Burqa Politics in France

What happens when feminism and sexual liberation become tools for nationalism?

By Michelle Goldberg
The American Prospect

Photo used under Creative Commons license, courtesy of Flickr user superblinkymac.

On Monday, Nicolas Sarkozy became the first French president since Charles Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte to address the Parliament, thanks to recent reforms that scrapped a 19th-century law meant to protect the independence of the legislature. Given the occasion, it was rather odd that Sarkozy's strongest words were reserved for denouncing a garment that hardly any women in France wear. The burqa, he said, "is a sign of the subjugation, of the submission, of women." It is, he added, "not welcome in France." Headscarves have been banned in French schools since 2004. Now Sarkozy wants to go much further, banning burqas, loose, full-body veils that cover women entirely, as well as niqabs, or face veils, from being worn anywhere in public.

This was partly a rebuke to Obama, who outraged the French with parts of his Cairo speech. When Obama said that he rejects "the view of some in the West that a woman who chooses to cover her hair is somehow less equal," many people in France heard a shot at the country's republican laïcité, which demands that faith be wholly relegated to the private sphere. "There was a "great outcry and a sense of being gravely insulted," says Joan Scott, a historian at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, and author of the 2007 book The Politics of the Veil. "I think you can't read Sarkozy's words as anything but a response to that."

Perhaps more important than the anger itself was the opportunity it created, giving Sarkozy a chance to reach out to the anti-immigrant French right without offending the left. The clothing of Muslim women has long been a contentious political issue in France, as well as in several other European countries. The debate about headscarves, veils and burqas is a synecdoche for larger, more fraught questions of cultural identity in the age of mass Muslim immigration. Islam is changing European life in a way that makes many Europeans unhappy, but it's hard for Europeans to talk about without seeming racist or xenophobic. The one place where Europeans do feel confident about defending the superiority of their own culture is in sexual matters. Feminism and sexual liberation become tools of nationalism.

We saw this most clearly with Pim Fortuyn, the flamboyant, anti-immigrant politician who nearly became prime minister of the Netherlands before his 2002 assassination. Fortuyn crusaded against the threat he claimed Muslim immigrants posed to the famously tolerant Dutch culture. He spoke of men suddenly being afraid to hold hands in the streets, of teachers reluctant to admit their homosexuality to immigrant students. "I have no desire," he told a reporter, "to have to go through the emancipation of women and homosexuals all over again."...(Remainder.)

Belgian Headscarf Ban Sparks Heated Reactions

Many Muslim girls who wear a headscarf feel targeted by the measure.

By Expatica.com

The state secondary schools in Antwerp and Hoboken (also part of Antwerp) are in the midst of heated discussion regarding a decision taken by the school administration to ban all religious symbols from the next school year.

The principal of the state secondary school in Antwerp, Karin Heremans, explains that the decision to ban religious symbols stemmed from a growing pressure on Muslim girls to wear veils, even if they don't want to. The idea behind the ban is to take away the growing peer pressure.

When Karin Heremans addressed the students in the courtyard to explain the measure her words were met with booing. The police were massively present in the neighbourhood, but no incidents were reported.

During a protest action in the school the Antwerp imam Nordine Taouil, also chairman of the Muslim Executive, called on muslim parents to keep their children at home and not send them to school as long as there is a ban on headscarves. "I'm calling on all parents, muslim parents, not to send their children to school from the first of September until our rights are guaranteed," said the imam.

Other muslim associations are more moderate, but they are also protesting against the new school regulation. They do not back the imam's call to keep children at home.

Flemish nationalists especially are vocal about their disappointment

The Flemish conservative nationalist N-VA party (the big winners of the recent regional elections), thinks the imam has gone too far. The N-VA labels the imam's call to keep children at home "irresponsible".

"Mr Taouil talks about rights, but there are other rights too. Like the right of children to get an education," says Flemish MP Kris Van Dijck....(Remainder.)

Battle of the Burka

Photo: AFP

By Presseurop

Whether it's the burka in France, or the niqab or headscarf in Belgium, the debate about whether to ban certain Islamic forms of dress is back on the European agenda. The European press has been weighing up the issue at a national level about the need to legislate or not.

