Europe's
Far Right Seeks To Exploit Post-Paris Attack Fears
Populist
politicians have called for closed borders following last week's
tragedy.
Nick Robins-Early
World Reporter, The
Huffington Post
Posted: 11/18/2015
06:10 PM EST
In the wake of the
Paris terror attacks that killed at least 129 people on Friday,
Europe's nationalist parties have renewed calls for borders to be
closed and are using the attacks to bolster support for their
opposition to the European Union's immigration policy.
On Monday, Marine le
Pen, leader of the French National Front party, issued a statement
declaring that France should immediately stop taking in refugees and
migrants over security fears. This followed Le Pen's remarks two days
earlier that the country had to "regain control" of its
borders, as well as deport all undocumented immigrants.
Elsewhere in the
European Union, far-right leaders echoed Le Pen's sentiments.
"We don't think
that everyone is a terrorist but no one can say how many terrorists
have arrived already, how many are coming day by day," Hungary's
Prime Minister Viktor Orban said in an address to the nation's
parliament on Monday.
"Those who said
yes to immigration, who transported immigrants from war zones, those
people did not do everything for the defense of European people,"
he said.
Hungarian Prime
Minister Viktor Orban is against allowing refugees into Europe.
Orban has been one
of the most staunch opponents to allowing refugees and migrants into
Europe, erecting an $80 million fence to prevent them from crossing
into his country, and rejecting EU resettlement plan proposals. His
personal approval ratings and support for his ruling Fidesz party
have gone up during the course of the crisis.
Far-right
politicians in the Netherlands, Britain, Belgium and other nations
added to the rhetoric this week, conflating the migration crisis with
threats to security.
Dutch anti-Islam,
anti-immigration Party of Freedom leader Geert Wilders directed a
statement to the Netherlands' Prime Minister Mark Rutte urging him to
immediately close the nation's borders and "protect the Dutch
people."
Poland's
newly-elected government made perhaps the most tangible policy change
out of the far-right parties after the attacks, saying that it would
no longer go ahead with plans to resettle thousands of refugees due
to security concerns. The nation's foreign minister suggested that
instead of being resettled refugees could perhaps be formed into an
army that could fight for freedom in Syria.
The link between the
refugee crisis and the Paris attacks relates to European authorities'
statements that one of the attackers entered the continent posing as
a refugee. Fingerprints of one of the attackers matched those taken
from someone who passed through the Greek island of Leros in October,
and then Serbia later in the month. A Syrian passport, which
authorities say is likely fake, was found near the assailant's body.
Germany's interior
minister Thomas de Maiziere also raised the possibility that the
Islamic State militants who claimed responsibility for the Paris
terrorist attacks had intentionally planted the passport to foment
fear of refugees in Europe.
Human rights experts
have said the possibility that militants may be embedding with
refugees highlights a further need for a unified EU policy to address
the unregulated migration toward Europe. Far-right parties have
balked at such proposals, which involve distributing the hundreds of
thousands of people currently seeking asylum more equitably across
European nations.
Anti-EU leaders,
such as Hungary's Orban, say that the quota system is an unjust
imposition and have vowed to fight against it.
Some analysts have
criticized nationalist parties for engaging in rhetoric that
ultimately aids the Islamic State's wider propaganda goals, and could
potentially lead to radicalization within Muslim communities.
“Anti-Muslim and
anti-refugee sentiment really play into ISIS hands," Shadi
Hamid, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution think tank and
author on Islamist politics, told The WorldPost. "The more that
happens, the more French Muslims feel alienated and are susceptible
to extremist recruitment."
While the Paris
attacks are the latest event eurosceptic political parties are using
to call for anti-immigration policies to be implemented, Europe's
populist conservative political movement has advocated for tighter
immigration controls since at least the 1980s.
These parties have
until fairly recently operated mostly on the fringe of European
politics, but amid increasing criticism of the EU and concern over
rising immigration, many have become politically powerful in recent
years.
The refugee crisis,
which has resulted primarily from Syria's civil war and the
subsequent lack of a coherent EU response has been a boon for anti-EU
politicians. In countries that have openly accepted refugees, such as
Germany, anti-immigration parties have drastically risen in the
polls.
Few eurosceptic
parties have been elected to run governments, but analysts of
European politics note that their popularity has undercut more
moderate conservatives and forced the political agenda to the right.
Far-right parties,
however, have largely failed to get enough traction to actually shift
government policy after the Paris attack. Indeed, French President
Francois Hollande vowed on Wednesday that the country would accept
30,000 refugees.
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