Talk:Europe of Nations and Freedom/Archive 1

Archive 1

Freedom or Freedoms?

BBC report states the name of the group is "Europe of Nations and Freedoms". Surely this is a more accurate translation of the French name? Are there any official sources for the use of the singular form?Frinton100 (talk) 12:45, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

Found on Wilders' twitter feed (actually a retweet from Janice Atkinson): "Today I am launching Europe of Nations and Freedom, a new European Parliament grouping...". Also, the name of the parliamentary group is derived from that of the Movement for a Europe of Nations and Freedom, which already has some coverage using the singular form. The press also seems to prefer the singular, with 146 hits against 7 hits for Freedoms. Place Clichy (talk) 12:59, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

Given the name of MENF, certainly the singular would make more sense (I notice that in French they are still "des libertés" yet "Freedom" in English), and clearly if a senior member of the group is using this form in English language communications then it's what we should stick to. However, I don't think the hits really tell the full story. Many of them are nothing to do with the new group - for example, one of them is a story from 8th May reporting the UK election result, another is from April about the horsemeat scandal! Frinton100 (talk) 13:08, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

That's the beauty of search engines. However, under the first block of related news pieces, you can see a small link indicating "89 other articles" that are relevant to the parliamentary group. Place Clichy (talk) 13:55, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

I can add that in Dutch the singular form is used - Skuipers (talk) 15:06, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

Seats

FPO + VI + FN + LN + PVV + KNP + Atkinson = 40 seats. 40- Aymeric Chauprade - Bruno Gollnisch - Jean-Marie Le Pen =37 seats83.80.208.22 (talk) 15:21, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

2014 Election Results: FPO 4, VB 1, FN 24, Lega Nord 5, PVV 4, KNP 4 + Atkinson = 43

Since then PVV have lost 1 (Hans Jansen, died May 2015), KNP have lost 2, and FN have lost 4 (Joelle Bergeron left within days of the election) - 7 losses, total seats 36. Frinton100 (talk) 16:06, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Hans Jansen's seat is empty since his death in May, which explains why only three PVV MEPs joigned the new group instead of 4. An empty seat cannot sign a group declaration, nor can a dead man. Place Clichy (talk) 16:10, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

Aymeric Chauprade(FN) and the new PVV MP Auke Zijlstra will join later these month83.80.208.22 (talk) 18:05, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

Right-wing or Far right

Right-wing or Far right?83.80.208.22 (talk) 19:12, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

There is no political classification of these political group (2 days old). Only about the individual parties, who are right-wing populist to far-right --Benqo (talk) 23:24, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

The vast majority of English language media reports explicitly refer to the group as far-right. It's hardly controversial to refer to the group as far-right, most of the constituent parties are recognised as far-right (the Lega Nord being a grey area), the previous group with very similar membership (ITS) is referred to in academic literature as far-right, etc. ENL is not the ECR (a mix of the centre-right and slightly further right) or EFDD (arguably heterogenous), but an explciitly right-of-the-right group. It is our duty as encyclopaedia compilers to be as neutral and academically honest as possible, not to pull back and use euphemisms in topics that are controversial.--Autospark (talk) 23:40, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

Nonesene. You can't describe a two-day-old politcal group with seven different parties in a word. --Benqo (talk) 00:15, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

I agree with Autospark. The fact they are only two days old is irrelevant. As stated above, most of the parties are considered far-right, FN (a definite far-right party) make up the majority of the group. I think it is safe to say that this group is a far-right group. I fail to see how a group that is composed of mostly far-right parties cannot be considered a far right group, no matter how old it is. Basically, if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck......Frinton100 (talk) 01:25, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

Most news sources describe the ENL group and most of its member parties as far-right, thus Autospark is right.

This said, I disagree with that classification, which seems to be a little bit old-fashioned, as well as with any comparison with ITS (that I wouldn't mention in the article). The latter was definitely a far-right group, composed mainly of fringe parties, some of which with neo-fascist roots, while the ENL is a different thing.

