The Hungarian legislative elections confirmed the fall of Viktor Orbán’s government, in office for sixteen years. From the Bardella-Le Pen duo to Giorgia Meloni, through Éric Zemmour, the chorus of French and European far-right leaders keeps singing its praises.
Hangover for the reactionary international in the wake of Viktor Orbán’s defeat. Prime Minister of Hungary since 2010, the man who cultivated ties with Donald Trump as well as Vladimir Putin was also the beacon of the far right in Europe. Until his crushing defeat this Sunday, April 12, in legislative elections that produced an 80% turnout, a record since the fall of communism. So much so that having obtained, with his party Respect and Freedom (Tisza, center-right), a majority of 138 deputies out of 199, his main opponent, the MEP Péter Magyar, can preen: “The Hungarian people did not vote for a simple change of government, but for a complete regime change.”
In Brussels, the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, does not hide her relief at finally seeing the authoritarian leader, foe of the democratic principles guaranteed by the European Union, depart, to the point of banning, for example, any LGBT demonstration. “Hungary has chosen Europe. Europe has always chosen Hungary,” she wrote on X. A country is returning to its European path. The Union grows stronger.
Le Pen, Bardella, Zemmour
From Argentine President Javier Milei to American Vice President J. D. Vance, who both traveled to Hungary during the campaign, the reactionary international did everything to save the soldier Viktor Orbán, despite his multiple attacks on the rule of law and the corruption scandals that beset him. Now she persists after his downfall: “I thank my friend Viktor Orbán,” writes the Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, in echo with Alice Weidel, the leader of Germany’s far-right AfD, who offers “a very sincere thank you to Viktor Orbán.”
In France, Marine Le Pen praises the “elegance” with which the defeated Prime Minister accepted the verdict of the urns, seeing there the mark of the “exceptional leader” she had also gone to support, on March 23 in Budapest, alongside the crème de la crème of European far-right: the Italian Matteo Salvini, the Dutch Geert Wilders, and the Spaniard Santiago Abascal. And the Frenchwoman hails the “courage” and the “determination” of the one who had supported her in the 2022 presidential election, before proclaiming “I am Marine!” at his judicial conviction a year ago.
Éric Zemmour shares the same analysis as his rival from the National Rally (RN), stating that Viktor Orbán “has well deserved Hungary by leaving power like a democrat after having “certainly saved his country from migratory invasion and the woke deliriums of the European Commission”. The president of the RN, Jordan Bardella, joins these tributes, praising in his European ally “a great patriot” who will have “promoted family policies that helped protect birth rates, and defended the borders of his country and of Europe against migratory flows”. A real epic.
