned – after he quit politics in 2017. The former PM, who stepped down from both positions on February 25, the day after Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine, testified that he “never took a single cent of Russian money”.  

Other witnesses included the head of the DGSI, France’s internal security agency, who told a closed hearing that French parliamentarians of all stripes were prime targets of Russian espionage.

Despite the National Rally’s best efforts to focus the attention on other parties, the inquiry frequently returned to figures from its own ranks – including EU lawmaker Thierry Mariani, a former conservative minister and longtime Putin admirer who, on a trip to Crimea in 2015, declared its annexation free and fair in line with Le Pen’s own stance on the matter. 

“The inquiry’s immediate political consequence is to highlight, once again, Marine Le Pen’s pro-Russian stance – particularly on the annexation of Crimea,” French daily Le Monde observed on Friday. 

Speaking to the newspaper, Tanguy, the National Rally lawmaker who chaired the inquiry, conceded that he had been “naïve” in expecting another outcome. He also claimed he had been “betrayed” by Le Grip.

As Greens’ lawmaker Julien Bayou quipped, “The (National Rally) launched this inquiry to clear its name, but ended up with a boomerang in the face.”   

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Trump challenger DeSantis to enter 2024 race in Twitter event with Musk

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Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, whose impassioned battles over pandemic lockdowns and divisive cultural issues have endeared him to conservatives, will announce on Wednesday he is seeking the Republican presidential nomination, placing him on a collision course with former President Donald Trump.

DeSantis will make the announcement on Twitter during a discussion with Twitter CEO Elon Musk, DeSantis’ political team confirmed. At the same time, he will file a document with the Federal Election Commission declaring his candidacy.

NBC first reported the planned announcement.

Musk confirmed his appearance on a webcast during a conference hosted by the Wall Street Journal, saying he was not endorsing DeSantis.

“I’m not at this time planning to endorse any particular candidate, but I am interested in Twitter being somewhat of a town square,” Musk said.

DeSantis was re-elected handily to a second term in November. His rising profile among Republicans and fundraising prowess likely make him the biggest threat to Trump’s hopes of becoming the Republican nominee for the White House again.

The two men were close allies during Trump’s four years in the White House – Trump endorsed him during his first campaign for governor – but DeSantis has since forged his own political identity. At 44 he may represent the future of the party more than does the 76-year-old Trump.

“Announcing on Twitter is perfect for Ron DeSantis. This way he doesn’t have to interact with people and the media can’t ask him any questions,” said a Trump adviser who asked not to be identified.

DeSantis will convene a meeting in Miami of his top donors, who will immediately launch his presidential fundraising efforts.

During the coronavirus pandemic, DeSantis became the national face of resistance to mask and vaccine mandates and has been a virulent critic of Dr. Anthony Fauci, who headed the government’s COVID-19 response in both the Trump and Biden administrations.

In stump speeches, he has argued his policies made possible Florida’s economic recovery from the pandemic, turning the state into a magnet for hundreds of thousands of new residents. Florida has consistently outpaced the country in job growth over the last two years.

“His pandemic response effectively made him the governor of Red State America,” said Justin Sayfie, a Florida lobbyist and a former aide to former Florida Governor Jeb Bush.

In the months leading up to his presidential bid, DeSantis has toured the country, visiting states like Iowa and New Hampshire that will hold early presidential nominating contests next year and talking up his accomplishments in Florida.

But his decision to wait until now to join the fray has allowed Trump to batter DeSantis with a fusillade of attacks, costing him standing in national polls.

Aggressive agenda 

DeSantis has rebuffed critics, pushed his priorities through the legislature and punished his enemies. His Democratic opponent in his 2022 re-election campaign, Charlie Crist, called DeSantis a “wannabe dictator.”

When Walt Disney Co DIS.N, one of Florida’s biggest employers, opposed the so-called “Don’t Say Gay” law that limited discussion of LGBTQ issues in schools, DeSantis moved to strip the company of its self-governing status.

Disney has since filed a federal lawsuit against the governor, accusing him of weaponizing state government to retaliate against the company.

When an elected Democratic state attorney said he would not prosecute anyone for defying DeSantis-backed limits on abortion, DeSantis removed him from his position.

He has made crusading against what Republicans call “woke” education policies a centerpiece of his politics while supporting conservative candidates for local school boards.

He backed a legislative measure that prohibits the teaching of “Critical Race Theory” – an academic doctrine that views US history through the lens of oppression – in state public schools despite little evidence it was being taught.

