All posts tagged: Far Right

Far-right Portugal politician faces luggage-theft charges – POLITICO

Far-right Portugal politician faces luggage-theft charges – POLITICO

Portuguese politician Miguel Arruda is out of the far-right Chega party after being accused of stealing suitcases from airport luggage carousels in a bizarre case that includes widely aired video footage and charges of AI manipulation. Arruda said he decided to stay in the parliament as an independent MP, leaving Chega, a populist, far-right party that has grown to become Portugal’s third-largest political force.  Police on Tuesday charged Arruda with luggage theft after missing suitcases were allegedly found at his home, several Portuguese news outlets reported. One outlet, Expresso, said police found 17 suitcases in his home. Source link

Far-Right Extremists Are LARPing as Emergency Workers in Los Angeles

Far-Right Extremists Are LARPing as Emergency Workers in Los Angeles

Extremists including white supremacists and border livestreamers have descended on Los Angeles in the midst of the wildfires there to gain followers, juice social media engagement, solicit donations and, experts claim, recruit new members, while in some cases LARPing as emergency workers. This past weekend Ryan Sánchez and three other members of his Nationalist Network group set up shop at the entrance to Santa Monica Pier. Sánchez, who was caught on video giving a Nazi salute during last year’s Conservative Political Action Conference, and his crew had driven overnight from Arizona, where they live. Sánchez, who was a member of the now-defunct white supremacist fight club known as the Rise Above Movement, is an ally of white supremacist Nick Fuentes and is sometimes known by his online moniker “Culture War Criminal.” Sánchez, who did not respond to WIRED’s requests for comment, claims on his social media accounts that his group “got much more support than anticipated” and said that all of the donations were given to the Bob Hope Patriotic Hall, a building said to …

The Rise of the Austrian Far Right | Jan-Werner Müller

The Rise of the Austrian Far Right | Jan-Werner Müller

Vienna regularly ranks among the world’s most livable cities. A long tradition of municipal government by Social Democrats has made for famously affordable housing and well-run infrastructure. There is also a level of diversity that conjures up nostalgic images of the Habsburg empire as a haven of tolerance, or what Joseph Roth called an Übernation containing many nations: 40 percent of Vienna’s residents were born abroad. The rest of the Alpine Republic—much of it significantly more conservative—isn’t so bad either. A 2022 poll in Der Standard found that a clear majority of Austrians approve of their quality of life as a whole. Yet the far right prevailed in the recent Austrian parliamentary elections—a first in the country’s postwar history. The victorious Freedom Party (FPÖ) might not come to power, though. To the outrage of the far right and its supporters, President Alexander Van der Bellen, of the Green Party, has asked the biggest loser of the vote, sitting chancellor Karl Nehammer, of the center-right People’s Party (ÖVP), to form a new government. After weeks of “exploratory talks,” the ÖVP is now in …

Tommy Robinson and the evolution of Britain’s far right – podcast | News

Tommy Robinson and the evolution of Britain’s far right – podcast | News

On 29 July, Stephen Yaxley-Lennon was due in court for repeating libellous allegations about Jamal Hijazi, a teenage Syrian refugee who was attacked on a playing field in West Yorkshire. Instead, he was in a hotel in Cyprus. Following the murder of three girls in Southport that day, Yaxley-Lennon, who uses the pseudonym Tommy Robinson, took to social media to spread misinformation and Islamophobic rhetoric. As mosques and hotels with asylum seekers inside were targeted, Yaxley-Lennon tried to distance himself from the violence. “Tommy Robinson has become an avatar for the far right,” Ben Quinn, senior reporter for the Guardian, tells Helen Pidd. Yaxley-Lennon has been a far-right public figure for 20 years. In that time, the movement has become less organised and more splintered. “What matters these days, particularly in the world of social media, is the ability of particular individuals to reach out to young men, in particular,” Quinn tells Pidd. “And Tommy Robinson is particularly good at that.” Photograph: Chris J Ratcliffe/Reuters Support The Guardian The Guardian is editorially independent. And we …

France kicks off accelerated campaign after Macron’s legislative poll gamble

France kicks off accelerated campaign after Macron’s legislative poll gamble

France began a frantically short election campaign Monday, with President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist alliance facing an uphill struggle to avoid a new defeat at the hands of the far right. Issued on: 17/06/2024 – 07:21Modified: 17/06/2024 – 13:32 3 min Macron called the snap parliamentary polls three years early in a dramatic gamble to shake up politics in France after the far right trounced his centrists in EU elections. But with less than a fortnight before the vote, his alliance risks being squeezed by new coalitions on the left and right. Many in France remain baffled over why Macron called an election just weeks before the country hosts the Olympics, risking the far-right National Rally (RN) leading the government and 28-year-old Jordan Bardella becoming prime minister. “Emmanuel Macron, who triggered this dissolution to trap the parties, has ended up trapping himself,” said Le Monde daily, warning that the RN risked winning the election. Candidates had until Sunday evening to register for the 577 seats in the lower house National Assembly ahead of the official start of …

