In France they call it the “cordon sanitaire”, in Germany the “Brandmauer”, or firewall. Throughout Europe in the decades since the second world War the idea reflected a strong political consensus, from mainstream conservatives to the far left, that rejected collaboration with, and most definitely joining government with, the anti-democratic far-right, specifically that with a Nazi past or sympathies.
Not any more. The EU had this week been preparing itself to welcome ministers from an Austrian far-right-led government until coalition talks in Vienna collapsed. Freedom Party demands over support for Russia, the EU and control over intelligence operations were a step too far. A quarter of a century ago the appointment of Freedom Party ministers prompted EU sanctions but now Brussels is already accommodating Italy’s Giorgia Meloni – an only-slightly reformed inheritor of Mussolini’s tradition – and Hungary’s Viktor Orban.
The latter may be facing EU fines and legal action over his erosion of Hungary’s rule of law, but that did not prevent him assuming the EU presidency last year to represent us on the world stage.
Far-right parties also now sit in conservative-led coalitions governing the Netherlands, Finland and Croatia, or as parliamentary props to a government in Sweden. In the Czech Republic one is on track to win elections and lead a coalition later this year. And Belgium has just seen appointed a first government led by a secessionist nationalist party, albeit not far-right.
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“The Trump tornado has changed the world in two weeks. Yesterday we were the heretics; today we’re mainstream. People thought we represented the past; today everyone sees that we are the future,” a gleeful Orban told a Madrid rally of fellow far-right leaders last weekend. Their electoral success and ability to eclipse or cannibalise centre-right parties across Europe has seen the latter and the EU, as Orban is quick to point out, increasingly embrace hard-right migration policies, tighter border controls and more deportations of asylum seekers.
The French prime minister horrified centrist allies and the left alike by embracing National Rally language on immigrants
Perhaps most dramatically, the taboo on collaborating with the far-right has in the last fortnight been breached in Germany and France, when the conservative opposition Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the governing centre-right administration of François Bayrou have relied on the far-right to swing key parliamentary votes.
Abstentions by National Rally (RN), the former Front National, on a vote of no-confidence last week saved Bayrou’s budget and ensured a new lease of life for his minority government, while the prime minister, in what is seen as a cynical quid pro quo for that support, horrified centrist allies and the left alike by embracing RN language on immigrants. He warned of a “feeling of submersion” by immigrants that he said was growing across the country and called for a national debate on what it meant to be French. His justice minister Gérald Darmanin has urged the amendment of the constitution to end automatic citizenship for anyone born and raised in France – a right known as jus soli (“right of soil”).
Bayrou last week moved to abolish that right for migrants arriving in Mayotte, a French territory in the Indian Ocean. He claimed that the island and Guiana, another French territory, faced “thousands and thousands of people arriving with the idea that, if they have children there, they will be French ... All this needs to be reconsidered.” All grist to the National Rally mill. Bruno Retailleau, the hardline interior minister, said aspiring citizens have to uphold republican values and share “a common destiny” with the country’s people.
The Socialists – on whose support Bayrou also relied last week in the divided parliament – spoke out against abolishing jus soli, however. They may yet bring down this government, which is increasingly beholden to the RN.
Meanwhile, leader of far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), Alice Weidel, triumphantly hailed “a historic day for Germany” as the Bundestag, for the first time in its history, passed a vote with the backing of her far-right party. It is second in the polls just weeks before this month‘s elections.
CDU leader Friedrich Merz, blaming the Social Democrat-led government for a series of fatal attacks for which foreign nationals are the chief suspects, secured a narrow majority with the AfD for resolutions demanding permanent border controls, powers to deport criminal foreign nationals and indefinite deportation detention. Former party leader Angela Merkel denounced the move.
In response, large demonstrations took place across Germany, including more than 200,000 in Munich, under the slogan “democracy needs you” and warning against any collaboration with the AfD.
Desperate to win voters back from the far-right and to hold on to power without coalescing with the left, Europe’s centre-right parties are playing a dangerous game, gambling that they can control and subdue that far right. History suggests that such pacts with the devil end badly.
