Kami: Radical right in Europe seeks return to national sovereignty and awareness, explaining its rise

French political scientist and expert on French and European far-right politics, Jean-Yves Kami, told Kosovo Online that the reasons for the increasing support for radical right-wing parties in Europe should be sought in the crisis of trust in liberal democracy. Many people in France, but also across Europe, feel deprived of national sovereignty by the EU, and the radical right is the one seeking a return to some form of national sovereignty, national pride, and national consciousness.

Support for the radical right, says Kami, is not just opposition to the left, multiculturalism, or the woke movement.

"These people believe that the EU imposes norms and regulations that undermine national sovereignty, and there is also the crisis of multicultural society. The fact is that fewer and fewer people make the effort to vote. Voter turnout is decreasing in most elections. There is a crisis in both conservative and liberal right-wing politics, a consequence of globalization. Most European countries are accepting large numbers of immigrants from North and West Africa, and the Middle East. Many of them are Muslims. We have seen an increase in terrorism from Muslim radicals with numerous deadly attacks in France, Germany, and other countries. At one point, many voters who had supported mainstream conservative right-wing parties, as well as those who had voted for social democrats, said they had to find alternatives," Kami states.

For 18% of voters in France, the alternative, he says, is Jean-Luc Mélenchon and the extreme left.

"But what is truly new? Which part of the political spectrum has never held power after 1945? That is the radical right. I prefer to use the term radical right because extreme right very much resembles fascism and Nazi Germany. So, the radical right, which wants to return to some form of national sovereignty, national pride, national consciousness, and opposition to immigration, is on the rise for the reasons I have mentioned," Kami concluded in his interview with Kosovo Online.

Kami gave a lecture at the Institute for European Studies in Belgrade today on the topic "The Far Right – An Essay on Defining Its Essence," and spoke on the same subject yesterday at the Matica Srpska in Novi Sad.

During today’s lecture, he pointed out that the term extreme right is used by the left as a synonym for fascism.

"There are groups of neonazis or neofascists, but supporters of the radical right are not fascists, nor do they nostalgically look back at the Third Reich. They care about their personal economic status, their personal security, the ability to move freely, and their country and culture," Kami emphasized during his lecture.