News from Europe

French historian Kevin Bossuet: “Calling Hungary a dictatorship is incorrect”

In an article published in Valeurs Actuelles on the 30th of April, French history professor Kevin Bossuet claimed that “the way the French media portrays the Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, regularly accusing him of being a dictator, is in reality miles away from the facts.”

 

The author notes a number of headlines recently appearing in French media echoing defamatory messages about the head of the Hungarian government: “The Viktator” in Les Echos, “the Hungarian democracy” in Liberation, “the military method of Viktor Orbán” in Le Monde, and “Orbán bleeds democracy” in L’Express.

Kevin Bossuet points out, that “this aversion of the French press towards the conservative leader in Central and Eastern Europe does not date from yesterday but since he became the Prime Minister of Hungary in May 2010.” The history professor recalls Emmanuel Macron’s visit to Slovakia in 2018, when the French leader “violently attacked Viktor Orbán by asserting that he was a ‘mad spirit’ who ‘lied to his people’.”

Bossuet also laments about the shameful reaction of Luxembourg Minister of Foreign Affairs, Jean Asselborn, who said the following in May 2018, when Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz party had a landslide victory in the general elections: “Orbán and company are not a reference for the EU of our children.”

Speaking with German news website Welt, Asselborn claimed that the EU countries needed to take action: “After these elections in Hungary, it is for Germany and France – and all member states that are not indifferent – to get involved, quickly and unambiguously, on the basis of the European treaty and neutralise this tumour of values.”

The author of the article says that “the truth is that criticism of Viktor Orbán is not because he is ‘a potential dictator’ who would transform Hungary into a ‘totalitarian state’ (which is ridiculous!), but because he fervently defends ideas and values that upset all those who dream of transforming Europe into a ‘progressive’ multicultural, social laboratory.”

Bossuet further adds: “yes, it is disturbing because his determination to defend the Christian roots of Hungary and Europe by ardently fighting against large-scale immigration and unbridled multiculturalism directly challenges the ideology of a large part of the European elites.”

Source and image: hungarytoday.hu

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