ABSTRACT
The contemporary extreme right in Belgium has a number of features that make it distinctive. The country has been the subject of a number of rumours about clandestine extreme-right wing conspiracies deep in organs of the state, such as the police and Army. The country did also have a number of small right-wing parties that were active in the post-war period, especially in the 1960s partly as an ex-colonist reaction to the independence of the former Belgian Congo. However, the most important developments in Belgium since then have been the presence of extreme-right parties in the separate linguistic communities of the country. There have been only limited results for extreme-right parties in Wallonia, and the most significant developments have been in Flanders, based on the successes of the Vlaams Blok (VB), a breakaway from the principal Flemish nationalist party, the Volksunie (VU). Seeking to establish an independent Flanders, the VB’s support has been strongly based in a number of Flemish cities, but most significantly in Antwerp. Its ideology has been described as having moved from Flemish nationalism to racism, and it has successfully based its appeal, especially in cities such as Antwerp, on hostility to foreign workers and immigrants; its local-area support in Antwerp has particularly correlated with their presence, though the strength of that correlation has been declining as support has become more diverse and undoubtedly motivated also by increasing sympathy for an exclusively Flemish nationalism. The reaction of other parties to the VB has been exclusion, but the degree of the latter’s success suggests that it is nonetheless seen as a vehicle for their views by a not inconsiderable proportion of the Flemish electorate.
