“The general trend in far-right fatal attacks is down”

Jacob Aasland Ravndal is an associate professor at the Norwegian Police University and an associate researcher at the Center for Research on Extremism (C-REX) at the University of Oslo. This specialist in terrorism, political violence and militancy, created Right-wing Terrorism and Violence in Western Europe (RTV), a database on far-right violence in Western Europe. He is also one of the authors of the annual report ” RTV Trend Report », published by the C-REX and which analyzes the evolution of this phenomenon.

Can we say that far-right violence is on the rise in our democracies?

This question is open to debate: it all depends on how the count is made. The data collected within the RTV concern 18 countries of Western Europe and relate to the attacks having caused deaths since 1990. The general trend is downward. With “only” two deadly attacks, 2021 is one of the five years with the fewest people killed by the far right.

The violence is much greater in the United States. If we compare the figures of the United States Extremist Crime Database (the database of extremist crimes in the United States) with those of the RTV, we see that since 1990 the total number of fatal attacks is approximately the even in the United States and Western Europe – 227 versus 224. However, the death toll is much higher there, 523 versus 352. This difference is explained by greater access to firearms in the United States .

Also read the column: Article reserved for our subscribers Far-right terrorism: “The major risk will not come from members of formed small groups”

In Europe, in the vast majority of cases, the violence committed is not a large-scale attack, widely publicized, but spontaneous racist attacks, on a smaller scale, but nevertheless severe.

How do you observe the impact of the electoral successes of far-right parties on the occurrence of this violence?

Violence leading to death is lower in countries where these parties have broad electoral support. In Denmark, Austria and Switzerland, for example, where far-right parties have had a strong electoral base for a very long time, lethal attacks are limited. Conversely, in countries such as Sweden, Germany and the United Kingdom, where the far right does not do very well at the polls, violence is more recurrent.

The number of attacks decreases, according to you. But isn’t there an increase in failed plots and police arrests?

We are seeing an increase in large-scale attack plans detected and foiled. The observed trends can be interpreted in two ways. First hypothesis: the threat is growing, but it is contained by the security services. Second hypothesis: terrorist activity has not increased, there is simply greater attention from the authorities, even excessive attention, which has prompted them to arrest individuals whose plan of attack had little chance of succeeding. achieve. The study of foiled plots shows that several of them were far from being accomplished. This trend is widespread in Europe, but it is particularly the case in France, Germany and the United Kingdom.

You have 69.79% of this article left to read. The following is for subscribers only.