First and foremost, its membership does not include extremist/fringe parties such as Tricolour Flame, the Greater Romania Party and National Union Attack (as well as Golden Dawn, the National Democratic Party of Germany and Jobbik, for that matter). Secondly, parties like the National Front have travelled a long way from being extemist/fringe parties to become more respectable right-wing people's parties (and voters have acknowledged it). Thirdly, parties like Lega Nord and the Party for Freedom are hardly far-right, at least in the classical sense. Finally, most of the ENL member parties are hardly classifiable on the right-left scale too and they are quite diverse one from another in terms of foreign policy, economic issues, social issues, etc. (to some extent, they are not conservative at all).

We definitely need to stick to sources and refrain from original research, but we should also describe the ENL group in a more problematic way. To describe parties which control big shares of the vote as far-right, while classifying communist parties as simply left-wing, is not fair. --Checco (talk) 09:10, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

I don't think there is ambiguity to call them far-right. "Big shares of the vote", really? It's only 36 MEPs, the smallest of the 8 groups. The only party with a big share of the vote would be the FN, and it is consistently described as far-right (extrême-droite) here in France. It is true that the current leadership has a strategy of changing its image to attract more moderate voters, but at the same time the news are full every other day with the fringe tactics and extreme public positions of its members, so it's still a long shot. PVV, KNP, VB are consistently described as far-right, Lega Nord as xenophobic, only the UKIP dissenter would be a mere "right-wing populist", although it may be hard to tell what her personal positioning is. I don't know what you mean by "far-right in the classical sense", but I don't think that you need to be a small obscure clique or groupuscule to be classified as far-right. There's no contradiction between far-right and large popular support, there are some classic examples of racist/xenophobic/nationalist parties being popular like the Action française in the past, the Jobbik or Golden Dawn (besides the other parties discussed here) today. Also, mention of ITS, and maybe previous far-right "technical groups", is perfectly relevant, even if there is no direct lineage. Place Clichy (talk) 10:17, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

Ps: Why "des nations" is not translated into "of the Nations" (consistently with Union for Europe of the Nations) and "libertés" into "Freedoms". I do like "Europe of Nations and Freedom" better, but I am not sure it is the most correct translation. --Checco (talk) 09:40, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

That's the translation used by the EP itself, as well as its founders themselves (see the above comment about Wilders' and Atkinson's tweets). The name seems to be modelled after the Movement for a Europe of Nations and Freedom, a grouping of the same parties created late 2014. The former EP group Union for Europe of the Nations is unrelated, its positioning is more or less that of the EFDD today. Place Clichy (talk) 10:17, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

Our description should follow reliable sources. We should not be relying on our own analyses of the constituent parties. So, I had a look at some reliable sources:

"Far right" is used by the BBC, The Telegraph, euobserver, Euronews, The Guardian, The Daily Mail, Huff Po and The Parliament Magazine. "Far right" was the main descriptor they all used, except The Daily Mail, which led with "Eurosceptic" but used "far right" later in the article.

I think that's very clear: reliable sources call them "far right", so Wikipedia calls them "far right". Bondegezou (talk) 10:44, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

Thanks to Place Clichy for the note on the translation! I broadly agree with him/her and I fully agree with Bondegezou, in fact that is what I wrote above: "We definitely need to stick to sources and refrain from original research, but we should also describe the ENL group in a more problematic way.". "Far-right" should be definitely mentioned, but also "right-wing" should be. Finally, I continue to find a little bit strange to see a group like this classified just as "far-right" and the Party of the European Left as simply left-wing: there is some inconsistency in that. This said, I am sure that news sources will stop classifying the FN and other parties that way in the future (let's see) and it is likely that the so-called "right-wing populist" parties (in this, ELD members are quite similar to many members of the EFDD and the ECR groups) will get even larger shares of vote (the LN is a regional party, which gets already 30-40% of the vote in the most modern, European-minded and productive regions of Italy, the FN is around 20-25% nationally, the Danish People's Party may get more than 20% in today's general election, etc.). --Checco (talk) 11:22, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

Again, what's the connection between electoral success and the far-right? The people can very well vote for a far-right party in large numbers, even in a parliamentary democracy. Place Clichy (talk) 12:17, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