Republican lawmakers in Florida handed DeSantis a bevy of conservative victories in its recent session: They expanded the state’s school voucher program, prohibited the use of public money in sustainable investing, scrapped diversity programs at public universities, allowed for permitless carry of concealed weapons and, perhaps most notably, banned almost all abortions in the state.

The widespread abortion ban may help DeSantis appeal to the party’s evangelicals, but may damage him significantly in the November 2024 general election should he make it that far. Pro-business Republicans have also been critical of his feud with Disney, arguing that it is at odds with the party’s traditional hands-off approach to regulation.

Republicans nationwide have taken notice of his aggressive approach to governing. DeSantis and his affiliated political action committee raised more than $200 million in support of his gubernatorial re-election bid.

Also watching has been Trump, who has taken to deriding his one-time protégé at rallies, nicknaming him “DeSanctimonious” and claiming credit for making DeSantis the political rising star he is today.

On the stump, DeSantis has a wholly different style than the bombastic Trump: low-key, buttoned-down and prone to favoring policy over personal attacks. His campaign speeches can sometimes feel like PowerPoint presentations.

A key question going forward will be how DeSantis responds to what will certainly be a nearly endless stream of insults and insinuations from Trump. So far, he has attempted to dismiss them as “noise” and said he is focused on “delivering results.”

It may not be in DeSantis’ interest to fire back. He needs to win over some portion of Trump’s supporters. Instead, he likely will try to walk a careful line between not denigrating Trump while making clear he favours many of the same policies with perhaps a steadier hand on the tiller.

Prior to his election as governor in 2018, DeSantis served as a US congressman for three terms. His wife, Casey DeSantis, is considered his closest political adviser. The couple has three children.

(REUTERS)

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As French mayors are targeted in violent attacks, many feel abandoned

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Less than two months after losing his home in an arson attack, the mayor of a town in western France resigned this week, citing, among other things, a “lack of support from the state”. Amid an increasingly tense political environment, attacks against mayors in France are multiplying. And some say they have been left to fend for themselves.  

At the break of dawn on March 22, Mayor Yannick Morez of Saint-Brévin in western France woke up to find his house in flames.

“We could have died,” Morez wrote in the resignation letter he submitted on Tuesday. Neither he nor his family were injured, but the fire destroyed his home and two cars parked outside. The fire was a deliberate, targeted attack.

Almost two months later, the case is still being investigated. But Morez has already decided to seek a fresh start, with plans to leave the town he has called home for 32 years by the end of June.  

President Emmanuel Macron expressed his solidarity with the mayor in a tweet a day after his resignation, calling the attacks “disgraceful”.  

 


 

A former doctor, Morez had been mayor of Saint-Brévin-les-Pins, home to about 14,000 inhabitants, since 2017. In the months before the attack, the town had been wracked by right-wing protests against plans to move a local asylum accommodation centre close to a primary school.  

Saint-Brévin has hosted migrants ever since the “Jungle” camp near Calais on France’s north coast was dismantled in 2016.

“We never had the slightest problem” with migrants, Morez told a journalist in an interview a few days after the attack.

But protests organised by far-right groups were coupled with repeated threats directed at Morez, who had filed numerous complaints since January last year. 

Amid an increasingly tense political environment, swelling support for right-wing ideologies and growing mistrust in institutions, French mayors are beginning to feel unsafe.  

Lack of support  

Morez detailed the reasons behind his resignation in a press release. After a long period of reflection, he took the decision to quit not only citing “personal reasons” linked to the arson attack but also mentioned a “lack of support from the state”. The former mayor claims that little to no security measures were put in place to protect him and his family, despite repeated requests for help.    

“His feeling of abandonment can be understood in various ways,” explained Bruno Cautrès, political researcher at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS). Though local officials came forward to express their support, the mayor feels there were no visible, concrete steps taken to support him. 

“It’s true that people nationwide only found out the mayor was facing threats after he quit,” Cautrès said.  

The government disagrees. State secretary for rural affairs Dominique Faure insisted the French state to concrete steps to support Morez. “I can’t let this slide,” she tweeted, before listing ways in which the state supported him. “[We set up] regular police checks outside his house, registered his home so authorities could intervene [in the case of an incident] and provided security during the protests against the asylum centre.”  


