“National priority”, an idea from the French far-right that the PP has bought from Vox

The principle of “national priority”, introduced by Vox in the agreement to invest María Guardiola as president of Extremadura and accepted by the PP, is not an invention of Santiago Abascal’s party, but a hallmark of the European far-right launched half a century ago by the French National Front. The first to popularize it was Jean-Marie Le Pen, father of Marine, the far-right leader who tops the polls to occupy the Élysée Palace after the 2027 presidential elections.

Read more Child poverty is an employment problem

In the 1978 legislative elections, the National Front disseminated a poster that read: “One million unemployed means one million too many immigrants! France and the French first!”. The patriarch of the French far-right thus blamed immigrants for the sharp increase in unemployment that was ravaging his country. The poster was updated on successive occasions, modifying the number of unemployed and raising it to three million in 1982.

In 1985, Jean-Yves Le Gallou, who began his political career in the right-wing Republican Party before moving to the ultra National Front and ending up as a colleague of the xenophobic Éric Zemmour, published National Preference. Response to Immigration, a book that provided a doctrinal basis for the principle of discrimination against non-French people. Marine Le Pen inherited this banner but, as part of a process of de-demonization of the French far-right, which led her to change the party’s name to National Rally, she also opted for a change of language: instead of speaking of “national preference”, which suggests relegating non-French people, she began to use the term “national priority”, which implies better treatment for French people. In the 2022 presidential elections, Le Pen defended the priority status of French citizens in access to education, employment, and housing, while foreigners were required five years of work in France to access social aid.

The principle of national priority, with the consequent rejection of immigrants, has been adopted by the entire European far-right. “Dutch first” or “Germans first” have been slogans used by Geert Wilders’ Party for Freedom (PVV) or Alice Weidel’s Alternative for Germany (AfD). In Spain, the slogan “Spaniards first” has been defended by far-right parties such as España 2000 or the neo-Nazi group Hogar Social, which provided social aid exclusively to homeless people of Spanish nationality.

Read more Peridis: jump, horse!

But the one who exploited this idea most successfully was Josep Anglada, who with his Plataforma per Catalunya (PxC) obtained 67 councilors in the 2011 municipal elections. “First, those from home”, was the slogan of this xenophobic formation. Last April 7, the president of Vox in Barcelona and spokesman for the ultra group in the Catalan Parliament, Juan Garriga, presented the campaign with which he has filled Catalonia with billboards. Its motto: “First, those from home”. The coincidence is not strange, since Juan Garriga, cousin of Vox’s secretary general, was a leader of Anglada’s party. With this campaign, Vox aims to curb the advance of Aliança Catalana, with which it competes in its rejection of immigration and whose leader, Silvia Orriols, has championed “Catalonia first”. The problem lies in knowing who “those from home” are, as Vox and Orriols do not seem to be referring to the same people.

In the amendment that the Popular Group has presented in Congress to the motion by Vox that called for “guaranteeing national priority” in access to social aid, Alberto Núñez Feijóo’s party has literally reproduced the Extremadura pact, thus assuming at a national level the concessions made by the Extremaduran PP. The amendment states “to be inspired by national priority” but, while it manages to reform the Immigration Law, which strictly prohibits discriminating against foreigners compared to Spaniards, it commits to giving priority to those who “maintain a real, lasting and verifiable rootedness”: which includes objective concepts such as length of time on the municipal register along with others as subjective as the “applicant’s emotional relationship with the territory”; that is, their love for the autonomous community. Depending on how these criteria are developed, they may violate Article 14 of the Constitution, which declares that all Spaniards are equal before the law. The paradox lies in a party like Aliança Catalana ending up applying the principles of “national priority” and rootedness to discriminate against other Spaniards in Catalonia.

Read more The Government sets 25% discounts on internet for 800,000 vulnerable households