In France, the debate on burkas (long robes that entirely cover the face and body worn by some Muslim women) was recently relaunched by a communist member of parliament.  On 17 June, André Gerin submitted a proposal to create "a parliamentary commission of enquiry on the wearing of burkas or niqabs [which reveal the area around the eyes] on French national territory." A few days later, at a congress that brought together both houses of the French parliament in Versailles, President Sarkozy announced his position when he declared that "Burkas are not welcome on French national territory."

In the Daily Telegraph Cassandra Jardine wonders what would happen if the Queen of England went before a combined meeting of the House of Lords and Commons to announce that her government intended to "ban the burka?" Nothing of the kind is likely to happen in a country that tolerates the wearing of religious symbols, though the idea might be favourably received by some members of the Muslim community. Dr Taj Hargey of the Muslim Education Centre of Oxford praises the French President's initiative, and describes the growing belief that Muslim women should cover their faces as "doctrinaire brain-washing." Other Muslims were outraged to the point where they wondered if Nicolas Sarkozy had ever spoken to any of France's four million Muslims. They were also puzzled by the fact that he should choose to target the burka, which is only worn by 5% of Muslim women. Muslim News journalist Ahmed Versi remarks that when Labour Minister Jack Straw complained that he felt "uncomfortable" talking to someone whose face he could not see, “more women began to wear veils just to defy him.”

In France, there is a consensus that an enquiry should be undertaken to establish the extent of the phenomenon which jars with French social and cultural mores, but commentators have expressed doubts about the usefulness of a legalistic approach. In Le Monde, Hassan Safoui, the leader of the 15 March Committee, an association which advises Muslim schoolgirls on the 2004 law banning religious symbols in schools, questions the ability of legislation "to draw a distinction between someone who is forced to wear a burka and someone who wears one voluntarily." With a view to identifying people, managers of some public buildings like town halls, railway stations and banks, can refuse access to people wearing burkas or niqabs. But is it possible to regulate what adults wear in the street, without specifically targeting Muslims?...(Remainder.)

Our New Apartment

As many of you will all ready know, Jan and I recently moved from the house we were renting to an apartment near the center of Antwerp. The neighborhood we've moved to it kind of hip and trendy, with lots of cool restaurants and shops. To give you kind of a general overview, and I mean "OVERVIEW," I've mapped when we've moved to on Google Maps:

View Larger Map
Here are some pictures of our new place. Please ignore the big mountain of junk is a couple of the pictures, we've only been here for a few days, and we're still getting organized.

Far-Right Having Difficulty Clubbing Together in EU Parliament

By Leigh Phillips
EU Observer

BRUSSELS - Like chocolate and mustard, or orange juice and toothpaste, the various flavours of far right in the new European Parliament just don't seem to go together and are already having trouble cooking up a united bloc in the chamber, despite the gains the extremists made in the European elections on the weekend.

The ‘softer' far-right parties so far seem more interested in jumping aboard the UK Tories' proposed European Conservatives grouping than cobbling together a nationalist bloc, but it is an open question whether the attraction will be requited.

The European elections on the weekend delivered a moderate advance of eight seats on the number of MEPs in the last parliament, eliciting fears that they might club together in a political grouping in the parliament, a move that would open a tap to thousands of euros in EU funds.

However, while it is still too early to make any definitive predictions, there seems to be an unbreachable antagonism between the more moderate parties and their cousins further to the right.

Some of the new MEPs from the likes of Dutchman Geert Wilders' Freedom Party (PVV) or the Danish People's Party may well be opposed to migrants, Muslims and minorities, but they are reluctant to embrace the militant nationalism of the more classically ‘fascistic' parties such as the British National Party, France's Front National or newcomer Jobbik from Hungary, with its paramilitary Hungarian Guard straight out of the 1930s.

At the same time, even such a division - the far-right ‘classic' and far-right ‘lite' as Glyn Ford, centre-left MEP and longtime monitor of parties to the right of the conservative mainstream, describes the two rough wings of European extremism - simplifies a situation that is further complicated by personal rivalries, competing nationalist narratives and in some cases just an inability to play together nicely....(Click for remainder.)

March of the Greens?

