46 Europe The EconomistOctober 5th 2019
21ing popular frustration with the long duo-
poly of the övpand the Social Democrats,
and the corporatist Proporz system that
divvied up public jobs and doled out pa-
tronage between the parties. Its xenopho-
bia has been less of an electoral handicap
in a country that did not go through a Ger-
man-style post-Nazi reckoning. So when
one or other mainstream party has grown
tired of grand coalitions it has usually had
nowhere to turn but to the fpö. Expect to
hear from the party again in due course.
The same is true in Hungary. Mr Or-
ban’s Fidesz party remains all-powerful in
villages and small towns, but faces a strong
challenge from the (almost) united opposi-
tion in Budapest and larger provincial cit-
ies at local elections due on October 13th.
The Fidesz party machine has responded
with both the potato and the stick: in Buda-
pest’s 11th district, 10 kilo sacks of potatoes
were sold for less than a euro, with a pic-
ture of the local Fidesz mayor attached, and
a recipe for rakott krumpli, a Hungarian po-
tato, egg and sausage delicacy.
There have also been fierce attacks on
Gergely Karacsony, the united opposition
candidate for mayor, who is running neck
and neck with Istvan Tarlos, the Fidesz-
backed incumbent, according to polls.
After coming to power in 2010, Mr Orban
changed Hungary’s electoral law to create a
system that favours the strongest party—
his own. It has taken the other parties, from
left to right, years of squabbling and in-
fighting to realise that the only way to chal-
lenge him is to band together, using prima-
ries. Now they have done so. If they suc-
ceed, they will have a useful platform from
which to challenge Mr Orban at the next
parliamentary elections, due in 2022.
But it is in Italy that the fortunes of the
populists have suffered the most conse-
quential reverse. The European electionwas a resounding success for Mr Salvini.
His party took more than a third of the
votes in Italy. His non-stop campaigning
and uncompromising stance on immigra-
tion helped his party to unprecedented
heights in the polls. By early July, it was av-
eraging 37.5%—a level of support that
tempted him to take the misguided deci-
sion the following month to bring down
the government of which he was part in the
hope of forcing an election.
The effect, instead, was to catapult his
coalition partners in the anti-establish-
ment Five Star Movement (m 5 s) into the
arms of the centre-left Democratic Party
(pd), creating a new parliamentary major-
ity that underpins Giuseppe Conte’s sec-
ond government. Since it was sworn in last
month, Mr Salvini has plainly shrunk in
stature. Deprived of power and the atten-
tion it attracts, he can no longer force him-
self to the top of the news agenda. Support
for the League has fallen to below 32%.
Still, the League remains Italy’s biggest
party, more than ten points ahead of either
the pdor the m 5 s in the polls. Though
down, Mr Salvini is certainly not spent. By
removing himself from office, he has
avoided having to reconcile his extravagant
promises to the electorate with the reality
of Italy’s public finances. On September
30th the new government approved a
framework document that proposes an in-
creased budget deficit of 2.2% of gdp. That
may yet prove too much for Brussels, pro-
voking a fresh showdown.
Mr Salvini’s prospects will depend on
two factors. The first is immigration. The
new government has scrapped his policy of
closing Italian ports to the ngos that rescue
migrants from the Mediterranean. It is
hoping instead to extend a scheme agreed
last month with France, Germany and Mal-
ta for the voluntary redistribution of asy-
lum seekers landing on Italian shores. But
a surge in arrivals would boost Mr Salvini’s
popularity. Though still low, the number
has risen sharply since he left office.
However popular Mr Salvini becomes,
the League will not get back into power un-
less the current coalition falls. So how the
government manages the tensions be-
tween its component groups will be deci-
sive. The pd and the m 5 shave a long record
of mutual animosity, and a split in the pd
caused by Matteo Renzi, a former prime
minister, has not helped. The new govern-
ment is trying to change an electoral sys-
tem that, thanks to its large number of
first-past-the-post seats, helps the League.
Much depends on whether the new co-
alition lasts long enough to do it.
As for Mr Bannon, he now faces being
kicked out of his monastery by the authori-
ties who say his associates there, who deny
any wrongdoing, have failed to meet their
financial obligations. But in Italy, as else-
Strache’s end: another one bites the dust where, the battle is never over. 7S
ince belgiumlegalised the use of ivf by
gay female couples in 2007, its fertility
clinics have been overwhelmed by de-
mand—and not only from its own citizens.
At one Belgian clinic in the French-speak-
ing region of Wallonia roughly a third of
patients are now from over the border in
France. The reason is simple: strict French
laws still restrict the use of ivfto hetero-
sexual couples only.
France is now liberalising those rules.
The consequence is a new skirmish in its
hard-fought culture war.
The draft law, which went to parliament
on September 24th, will for the first time
give gay female couples and single women
the right to use ivfand other forms of as-
sisted reproduction. This will end rules
that put France at odds with most of its
neighbours (though Germany still applies
similar restrictions). France will also let
both mothers be identified on a birth cer-
tificate. For women under the age of 43, the
cost of treatment will be fully reimbursed
by the state.
During his election campaign in 2017
Emmanuel Macron said he favoured liber-
alisation, denouncing the existing rules as
a form of “intolerable discrimination”.
Around 25,000 children in France each
year, or 3% of the total, are born thanks to
fertility treatment, at a cost to the taxpayer
of about €300m ($328m). The government
estimates that another 2,000 women a year
would be treated after the change in thePARIS
Fertility treatment for lesbians pits
progressives against traditionalistsCulture war in FranceOne tummy,
two mummies