In Madrid, Europe's far right looks to Trump as a role model
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NewsPatriots for Europe, the far-right group created in July in the European Parliament, held its first summit in the Spanish capital on Saturday. From Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban to French far-right leader Marine Le Pen, all see Trump as a harbinger of future victories for their camp.
Exultation and euphoria reigned in the auditorium of a Madrid hotel near the airport, where a dozen leaders from European far-right parties gathered on Saturday, February 8, for the first summit of the new Patriots for Europe (PfE) group. This movement, created in the European Parliament in July 2024 around the party of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and France's Rassemblement National (RN), brings together 86 MEPs, making it the third-largest force in Strasbourg.
The slogan chosen, "Make Europe Great Again," is a direct reference to Donald Trump's "Make America Great Again" (MAGA). And the shadow of the Republican's victory in the US presidential election hung over the event. Not all the leaders present shared the same admiration for the US president as that shown by the leader of Spain's far-right Vox party, Santiago Abascal, who described Trump as a "comrade-in-arms in the battle for good, for truth, common sense and freedom," or by the vice president of the Italian council, Matteo Salvini (League), for whom "Trump has shown that the common-sense revolution is possible." Yet all celebrated his victory as a sign of a global shift in their favor.
"At some point, you have to look at what's happening in the world today: Milei, Trump, Orban, Meloni, our Austrian allied party is in the lead, we're in the lead, our Flemish friends are in the lead. We need to analyze this, and I think we're witnessing a kind of renaissance," said Marine Le Pen, a few minutes before the big rally attended by almost 2,000 people. On stage, the French far-right leader called for "the global disruption" that Trump's victory represents to "sound the awakening of the Old Continent." "This power challenge is an urge to exist in the world that is coming, in the history that is being written," she concluded.
One by one, the populist leaders' speeches confirmed the same conviction not only of being right, but of being part of History's course. "The Trump tornado has changed the world in two weeks. Yesterday, we were the heretics; today, we're mainstream. People thought we represented the past; today, everyone sees that we are the future," said a triumphalist Orban. After defining the Hungary he has led for 15 years as "a laboratory for conservative policies," he boasted that he had made "illegal immigration a crime," banned "gender propaganda" in schools, written into the Constitution that "a father is a man and a mother is a woman," and that "all state powers must defend Christian culture."
Although they see themselves as forces of the future, they still turn to the past for references. Orban thanked Abascal for Spain's support for Hungary "against communism and the Soviet Union" in 1956, claiming in passing the bounties of Franco's dictatorship and provoking standing ovations from the Vox supporters and activists in the room, who clearly appreciated the reference.
Uncomplicated and xenophobic speeches
In an openly xenophobic speech associating "crime" with "Islamic immigration" and railing against "multiculturalism" and "woke insanity," Dutch political leader Geert Wilders, whose Party for Freedom came out on top in the November 2024 parliamentary elections, for his part, referred to the Reconquista [the Catholic kings' recapture of the Iberian peninsula conquered by Muslims in the Middle Ages], paying tribute to the "valiant Spanish knights" who "were the first to roll back Islam and restore the rich heritage of Christianity to their country." Others also referred to the Reconquista, a watchword brandished by both Salvini and Le Pen. "We Spaniards are very fond of being known for this extraordinary gesture of our ancestors, for being Europe's wall against the advance of Islamism. We're ready to be that again," Abascal declared from the stage.
Elected president of the pan-European party in November, the Vox president left Giorgia Meloni's European Conservatives and Reformists group in July, officially to work on the creation of a broader movement, after receiving a €6.5 million loan from a Hungarian bank, which the Spanish banks had refused him.
Despite the differences between the various European leaders, a number of common themes and obsessions have emerged from their straightforward speeches: opposition to "mass" immigration, rejection of the European Green Deal, defense of "national sovereignty" and criticism of "wokism" and "globalism."
There was no shortage of references to Trump's early decisions. Paraphrasing the American president in his crusade against transgender people, the leader of Portugal's far-right Chega party, André Ventura, proclaimed that "there are only two genders: man and woman." "New technologies are beginning to collaborate with the battle for freedom," said Abascal, referring to Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg's support for Trump. And Salvini asserted that the time had come to "question" the International Criminal Court, a few days after the US president's decision to impose sanctions on the jurisdiction.
'Re-energized'
For months now, the Italian leader has been struggling to appear even more Trumpist than the head of the Italian government, Meloni, who wants to appear as Trump's privileged interlocutor in Europe. Struggling in the polls, where his League party is plateauing below 9%, Salvini believes the regime change in Washington will provide an opportunity to get back on track.
"The role of this movement [the PfE] is to create majorities to reject what we feel is harmful to the people of Europe," explained Le Pen, when asked about the differences between the parties that make it. She says that the priority is to stop "this Green Deal nonsense, this furious madness of the Green Deal which has led to the collapse of our industry."
"The Green Deal is dead. It can neither be reformed nor improved," also said former Czech prime minister Andrej Babis, who is currently the favorite in next autumn's parliamentary elections.
Outside the hotel, as the speeches drew to a close, smiling young people said they were "re-energized."
"It gave me hope for change," said Guillermo Martinez, who works in finance at Axa. "On the essentials, we're all in agreement: the Christian values of family and freedom, national sovereignty and the fight against illegal immigration," agreed Daniel A., a lobbyist in the technology sector in Brussels. The celebration was disturbed only by the unsuccessful attempt of an activist from the feminist organization Femen to enter the auditorium. She too had hijacked the MAGA slogan and painted it across her bare chest: "Make Europe Antifascist Again."