By Renard Sexton
FiveThirtyEight

The end of the speculation is near in the European elections, with final results from four days of voting to be released this evening at 20:00 GMT. In the meantime, we'll take a look at a curious trend regarding the protest vote and small parties in Europe - something that has possibly played into this cycle of voting.

The buzz around western Europe has been that in France and elsewhere, the Greens are on the move. With a charismatic leader in Daniel Cohn-Bendit (French-German fellow), and widespread dissatisfaction with the larger parties in France (and Germany), many people are looking at Les Verts as a good "lefty" option, but without the ugly party politics of the Socialists or Communists. Particularly among the young, green social democracy has become a new leftward movement, fueled in part by frustration with the mainstream system, and the recognition that environment damage, particularly climate change and natural resource depletion are the burden of the younger generation.

It turns out, however, that a "green" sensibility has a lot more power at the European level than at the national level in most big EU countries.

Across each of the four largest delegations to the European Parliament, green factions outstrip their national counterparts by wide margins. Only in Germany do Die Grünen have a significant presence, where green politics have made great inroads to the mainstream left since the reunification in the early 1990s. Perhaps green movements, which recognize the need for cooperative global action on issues such as climate change, are the pragmatic new leaders of the pan-European movement, following the first wave of economic liberals and trade integrationists?

Perhaps. It also turns out that far-right/right wing & nationalists are also far more powerful at the European level than they are at home.*

(Click for remainder.)

Far Right Make Gains in Ten Member States

By Leigh Phillips
EU Observer

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Across Europe, the far right is on the march, claiming increased numbers of seats in ten different member states. However, in Belgium, France and Poland, the far right saw some significant losses as well.

In total, the far right is up eight seats on the 2004 European elections.

In Austria, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Romania and the UK, the far right made moderate to significant advances.

However, the extreme right saw sharp declines in Belgium, and France, and were completely wiped out in Poland.

While the far right across Europe made significant gains, in France, Jean Marie Le Pen's Front National lost four seats (Photo: Wikipedia)

"The far right growth is a really bad sign, and this is clearly linked to the economic crash," Gerry Gable, the editor of Searchlight, a long-standing anti-fascist monthly magazine out of the UK, where the British National Party elected its first-ever MEP, told EUobserver.

"This is the entirely predictable result of the social fall-out of the financial crisis," he added. "It's a particularly worrying trend, especially in Austria and the Netherlands."

The Netherlands leads the way with four seats for the anti-immigrant and anti-Islam Freedom Party of the platinum blond Geert Wilders, the producer of the notorious Muslim-baiting film short Fitna.

Austria as well delivered two seats to the identically named Freedom Party, up one seat from 2004 and winning 13.4 percent of the vote.

The BVO of the late Joerg Haider, a breakaway from the FPO, however was denied any representation in the European Parliament, although it did manage to win the support of 4.6 percent of voters.

Together, Austria's far right won a clean 18 percent.

Hungary too returned three MEPs from the Movement for the Better Hungary, or Jobbik, on some 15 percent of the vote. The group is the founder of the Hungarian Guard, a paramilitary outfit whose uniforms recall the Nazi youth organisations from Europe's darkest days....(Click for remainder.)

EU Voters Punish Leftist Parties

By Al Jazeera English

The European parliament appeared set for a shift to the right after voters turned away from leftist parties in elections for the 736-member assembly.

Early results and exit polls on Sunday showed conservative parties and the far-right making gains in many of the 27 nations at the expense of left-leaning parties.

Graham Watson, the leader of the centre-right Liberal Democrat grouping in the parliament, said early results suggested a rejection of the Socialist approach.

"People don't want a return to socialism and that's why the majority here will be a centre-right majority," he said.

The citizens of 19 nations went to the polls on Sunday, after the other eight EU nations had voted in the huge transnational election earlier in the week.

But the election was marked by voter apathy, with just 43.01 per cent of the 375 million eligible voters casting their ballots compared with 45.47 per cent at the last election in 2004, according to a survey by TNS-Opinion pollsters.

Conservative success

In Germany, the conservatives of Angela Merkel, the Chancellor, seemed likely to emerge as the largest party group, raising hopes that they will be able to dispense with the left-right "grand coalition" after a general election in four months....(Click for remainder.)