In modern democracies (parliamentary or presidential, it does not matter), a highly successful party cannot be far-right or far-left by definition (that is the main reason why the Italian Communist Party is not usually classified as a far-left party). And, again, why do current communist parties are not classified as far-left in en.Wikipedia? And why the Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy and the European Conservatives and Reformists are not classified also as far-right, even though many of their members include far-right elements? Once again, my point is not to remove "far-right politics" from this article's infobox, but to add also something else like "right-wing politics", "anti-establishment" and so on. --Checco (talk) 12:38, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

Amendments to the articles for Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy, European Conservatives and Reformists &c. would be best discussed on their Talk pages. The infobox for this article currently lists 4 terms: "Far-right politics" (with numerous citations) and "Euroscepticism", "Right-wing populist" and "Anti-immigration" each with one citation each. That appears to satisfy everyone's wishes and the requirements of WP:RS. Additional citations for the later terms would be valuable. Bondegezou (talk) 13:24, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

Re "a highly successful party cannot be far-right or far-left by definition", this seems to be a very weird definition. I guess it will make supporters of far-right entities extremely sad to be denied success. So Jobbik or Golden Dawn wouldn't be far-right parties, despite their electoral success and the number of MPs they obtained? Much is to be said about Fidesz, or the situation in Russia or in Ukraine for instance. Also, a number of far-right parties reached power through elections in many pre-war central European democracies, not just Germany.

About the far-left, in my understanding this term usually describes parties to the left of communists, especially trotskyists and anarchists, as early as Lenin himself & his book "Left-Wing" Communism: An Infantile Disorder. There again, nothing forbids them electoral success: the Syriza coalition in power in Greece contains several far-left elements, and trotskyists and anarchists were major players in the political scene of the former Spanish Republic. Place Clichy (talk) 14:22, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

source http://www.parties-and-elections.eu FN(far-right), VI(far-right), PVV(right-wing), LN(right-wing), FPO(right-wing) and KNP(no source).

source wikipedia FN(Right-wing to Far-right), VI(far-right), PVV(right-wing), LN(right-wing), FPO(Right-wing to Far-right) and KNP(right-wing).

there is no clear conclusion83.80.208.22 (talk) 14:07, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

The IP user raised a very good point! PE's website matters more than mere news sources to me. --Checco (talk) 14:21, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

We need sources that describe the political ideology of Europe of Nations and Freedom as a grouping. Analysing the political ideology of constituent parties seems a bit too close to WP:SYNTH to me, and Wikipedia does not count as a reliable source for itself (WP:WPNOTRS) anyway. If you have reliable sources describing the ideology of the group, then add them to the article.

More generally, Checco, I am unclear what edits you are arguing for. The article already does what you want, it describes the ENF in multiple terms, not just as "far right". Bondegezou (talk) 14:42, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

I appreciated PC's and Bondegezou's comments, but I much agree with this edit by an IP user and, especially, its edit summary: "Please do not use news articles as a souce for their ideology. Besides that, 'far right politics' is not an ideology, it's a position". --Checco (talk) 17:29, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

What is and is not a reliable source is determined by WP:RS, not by an IP user's edit summary. If you have an issue with the reliability of any sources used, please do explain your concerns. Bondegezou (talk) 22:53, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

We should refer primarily to the work of political scientists and, more generally, people involved in comparation of parties. In this respect, I am quite interested in reading how the PE's website will classify the party. Anyway, while political scientists write their books on the subject, I can live with news sources, but I also ask each and everyone of you to find more sources in order to describe the group in a more complex/problematic way. --Checco (talk) 06:40, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

Ps: Wikipedia rules are important, but one of the main rules has to do with consensus. The IP's and my comments show that there is not full consensus on the current version of the "ideology" section of the infobox. We can do better to find a good compromise. --Checco (talk) 06:42, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

Personally, I think the ideology section is fine as it stands. I do not see that it is improved by simply removing "far-right" from the infobox. Frinton100 (talk) 17:19, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

Pro-Kremlin

If this is a salient feature of Europe of Nations and Freedom; indeed what appears to be a primary characteristic, then a reference to this should most definitely be included. In fact the current paragraph referring to this is unclear (kind of convoluted) and deserves to be rewritten in a clearer way and to be expanded. This would apply particularly if it appears - and to me it does - that the ENF MEPs are acting as foreign agents within the European Parliament. Fellow travelers of the Kremlin, if you will. Sean Maleter (talk) 07:55, 28 May 2019 (UTC)