 

But according to an article in the daily Libération, most of the security measures were taken only after Morez’s house was burned down. After sounding the alarm with local officials back in January 2022 over the “daily acts of intimidation” he was facing, Morez eventually brought the issue to the attention of the Nantes prosecutor in February 2023, asking for a personal security detail to protect him and his family. He received a response saying authorities were still evaluating the risks to see if a security detail was necessary. Less than two weeks later, Morez had resigned.     

The establishment of migrant welcome centres is part of a nationwide government policy overseen by the prime minister and minister of interior. But Morez “felt he was left on his own when issues arose linked to accommodating the asylum-seekers”, Cautrès explained.

“He would undoubtedly have liked the government to do a better job explaining [the policy] and guiding him through the process,” Cautrès said. “They could have worked with him, to raise awareness on the issue locally and appease the worries of inhabitants.”  

The threat posed by opponents of the asylum centre could also have been flagged earlier on. After repeated demonstrations in Saint-Brévin organised by the far-right Reconquête (Reconquest) party, led by former presidential candidate Eric Zemmour, “I find it hard to imagine that police didn’t know who was a potential threat,” Cautrès said. “The mayor probably felt that the gendarmerie could have intervened before things escalated the way they did.”  

The lack of support Morez felt is a sentiment shared by many mayors across France, who are becoming frequent targets of abuse and attacks.    

A dangerous job

A November 2022 survey published by the Centre for Political Research at Sciences Po university in Paris and the Association of French Mayors found that 53 percent of mayors had experienced “incivility” (rudeness or aggression) in 2020; by 2022, 63 percent had experienced such harassment. 

In a country where over half of all municipalities have less than 500 inhabitants, it’s easy to know where the mayor lives. They are very often in close contact with their communities. While attacks on other elected officials like MPs have also become more frequent, mayors are the “most exposed”, according to Cautrès.  

But unlike the arson attack against Morez in Saint-Brévin, mayors are most worried about violence that doesn’t have an ideology. “Cases linked to everyday life” are more concerning, Cautrès explained. “Like receiving a threatening letter because an inhabitant was sanctioned for having a fire in their garden.” 

Mayor Julien Luya of Firminy in the Loire region was attacked by a group of young locals dealing drugs in January 2023. After they lit a fire to keep warm, the mayor intervened and told them it was against the law to do so. He was violently beaten with stones and iron bars, coming out of the altercation with an injured elbow.   

“In Saint-Brévin, it wasn’t only locals driving the protests” against the asylum centre, Cautrès said. “Far-right protesters came from all four corners of France. That’s an important distinction to make.”  

The mayor’s association told French newspaper “Le Parisien” that there were around 1,500 reported assaults on municipal officials in 2022, a 15 percent increase from the year before. Half of these attacks were insults, 40 percent were threats and 10 percent were “deliberate violence”.

According to the association, 150 mayors were physically targeted as a result of local or ideological tensions.  

Bottom of the food chain 

Both Cautrès and the mayor’s association explain the rise in attacks on mayors by citing persistent tensions in French society, which has in recent years experienced multiple crises including the Yellow Vests movement, Covid-19, inflation and the hotly contested pension reforms.  

“There is a general decline of trust and respect towards institutions, anything that represents a hierarchical authority,” explained Cautrès. Compared to other European countries, he said, “the view French people have of politics in general is one of the most negative”.

Mayors are also faced with people who are “more and more demanding” and “more and more frustrated that they aren’t getting what they asked for”, Cautrès said.  

As for elected officials, the general consensus seems to be that there need to be tougher consequences for the perpetrators of attacks. Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne backed this idea following the arson attack on Morez’s home. “What happened is very shocking,” she said on Thursday, during a visit to the French Indian Ocean territory of La Réunion. She added that she wanted to “protect mayors better … intervene sooner to support them, identify their difficulties and back them up better”.  

Moves to better protect mayors are already in the works. In January 2023, a law aimed at providing better support for elected officials to “break their legal isolation” came into effect. It allows national groups like the mayor’s association as well as legislatures to act as civil parties in the case of an attack on an elected official. The law will facilitate access to a victim’s files and allow associations and legislatures to appoint lawyers.  

Meanwhile, in southern France, elected officials are taking the reins. Some 2,000 mayors in the Occitania region gathered in Montpellier on Tuesday to share their worries about the growing violence against them.  

“Mayors feel that they are being asked to solve everything themselves,” Cautrès said of the meeting. “But they can’t.”



