The new extremists

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http://www.maribyrnongweekly.com.au/news/world/world/general/the-new-extremists/2643605.aspx?storypage=0

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The Right is on the rise not just in France but across western Europe. There has been a similar spike in support in Greece, where at the June election hardship and anti-immigrant feeling catapulted Golden Dawn - a more extreme right-wing party often described as neo-Nazi - into an unprecedented 18 seats in the Greek parliament.

Parties pushing anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim ideas now have significant parliamentary blocs in eight countries, including Germany, Hungary and the Netherlands, where politician Geert Wilders has compared the Koran to Mein Kampf.

They feed unapologetically on growing resentment that foreigners are taking jobs and welfare benefits. France's anti-Muslim Bloc Identitaire serves a pork-based "identity soup" to homeless people; Greece's Golden Dawn hands out food parcels only to people carrying Greek identity papers.

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A World Economic Forum report on Global Risks 2012 warned that Europe's financial crisis, with resulting 50 per cent unemployment in countries such as Spain and Greece was sowing "the seeds of dystopia". Those seeds have begun to sprout.