lHerbert Kickl’s campaign ended as it began: radically. The leader of the Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ) celebrated, on Sunday, September 29, his historic victory in the legislative elections, obtained with almost 29% of the votes, in a brasserie on the campus of the University of Vienna in the company of activist identities who printed a banner for the occasion with the motto “29% for remigration”.
Banned in France, where a national demonstration seeking to demonize it also considers it too sulfurous, the identitarian movement has spread widely in the small Alpine country, where it is particularly active. Since taking command of the FPÖ in 2021, Kickl, 55, has opened wide the doors of his far-right party to the Austrian prophets of the “great replacement”, this racist and conspiracy theory particularly absurd in a country with only 8% Muslims.
Like them, Mr. Kickl dreams of “remigration” and transform Austria into a “strength » is supposed to protect the“homogeneity” of the Austrian people. Taking advantage of the strong anti-vaccine conspiratorial trend that broke out in Austria during the Covid-19 epidemic, this radicalism allowed the FPÖ to reach, for the first time in its history, the top of a legislative vote. But there is also the risk of preventing him from coming to power, since all other parties have so far refused to allow Kickl to become chancellor.
After going out partying with his radical friends, the FPÖ leader understood it well and that is why he has been playing, since Monday, September 30, with the other image of his party. That of a formation that has already participated in two governments in the last twenty-five years and remains deeply institutionalized at all levels of the country. Suddenly talking about “ points in common with the president [l’écologiste Alexander Van der Bellen]»Kickl, responsible for appointing the next chancellor, intends to make people forget that he recently qualified the head of state of “mummy”of “senile” and of “The greatest danger to democracy”.
Founded by former Nazis
However, although the FPÖ was founded in 1956 by former Nazis, it is regularly rocked by scandals that mark its nostalgia for the Second World War, which Kickl estimated in 2010. “I cannot agree that the Waffen-SS was collectively guilty.”We must never forget that in Austria the cordon sanitaire against this far-right party has been broken for a long time.
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