The leaders of two Eurosceptic political parties are trying to build a new right-wing bloc in the European Parliament.  But there are fears Geert Wilders and Marine Le Pen will create a clearinghouse for racist, bigoted, xenophobic nationalist parties in the European Union.

Geert Wilders of the Dutch Freedom Party (PVV) and Marine Le Pen of France’s National Front have won support in their respective countries with rhetorical blasts against immigration, Islam, and the fear of too much power concentrating in the European Parliament.  Now they are hoping for strength in numbers.

Both acknowledged that their parties do not agree on everything (Hey, who’d have ever foreseen that xenophobes from other countries would have trouble seeing eye to eye on how much they don’t like other people?).  In the past, Wilders has been reluctant to associate his party with the National Front, because its founder Jean-Marie Le Pen, Marine’s father, has been convicted and fined for racism and anti-Semitism.

But European voters are worn down by six years of austerity, recession, and unemployment.  The desperation manifests itself in the election of groups that openly espousing racist rhetoric such as Golden Dawn in Greece and Jobbik in Hungary.  The National Front and PVV deny racism and xenophobia, but antiracism campaigners say the parties’ rhetoric on Muslim and Roma peoples isn’t that far removed from the animals in Golden Dawn and Jobbik.

European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso warned last month that some of the rhetoric of populist parties could lead to “narrow nationalism, protectionism and xenophobia.”

Wilders has made overtures to the leader of the UKIP (United Kingdom Independence Party), which could possibly out-poll the Tories in the European elections, exclaiming “We have a lot of respect for Nigel Farage and think he is an excellent politician.”

But Neil Farage has thus far refused to join the Wilders-Le Pen alliance, stating that his party is Libertarian rather than right-wing.  That has some officials in Brussels hoping that people who spend their time peering over the borders casting suspicious eyes at everyone else would find it too difficult to come to terms with each other.