GENDER ISSUES IN THE ANTI-IMMIGRANT AGENDA OF EUROPEAN RADICAL RIGHT

Abstract

An attempt to show the role of women's rights in the anti-immigrant agenda of European radical right has been undertaken in the article. The author addresses to representative trends of modern right-wing radicals in Europe. The concept of «Eurabia» and the theory of Great Replacement are used as the theoretical substantiation of the anti-migrant views of right-wing radicals. The main message of these theories is related to the fact that the decline in the birth rate in Europe, combined with the increase in migrant flows, will lead to the replacement of European politics and lifestyle with Islamic values. Radical right emphasize that the European way of life and values are fundamentally incompatible with the Muslim way of life. Moreover, within the framework of the policy of modernizing their image, right-wing radicals complement the concept of «traditional European values», which they have always defended, with «liberal» values of women's emancipation. Thus, right-wing radicals are forming the image of European enemy - a patriarchal Muslim migrant. To recreate this portrait and to identify the main features of the rhetoric of right-wing radicals regarding the threat of a migrant invasion of female emancipation, the author addresses party programs, political posters, interviews with party leaders, media materials and right-wing radical news portals. Special attention is paid to the debate about the right to wear the veil - the main pressure point for the European right, for whom veil is a kind of «banner» of Islam. The foregoing allows concluding that, on the one hand, the use of the women's rights expands the range of arguments of right-wing radicals against European migration policy, and on the other hand, it allows radical right to establish themselves as defenders of women's rights associated with human rights as the main European value.