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Le Pen’s opposition to pension reform, focus on public order ‘pays off’ in polls

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Issued on:

Marine Le Pen’s far-right Rassemblement National (National Rally or RN) party hopes to use the national crisis to continue its long ascent in French politics, adopting a balancing act as its strategy. RN opposes President Emmanuel Macron’s pension reforms along with most of the French public, while presenting itself as the party of order by condemning public disorder.

As hundreds of thousands took to the streets of France for the 10th day of demonstrations on Tuesday, everyone knew Le Pen has been opposed to Macron’s pension reforms – but the far-right politician and her party were conspicuous by their absence.

Le Pen has a habit of turning up at protests when the optics might benefit her – joining for example a major demonstration against anti-Semitism in Paris in 2018. But Le Pen has avoided the huge protests over pension reform, as have other senior RN figures like the party’s de jure leader Jordan Bardella.

When he disrupted French politics with his 2017 presidential victory, Macron ran as someone “neither on the left nor on the right” – a stance characterised by his trademark expression “en même temps” (at the same time). This is the apt phrase to encapsulate Le Pen’s approach to the strikes, as she has distanced herself from the protests while excoriating Macron for his pension reforms and his short-circuiting of parliament to pass the law.

Strategic ambiguity

Le Pen ran against Macron in the 2022 presidential elections opposing his policy of raising the retirement age from 62 to 64, proposing to keep it the same except for lowering it to 60 for those who started work before the age of 20. Over recent months she has called for a referendum on pension reform.

When Macron used the French constitution’s contentious Article 49.3 to evade a parliamentary vote on his pension reforms on March 16 – turning a tussle with the unions into a crisis – Le Pen demanded the dissolution of the National Assembly. She railed against Macron for amplifying the turmoil, telling AFP the following week that the president “chose to give the French people another slap in the face by saying: ‘look, everything that’s gone on will achieve nothing, nothing; there’ll be no dissolution of parliament, no cabinet reshuffle, no U-turn, nothing; we’ll just carry on as if nothing happened’”.

Alongside this fierce opposition to Macron, Le Pen condemned the setting on fire of Bordeaux town hall and a police station in Brittany’s Lorient during the protests on March 23.

Le Pen has also suggested there should be limits to the rubbish collectors’ strike and condemned the refinery blockades that have caused fuel shortages throughout France: “As soon as the rubbish collectors’ strikes causes health problems for the French population, I think the interior minister must intervene to ensure there are no health problems. It’s not possible,” she told BFMTV on March 20. “The same goes for the refineries. Blockades shouldn’t be allowed. […] I tell people they must express their opposition while respecting the law.”

This en même temps stands in sharp juxtaposition to the strategy of NUPES, the bloc of left-wing parties dominated by Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s far-left La France Insoumise (France Unbowed or LFI). RN and NUPES were both beneficiaries of Macron’s malaise in the 2022 parliamentary election campaign – with RN becoming the opposition’s largest single party and NUPES the opposition’s largest inter-party alliance in the National Assembly.

RN and NUPES are at opposite ends of the political spectrum on cultural issues. But they share leftist economic stances couched in populist style – meaning they are competing for many of the anti-system voters who detest Macron’s liberal economics and aloof manner. Whereas RN displays ambivalence, NUPES vociferously backs the protest movement.

During the weeks of caustic parliamentary debate preceding Macron’s use of 49.3, NUPES MPs hurled fierce, sometimes incendiary rhetoric against Macron and his party. One LFI MP even called Macron’s Labour Minister Olivier Dussopt a murderer; Dussopt subsequently described Le Pen as “more republican” than NUPES MPs.

The leftist bloc tried to obstruct Macron’s bill by putting forward nearly 18,000 of the almost 20,500 parliamentary amendments tabled. But RN MPs were a quiet presence; even Macron’s Ensemble (Together) bloc put forward more amendments than they did.

‘Letting NUPES do all the shouting’

RN’s approach to pension reform is a strategy to “create a contrast with NUPES”, noted Sylvain Crépon, a lecturer at the University of Tours specialising in the French far right. “Staying calm while LFI MPs go off on one gives RN an air of managerial legitimacy.”

