Blog post by Amir Aziz, University of California, Berkeley
 
Situated in the scenic port area, the downtown neighbourhood Noailles is frequently touted as the heart of multicultural diversity in the French Mediterranean city of Marseille. Since the 1990s, Noailles has been subjected to waves of urban renewal programmes, such as the Euroméditerranée project, that sought to revitalize Marseille’s downtown by building new offices, hotels and tourist amenities. This construction of expensive projects has threatened to drive out longtime Noailles residents and shopowners, many of whom are of Muslim and northern/western African origin.

In October 2018, locals protested the decision to tear down Place Jean-Jaurès, a public square affectionately called La Plaine (‘The Plains’) that hosted free local activities and markets. The city deployed riot police to quell protests and guard the construction zone, erecting a costly 2.5-metre concrete wall to prohibit access. Yet, commercial redevelopment has not led to concrete living improvements for locals.

Blog post by Liam Gillespie, University of Melbourne, Australia
 
It is often said that we are living in a period characterized by the ‘main-streaming’ of the far right. The idea is that the previously unacceptable ‘fringes’ of society – the literally ‘far’ right – have come to increasingly occupy and influence the mainstream or ‘centre’ of society, effectively becoming part of it. Commonly cited indicators for this idea include the return – and indeed in some cases the re-election – of political figures like Donald Trump, Boris Johnson, Marine Le Pen, Viktor Orbán, Giorgia Meloni, Javier Milei and Geert Wilders, all of whom have successfully tapped into and normalized racism, ethnic nationalism, xenophobia, misogyny, transphobia (and more) to achieve political success.
 
Consequently, research on the far right is booming, and much of the emerging literature now attempts to understand how and why the far right has come to be mainstreamed and normalized.