![Europe faced with the increase in violence against politicians Europe faced with the increase in violence against politicians](https://media.lesechos.com/api/v1/images/view/6644f225385cfa039c3e4559/1280x720/01101095233627-web-tete.jpg)
This Wednesday’s attack against Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, who was seriously injured by bullets, is part of a worrying sequence of increasing violence against political leaders.
On May 9, Volodymyr Zelensky fired the head of Ukraine’s State Protection Department (and therefore his own security), two days after Ukrainian authorities claimed to have foiled a Russian plot to assassinate the Ukrainian president and several senior military officials. According to the Ukrainian security services (SBU), agents controlled by Moscow were preparing the assassinations of Volodymyr Zelensky, the head of military intelligence, Kyrylo Budanov, and that of the SBU, Vassyl Maliouk.
On Saturday May 4, Matthias Ecke, German MEP from the Social Democratic Party (SPD), was seriously injured by unknown assailants who attacked him while he was putting up election posters in the streets of Dresden, ahead of the European elections in June 9. On June 10, the weekly “Der Spiegel” put on its front page an aggressively tagged photo of Chancellor Olaf Scholz, under the headline “The new hatred of politicians”. The article describes the trivialization of violence, particularly among young people open to far-right ideas.
Threats against family
On the networks, the harassment of those in charge is sometimes such that it can lead them to abandon politics. Zuzana Caputova, president of Slovakia from 2019 to 2024, announced last year that she did not want to run for a second term this year after receiving numerous threats. Not only against her, but also against her family. She was the regular target of verbal attacks from Smer, Robert Fico’s party. The latter himself had described him as an “American agent”.
Slovakia is characterized by a very violent political culture. On February 21, 2018, journalist Jan Kuciak and his partner were murdered not far from Bratislava. The attack led to the largest demonstrations since the Velvet Revolution and a political crisis which forced the resignation of Robert Fico, already Prime Minister at the time (since 2012).
Police protection
Like Zuzana Caputova, Dutch Finance Minister Sigrid Kaag announced last year that she would not lead her party, the D66 (liberal), to the legislative elections in the fall, because of the numerous intimidations of which she was the victim. For example, a man appeared in front of his home screaming, with a torch in his hand.
Last year, a plot against the mayor of Antwerp, Bart de Wever, was foiled. The leader of the Flemish nationalist party N-VA was already under police protection, as were many other Belgian officials. The port of Antwerp, the second largest in Europe, has become a hub for drug trafficking on the continent.
Rise of the far right
These threats, intimidations and actions are certainly not new. British Labor MP Jo Cox was assassinated in June 2016, a few days before the Brexit referendum. A square now bears his name in Brussels.
The Swedish Social Democratic Foreign Minister, Anna Lindh, was also killed in 2003 in Stockholm. Sweden had already experienced violent trauma with the assassination of its Prime Minister Olof Palme in 1986.
But this recent increase in violence corresponds to a moment of hardening in international relations on the one hand, and to a dynamic of rapid rise in power of far-right parties on the other. One more reason, for all the presidents of the EU institutions, on Wednesday, to shout their condemnation of the attack against Robert Fico.