2013-10-14

Right-wing Rumblings in Europe

Over 380 detained after anti-migrant riot in southern Moscow
Moscow police detained some 380 people during the mass rioting in a southern district of the city. A mixed crowd of nationalists and locals attacked a warehouse run by natives of the Caucasus, blaming a migrant for the fatal stabbing of a local.

...Residents of the Biryulyovo district in southern Moscow took to the streets following the fatal stabbing of Egor Shcherbakov, a Muscovite, earlier in the week. Late on Thursday evening, when Shcherbakov and his girlfriend were on their way home, the young couple were attacked by an unidentified man who stabbed Shcherbakov with a knife.

Shcherbakov’s girlfriend described the attacker as a male native of the Caucasus and said that he had assaulted her boyfriend after trying to harass her.

On Saturday a group of about 40 people gathered for a protest in the area, urging the police to find and punish the attacker. They demanded that the district’s police chief resign, and that a local vegetable warehouse, where many migrants work, be closed.
This is part of a general trend of xenophobia during declining social mood. Russia hasn't seen huge amounts of immigration, but the nation is already very diverse and the native populations have plenty of reasons for conflict.

French far right sweeps to victory in local election
In the decisive second round of the poll for a departmental council seat representing Brignoles, a town in the south of France, the FN candidate comfortably defeated his rival from the UMP, the party of former president Nicolas Sarkozy, by 54 per cent to 46 per cent.

The knockout blow came despite calls from President François Hollande’s Socialist party for its supporters and other leftist voters to rally behind the UMP candidate in a bid to block the FN.

...The FN, riding on a wave of recession-fuelled disaffection with the two mainstream parties, is mounting its biggest campaign to date to make gains in both the local elections and the European elections that follow in May.

Last week an opinion poll for the first time put the FN ahead in the running for the European poll, with 24 per cent backing the party, giving it a two-point lead over the UMP and five points over the Socialist party.
Anti-euro and anti-EU parties start off by winning seats in the EU parliament and build off that base, UKIP being the best example. This increases the odds that when the party does obtain power, it will not be a flash in the pan that loses supporters quickly, but rather becomes a long-lasting political force by growing deep roots in the political establishment.

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