Radical, populist, extreme, nationalist: how should we be talking about the fa right?

The three most right-wing groups of the European Parliament and their members are all known as 'far-right' — but they have some crucial differences.

Transcript

00:00Far-right, hard-right, radical-right, national-conservatism and populism. These terms have flooded the

00:12public debate, blurring distinctions between them. But what difference do they make on

00:17the European political scene?

00:20In Brussels, the members of the Patriots for Europe group met on the sidelines of the European

00:24Summit for the first time. It is one of the three groups on the right side of the political

00:29spectrum in the European Parliament, the Europe of Sovereign Nations, the Patriots

00:33for Europe and the European Conservatives and Reformists.

00:39Euronews has discussed with an expert how to classify them.

00:45Europe of Sovereign Nations is the most extreme far-right group in the European Parliament

00:50and really contains a number of parties that can be considered as extreme right. Now that

00:56means that they don't clearly always respect parliamentary democracy. That means they

01:01have a number of authoritarian traits.

01:05The Europe of Sovereign Nations is the smallest and most recent parliamentary group. The Alternative

01:10for Germany represents more than half of the group's members.

01:16The professor calls the group illiberal because of its rejection of the independence of justice,

01:21rule of law and individual freedoms.

01:26He also calls it nativist because of its strong opposition to immigration and the kind of

01:31distinctions it makes between immigrants and people born on the territory.

01:37Well the clearly illiberal and nativist parties can mostly be found in Europe of Sovereign

01:43Nations. They are clearly the group that contains most of these parties, but also some parties

01:50that are integrated in patriots for Europe can also be considered illiberal.

01:59These two groups can also be classified as populists according to the professor. Often

02:04confused with demagogy, populism refers to a binary vision of society that opposes an

02:09elite portrayed as corrupt and the people presented as homogenous and pure.

02:15Finally, some parties of the European conservatives and reformists can be considered radical right.

02:21According to political scientists, the radical right refers to parties that have adopted

02:27two ideologies, nativism and authoritarianism, which promotes respect for authority and order.

02:35Not all the parties within ECR at least can be considered as radical right. They are often

02:40rather nationalist and conservative parties, but some other ones can on the other hand

02:47be considered as radical right.

02:50These three groups are generally nationalist, sovereignist, conservative and Eurosceptic.

02:55However, while from an academic point of view, all three can be classified as far right,

03:00most parties reject this label.