Herbert Kickl relishes the attacks on him, many relating to the party’s alleged sympathy towards the Nazis. They show his opponents in Austria’s “mainstream” politics, his supporters say, as oversensitive and even anti-democratic in rejecting his right to speak what they say are unpalatable truths.
The leader of Austria’s far-right Freedom Party (FPÖ) is revelling in its big weekend parliamentary election victory, winning 29 per cent of the vote and eclipsing both the outgoing ruling centre-right People’s Party (ÖVP) and the left-wing SPÖ. He won precisely by not hiding his politics under a bushel. Kickl has even embraced the idea of “remigration”, forcibly deporting even Austrian nationals of foreign extraction.
The remorseless march of the nationalist, anti-immigrant right continues across Europe. Kickl, pursuing a political platform that has tacked hard to the right, has found success like Geert Wilders in the Netherlands and the Alternative for Germany (AfD) in Germany, without detoxifying their brand or moderating positions. In comparison, Italy’s Georgia Meloni and France’s Marine Le Pen look like moderates.
A year of far-right gains opened with Robert Fico in Slovakia last September, then Wilders two months later. France’s Rassemblement National notched up its highest ever tally in the National Assembly in July while last month AfD topped the poll in the eastern state of Thuringia. In 2025 Czech nationalist Andrej Babiš, whose ANO party is aligned with the FPÖ, is looking to emulate its success. The drift has already hardened attitudes to immigration across Europe.
Kickl, whose party has been in a coalition government before, says the vote opens the door to a “new era”. But he is not yet in government this time. His party is some way from achieving a majority in parliament and its former partner, the ÖVP, is currently saying it will not support an FPÖ-led government. Nor will the left. A coalition involving the centre, left and greens could put together a majority but might prove unstable. A period of hard bargaining is now likely.