I’ve stumbled across quite a few articles lately about growing support for far-right parties in France and Britain. Of course, while the numbers remain small (though larger in France), it is perhaps the biggest untold story of Western Europe because, for as much as these people preach tolerance, most Europeans I know — very educated people — absolutely hate the “pakis” and the “beurs“. These are exactly the sentiments that the far-right play on, so it is no wonder that they are most popular in white working-class neighborhoods, the same people who consider themselves truly French and British. Resentment against immigration populations now has more French and Britons than ever considering voting for a far-right party.

So perhaps it is not an untold story, but certainly the degree that their popularity has surged all across Europe could never have been imagined. To me, the hidden story of Britain’s May 2005 parliamentary elections was that support for the British National Party surged from .2% to .7%. That’s not much, of course, but then again, out of 646 seats in the House of Commons the BNP only ran 119 candidates, in which they garnered an average of 4.2% in those constituencies. It did much worse in Scotland and Wales, but some constituencies in England had it fair higher than 10%.

It must be noted that the BNP, of course, has no representatives in parliament. This is mainly due to Britain’s “first past the post” system, much like what we have in the United States, where whoever wins the most votes in a single constituency wins the seat. The design itself helps keep out small extremist parties from influencing national politics, even if it were able to garner a full 4.2% on average nationally.

However, support for some of the BNP’s more populist policies are growing, and it is reflected in a much greater number of people “considering voting” for the BNP in local council elections where a small party is much more likely to fair better. According to the survey, some 25% of Brits are now at least considering giving their vote to the BNP for councillorships. Currently the party has 15 councillors, though while not much, it hasn’t fielded particularly many candidates either. This May it plans to field a total of 356 candidates for the local election, much more than it ever has before. I wouldn’t be surprised to see it win a few more councillorships.

Some people think that more sympathetic feelings toward the BNP and a possibly greater number of votes cast for it would be more of a protest vote than anything. This was certainly the case in the 2002 French presidential election when Le Pen went to the runoff due to strategic protest voting against the Socialists. Yet the BNP polls consistently well in some constituencies, which leads me to believe that it is a cross of dissatisfaction with the two major parties’ failure to really address voter concerns about the multi-cultural society as well as agreement with some of the BNP’s stances toward these issues. Though they may not win a parliamentary seat now if ever due to the structural solidity of the electoral system, we may certainly see greater penetration by the BNP into local elections. It may be a long way off, but if they can do this and prove their managerial capabilities while reworking their image, I would not be surprised if they eventually do gain entry into parliament.

After all, what is happening in France is reverberating throughout the rest of Europe.

Britain is small fries compared to France, though. According to the New York Times, Jean-Marie Le Pen’s approval ratings have risen 5% to 21% since the immigrant riots last year. That doesn’t necessarily predict voting patterns in the near future, but it is rather scary when pairing it up next to potential presidential candidate Dominique de Villepen’s measly 29%.

Le Pen’s National Front party, much like the BNP, doesn’t have any seats in parliament. However, it does fairly well considering in regional presidency and council elections. It was also able to gain 10 seats in the European Parliament. Its regional council presidents score near 20% in many regional presidency elections, while it scored some 13% of the vote in the 2004 regional council elections. In some regions, it controls 1/3 of the seats. The only reason it isn’t part of any power-sharing arrangement with the right is because the left has done exceptionally well lately, blocking them out. That, however, could change.

While I wouldn’t expect either the BNP or FN to gain national legislative seats anytime soon, the only thing really preventing them from doing so is the electoral systems that they are up against. Mounting dissatisfaction with multi-culturalism in both countries is leading to dissatisfaction with the major parties. But since this isn’t translating into seats at the national level, it very well could lead to something of a political insurgency on the local and regional levels in the long term.

If the major parties can’t figure out how to translate voter anger about issues like immigration into policy that actually works, they’ll be in trouble. As we all well know, France doesn’t have a history of waiting for political change in the “enlightened” halls of parliament. They take it to the streets. Could it ever go the same way in Britain? I believe the British political system to be much more fluid than that of the French, so they are more likely to cope with it. Yet they are once again part of a trend going on all over Europe.