FACTBOX-Far-right political parties in Europe

Published: 19 Mar 2009 17:34:21 PST

March 19 - Far-right politicians in Britain are learning new tactics from allies across Europe and are keen to grasp a chance at European elections in June to tap into the misery of millions made unemployed by the recession.

Here are some recent developments in other key far-right political parties in Europe.

FRANCE

-- National Front leader Jean Marie Le Pen stunned France when he came second in the 2002 presidential vote.

-- The party's support fell to 4.3 percent in 2007, from a level above 10 percent that it had enjoyed for decades.

-- In 2007 presidential election, Le Pen came fourth in the first round with 10.4 percent of votes, and the party scored under 5 percent in parliamentary elections.

-- Political analysts say President Nicolas Sarkozy has astutely won over far right supporters with his tough law and order agenda.

ITALY

-- Right-wing National Alliance leader Gianfranco Fini was voted president of parliament's lower house after 2008 elections, boosting the influence of reformed fascists in Silvio Berlusconi's government.

-- National Alliance also received an unexpected extra boost when Gianni Alemanno -- another former neo-fascist who wears the Celtic cross, a far-right symbol, round his neck -- was voted mayor of Rome in April 2008.

-- The AN is the successor to the Italian Social Movement begun by supporters of fascist leader Benito Mussolini after his death in 1945. Fini dissolved the MSI in 1995 to form the AN, which he has tried to turn into a mainstream conservative party.

AUSTRIA

-- Support for Austria's far-right surged in two regional elections this month, proving it still has pulling power despite the death of its charismatic leader Joerg Haider in a car crash last October.

- Alliance for Austria's Future, a far-right populist party founded by Haider, won more than 45.5 percent of the vote in Carinthia, and around 13 percent in Salzburg.

-- The AFA took around a third of the vote in the national elections last September.

GERMANY

-- Far-right National Democratic Party (NPD) has made gains in recent regional elections and counts some 7,000 members in Germany. In June 2008 for the first time, the NPD won seats on every council it contested in the eastern state of Saxony. In one neo-Nazi stronghold near the Czech border, it won 25.3 percent.

-- Roughly 1-in-20 15-year-old German males is a member of a neo-Nazi group, a higher proportion than are involved in mainstream politics, according to a study released by Lower Saxony's criminal research institute on March 17.

-- The study said fewer than two percent of young men were active in mainstream politics, compared to the five percent involved in far-right groups.

BRITAIN

-- The far-right British National Party (BNP) is opposed to EU membership and wants limits on immigration. It has no national elected representative at national level but has seen its popularity from virtually nothing barely a decade ago to bring it to the threshold of electoral success.

-- The BNP, which denies being racist or that it holds racist policies, has around 50 of the 20,000 or so local council seats in England and one seat on the London Assembly.

-- Members of the Church of England voted on Feb. 10, 2009 to ban clergy from joining the anti-immigration British National Party (BNP) and other far-right parties.