One of the most pressing questions in Belgium is how to combat the rising popularity of the nation's two extreme-right parties.

The Flemish Interest has been a strong organisation for several years and a poll this week by newspapers 'De Morgen' and 'La Libre' gave it 26.6 percent electoral support.

It was just 0.1 percent behind the coalition involving the traditional heavyweight Christian Democrat CD&V and the smaller New Flemish Alliance NV-A.

Leader Filip Dewinter hopes to be appointed Antwerp mayor after the October local council elections.

In contrast, the FN has always lagged behind the Flemish Interest in terms of electoral support. It is scarcely an organisation, has no real party structure and is often the scene of internal divisions.

But despite this, the party is rising in electoral support in Belgium's French-speaking region. At the 2004 federal election, the party won 17 percent of the vote in Charleroi, compared to 7 percent at the local elections in 2000.

Polls by public broadcaster RTBf are predicting continued growth, particularly in the province of Henegouwen.

FN leader Daniël Feret — who was recently convicted of racism and banned from running for office for 10 years — claims the FN will become the biggest party in Charleroi at the 8 October local elections.

And yet, the Brussels Court of Appeal ruled in April that policy documents by Feret and the FN in 1999 and 2002 incited race hatred. The court also said that FN policies at the 1999 elections stigmatised immigrants, particularly North Africans.

The court accepted arguments from the prosecution that the FN wants to repatriate immigrants, forbid them from practising their religion and restrict their right to social security and education. "It wants a regime of apartheid," the prosecution said.

Thus alarmed by the rising popularity of both the FN and the Flemish Interest, debate is raging on both sides of the linguistic border as to how to best deal with them.

In Wallonia, the Francophone media was said to have changed its strategy against the FN this week, as newspaper 'Le Soir' ran a series of analytical reports and articles about the party.

Journalists had attended incognito various party meetings, where beer and racist statements were said to flow. The reporters also gave character portrayals of the politicians — and the image was decidedly unflattering.

Flemish newspaper 'De Standaard' claimed that up until now, the French-speaking media had kept a grim silence about the extreme right, stressing also that there had been few Francophone academic studies.

It said the series of articles in which Le Soir was publishing suggests a change in strategy: if the FN threatens to win so many voters, then show the party in all its roughness.

A denial was soon fired in return by Le Soir editor-in-chief Béatrice Delvaux, who said the newspaper was doing exactly what it had done in the past: pointing out who the real FN leaders are and how insignificant their policies are.

She denied there'd been little academic research conducted and stressed that the newspaper had not ran a 'hush-up' campaign against the FN in years past.

Meanwhile, across the 'border' in Flanders, the existing policy of exclusion, i.e. the cordon sanitaire, is at threat.

The sanitaire is a policy agreed by the mainstream Flemish parties not to enter coalitions with the Flemish Interest. It thereby excludes extremists from public office.

But the Flemish Interest has been able to win voters by parading itself as a victim of an undemocratic battle. And the sanitaire has simply failed to stop the party's rising electoral support.

Recently, it was suggested the NV-A might enter into a coalition with the Flemish Interest, while CD&V and Liberal VLD mayors have also indicated they might break the sanitaire after the local elections if they lose majority support.

Local flirtation with the Flemish Interest comes despite the fact its predecessor, the Flemish Block (Vlaams Blok) was convicted of racism in 2004.

The party has since tried to rebrand itself as a conservative right-wing party, but still largely focuses on traditional extreme right issues such as immigration and public safety, alongside its demands for Flemish independence.

Leader Dewinter recently described the party as being "Islam phobic".

The party is calling for an end to immigration, claiming that it has a negative impact on social cohesion and leads to crime.

It clearly wants immigrants to abandon their own culture when they arrive in Belgium, commit no crime at the threat of deportation and loss of citizenship, is opposed to accelerated naturalisation and wants to abolish immigrant voting rights.

Flemish mayors flirting with the idea of breaking the sanitaire have said the Flemish Interest's racist policies do not apply at a local level, but such an argument simply cannot wash.

Either the party is good enough to enter into a coalition with at all levels of government or not. There can be no half-way measure. 

But this idea of breaking the cordon sanitaire was also mooted in the past by the former editor of Expatica Belgium. He suggested it was time to give the Flemish Interest a run in office — in effect, to give it enough rope to hang itself.

While I concur with Simon Coss that the Flemish Interest is a party of racist claptrap, the issue of 'letting them in' is a very dangerous suggestion.

While it is right to say that with 26.6 percent of electoral support, democratically-speaking the Flemish Interest should no longer be thwarted from entering government.

But the other two-thirds majority of the electorate who opt for tolerant parties should not be forced to accept the Flemish Interest being handed the keys to government.

No, the cordon sanitaire must remain in place; it is a bipartisan coalition of the willing against racism.

Fortunately, the FN does not yet garner sufficient support in Wallonia to warrant talk of letting it enter office.

But that day might be coming sooner than Belgium thinks.

And the nation needs to have a ready-made answer: what is it going to do to stamp out the extremists?

A debate to find the answer is, at least, now in full swing. 

Aaron Gray-Block
Editor
Expatica Belgium

23 June 2006

[Copyright Expatica 2006]

Subject: Front National, Flemish Interest, extreme right, Belgian politics