EP elections underway, Mr Le Pen says Ebola virus would "solve" the "population explosion"

Elections to the European Parliament have begun throughout the EU. The first to vote today as of 7:30 AM CET were the Dutch, with Britons opening the polls at 8:00 AM.

In several EU countries the main favorites for victory are said to be eurosceptic or ultra-right parties. It is expected that anti-EU, extremist parties will win support not only in Britain and the Netherlands, but also in France, where nationalists from the Front National (FN) are predicted as the favorites. 

Earlier voter surveys reported that the FN could win up to 23 % of the vote there. In Britain, the greatest chances are said to lie with the UK Independence Party (UKIP) and the opposition Labour Party.

"If we win what we would like to win, nothing will ever be the same," UKIP leader Nigel Farage said at a polling place not far from his residence in southern England. Geert Wilders, leader of the eurosceptic, ultra-right Party for Freedom (PVV) in the Netherlands, cast his own vote before noon today at a school in a suburb of The Hague. 

The Dutch right-wing populist let it be known that "a vote for my party is a vote for national sovereignty, less immigration, and less Brussels." Europe’s populists have also been working on joining forces for quite some time. 

Wilders met last year with the head of the FN, Marine Le Pen, and with other leaders of extremist groups about a common project. "The anti-EU coalition is getting closer," he wrote on his Twitter account in November 2013 after visiting the head of the Austrian Free Party, Heinz-Christian Strache, the leader of the Flemish right-wing separatists, Filip Dewinter of Belgium, and Le Pen.  

The French leader later repaid the visit. However, the Deutsche Presse-Agentur (DPA) has reported that these "will not be love-matches".  

DPA reports there are significant differences between the NF and the PVV. Wilders condemns the blatant anti-Semitism of the founder of the FN, Mr Jean-Marie Le Pen, and takes a similar stance against the NF’s anti-LGBT position.

Marine Le Pen, on the other hand, does not support the fanatical battle against Islam that Wilders is engaged in, including his efforts to ban the Koran. While the FN wants to abolish the EU, the battle against Islam is the central topic for Wilders.

Both groups, however, are joined by their critique of the EU and their rejection of the euro. They also know that it is only together that they can achieve something against Brussels. 

According to opinion surveys, in France the FN, with a projected 23 % of the EP vote, is ahead of the conservatives in the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) and the governing Socialists of French President François Hollande. In 2009 Le Pen’s followers won only 6.3 % of the vote.  

In the Netherlands the PVV is projected to win even more than its current voter preference of 17 %. Collaboration with other ultra-right parties, however, could damage all these parties in the eyes of their own voters, as they are hiding their extremism from them domestically and doing their best to present themselves as moderates.

Marine Le Pen has even publicly threatened more than once to take legal steps against the French media if they label the FN a right-wing extremist party. Wilders has already reportedly assured his own parliamentary faction that Marine Le Pen has "properly cleaned house" at the FN.

On the other hand, DPA reports that when ultra-right skinheads turned up recently at a PVV demonstration waving nationalist flags, Wilders did not seem upset. Moreover, the behavior of Mr Jean-Marie Le Pen, the founder and honorary chair of the FN, seems to belie these claims to moderation.     

Agence France-Presse reports that Mr Le Pen recently suggested that the Ebola virus could solve the "problem of the population explosion". Speaking on Tuesday evening in Marseille in the context of a discussion of the "population explosion" in the world and the "problem" of migration, Mr Le Pen said "Monseigneur Ebola would solve that in three months". 

Stéphane Le Foll, a spokesperson for the French Government, condemned the remarks as unacceptable. In his view, those words show that the FN has not changed.

Mr Le Pen, who will celebrate his 86th birthday on 20 June, returned to his remarks later, saying he did not see "how it is possible to argue about this." "I say France must prepare itself for a shock, for a flood of migration caused by the ongoing growth of the world’s population," the politician said. 

In the past Mr Le Pen has been condemned several times for making anti-Semitic, pro-Fascist, racist remarks. For example, he has called the gas chambers a mere "detail of the Second World War". 

In 1987 he was fined 1.2 million French francs for that statement. He is infamous for making other very controversial statements of a similar nature, for example, that the Nazi occupation of France "was not especially inhumane".

In the Czech Republic, extremist groups such as the Workers’ Party (DS) and National Party (NS) have stood up for Mr Le Pen on their official websites. Czech voters will be electing new MEPs this coming Friday and Saturday.

EP elections in the Czech Republic will end on Sunday, 25 May at 23:00 CET, when the results will begin to be published. Voters among the more than 380 million Europeans in 28 countries will choose a total of 751 new MEPs.

Examples of the rise in ultra-right parties in Europe

BULGARIA
In 2005, everyone was surprised by the electoral points scored by the extreme-right nationalist party Ataka (Attack), which under the usual nationalist slogan of "Bulgaria for the Bulgarians" rails against Jewish, Romani and Turkish people, denounces Bulgaria’s membership in the EU and NATO, and opposes the "sucking dry" of Bulgaria by international institutions. The party also succeeded during the country’s most recent parliamentary elections in 2009 and drew attention last year when its supporters attacked Muslims from the Turkish minority during prayer in Sofia.