Former president Hollande makes surprise comeback in French election

Former president Hollande makes surprise comeback in French election

Former French Socialist president Francois Hollande on Saturday said he will run for parliament again, the latest political twist after his successor Emmanuel Macron unexpectedly called snap legislative elections. Issued on: 15/06/2024 – 18:35Modified: 15/06/2024 – 22:41 3 min Macron’s dissolving of parliament after the French far right’s victory in European parliamentary elections has swiftly redrawn the lines of French politics. A new left-wing alliance has emerged and the main right-wing party’s leader has announced he is prepared to back an alliance with the far right, sparking in-fighting within his party. On Saturday, police estimated that a quarter of a million people protested across France against the prospect of the far right coming to power. But it is far from sure that the fortunes of the far right will diminish in the legislative elections. Hollande, France’s president from 2012-2017, left office with record levels of unpopularity. He is hated by parts of the radical left and even the Socialist leadership regards him with suspicion. He said he would stand as an MP for the southwestern …

French right fractures ahead of Macron’s snap poll as left launches ‘New Popular Front’

French right fractures ahead of Macron’s snap poll as left launches ‘New Popular Front’

French right-wing parties were mired by infighting Thursday as campaigning intensified for snap elections called by President Emmanuel Macron, but his government faces a more unified challenge from the left. Issued on: 13/06/2024 – 12:25Modified: 13/06/2024 – 22:48 3 min Macron’s gamble on early elections comes two years after he failed to secure a majority in parliament to buttress his second presidential term. It risks strengthening the far-right National Rally (RN) and has sparked a meltdown among traditional conservatives. Eric Ciotti of the mainstream right Republicans party announced a surprise alliance with the RN this week, which prompted the rest of the leadership team to vote him out Wednesday. 04:57 © FRANCE 24 But on Thursday Ciotti insisted he was still party leader, dismissing the effort to oust him as “quibbles, little battles by mediocre people… who understand nothing about what’s going on in the country”, adding that it was legally void. “I’m president of the party, I’m going to my office and that’s it,” Ciotti told reporters as he arrived at Republicans headquarters in …

Marion Maréchal battles the woke agenda, ‘Islamification’ in European elections

Marion Maréchal battles the woke agenda, ‘Islamification’ in European elections

France’s Marion Maréchal has made the “defence” of European civilisation and fighting against the “Islamification” of Europe a cornerstone of her platform as she leads the far-right Reconquest party’s candidate list in the European elections. Maréchal is the granddaughter of Jean-Marie Le Pen, who founded the far-right National Front, and the niece of Marine Le Pen, who leads the National Rally party, as the National Front was rebranded in 2018. Issued on: 31/05/2024 – 14:31 4 min In the run-up to the June 6-9 elections for the European Parliament, national tragedies and dramatic crimes have provided opportunities to send a political message. A day after two officers were killed in an armed attack on a prison van that helped drug kingpin Mohamed Amra escape, Marion Maréchal went to the Bordeaux-Gradignan prison facility, a visit she recorded on social media. Maréchal was seen chatting with officers at this notoriously overcrowded prison that houses twice the number of inmates it is designed for. Photos were quickly posted on X, Facebook and Instagram. They show the candidate listening …

Who votes for the European far right? And why? – POLITICO

Who votes for the European far right? And why? – POLITICO

As recent national elections in several European countries have shown, far-right voters no longer fit the stereotype of the angry, old white man, but now often include women, young people and even migrants. In this episode we unpack what drives voters to abandon the mainstream and more traditional party loyalties for the far right, and how poverty, or fear of it, motivates typical supporters of the AfD in Germany, Geert Wilder’s PVV in the Netherlands, or Chega in Portugal. Host Sarah Wheaton is joined by POLITICO reporters Hanne Cokelaere, James Angelos and Aitor Hernandez-Morales, who were recently dispatched to countries where far-right parties are gaining ground ahead of June’s European election. Later on we have a fascinating conversation with Catherine de Vries, professor of political science and dean of international affairs at Bocconi University in Milan. Her research focuses on how economic hardship and problems with public services such as schools, health care or transport can fuel the far right. Further reading: Germany’s far-right believers blame spy claims on ‘witch hunt’ by James Angelos Portugal’s …

Croatia election winner cozies up with far right in new government – POLITICO

Croatia election winner cozies up with far right in new government – POLITICO

The Homeland Movement — or DP — was formed by nationalist crooner Miroslav Škoro in 2020 to provide a more patriotic and far-right alternative to HDZ, arguably Croatia’s most powerful party, which underwent major restructuring under Plenković. “Plenković made a significant effort to expel and neutralize far-right figures from HDZ, but now a lot of those who were affiliated with HDZ are part of the Homeland Movement,” Hrvoje Klasić, a historian and expert on the far right in Croatia, told POLITICO. Škoro has since been ousted from the party, and while DP members claim to have softened their approach to certain topics, the party remains synonymous with hardline, socially conservative ideas. “A lot of the voters who used to support HDZ now vote for the Homeland Movement. If, say, Plenković was removed and someone more right-wing came back to HDZ, then the Homeland Movement would completely lose its support,” he continued. Plenković — just like Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni — has, since April’s election, placed himself on his HZD’s list of candidates for June’s …