Swedish Pirate Party Headed for Brussels

By The Local

Sweden's pro-file sharing Pirate Party is on its way to Brussels having secured more than 7 percent of the country's votes in the European Parliament elections, according to early exit polls.

Scenes of wild jubilation broke out at the party's election headquarters when state broadcaster SVT announced a projection likely to give the party enough votes to claim two seats in the EU parliament.

"The polls beforehand had us at between eight and nice percent, but everything over four percent is a political sensation," party leader Rick Falkvinge told news agency TT.

12 percent of men and 4 percent of women plumped for the Pirate Party, according to the SVT survey.

Among voters aged under 30, some 19 percent are believed to have cast a vote for the Pirate Party.

"They are the biggest party among young people, bigger than both the Social Democrats and the Moderates," said politics professor Sören Holmberg.

Pirate Party voters said they considered the freedom to file share by far the most important issue when deciding their party allegiance.

The party was founded in January 2006 and quickly attracted members angered by controversial laws adopted in Sweden that criminalised filesharing and authorised monitoring of emails.

Its membership shot up after a Stockholm court on April 17th sentenced four Swedes to a year in jail for running one of the world's biggest filesharing sites, The Pirate Bay.

Sunday's election attracted more voters than in 2004, the last time Europe went to the polls. With 80 percent of the votes counted, projections showed a 42.5 percent turnout this time round, up 5 percentage points on the previous European Parliament election....(Click for remainder.)

Gains for Europe's Right--or AP's Wishful Thinking?

By Jim Naureckas

FAIR

An AP story (6/7/09) previewing today's European Parliament election is headlined on MSNBC, "Europe Leans Right Ahead of Parliament Voting: Amid Economic Gloom, Conservatives Look Set to Win Big in Europe-Wide Poll." The article, by Michael Weissenstein and Robert Wielaard, begins:

Europe was leaning to the right ahead of European Parliament elections Sunday, with voters in many countries favoring conservative parties against a backdrop of economic crisis.

Opinion polling showed right-leaning governments with edges over their opposition in Germany, Italy and France. Conservative opposition parties were tied or ahead in Britain, Spain, and some smaller countries.

So how big is the right expected to win? In the 17th paragraph, after we've been told "the Europe-wide elections were most important as a snapshot of national political sentiment," we finally get some numbers:

An informal forecast by the political science website http://www.predict09.eu anticipated Conservatives winning 262 seats against 194 for the Socialists and 85 for the Liberals in 736-seat European Parliament, roughly the same proportions as in the last parliament.

And then the article notes that "right-leaning parties have taken up business regulation and social protection initiatives more traditionally associated with the left."...(Click for remainder.)

Gloomy Outcome Awaits EU Elections

By Press TV

EU nations go to polls on the last day of European Parliament elections, in a vote plighted by fears of record low turnouts and gains for extremists.

Nineteen member-states from the 27-nation bloc, including France, Germany, Italy and Spain, are due to cast the ballots on Europe's Super Sunday. Polls will close across the European Union at 2000 GMT Sunday.

The marathon polls opened in the United Kingdom, and Netherlands on Thursday. The UK held local elections on the same day that placed ruling Labour Party behind opposition Conservatives with the loss of 272 seats.

The Dutch far-right and anti-Islamic lawmaker Geert Wilders' Party for Freedom scored a second place in its debut at the EU polls, with 17 percent of the vote on Thursday.

The four-seat victory, which was published ahead of schedule despite a ban, justified European experts' alarm over a stepping closer to extremism amid an economic crisis and rising unemployment.

Opinion polls have also painted a gloomy picture of the outcomes, predicting poor turnouts that would allow extreme left- and right-wing formations to gain strength in the new 736-seat assembly....(Click for remainder.)

D-Day

By Jesse Lee
The White House

(The American Cemetery in Colleville-sur-Mer, a tiny Normandy village which will welcome yet another
US president when Barack Obama visits its clifftop graveyard, a symbol of America's sacrifice for
Europe's freedom. Official White House Photo by Chuck Kennedy)

In Normandy this morning, the President spoke at the 65th Anniversary Ceremony:

Lyndon Johnson once said that there are certain moments when "...history and fate meet at a single time in a single place to shape a turning point in man's unending search for freedom." 

