Will the far right do well enough in Sunday's EU election to form a pro-Russia bloc in parliament?

[pampango]

In Europe: Far Right Fever for a Europe Tied to Russia


Aymeric Chauprade of the National Front has said that Russia “has become the hope of the world against new totalitarianism.”

At a rally last week near the Palace of Versailles, France’s largest far-right party, the National Front, deployed all the familiar theatrics and populist themes of nationalist movements across Europe. A standing-room-only crowd waved the national flag, joined in a boisterous singing of the national anthem and applauded as speakers denounced freeloading foreigners and, with particular venom, the European Union.

“Russian influence in the affairs of the far right is a phenomenon seen all over Europe,” said a study by the Political Capital Institute, a Hungarian research group. It predicted that far-right parties, “spearheaded by the French National Front,” could form a pro-Russian bloc in the European Parliament or, at the very least, amplify previously marginal pro-Russian voices.

Some of Russia’s European fans, particularly those with a religious bent, are attracted by Mr. Putin’s image as a muscular foe of homosexuality and decadent Western ways. Russia’s boosters in Europe, unlike its leftist fans during the Cold War, now mostly veer to the far right and sometimes even fascism, the cause Moscow claims to be fighting in Ukraine.

Hungary’s Jobbik, one of Europe’s most extreme nationalist parties and a noisy cheerleader for Moscow, is now under investigation by the Hungarian authorities amid allegations that it has received funding from Russia and, in a case involving one of its leading candidates for the European Parliament, that it has worked for Russian intelligence.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/21/world/europe/europes-far-right-looks-to-russia-as-a-guiding-force.html

It is interesting the the EU parliamentary election is this Sunday, the same day as the presidential election in Ukraine. The far-right in Europe seem to adore Putin's commitment to nationalism, authoritarianism, "traditional family values", homophobia and his opposition to immigration, secular lifestyles and Western "decadence" in general. The right, in general, and the far-right, in particular, are expected to do very well in the EU election this Sunday. If I were a Russian politician I don't think i would look forward to the European far-right forming a "pro-Russia bloc" in the EU parliament.

[geek tragedy]

1. Putin apologists/pro-Russia cheerleaders in Europe and the US

tend to be reptilian authoritarians, not a coincidence, also not a coincidence that most are rightwingers.