Skip to main content
The Morning Star Shop
No-one will rescue us from the far right ‘from above’ – solidarity and social struggle are what’s needed
Spanish fascists give nazi salutes in Barcelona this year

MARINE LE PEN’S fascistic Rassemblement National pulled ahead of French President Emmanuel Macron’s liberal-centrist party earlier this month in polling for the European Parliament elections in May.

Macron’s response? He floated the idea of honouring second world war quisling Marshall Petain as a hero of the first world war, brushing aside the customary cordon sanitaire around the leader of the occupation Vichy regime in the 1940s.

Days apart, the liberal mayor of Warsaw moved to ban an annual far-right demonstration timed to usurp Poland’s independence day falling last Sunday.

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
More from this author
Green Party Deputy Leader Zack Polanski AM speaking at the People's Assembly Against Austerity protest in central London. Picture date: Saturday June 7, 2025
Politics / 24 July 2025
24 July 2025

A lot of discussion about how the left should currently organise – including debate on whether the Green Party is a useful vehicle for advance – runs the risk of refusing to engage with or learn from the reasons the left was defeated previously, argues KEVIN OVENDEN

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer speaking during a press conference on the Immigration White Paper in the Downing Street Briefing Room in London
Features / 16 May 2025
16 May 2025

As Starmer flies to Albania seeking deportation camps while praising Giorgia Meloni, KEVIN OVENDEN warns that without massive campaigns rejecting this new overt government xenophobia, Britain faces a soaring hard right and emboldened fascist thugs on the streets

Kim Leadbeater, the Labour MP proposing the assisted dying B
Features / 21 March 2025
21 March 2025
The shameful passage of the assisted dying Bill where safeguards have been all but jettisoned is symptomatic of a hyper-liberalised society where the cult of individualism reigns supreme, argues KEVIN OVENDEN
Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer speaks to soldiers at
Features / 21 February 2025
21 February 2025
The proxy war in Ukraine is heading to a denouement with the US and Russia dividing the spoils while the European powers stand bewildered by events they have been wilfully blind to, says KEVIN OVENDEN
Similar stories
Protesters outside Liverpool Crown Court where Axel Rudakubana, 18, is charged with three counts of murder, 10 attempted murders and possession of a knife, after a stabbing attack on a Taylor Swift-themed children's holiday club class in Southport, Merseyside on July 29, 2024. Picture date: Monday January 20, 2025
VE Day 2025 / 8 May 2025
8 May 2025

TONY CONWAY assesses the lessons of the 1930s and looks at what is similar, and what is different, about the rise of the far right today

BY POPULAR DEMAND: Michel Barnier leaves
Features / 6 December 2024
6 December 2024
As heavy industry flees and public-sector strikes paralyse the nation, the French leader’s increasingly desperate attempts to rule without a majority reveal the deep crisis at the heart of European liberal democracy, writes KEVIN OVENDEN
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage smoking outside the Westminste
Features / 12 September 2024
12 September 2024
As angry voters reject austerity, social insecurity and endless war across Europe, the left should be the beneficiary instead of the far right. NICK WRIGHT looks at the ideological hangups holding us back from connecting to these dissenters