D-Day was such a moment.  One newspaper noted that "we have come to the hour for which we were born."  Had the Allies failed here, Hitler's occupation of this continent might have continued indefinitely.  Instead, victory here secured a foothold in France.  It opened a path to Berlin.  It made possible the achievements that followed the liberation of Europe:  the Marshall Plan, the NATO alliance, the shared prosperity and security that flowed from each.  

It was unknowable then, but so much of the progress that would define the 20th century, on both sides of the Atlantic, came down to the battle for a slice of beach only six miles long and two miles wide.

More particularly, it came down to the men who landed here -- those who now rest in this place for eternity, and those who are with us here today.  Perhaps more than any other reason, you, the veterans of that landing, are why we still remember what happened on D-Day.  You're why we keep coming back.

For you remind us that in the end, human destiny is not determined by forces beyond our control.  You remind us that our future is not shaped by mere chance or circumstance.  Our history has always been the sum total of the choices made and the actions taken by each individual man and woman.  It has always been up to us.  

You could have done what Hitler believed you would do when you arrived here.  In the face of a merciless assault from these cliffs, you could have idled the boats offshore.  Amid a barrage of tracer bullets that lit the night sky, you could have stayed in those planes.  You could have hid in the hedgerows or waited behind the seawall.  You could have done only what was necessary to ensure your own survival.

But that's not what you did.  That's not the story you told on D-Day.  Your story was written by men like Zane Schlemmer of the 82nd Airborne, who parachuted into a dark marsh, far from his objective and his men.  Lost and alone, he still managed to fight his way through the gunfire and help liberate the town in which he landed -- a town where a street now bears his name.  

It's a story written by men like Anthony Ruggiero, an Army Ranger who saw half the men on his landing craft drown when it was hit by shellfire just a thousand yards off this beach.  He spent three hours in freezing water, and was one of only 90 Rangers to survive out of the 225 who were sent to scale the cliffs.

And it's a story written by so many who are no longer with us, like Carlton Barrett.  Private Barrett was only supposed to serve as a guide for the 1st Infantry Division, but he instead became one of its heroes.  After wading ashore in neck-deep water, he returned to the water again and again and again to save his wounded and drowning comrades.  And under the heaviest possible enemy fire, he carried them to safety.  He carried them in his own arms.

(President Barack Obama (L-R), Britain's Prince Charles, Britain's Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Canada's
Prime Minister Stephen Harper and France's President Nicolas Sarkozy arrive at the Colleville-sur-Mer
cemetery to attend a ceremony marking the 65th anniversary of the D-Day landings in Normandy
June 6, 2009. Official White House Photo by Chuck Kennedy)


(Carli Bruni, First Lady Michelle Obama and Charles Payne listen to President Barack Obama speak during the
ceremony marking the 65th anniversary of the Allied D-Day landings in Normandy at the Normandy American
Cemetery and Memorial in Colleville sur Mer in Western France, Saturday, June 6, 2009.
Official White House Photo by Chuck Kennedy)


(President Barack Obama speaks during the ceremony marking the 65th anniversary of the Allied D-Day
landings in Normandy at the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial in Colleville sur Mer in
Western France, Saturday, June 6, 2009. Official White House Photo by Chuck Kennedy)

President Obama Remembers Bravery of D-Day Veterans

President Barack Obama, Britain's Prince Charles and Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, and French President Nicolas Sarkozy arrive at the American Cemetery at Colleville-Sur-Mer, near Caen, Western France, on Saturday. (Francois Mori/AP)

By The Associated Press
Via MSNBC

CAEN, France - Recalling the "unimaginable hell" of D-Day suffering, President Barack Obama paid tribute Saturday to the against-all-odds Allied landings that broke Nazi Germany's grip on France and turned the tide of history.

"The sheer improbability of this victory is part of what makes D-Day so memorable," Obama said.

He spoke under a sunny sky at the American Cemetery on cliffs overlooking Omaha Beach and other landings sites where American, British and Canadian soldiers established a beachhead 65 years ago under the withering fire of Nazi troops awaiting the Allies' cross-channel gamble.
Story continues below ↓advertisement | your ad here

Obama visited an American battlefield museum with his wife, Michelle; laid a wreath in honor of the fallen; greeted U.S. military members; and mingled with uniformed World War II veterans.

