WIPEOUT IN EUROPE – CONSERVATIVE PARTIES GET BIG WINS
When Geert Wilders’s party won in the Netherlands election a few months ago, after many years of trying, some thought it was just an anomaly.
Actually, it was a warning shot.
Europe’s EU parliamentary elections since yielded big gains for conservatives in major countries, dubbed “the far right” by the leftist press — in France, Germany, Belgium and beyond.
According to Fox News:
“Germany’s conservatives finished first in the European Union’s elections, as far-right momentum within the bloc has sent France’s leadership scrambling.
The conservative alliance of the Christian Democratic Union and the Christian Social Union garnered 30.2% of the vote Sunday, Politico reported, citing a projection by German public television.
The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party came in second place, projected https://www.politico.eu/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/marine-le-pen-geert-wilders-frauke-petry-far-right-populist-europe-elections-cartoon.jpgto receive 16% of the vote – a 5 percentage point climb from the 2019 European Parliament election.”
In France, there was an outright freakout.
According to Politico.eu:
“PARIS — The far-right National Rally is projected to win the European election in France with 31.5 percent of the vote — more than twice that of President Emmanuel Macron’s party.
The shock result pushed Macron to call a snap election Sunday evening.
The National Rally, headed by Jordan Bardella, is set to achieve its highest-ever finish in a nationwide election.”
French President Emmanuel Macron called snap elections on June 30 as his response, hoping to seal his majority before the conservatives rip it entirely away.
The New York Times called it “a huge gamble:”
“After the National Rally of Marine Le Pen and her popular protégé Jordan Bardella handed him a crushing defeat on Sunday in elections for the European Parliament, Mr. Macron might have done nothing. He might also have reshuffled his government, or simply altered course through stricter controls on immigration and by renouncing contested plans to tighten rules on unemployment benefits.
Instead, Mr. Macron, who became president at 39 in 2017 by being a risk taker, chose to gamble that France, having voted one way on Sunday, will vote another in a few weeks.”
The Washington Post called it “risky.”
Careful what you wish for, Monsieur President.
We’ve seen this story before, as when President B.J. Habibie of Indonesia dared East Timor with a presented vote to leave the country in 1999 and the locals obliged. More close to France, it recalls the 2016 move of Prime Minister David Cameron to dare British voters to vote on leaving the European Union in what was called Brexit. They obliged
The Times reported that the French intelligentsia were besides themselves:
“Shock coursed through France on Monday. The stock market plunged. Anne Hidalgo, the mayor of Paris, a city that will host the Olympic Games in just over six weeks, said she was “stunned” by an “unsettling” decision. “A thunderbolt,” thundered Le Parisien, a daily newspaper, across its front page.
For Le Monde, it was “a jump in the void.” Raphaël Glucksmann, who guided the revived center-left socialists to third place among French parties in the European vote, accused Mr. Macron of ‘a dangerous game.’”
The scenes in Paris recalled those of the 2016 election from the Hillary Clinton and President Obama camps:
Voters of the Socialist Party of France crying over the election results:
pic.twitter.com/wz8SUa9EZJ— BowTiedMara (@BowTiedMara) June 10, 2024
The map looked like this:
And this was hardly all of the fallout. In Belgium, there were tears with the prime minister resigning.
Two issues appear to be responsible for this result: One, the Ukraine war, which is unpopular in Europe, and which the European Union keeps pushing to escalate.
The other is immigration, as unassimilable Middle Eastern and African migrants fill the streets of European cities, bringing crime, disorder, barbaric practices, and welfare bills to once-pristine towns, villages and urban areas.
As President Macron warns of the “danger” of the “far right” winning elections, locals can see plenty of danger from the E.U.’s open borders, and eternal war policies.
It’s worth noting that it’s been a long time coming. The gains have been incremental for a while now, but definitely steady as she goes, finally making it over the top in at least these contests.
AT senior editor Richard Baehr, who is an excellent political analyst, noted that when the red wave turned into a red puddle in 2022, that countries rarely turn on a dime, and change itself builds over several elections. Europe finally is seeing the fruits of that.
As we observe that, we can also look with hope on the same trend-building happening here as Donald Trump continues to hold his lead in the polls. Trends take time but once they’ve gotten momentum, are unstoppable.
Monica Showalter is a journalist whose analyses have appeared in Forbes, the Asia Wall Street Journal, Investors Business Daily, and American Thinker.