FINLAND
Nationalists, of course, have recently scored successes in Scandinavian states as well. In Finland, the Finns Party (then the True Finns) first got into parliament in 1999 with a single seat and is now becoming more and more popular. Last year the party held 39 seats. The party has been labeled a nationalist, populist formation. It opposes the EU and the euro, rails against instruction of the Swedish language in the schools, and calls for stricter immigration policy and for tougher punishments for serious crimes.   

FRANCE
According to opinion surveys, in the EP elections the extremist Front National, led by Marine Le Pen, the daughter of the party’s founder, is enjoying the greatest amount of voter preference of any party, at 24 %. Traditional democratic parties that ordinarily govern France are falling behind the FN in recent surveys – conservatives in the UMP and the currently-governing Socialists of French President François Hollande, who are losing with the voters despite their obvious populism aimed against immigrant Roma. In 2009, supporters of Le Pen won only 6.3 % of the vote. While the FN has recently abandoned its extremist rhetoric, its politics aimed against migration and minorities are unchanged. 

GERMANY
In Germany, no extremists are represented at national level. The neo-Nazi, populist NPD (Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands), however, is represented in the state parliaments of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Saxony. In the September 2013 federal elections, the NPD won 1.3 % of the vote. German counter-intelligence has labeled the NPD an anti-Semitic, racist, revisionist party that is striving to destroy the country’s democratic order. In the Czech Republic, the Workers’ Social Justice Party (Dělnická strana sociální spravedlnosti – DSSS) has closely collaborated with the NPD; the DSSS holds only a single seat for the time being, on the municipal council of the town of Krupka.   

GREECE
For the time being, the strongest ultra-right party in Europe is Greece’s neo-Nazi Golden Dawn, which entered parliament in June 2012 with 18 seats. Its politics are based on chauvinism, specifically, in railing against immigrants and minorities in general. The party also denies the existence of gas chambers in the Nazi death camps and the Holocaust in general. 

HUNGARY
The Central European type of Fascism or neo-Nazism is most visible in Hungary. The Movement for a Better Hungary (Jobbik) made it into parliament for the first time during the 2010 elections and then again in 2014. The party is anti-Semitic and also wants to introduce a ban on the "promotion of sexual deviation", targeting LGBT people. The right-wing extremist National Guard organization is linked to Jobbik. That paramilitary group has been banned by the courts and has won popular approval for what it calls its war on "gypsy crime", among other things. 

THE NETHERLANDS
The Party for Freedom (PVV) of Geert Wilders is represented in the Dutch parliament, winning 17 % of the vote in the most recent election, and next year the party could win even more. The party is waging a massive campaign against the "Islamicization" of the country and calling for immigration restrictions. Wilders has also prompted controversy and criticism through his recent challenge to the Dutch to report any "iniquity" committed by people from Central and Eastern Europe to the authorities. In the past he has also been charged with incitement against Muslims and has publicly compared the Koran to Mein Kampf by the leader of Nazi Germany, Adolf Hitler, as well as labeling Islam a "Fascist" ideology held by terrorists. 

RUSSIA
The nationalist Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR), led by Vladimir Zhirinovsky, has regularly scored points in the Russian parliamentary elections and is popular in particular among right-wing extremists and people who believe Russia has lost its position as a world superpower. The party opposes minorities and all non-Russian elements in society. Zhirinovsky’s indiscriminate attacks against his opponents, his nationalist statements and his rioting have been an infamous part of the Russian political scene.  

SLOVAKIA
Marián Kotleba, the infamous Slovak Fascist, recently won regional elections to become Governor of the Banská Bystrica Region. His People’s Party – Our Slovakia (Lidová strana – Naše Slovensko – LSNS) has noted a 100 % growth in voter preference since then. In opinion polls in September the party was slated to receive only 1.7 % of the vote, but now twice as many people (3.4 %) would vote for it. While that is not enough to get the party into parliament, it would be enough to be entitled to a financial contribution from the state. Kotleba is infamous for his actions and statements against Romani people, whom he ordinarily refers to as "parasites".   

SWEDEN
In the 2010 elections, the Swedish Democrats (SD) made it into parliament for the first time. This party, which is considered nationalist, is demanding a halt to immigration and has labeled Islam as the greatest threat to Sweden since the end of WWII. The SD managed to draw attention with an election ad in which a group of what are supposed to be Muslim women wearing burkas and pushing prams cut into a welfare line ahead of a white-skinned Swedish pensioner. The party also opposes LGBT people and is famous for its euroscepticism. Analysts have labeled it ultra-right, while human rights defenders and left-wing political formations have labeled it neo-Nazi, even though the SD is now doing its best to get rid of its image as an extremist party.