Europe’s Right-wing Reaction to the Migrant Crisis

The homegrown problem of extremism that politicians are no longer ignoring

April 27, 2016

There is no shortage of problems for European countries dealing with the migrant crisis: refugee housing, unemployment, cultural integration, the threat of terrorist attacks, etc. But in the last six months, another issue has arisen that politicians are no longer ignoring: the violent reaction of their right-wing populations.

With German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s open-door policy, Germany took in a record 1.1 million refugees in 2015, more than any other European country. Der Spiegel, one of Europe’s most influential magazines, admitted in mid-2015 that Germany had become a “nation split in two.”

On the one side is a populace showing greater solidarity with refugees than ever before. On the other is a growing proportion of the population that would like to see the migrants leave Germany, and they are not afraid to use force to see it accomplished. Here are some of the results:

1,005 crimes against refugee shelters were reported in 2015 (500 of them in the last three months of the year), a five-fold increase from the previous year. In violent attacks, nearly one third of offenders had no prior criminal record.

93 refugee shelters were set on fire in 2015, with a number of other failed attempts. In contrast, 2014 saw only six arson attacks on shelters.

Numerous busloads of refugees have been escorted by police after protesters rallied against them receiving shelter.

Marches involving thousands of right-wing, anti-migrant protesters have become common; some resulting in injured police officers. Counter protests have gathered as much as 35,000 people to show support for migrants.

The New Year’s Eve Cologne attacks, in which up to 1,000 women were reported to have been sexually assaulted by North African- and Arab-looking men, pushed Germany’s soft middle ground toward right-wing philosophies. The cruel acts by some individuals since prompted the Economist to state it has been “a miracle no refugee has yet been killed.” Below are some of the few reported incidents:

A house set aside for asylum seekers was flooded before it could be used. Drains were clogged and taps were left on.

Inebriated thugs threw a Molotov cocktail through a window into a room where an 11-year-old refugee would have been sleeping had he not crept into bed with his mother in another room.

A hand grenade was lobbed into a migrant processing center but failed to go off.

A dead piglet with the inscription “Mother Merkel” was dumped on a building site for a future mosque.

In 2015, Sweden took in the most refugees per capita in all of Europe. The 160,000 refugees who arrived—nearly an additional 2 percent of the population—prompted Foreign Policy to pronounce its crisis as the “death of the most generous nation on Earth.”

As in Germany, Sweden’s right-wing political groups have received an upsurge in attention. Many politicians try to downplay any notion of a crisis—Sweden has a proud history of welcoming needy refugees. Those who favor a change in national policy point to the following:

Swedish police were called to over 5,000 incidents at asylum centers in 2015.

An outburst of arson attacks late last year saw over a dozen prospective refugee houses set on fire in a matter of months.

According to pbs, the Swedish government is set to launch a taskforce designed to crack down on “vigilantes who might be thinking about taking the law into their own hands.”

Both these countries are indicators to the growing tensions in other European nations. The recent terrorist attacks in Brussels will likely shift the political middle ground to the right. France’s right-wing party, the National Front, saw a surge in popularity after the November 2015 Paris terrorist attacks, which killed 130. As the Trumpet has predicted for years, Europe will be looking for new leadership—for someone they believe can handle the crisis. For more in-depth analysis of this trend in Europe’s most influential country, read “Germany, Migrants and the Big Lie.”

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