Since her party’s seismic breakthrough in the legislative polls last year, giving it 88 MPs compared to eight in the previous vote, Le Pen’s strategy has moved from the “de-demonisation” of her party to “normalisation” – a shift illustrated by her rule that all male RN MPs must wear a tie in the chamber

“Le Pen herself has been pretty much invisible from the debate, beyond making very few contributions, saying the retirement age should be kept where it is,” said Paul Smith, a professor of French politics at Nottingham University. “She’s letting NUPES do all the shouting and screaming while she sits back and lets them do all the work for her.”

Polls show RN is the party benefiting most from France’s crisis. RN’s leadership seems “trustworthy” on pensions for 40 percent of the population, the best score for any party, according to a Harris Interactive poll published on March 22. If early parliamentary elections took place, RN would gain the highest vote share at 26 percent, seven points up from their performance last time, according to an Ifop poll for Le Journal de Dimanche published on March 26.

“Le Pen’s strategy has paid off in terms of broad public appeal,” Smith put it.

On paper, her en même temps could be a difficult balancing act given that RN’s two core constituencies – bourgeois voters near the southeastern Mediterranean coast and working-class voters in the deindustrialised north – have divergent class interests and attitudes to the upheaval over economic reform.

“There is an uneasiness there about the strikes amongst that southeastern constituency; many traditional right-wing and far-right voters don’t like it,” Smith observed.

“But it’s not very difficult to square by saying the troublemakers are just anarchist black blocs, regardless of whether or not that’s the case,” Smith continued. “So keeping those two constituencies together is not so problematic for RN at the moment. It could well be a problem if they were elected.”

At the very least, Le Pen has four more years in the comfort of opposition before the 2027 presidential polls. But she certainly seems to think the pension reform crisis will benefit her – repeating over the past weeks of turmoil the same mantra: “RN are the real alternative! After Emmanuel Macron, it’ll be us!”

This article was adapted from the original in French.

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Anti-EU protests in Georgia: Are they staged or real?

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EU flags were ablaze outside the Georgian Parliament on Tuesday.

In an apparent outburst of anti-European feeling, a crowd — mostly made up of older men — tore down an EU flag hanging outside the building in Tiblisi and turned it to ashes

“We openly state that there is a very numerous segment in Georgian society that is against the idea of European integration,” said Shota Martinenko, Secretary General of the group behind the protest.

“Everyone will have to listen to the voice of this segment.”

But this is simply not true.

Support for joining the bloc among Georgia’s some four million citizens is as high as 81%, according to a 2022 poll by the National Democratic Institute.

“It was a very staged performance,” Tamta Gelashvili, a researcher of the Georgian far right at the University of Oslo, told Euronews.

“The demonstration was aimed at showing international society there’s disagreement among people about the country’s foreign policy orientation.”

“It wants to create this impression, but such diversity of opinion isn’t really there.”

‘Sneaky strategies’

The unruly demo – reportedly “unimpeded by the scant police presence” – was organised by Alt Info, a far-right, pro-Russian, anti-Western group.

“They’re a peculiar organism,” said Gelashvili. “They have been created in a very artificial way. They didn’t have a big social base. They don’t have a big network. They’re not really linked to other far-right groups.”

Alt Info started life in around 2018 as an online news website, translating articles from far-right outlets, such as Breitbart, focused on “cultural flashpoints”, such as migration and gender. 

“Back then it was very tiny,” Gelashvili told Euronews. “The website had zero information, so we never knew who was behind this group. We didn’t know anything about them.”

Things changed in 2021.

Alt Info established a political party called the ‘Conservative Movement‘, with offices springing up in all corners of the country within a year – something Gelashvili called a “dream” for most parties.

Where the party got the massive financial resources needed for this breakneck expansion is unclear.

Gelashvili pointed to a “suspicious system” where money was personally donated by members, though when journalists asked about the origin of this cash some said it had been given to them by the party itself.

“Clearly some kind of financial obscurity is going on there,” she said. “They have a lot of funds, but they don’t really want to disclose where this money is coming from.”

‘Georgia has no future with the West’

Some in Georgia have speculated that Alt Info is funded by Moscow, though Gelashvili was more cautious, saying there was “very little evidence” for this – despite “a lot of suspicions”.

“It certainly plays into Russian hands to create this instability and try to reverse the very clear pro-Western orientation of our country,” she said, adding that Alt Info was trying to “break a taboo” about striking a pro-Russian stance.

“But I’m always very careful to say there are direct financial links. A long-standing problem in Georgian politics is that every time we don’t like someone, we just call them Pro-Russian.”

