Europe’s far right still loves Putin (particularly the French verson)

[pampango]

Head of the French far-right Front National (FN) party, Marine Le Pen gives a press conference at the FN headquarters in Nanterre on Feb. 6, 2015.

Her popularity is a mark both of increasing French frustration with the political status quo as well as of Le Pen's own efforts to bring her notoriously xenophobic (some would say neo-fascist) party closer to the French mainstream. Yet there are many contexts where Le Pen remains at odds with Europe's liberal consensus. One glaring case in point has to do with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Speaking to a Polish radio station this week, Le Pen took Putin's side in the conflict, hailing Russia as "a natural ally of Europe." She said Moscow's annexation of Crimea last March ought to be recognized by European governments, stressing that the interim government in Kiev at the time "was illegal." She trotted out the Kremlin's talking points on the nature of the revolt that ousted Ukraine's pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych last year, branding the movement as one organized by "Neo-Nazi militants."

Never mind the irony of a far-right European politician warning against neo-Nazism. Le Pen repeated claims she has made for almost a year now that Europe, when it comes to Ukraine, is behaving "like American lackeys." Le Pen sounded the gong again earlier this month: "The aim of the Americans is to start a war in Europe to push NATO to the Russian border," she said.

As WorldViews noted last year, Le Pen is hardly alone in her admiration for Russia under Putin. A whole range of right-wing and ultra-nationalist European politicians share her affection for the Russian leader, whose religious nationalism, conservative values and stated discomfort with the U.S.-authored geopolitical order all appeal to their own brand of politics. ... "It’s beyond irony," a senior figure in the European commission in Brussels tells the Guardian. "You can hear Putin say he had to act in Ukraine to stop fascism, while he’s financing fascists right, left, and centre all over Europe."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2015/02/18/europes-far-right-still-loves-putin/

[Fred Sanders]

1. The neo-Nazis of Kiev are not the same as the racists of France. Uncomfortable bedfellows, maybe.

[pampango]

2. Ideologically what separates them? They are both right wing, nationalist, racist and xenophobic.

One hates Putin the other seems to love him. More than anything that seems to be based on a perception of the immediacy of the threat to national sovereignty posed by Russia.