From Le Pen to Sanders — anger drives populist surge

When it was founded in 2013, Alternative fuer Germany (AfD) was really just a political party for economics professors. Launched by Bernd Lucke, a macroeconomics professor at the University of Hamburg, the party’s focus on the nitty-gritty of economics and trade policy was evident from its first convention: There, discussions centred on rejecting the euro and putting an end to bailout packages, with a generally conservative attitude towards free-market topics such as fiscal simplification, debt reduction and the curbing of liability risks.

It has come a long way since then. Today, in the face of a major refugee crisis, the likes of Lucke and his fellow professors have been driven from the party leadership. Now it’s the Right-wing populists Jorg Meuthen and Frauke Petry who have taken power. And their No 1 concern is the rejection and expulsion of refugees and migrants. Precise statements about economic matters have become quite rare.

It’s a strange contrast: The rise of populism in western industrial nations that followed their financial implosion is directly linked to low-income earners’ anger about the crisis and its consequences. French economist Jean Pisani-Ferry attributed the populists’ success to the “bad mood of the lower middle-class”. Still, talking about the economy does not electrify the masses — migration does.

What the AfD is to Germany, the SVP is to Switzerland, with businessman Christoph Blocher holding the reins.

In the United States, real estate billionaire Donald Trump is leading the race to be the Republican nominee for president. His election campaign has focused primarily on his opposition to illegal immigrants and Muslims. As for Trump’s economic programme, one quickly discovers that it is anything but Right-wing; from an American point of view, it might not even qualify as conservative. The candidate echoes the words of American trade unions, pledging to rescue the country from low-priced imports from China.

France’s picture of right-wing populism is, instead, full of specifics. The National Front party of Marine Le Pen has a detailed manifesto of the party’s economic objectives. With terrifying professionalism, the party lays out its plan to take over the French government. Its economic programme is strongly influenced by nationalist socialism.

The National Front wants to partly nationalise French banks and collect a 3 per cent tax on all imports. Le Pen wants to use that money to raise the minimum wage by €200 (Dh813) per month. She also wants the cost of gas and electricity to fall by 3 per cent, and to set a standard retirement age of 60. She is striving for a “strategic partnership” with Russia.

Le Pen to Sanders?

And of course the National Front wants France to exit the euro (which it calls the “Trojan Horse of ultra-globalisation”). With the euro as a parallel currency, the thinking goes, the new franc could return as the country’s legitimate national currency with printing money favoured, capital markets pushed back and inflation maybe even welcomed.

The political dimension of this economic and monetary policy must not be underestimated: France abandoning the euro would be like France turning its back on Germany. Since many French blame European austerity policies and the euro for the economic crisis, this programme could become very attractive not only to far-right voters, but also to those from the Left and Centre.

Democrat presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders in the US, too, can claim the populist label. The democratic socialist senator from Vermont is not xenophobic. He inspires Left-wing youth. And yet, he represents that old American populism from the 19th century, as proven by his radical tirades against Wall Street, and his tendency to want to solve all problems with financially sustainable solutions. Populists such as William Jennings Bryan at the end of the 19th century wanted to remedy farmers’ poverty by fighting the gold standard and declaring silver coins the official means of payment. If they had succeeded, massive inflation would have followed.

Sanders blames America’s banks and stock exchange for all the country’s social problems. Many of his goals could be found in any of Europe’s social-democratic party platforms: Free access to university and a higher minimum wage. But what Sanders is missing is a credible plan for financing his policies.

For Germany, what can make the difference is further success for the AfD in the September regional elections. It seems that the party wants to get rid of the impression of being free-market driven. “I reject another economisation of society. We are the party that takes the middle class’ needs seriously,” says Marcus Pretzell, the AfD’s deputy in the European Parliament, on his website.

Sociopolitically Right-wing, economically Left-wing — that, too, seems to be a valid strategy these days.

— Worldcrunch in partnership with Suddeutsche Zeitung/ New York Times News Service

Nikolaus Piper is an author and journalist with German newspaper Suddeutsche Zeitung.