Normandy's cliffs, still pocked with gun emplacements and other remnants of the war, including the white headstones of thousands of buried American troops, provided sure footing for a new U.S. commander in chief.

Obama noted that the site has been visited by many U.S. presidents and predicted that "Long after our time on this Earth has passed, one word will still bring forth the pride and awe of men and women who will never meet the heroes who sit before us: D-Day."

He said the lessons of that pivotal effort are eternal.

"Friends and veterans, what we cannot forget — what we must not forget — is that D-Day was a time and a place where the bravery and selflessness of a few was able to change the course of an entire century," he said....(Click for remainder.)

War of the Posters

These sign boards are absolutely everywhere in Antwerp, and I'm sure the rest of Belgium as well.  9 times out of 10 they're covered with posters for the right-wing hate party Vlaams Belang.

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"No law obliges us to erect signboards," says the governor of Flemish Brabant.

By PressEurop

On June 7th, Belgians will vote in the European elections, but also for their regional parliaments. In a dual campaign marked by inter-community tensions, even the language on signboards is the subject of bitter dispute.

Only a month away from the regional and European elections in Belgium, a new controversy is casting a cloud over relations between the country’s Flemish and French-speaking populations. Several communes on the Flemish outskirts of Brussels have recently come out against any election posters in French on their soil, thereby incurring the wrath of the Francophone ranks. In Hal, a police ordinance – an excerpt from which is published in Le Soir – provides that only Flemish parties are allowed to stick their bills on the town hoardings. The authorities in Affligem, for their part, have announced they are going to cover up any election posters in French with sheets of white paper. And, elaborates La Libre Belgique, “Seven communes in BHV (Brussels-Hal-Vilvorde, the only bilingual electoral and judicial district in Belgium) are not going to put up any billboards at all to forestall any publicity in French.”

Whilst the population of Brussels is 90% Francophone, its outskirts are situated in Flanders, where the only official language is Dutch. 100,000-odd French-speakers inhabit these residential suburbs. Their very presence, coupled with special language rights, irks the Dutch-speaking parties, which are calling for the scission of BHV. 15 communes have decided to boycott the June 7 European elections as a sign of protest against the district’s failure to split up the two linguistic communities.

“The Flemish obstructionist manoeuvrings on the outskirts of Brussels, aimed at prohibiting the Francophone candidates from putting up posters, are not just red tape,” comments Le Soir, which goes on to report the mounting indignation of the French-speaking parties. “The president of the Socialist Party’s branch in Brussels, Philippe Moureaux, has vehemently condemned these grotesque and, by the way, totally illegal machinations.” Moreaux says this is tantamount to a “process of political and linguistic cleansing”. La Libre Belgique bluntly terms it “pre-election apartheid” and a “denial of democracy”. “The tension is mounting,” stresses Le Soir, announcing that “the lawyers for the Francophone parties are already weighing up all the possible courses of action” against the local authorities in Hal and Affligem.

The Flemish press, for its part, is lying fairly low on the matter. De Standaard and De Morgen, the two main regional dailies, have basically confined their coverage to relaying the facts. De Morgen, however, does air the views of Lodewijk de Witte, governor of Flemish Brabant, who explains why he hasn’t obliged the seven towns in his province to put up election hoardings, in spite of a circulaire (written directive) from the interior minister requesting that he “take the necessary measures to ensure that the June 7 local and European elections are held in accordance with the law”. Says the governor: “It is my responsibility to see to it that the elections are held in accordance with the law, but there is no law requiring us to put up billboards.” He points out, in passing, that “a circulaire is a recommendation and not a legal instrument”. From here on in, the battle will be played out in the legal arena....(Click for original.)

Watching the Eurosceptics

Geert Wilders, Declan Ganley and Jean-Marie Le Pen. Images: Fabien Dany; AFP; all rights reserved

By PressEurop

Opponents of the Lisbon Treaty, anti-capitalists, far-right extremists - dissenting parties may well be the major winners in the European elections, but what weight will they carry in the future parliament? wonders the European press.

