In France, the extreme right is on the threshold of gaining power. Even if he fails, he will be the biggest political force in the country, which just won’t have an absolute majority and will face a motley coalition. So he will essentially be waiting for the presidential election, with a vastly improved chance of winning the presidency with all that regression not only of the country, but also of Europe as a whole.
And it’s not just France. Italy is ruled by a prime minister whose ideological reference point was the historical trend of nostalgia for Mussolini. In a number of other countries, far-right regulators. But also we have in every election the percentage of the far right is cumulatively increasing.
Although many are still – hypocritically – surprised, this is essentially a pre-announced deviation. why some of her paved the way, the far right does not occupy such a position in Europe by themselves. Someone pushed her there, someone helped her gain such influence.
She was helped at first by all those who for years were indifferent to the poorer strata of society, considering them simply expendable material for development and leaving them in their fears and anxieties on the economic and social sidelines, gradually making them the audience of Far Right.
This has been aided by all those who have dismissed wider concerns about the erosion of popular sovereignty by the dynamics of globalization, allowing the far-right to confront nationalism and racism as a response.
She was aided by all those who thought that the only truly acceptable ideology was that of the “Center,” which in practice translates to “living things as they are,” something with which many people obviously could not identify.
She was helped by all those who fought, attacked, slandered and abused concepts such as solidarity, social justice, redistribution of wealth, social change, in favor of cynical individualism and neoliberalism, which once again allowed far-right populism to appear “anti-system”.
She was helped by everyone who believed that the way to limit the influence of the far right was to implement immigration and refugee policies, “fences” and push back.
Everyone helped her they have led the left and the democratic space in general to fragmentation in retreat and often in disrepute, especially when they pursued policies not dissimilar to those of the (extreme) right.
This has been helped by all those who celebrate the end of great ideologies, invest in an individualistic and narcissistic society, hide history, accept – often veiled – far-right rhetoric, becoming more and more familiar, mainly with reduced education, and thus resistance and crisis , parts of society with the monster of post-fascist (more precisely, secret-fascist) ideology.
This has been helped by all those who even now chew on empty phrases and recycle all kinds of ambitions instead of trying to see how a faction can re-emerge that can present a different policy that responds to the needs of the social majority, that is, the middle. class and popular strata.
Because it’s simple: history has shown that the answer to the far right is neither the center right nor the center (which is often the “extreme center”). instead, these spaces probably pave the way for the far right.
The answer can only be given by a renewed democratic space capable of combining the demands of democracy with the demands of social justice, forming a public alliance of the majority, capable not only of stopping the social cannibalism of the extreme right, but also of responding to the suffering of society.