Europe’s Anti-immigrant Parties: False Start or Second Wind?

The article makes focus on the rise of Western Europe’s far-right  parties which act with anti-immigrant agenda amid 2010s European  migrant crisis. Massive influxes of refugees and migrants have  accumulated huge political significance and triggered off a wide  range of conflicts (both on international and national levels). The  migrant crisis has indicated many social-political challenges for  European countries. The crisis has been synchronous with a rise of popularity of right populist political movements (old ones as well  as new ones), which promote restrictions of immigration etc. At the  same time it cannot be ignored that West European right-wing  populist political movements achieved some success in previous  decades, well ahead of the current migrant crisis. Immigration issue  has been a centerpiece of political discourses of West European right-wing parties (National Front in France, for instance)  since late 1970s – early 1980s. But it is quite obvious that the 2010s migrant crisis became a trigger for revitalization of the far-right  movements which are outspoken critics of the European Union as “a  supra- national body” dictating its conditions to the member  countries. Besides, the crisis gave a boost to a rise of new populist  movements (for example, “Alternative for Germany”). In 2017 the  populist right-wing parties in Europe won the largest support over  the three past decades. Recently the right populist forces appeared  in elections in a number of European countries (Germany, Austria,  France etc.) as tough competitor of traditional mainstream political  parties and won parliamentary representation and/or representation in the government coalitions. Furthermore, these  movements demonstrate attempts to change their image to shift to  political mainstream. However, in the foreseeable future, any  cardinal breakthrough and far-right anti- immigrant parties’ coming  to the power in Western Europe’s coutrnies is hardly possible.