Marine Le Pen has celebrated the march of hard-Right parties across Europe after the Freedom Party of Austria (FPO) won its first ever general election victory.
Other Eurosceptic leaders also hailed Herbert Kickl’s historic triumph as a victory for national sovereignty against Brussels overreach.
Ms Le Pen said there was a Right-wing wave across Europe, which had brought nationalists to power in Italy, the Netherlands and ushered in an anti-migrant government in France.
“After the Italian, Dutch and French elections, this groundswell which carries the defence of national interests, the safeguarding of identities and the resurrection of sovereignties, confirms everywhere the triumph of the peoples,” Ms Le Pen said.
The National Rally leader is allied to the FPO in the European Parliament.
The FPO has Nazi roots, having been founded in the 1950s by a former SS officer. It is vehemently opposed to military support for Ukraine and is friendly towards Vladimir Putin, with its nominee for foreign minister dancing with him at her wedding in 2018.
Today, the FPO continues to flirt with fascism, with its leader Mr Kickl styling himself as Austria’s next “Volkskanzler”, the same title used by Adolf Hitler. He has also called for asylum seekers to be “concentrated” in the same place, remarks condemned as an allusion to Nazi concentration camps, which he denied.
Prior to the election, some FPO officials were reportedly caught singing a Nazi SS loyalty song at the funeral of their colleague Walter Sucher, who died aged 90.
The hard-Right party’s election victory was described by the International Auschwitz Committee, which represents survivors of the Nazi Holocaust from 19 countries, as an “alarming new chapter” in Austrian history.
Ms Le Pen’s own victory in this year’s European elections was so commanding that Emmanuel Macron called snap elections that led to a Right-wing government.
The Patriots for Europe group wants to claw back powers taken by Brussels from national governments and reform the EU.
Geert Wilders, the veteran Eurosceptic, won elections in the Netherlands in 2023. Despite leading his Party for Freedom to a convincing victory, he did not become prime minister. His calls for a “Nexit” referendum and for the Koran to be banned were too controversial for his eventual coalition partners.
“The Netherlands, Hungary, Belgium, Italy, Germany, Portugal, Sweden, France, Spain, Czech Republic and today Austria! We are winning! Times are changing!,” he said on X.
“Identity, sovereignty, freedom and no more illegal immigration/asylum is what tens of millions of Europeans long for.”
Viktor Orban, the prime minister of Hungary, said: “Another win for the Patriots: a historic victory for FPO in Austria! Congratulations to Herbert Kickl!”
Friendly towards Russia
Mr Orban is a veteran of many battles with Brussels over sovereignty, migration and opposition to Western sanctions on Russia for the illegal war in Ukraine.
The FPO campaigned hard in the elections on a pro-Putin, Eurosceptic and anti-migrant platform. “The government of the state is increasingly no longer in Vienna, but in Brussels,” its manifesto said.
“The space of the state is being eliminated by the de facto principle of open borders.The people of the state are gradually being replaced by permanent mass immigration,” it added.
Led by 55-year-old Mr Kickl, the FPO won 28.8 per cent of the vote, ahead of the centre-Right OVP on 26.3 per cent, and the centre-Left Social Democrats (SPO) on 21.1 per cent according to a projection based on nearly all the votes by pollster Foresight for broadcaster ORF, a slightly bigger victory margin than final polls had indicated.
“We’ve made Austrian history because it’s the first time the Freedom Party is number one in a parliamentary election, and you have to think how far we’ve come,” Mr Kickl said after the party’s record showing, which came seven decades after its foundation in the 1950s under the leadership of a former Nazi lawmaker.
On Monday, the Austrian parties began the process of holding coalition talks which could prove time consuming and complex. The FPO currently lacks enough support from other parties to form a coalition.
