(Vienna) Austria was in turn won on Friday by a movement from Germany denouncing the “racism” of the far right, after the revelation of a plan to send back migrants on a massive scale.
In Vienna, several thousand demonstrators gathered in the early evening in front of the Parliament, on the famous Ring Avenue, despite the rain.
“We are here, all together, to defend democracy and stand up against the extremist movements that are spreading across Europe,” testified Elena Tiefenböck, 25, who studies in the capital. And “so that the past does not repeat itself”, while the far-right FPÖ party is given the lead in the next legislative elections.
“(Herbert) Kickl is a Nazi,” could be read on a sign attacking the virulent leader of the movement, fiercely anti-migrant.
The demonstration was organized by the Fridays for Future movement, alongside two associations, one for the defense of black populations in Austria and the other for asylum seekers.
The social-democratic SPÖ party and environmentalists joined in, as did the Caritas organization and several unions.
Other rallies were planned in the cities of Salzburg and Innsbruck with a similar slogan.
As in Germany, the shock was caused by the revelation on January 10 by the German investigative media Correctiv of a meeting of extremists in November in Potsdam, during which a plan for mass expulsion of foreigners or foreigners foreign origin was discussed.
Among the participants were Austrian identity ideologue Martin Sellner and members of the German far-right AfD party.
The AfD confirmed its presence at the meeting, but denied adhering to this “remigration” project, which did not prevent more than 1.4 million people from denouncing in the streets for a week the radical tendencies of this formation, which has become the second political force in the country.
More than 200 demonstrations are still planned across Germany over the weekend – the majority in medium-sized cities, including a number in the east of the country where the AfD obtains its best electoral results.
Unlike its neighbor, Austria has had an extreme right that has been politically established since the 1980s. It is in this country that it was associated with power at the national level, for the first time within the European Union, in 2000: 250,000 people protested in the streets.
The FPÖ governed again between 2017 and 2019. Parliamentary elections are due to take place in the coming months in Austria, but no date has yet been announced for the vote.