Analysis of polls and results of the vote in the Netherlands suggest that Eurosceptics will be more numerous in the next parliament. As Polish daily Dziennik reports, the prospective alliance between British Conservatives, the Polish Law and Justice party and the Czech ODS has supporters of the Lisbon Treaty breaking out in a cold sweat, especially since this group may become the second largest force in Parliament, with the added anxiety that it will possibly benefit from the support of a extreme-right group led by Jean-Marie Le Pen and the Netherlands’ Geert Wilders. If the Eurosceptics win enough votes, worries Dziennik, the European Union will have to postpone projects for common diplomatic initiatives, and plans to appoint a President of the European Union and a High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy.

Not all Eurosceptics are extremists, however, though extremists may be well be major winners in the current elections. German weekly Die Zeit reports that at least 12 extreme-right parties are expected to send representatives to Brussels and Strasbourg. “The extreme-right has now established a powerful network in Europe,” it claims, and traditional parties have been unable to devise a strategy to oppose them. “All too often, democratic parties avoid taking these groups to task in constructive debate, but simply tolerate them with a condescending smile,” says political analyst Britta Schellenberg. They tend “to respond on a strictly local level instead of reasoning in terms of Europe.”
 
The Right does not have a monopoly on Euroscepticism, however, points out Le Figaro, which reports that in France, the New Anti-Capitalist Party (NPA) and the Front for the Left are "rejecting a federal Europe,” which they believe is too free-market oriented. There are many other players that could be “broadly defined as sovereigntist” - latest estimates indicate 180 MEPs from a total of 736, but this is a very heterogeneous group, and it is likely to remain so after the elections. In countries like Poland, the conservative French daily remarks, it’s not easy to see what Lech Walesa and the League of Polish Families, which are both represented on the Libertas list, have in common. Nor do the “No voters” of the French Socialist Party have much by way of a shared platform with the Scandinavian June Movement groups, who are campaigning for the withdrawal of Denmark and Sweden from the European Union. “Apart from their rejection of the EU, or the call to build a new Europe, these parties are unable to construct a coherent movement that could present positive proposals,” Le Figaro concludes....(Click for remainder.)

Czechs Fear Rise of the Right in EU Vote

Extremists parties are unlikely to win seats, but they could win state subsidies.

By Bruce I. Konviser
Global Post

PRAGUE — Like others throughout the continent, Czechs are voting in European parliamentary elections on Saturday. And there is growing concern over the rise of right-wing extremist parties.

More than 30 parties are competing for the 22 Czech seats in the European parliament, and the two leading parties from the left and the right are expected to gain the lion's share of those seats.

It's not that any of the extremist parties is expected to win enough votes to gain a seat in Brussels, but rather that a combination of broad public apathy towards European elections combined with a get-out-the-vote drive by the extremists could result in one or more parties qualifying for state subsidies.

Political parties receive state funds based on the number of votes they get above a certain threshold, explained Walek Czeslaw, the deputy minister for human rights.

“The real fear is that with the low (overall) turnout they'll pass 1 percent of the vote and qualify for state funding,” he said.

Jan Hartl, director for the STEM polling agency, said both the Workers Party and the National Party could cross that threshold, if they can turn out about 26,000 voters. Of course, if overall voter turnout is higher than expected — perhaps 35 percent — than the 1 percent threshold will be higher.

In a campaign dominated by an outbreak of egg throwing whenever the leader of the Social Democrats took the stage, a 60-second add that aired only once on Czech public television managed to provoke a public outcry, if only momentarily....(Click for remainder.)

Netherlands Embraces Far Right in EU Elections

I find this incredibly disturbing. This "movement" is happening all over Europe, and to me, offering an ill portent of things to come on this continent. Anyone who has studied history, will immediately note that this is the same sort of movement that swept Hitler and the Nazi Party into power in 1920s Germany. As philosopher George Santayana said, "Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it."

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By Andrew Willis
EU Observer

Neo-nazi jerkoffs look on as Geert Wilders campaigns in Leeuwarden, Netherlands (Photo: Jacco De Boer)

The Dutch far-right Freedom Party (PVV) of Total F*@king Whack-Job Geert Wilders made the greatest leap forward in the country's EU elections on Thursday (4 June), with 16.9 percent in exit polls. But the ruling conservatives came top overall.

