In recent years, Europe has seen a surge in far right parties, ideologies, and politicians. Their platform is often based around anti-immigration and anti-E.U. policies. With growing distaste over the European Union, the handling of the migrant crisis in Europe, as well as a surge in terrorist attacks in Europe, these far right parties have capitalized on these events and have won major seats in local, parliamentary, and national elections. Unfortunately, during these elections, candidates have touted Islamophobic, anti-Semitic, and xenophobic policies that have contributed to a growingly intolerant society in European nations, and it is speculated that in the future there will be a return to nationalist politics (Stokes, 2016). With these major wins, Muslims, immigrants, and Jews in France and across Europe will have to deal with more hate and discriminatory policies for years to come.
The European Union has received a lot backlash from its constituents in recent years. Despite the fact that the Euro crisis began almost a decade ago, many E.U. countries, especially the southern periphery states, such as Greece and Spain, have yet to recover and rebuild their economies (Pew, 2014). High unemployment rates, especially amongst the youth, has contributed to great dissatisfaction, anger, and unrest. With civil and economic unrest in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, hundreds of thousands of migrants and refugees have come into Europe (Taub, 2015). While there is a great moral obligation to take these refugees in and help, many countries are financially unable to take them in – even Germany, the most powerful country in the E.U., is struggling to support the recent migrants and have requested that more countries take in migrants.
Unfortunately, the debate around the migrant crisis has racist and Islamophobic undertones, as many leaders have argued that migrants are a safety threat and that Muslim immigrants will not be able to successfully assimilate into their new countries. In many regards, the E.U. has failed to properly address these major issues, allowing far right groups to come in and gain traction amongst the populace. Multiple countries have been pressuring the E.U. to revisit their application distribution of its immigrants – previous laws intended for immigrants to stay in the countries that they first arrive in, but these laws are dysfunctional as countries that are geographically closer to Northern Africa find themselves hosting more immigrants that they can handle, such as Greece, whose proximity leaves them subject to huge influxes of Muslim immigrants (Traynor 2016). These laws have caused a large disproportion of Muslim populations that have since been causing instability in Europe.
This past year, all eyes turned towards Europe as major elections and political changes took place across the continent. The 2017 French presidential elections were especially critical in regards to Muslim immigration, as Marine Le Pen, a major candidate and member of the right wing National Front party, campaigned on a strong anti-E.U., anti-immigration platform, while utilizing anti-Muslim rhetoric (New York Times, 2017). Islamophobia became much of the basis for far right movements in French politics over the course of the election. Among many things, Le Pen promised to leave the E.U., slow the flow of immigrants and refugees coming into France, and ban all religious symbols, such as hijabs and yarmulkes from being worn in public. In fact, many feared that if France left the European Union, the European Union itself would end, as Great Britain, who is already moving to officially exit the Union, and France are some of its major members. As France is the nation with the highest Muslim population in Europe, Le Pen being a front-runner was especially concerning.
The aforementioned anti-Muslim campaigns and antipathic rhetoric seen throughout the French presidential elections have had dire consequences for Muslim immigrants and refugees attempting to assimilate throughout the West. Although Emmanuel Macron, a centrist, eventually won the election, far-right movements continued to persist and gain momentum in other European countries – in September, the far-right German party, Alternative for Germany, “won more than 90 seats in the German Parliament, making it the third-largest bloc in the legislature” (Eddy, 2017), and in Austria, Sebastian Kurz, a far right candidate who touted anti-immigrant rhetoric (Schumacher, 2017), is expected to have won the national elections. The prevalence of Islamophobia tied into populist, far-right movements is not exclusive to Europe – the United States has also seen an extreme surge of anti-Muslim hate crimes since campaigning for its own presidential elections began in 2015, and in 2016, hate crimes rose more than 20 percent, with bias crimes against Muslims, along with other groups, accounting for much of the growth (Smith and Trotta, 2017).
However, France is made unique in the ways it regards its Muslim citizens and residents because it, alongside Germany, has the largest Muslim population amongst European Union member countries (Hackett, 2016). This allows far-right groups to make both examples and a weapon of France – they are able to blame France’s large Muslim populations for instability and crimes like terrorism, and are able to use French anti-Muslim sentiment, such as the language that was used by Le Pen during the French presidential elections, to justify their own Islamophobia. The far-right groups of the West are able to point to French anti-Muslim sentiment as being legitimate because France’s Muslim population is so large – far-right groups are able to further the idea that, because France has large amounts of Muslim immigrants and refugees, French Islamophobia is valid because it stems from experience. This puts France is an extremely unique position when speaking about Muslim immigrants and refugees. Far-right movements have only continued to grow and spread since the French presidential elections – from neo-Nazi groups in the United States to the success of Alternative for Germany, populist, radical far-right movements are peaking in polls, with results close to, or higher than, their historical top scores (Mudde, 2017). France must recognize its position within international politics, and be self-aware in its language, policies, and campaigns.
References:
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Mudde, Cas. “What the stunning success of AfD means for Germany and Europe | Cas Mudde.”
The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 24 Sept. 2017, www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/sep/24/germany-elections-afd-europe-immigration-merkel-radical-right.
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