Russia maintains significant interests in the tiny caucasian county, which was once part of the USSR. It invaded in 2008, occupying the Abkhazia and South Ossetia territories in northern Georgia.

Members of Alt Info have repeatedly claimed the West will drag Georgia into the Ukraine war – a line repeated by the Russian state media.

“From a geopolitical point of view, the policy of the European Union and America involves provoking a war between Georgia and Russia and opening a second front in order to weaken Russia’s influence in the region and strengthen its own influence,” Alt Info Secretary General Shota Martinenko wrote in a statement sent to Euronews.

“Those people who want integration with the West are simply victims of propaganda prepared for their destruction by the West,” he continued. “We are trying to wake them up.”

While there is no basis for these claims, Alt Info has seized on Georgia’s faltering EU ambitions.

In June, Brussels left the country off the waiting list to join the bloc, while granting candidate status to Ukraine and Moldova.

“We do not believe that Georgia’s accession to the European Union is at all possible,” said Martinenko. “It is an unfulfilled task and a fairy tale due to geographical and geopolitical reasons, which the West uses to give hope to Georgians… to demand that their interests be pursued in return for these hopes.”

Georgia’s EU bid has been dogged by concerns over its political system, which is blighted by accusations of fraud, intimidation, vote-buying, cronyism and police harassment, besides accusations Oligraphs exert excessive influence over politics and the media.

Other questions surround Alt Info’s connections to the ruling Georgian Dream Party, a nominally pro-democracy, pro-European party that came to power in 2012. 

In the last couple of years, it has increasingly parroted Kremlin-like messages and shown “authoritarian tendencies of repressing dissent”, according to analyst Gelashvili.

“There’s a lot of symbiosis between the state and Alt Info, if not direct links,” she claimed. “Their narratives overlap, suggesting Georgian Dream uses the group strategically to deepen political polarisation with its rivals.”

Georgia’s police force has also been accused of complicity with Alt Info.

In 2021, more than 50 journalists and activists were violently assaulted by far-right mobs ahead of a planned Pride March in support of the LBGT community.

“In the case of European integration, it is clear that traditional Georgian culture and values are under threat,” said Alt Info leader Martinenko. “The norms that the European Union rigidly demands from our country to establish are completely unacceptable for the largest part of Georgian society: massive LGBT propaganda and attempts to declare homosexuality, transgenderism and similar pathological perversions as the norm, aggressive feminism and support for liberal immigration policy.”

Human rights — some relating to the rights and status of minorities — are protected under EU treaties, though Brussels does not enforce policy on national governments.  

‘Just a few dozen people pretending they are a movement’

Right now Alt Info remains on the political margins, despite the media circus around their protests. Last year, their support took a beating after members visited Russia and met with officials amid the Ukraine war.

Their fiery anti-EU demo on Tuesday was small, numbering a few hundred. Meanwhile, recent protests against a now stalled ‘foreign agent’ law – which critics branded as anti-democratic – drew in tens of thousands.

Whether they have a political future is unclear.

“The danger comes in a more long-term sense,” says Gelashvili. “I don’t see them becoming an electorally powerful political actor. But their anti-equality narrative is dangerous… it could impact public opinion and Georgia’s democratisation process.”

“The problem is they have a lot of money and money can buy you a lot of things”. I would be very careful to put any kind of very strong opinion forward,” she continued.

“Nobody really knows what they could do.”



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‘Keep Ireland Irish’: Say hello to Ireland’s growing far right

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The far right in Ireland is rising.

It is a broad church – encompassing religious fundamentalists, nationalists and many shades in between – but the movement has recently coalesced around one thing: immigration.

There were 307 anti-migrant protests in 2022, while in 2023 there have already been 64 demos, according to the Garda Síochána, Ireland’s police force, calling the numbers an “exponential increase”.

“Ireland’s borders are wide open,” Niall McConnell, leader of the Irish Nationalist Catholic Party, told Euronews. “There is no restriction on immigration.”

“The indigenous Irish are being racially discriminated against,” he added.

McConnell, who espouses views that many would consider as far-right, takes issue with immigration, alleging migrants receive preferential treatment for social housing, commit crimes – often of a sexual nature against women – and lie to claim refugee status.

All are largely baseless accusations.

The self-described “Irish Patriot” told Euronews immigration risked another “plantation”, in reference to England’s colonisation of Ireland in the 16th and 17th centuries, where land was seized and settlers were brought in to ‘anglicise’ the local population.

