FRANCE’S far-right National Front has reacted angrily to a claim by one of the country’s biggest anti-racism groups, in the wake of the Norwegian killings, that populist, extreme-right parties “bear a heavy responsibility” for a harmful climate across Europe.
Anti-racism group MRAP said the killings in Norway could not be reduced to the actions of one man and suggested a link between the rise of “populist and extreme right parties” and the “deleterious climate that weights on the whole of Europe”.
A number of senior Socialist Party figures picked up the theme.
Manuel Valls, a candidate in the party’s presidential primary, referred to “a link between the extreme right’s words of hate and the murderer’s violence”.
Party spokesman Benoît Hamon said: “This is where we end up with the ideology of a shock of civilisations, the incompatibility of cultures, the impossibility of building worlds over and above our regular societies: hate, destruction, terrorism.”
In a statement headed “Shame on MRAP”, National Front leader Marine Le Pen accused the group of “taking advantage of a terrible, painful event to attempt to create confusion” and said she would take legal action.
“The National Front of course has nothing to do to the Norwegian slaughter, which is the work of a lone lunatic who must be ruthlessly punished,” she added.
Steeve Briois, the front’s national secretary, described the Norwegian killings as “the work of a madman” and said he was confident in the French people’s ability to “tell the difference”.
While Norwegian investigators have not made any link between Friday’s killings and any groups in France, police in Paris say 300- 400 individuals with extreme-right views are closely watched by the country’s security services.
"It's certain that the Norwegian case will lead Paris to tighten the net around these fringe people," a senior official at the interior ministry yesterday, according to Le Figaro.
The official said “preventative operations” could be expected in the coming days and weeks to keep the pressure on these individuals, as extremist groups had a tendency to recruit in times of crisis.