The result is a major victory for the openly anti-Islamic party, giving it four seats in the European legislature and a possibility that this could rise to five once the final count is completed.

The Freedom Party came second only to the ruling Christian Democrats (CDA) of Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende, which exit polls suggest will win 20 percent of the vote or five of the 25 seats up for grabs.

This is a fall of four percent from the last European elections in 2004, resulting in the loss of two MEPs for the party.

As the xenophobic party's celebrations got under way, Mr Wilders said his success was a vote against the current administration and an overly costly EU.

"People have had enough of Europe as it is now - a big Europe with Turkey possibly joining - that we spend billions on each year," he said according to newswires.

"I think some people have also had enough of the Balkenende and Bos Cabinet," he added, referring to the prime minister and his Labour Party finance minister.

The results tally with pre-election predictions of greater support for far right and fringe parties as a result of the economic crisis and fears over immigration in the country.

The Labour Party - the junior coalition partner in the government - appeared the main loser in Thursday's vote, taking only 12.2 percent of the vote resulting in a drop from seven to three seats in the European parliament....(Click for remainder.)

European Parliament Vote: Extreme Right Poised to Gain Ground

Britain's Gordon Brown could fall, while Dutch populist Geert Wilders's anti-Islam stand finds new appeal.

By Mark Rice-Oxley
The Christian Science Monitor

London - Europe is bracing for a lurch toward populist, anti-European parties of the right this weekend as the world's biggest transnational elections unfold across 27 countries.

Fringe parties hostile to immigration, foreigners, and the European Union (EU) in general were poised to score well in the first two countries to vote in European parliamentary elections, Britain and Holland, according to exit polls and expert projections.

Geert Wilders, a populist who despises Islam, opposes immigration, and wants the European Parliament abolished, was given more than 15 percent of the vote in the Netherlands and just one seat less than the ruling Christian Democrats, according to an exit poll.

In Britain, two right-wing parties opposed to the EU – the UK Independence Party and the British National Party – were predicted to get one-fifth of all votes, according to the predict09.eu website compiled by leading political scientists.

"It's clear from the Netherlands that the populist right is going to do well," says Wyn Grant, a politics professor at Warwick University in Central England. "It's a trend across Europe, and it's not surprising in a recession," he adds.

Most EU countries are deep in recession and this week unemployment figured showed almost one in 10 Europeans were jobless....(Click for remainder.)

A Boy Who Never Grows Old Gets Bigger

The new Herge Museum in Belgium focuses on — who else? — Tintin.

By Brigid Grauman
GlobalPost

LOUVAIN-LA-NEUVE, Belgium — Tintin is a quintessentially Belgian story, its spirit indissolubly linked to this small northern European land. And yet the adventures of the dynamic cub reporter — which began in 1930 with "Tintin in the Land of the Soviets" and ended in 1986 with the unfinished and posthumously published "Tintin and Alph-Art" — have sold 230 million books worldwide and been translated into 80 languages.

The Chinese have just discovered him and love him. Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson are working on a Tintin adventure film. Philosophers, novelists, semiologists, sociologists and psychoanalysts have bent their capacious brains over each of the series’ 24 volumes, finding hidden meanings.

And on June 2, the first-ever museum devoted to the work of the Belgian comic strip artist Herge (1907-1983) is to open in Louvain-la-Neuve, a university town 20 minutes from Brussels. The airy glass and concrete building was designed by fashionable French architect Christian de Portzamparc, and the inside was thought out by Dutch comic strip artist Joost Swarte, who does covers for The New Yorker. The bill of between 15 million and 20 million euros ($21 million to $28 million) was footed by Herge’s second wife, Fanny Rodwell, 27  years his junior and now married to British businessman Nick Rodwell.

The preservation of Herge’s work by this single-minded pair has annoyed many a researcher over the years when denied access to the archives. But the fact is that Nick and Fanny Rodwell — who went so far as to buy back expensive franchises — now own most of Herge’s oeuvre, from drawings, sketches on napkins, letters and photographs to his private art collection that includes works by Andy Warhol (who did his portrait) and Dan Flavin. Herge himself was a compulsive keeper of things....(Click for remainder.)