“History is repeating itself,” he said. “The blood of our holy martyrs seeps the Irish soil. The indigenous Irish will continue in our ancestors’ footsteps. We will oppose this new plantation as they did in the past.”

“God save Ireland.”

Ireland is a major immigrant-producing nation. Today, nearly 70 million people around the world claim Irish ancestry, according to the government in Dublin – more than 10 times its own population.

‘Far-right politics is symptomatic of a country in a spot of bother’

While the rumours about sexual assaults and crime are typically unfounded, Aoife Gallagher, an analyst at ISD Global, told Euronews: “the far right has been able to rally support by tapping into people’s very real grievances”.

She pointed to the failure of Ireland’s asylum system to process applicants quickly, leaving some waiting for several years for a decision. This backlog has led to a “desperate scramble for housing”, with local authorities resorting to hotels as other forms of accommodation fill up.

The far-right has protested outside asylum reception cases, at times scaring and intimidating the people inside, including families.

Brian Killoran, CEO of the Immigrant Council, links the growth of the far right to several crises gripping Ireland, including a housing emergency and crumbling health services, traced back to the 2008 recession and the period of austerity that followed.

“The far right is a lightning rod,” he told Euronews. “They are harnessing dissatisfaction in communities and blaming migrants when actually there are much bigger structural problems.”

He said the movement was losing sight of the “bigger picture” and proposing “simplistic and short-term solutions”.

Nationalist leader McConnel told Euronews: “We want the Irish Government to completely halt immigration. Deport all foreign criminals in Ireland.”

“Any resources available in Ireland should be given to the indigenous Irish people first,” he continued, suggesting free housing, social welfare, health care and education should be taken away for migrants.

‘Big changes’

Anti-migrant protests have been most common in “ignored and deprived” areas, says researcher Aoife Gallagher – which also happens to be where asylum-seekers are disproportionately housed.

Though organised by a well-established small cadre of agitators, many demonstrators are “ordinary people” protesting for the first time and a significant proportion of them are “working-class women”, she says.

The story of Ireland’s far right is long and convoluted.

Throughout much of its history, Ireland was under the “iron grip” of the Catholic Church, explains Gallagher. Then, during the 90s and 2000s, the country “threw off these shackles” and went through a rapid social liberalisation, legalising abortion and marriage equality.

“The far right is a mixture of the reactionary forces in response to these liberal changes in the country… and the old school Catholic conservatives,” she said.

Yet, external forces are also at play. Using the internet, Ireland’s far-right has been able to “borrow the strategies and tactics” of their European and American counterparts, according to Gallagher.

During the pandemic, the analyst explained how far-right agitators set up anti-vax groups, which later became vehicles for spreading propaganda, ranging from tirades against multiculturalism to conspiracy theories.

Cooperation between the English and Irish far right has been particularly pronounced, with the agitator Tommy Robinson – whose parents were Irish immigrants in London – visiting Ireland in February.

‘A small, but vocal, minority’

Ireland’s far-right remains a minority, on the fringes of politics.

“They have suffered humiliation again and again in elections,” says Killoran of the Immigration Council, though he recognises they “should be taken seriously”.

Meanwhile, there has been significant pushback against the far-right, with counter-demonstrations frequently drawing in much larger crowds.

“There’s a huge movement of support going on that’s not making it into the headlines,” he says. “Good news, unfortunately, doesn’t sell as well as the bad.”

“There’s a risk that we could take this far-right movement as being more representative of some kind of negative public opinion than it is.”

Attitudes towards immigrants in Ireland are among the least positive in Europe. 

Among Irish-born adults, some 58% support white foreigners moving to the country, but only 41% for Muslims and 25% for Roma people, according to a study by the Economic and Social Research Institute.

For the bulk of its history, Ireland was an ethnically homogeneous society. However, over the last 20 years, the country’s population has changed dramatically.

Net migration last year increased to 61,100, while those rates stood at 11,200 in 2021, representing a 445 per cent increase.

The far-right is ultimately a byproduct of Ireland’s failed political system that has failed to get to grips with the multi-pronged crisis gripping the country, claims Gallagher.

The country’s two main political parties – Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael — have ruled for a century.

They are both centrist, with the former appealing to more traditional and working-class voters, while the latter is more secular and pro-business.

“We have had the same parties in power in this country forever,” Gallagher told Euronews. “Generally across the country, there is a feeling that there is no one in power with the solutions needed to bring the country off its knees.”



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