A famous man once said about Austria: “If the world has to collapse, I will move to Vienna because everything happens there fifty years later.” This phrase, attributed to the composer Gustav Mahler, the writer Karl Kraus and a few other renowned figures, suggests that this country, renowned for its imperturbable gentleness, would in some way be sheltered from political cataclysms.
This kind of consideration invites us to consider Austria with a form of amused sympathy. We come there to enjoy the gastronomy and the landscapes and we are content to take a curious look at its political tensions, although they are numerous. We are wrong.
Austria may be a small country, but it has always been a pioneer of bigger trends. It was there that, in the mid-1990s, Jörg Haider [figure du Parti de la liberté d’Autriche (FPÖ), extrême droite] laid the foundations for what would become far-right populism in Europe. Jörg Haider not only managed to win election after election by posing as the defender of the common people, he also became a master at pushing the boundaries of public discourse. And he was quickly imitated in the ranks of his party.
In 2017, Austria was still something of a trailblazer when it handed the chancellorship to conservative Sebastian Kurz (Austrian People's Party, ÖVP). Kurz went a step further than Haider.
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Verena Mayer
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