Star Metro - Dutch far right alive and well despite centrist victory

Their old-fashioned garb is the norm in the town of Staphorst, nestled near the top end of the so-called Dutch Bible Belt, which stretches from Zeeland in the southwest to northeastern Overijssel.

The far right's electoral success in this area attests to the movement's persistence, despite a slim centrist victory over Geert Wilders in October elections.

Wilders's PVV is not the only far-right party in the Netherlands. While it lost 11 seats last month, the nationalist FvD party rose from three seats to seven.

The FvD, which advocates climate-sceptic policies and a Dutch exit from the European Union, enjoyed its strongest score in Staphorst.

"We are a fan of the FvD in my house," said Irena Nobel, 18, who told AFP she and her parents had voted for them.

Nobel admires the party's 28-year-old leader Lidewij de Vos, calling her "a very intelligent woman who does not follow the general consensus".

- Tattoos and three-piece suits -

Having secured 10 percent of the Staphorst vote, the FvD came third behind the PVV and the indomitable SGP -- a reformist Protestant party.

FvD voters represent all social classes, according to local party councillor Remco Roelofs.

"They have tattoos, wear three-piece suits or go to vote wearing wooden clogs," he told AFP.

But the JA21 party -- an FvD breakaway -- made the biggest gains, winning nine seats compared to one seat last political term.

"The FvD and JA21 can be considered part of a broader bloc of far-right parties in the Netherlands," Stijn van Kessel, a political science professor at Queen Mary University of London, told AFP.

JA21 represents a "moderate" strand of the far right, while the FvD promotes a "more radical ideology", Van Kessel said.

- 'Normalised' -

"Their ideology has largely become normalised, and together with the PVV, they attract a large number of voters," he added.

Together, the three parties have 42 out of 150 seats -- 28 percent of representation in parliament.

The FvD, which has cultivated links with Germany's far-right AfD and Eric Zemmour in France, has argued that Wilders has watered down his stances to fit with established politics and has compared him to France's other far-right firebrand Marine Le Pen.

The PVV lost a significant number of votes to the FvD and JA21, according to Van Kessel, who says these parties appeal to culturally conservative voters like those in Staphorst.

This manifests itself in anti-migrant opinions and a desire to preserve "national identity and traditional values", he said, with the FvD "embodying these 'nativist', authoritarian positions".

The Netherlands is no exception to the far right's leaps and bounds in present-day Europe.

But Van Kessel noted that the variety of far-right parties represented in Dutch parliament was "remarkable".

W.Fortin--SMC