While the Charlie Hebdo controversy has been dying down, there was something that’s been bothering me about the coverage of “fascist elements” in Ukraine. For a while, scholars like Volodymir Ischenko have been warning, and to some extent rightfully so, about the far-right movement in Ukraine.
The problem is, this great attention pales in comparison to countries with an actual fascist problem, not the least of which is France. For comparison, in the 2014 elections, the far-right Svoboda party won less than 5% of the vote and did not enter government. In France, Front National didn’t win any representatives either but it garnered 18% of the vote. For those doing math, almost four times as much of the population voted for fascists in France as did in Ukraine. And recent polling shows that the fascists are leading in France.
All of which makes me wonder: where are all the think pieces about the rising tide of fascism in France? For all that’s been said, fascists are a fringe force in Ukraine, but they have huge possibility of winning right in the heart of Europe.
For School and What Not 