John Downing: Austria’s new hard-right election winners make Marine Le Pen look moderate

Suddenly France’s Marine Le Pen and Italy’s Giorgia Meloni look like moderates compared with the Austrian hard-right Freedom Party, which took first place in elections last Sunday. Unlike Le Pen or Meloni, the FPO, as it support grows, has made few attempts to “mainstream” or “detoxify” its policies and its top people revel in criticisms based on the hard right’s dark past on mainland Europe. That legendary “cleverness” often ­associated with Austrians – who supposedly allowed the world to believe Hitler was German and Beethoven was Austrian – does not seem to figure here.

The FPO leader, Herbert Kickl, relishes the attacks on him, many relating to the party’s alleged sympathy towards the Nazis and the Austrian-born Mr Hitler..