Syriza, the anti-austerity leftist party that is leading the polls ahead of Greece's elections this weekend, is surprisingly backed by far right politicians like Marine Le Pen and Matteo Salvini. In a recent interview with French newspaper Le Monde Le Pen, leader of French right party Front Nationale, said loud and clear that she is going for Syriza. Here is a passage: There is a divide in Europe that passes through the takeover peoples against totalitarianism of the European Union and its accomplices. [...] I am completely consistent. That does not make me a far-left activist! We do not agree with their whole program, including the immigration plan. But we would welcome their victory. Le Pen hopes that a victory for Syriza in Greece will help to boost the Euro-scepticism, regardless on what side of the political spectrum. This could seem rather odd to an outsider: Syriza and Front National have opposite visions on pretty much everything, except the end of the austerity policies from Brussels. Syriza, for example, advocates for rights for immigrants and gay marriages, while Front National campaigns against immigration. Nevertheless, a victory for Syriza would come up as a big blow to Europe's established parties, and therefore would ultimately move toward Front Nationale's own goals. In British politics, this would be like the Greens supporting UKIP simply because it is an alternative to the established Tory and Labour parties. Being in favour of anti-austerity and against the current set up of the EU is enough to win Le Pen's support, who said that in countries like Greece and Spain, "where there is no equivalent to Front Nationale, it is up to the extreme left to take our place." This is a blow to Greece's own far right movement, Golden Dawn, which gained prominence at the height of the debt crisis and seems now to have lost momentum. Le Pen is not the only right politician to support Syriza and its leader Alexis Tsipras: Matteo Salvini, leader of Italy's Northern League, is also among its fans. "I hope Greek elections next Saturday will be a step forward, a big kick in the ass to the eurocratics that drove us to this point. I am going for Tsipras and not for the serfs of Brussels and Berlin," he said in a video to the Italian Huffington Post. The Northern League has similar positions to Front Nationale in matters of foreign policy and the two parties sit in the same group in the Europarliament. Giorgia Meloni, the leader of Brothers of Italy, another nationalist party that wants Italy to leave the Euro, expressed her support for Syriza in a post on her personal blog: I share nothing with Tsipras and his political program. But I dream of a Europe of free peoples. A Europe [...] that that change this EU of financial lobbies and strong powersJoin the conversation about this story »
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