Hundreds of French neo-fascists, many with their faces covered, demonstrated this Saturday in Paris to commemorate the death of a far-right militant 30 years ago in a confrontation with the Police. During the demonstration, screams were heard from young people, in a far-right show of force from France.

The protest took place at a time when the extreme right advances throughout Europe and, especially, in Germany. There, political events linked to radical groups have skyrocketed, giving rise to violent acts of intimidation and even physical attacks against candidates and elected officials that occur daily.

“When a political leader is dehumanized, when a person is dehumanized, violent physical attack is a strategy more than it is considered legitimate by some of these groups,” says Steven Forti, professor of Contemporary History at the UAB and author of ‘Extreme Right 2.0’.

However, Franco Delle Donne, Doctor in Communication from FU Berlin and director of the podcast ‘Epidemia Ultra’, emphasizes that this “not only happens in Germany, but we can also see it in other countries, and it has to do with this need.” to polarize, to bring politics into a discussion “in which there is no competition, but rather a fight against an enemy.”

Just in the last week, three politicians have been attacked in Germany, and in 2023 there were almost 3,000 verbal or physical attacks against them. Behind the data is the rise of extremist parties. At the threshold of the European elections it does not seem that the violence of their most radicalized followers is going to take its toll on them: “If there is an effect, it may be more long-term, since the people who decided to vote for these parties at this point do not believe to retreat from this type of actions,” says Franco Delle Donne.