Experts and Norwegian politicians say Anders Behring Breivik in many respects typifies a new breed of conservative extremists who have risen in prominence in recent years, in Norway and across Europe, supplanting longer-established but often withering groups of mostly white supremacists, Financial Times reports
“He’s representative of a new type of rightwing extremism. Rather than the old neo-Nazis they are pro-Israel and driven by radical anti-Islam,” says a senior Norwegian Conservative politician. “This is a clear trend across Europe, which has been gaining ground and becoming more mainstream in many countries.”
In addition to Norway’s Progress party – of which Mr Breivik was a member – the anti-immigrant Danish Peoples’ party, the rehabilitated neo-Nazi Sweden Democrats, the True Finns, Geert Wilders’ Party for Freedom in the Netherlands and France’s National Front have become electoral forces in recent years.