Vienna City Council Debates FPÖ Slogan Linking Immigration Politics to Paris
Vienna’s Freedom Party (FPÖ) club chairman Maximilian Krauss brought the controversial slogan “Vienna must not become Paris” into the Vienna City Council for debate, reviving a decades-old rhetorical strategy that pairs urban crime concerns with anti-migration warnings, kurier.at reported.
Decades of Capital City Slogans in Austrian Politics
The FPÖ has a long history of adapting foreign city names to criticize immigration and urban development. In 1991, under the leadership of Jörg Haider, the party launched the slogan “Vienna must not become Chicago,” utilizing the American city’s historical reputation for gang violence and criminality. That slogan reappeared in 1996, and again in 2015 when Krauss—then acting as district chairman in Josefstadt—warned of Chicago-style conditions following an altercation between suspected drug dealers and police officers.
In 2005, the party shifted its geographic focus. Then-Vienna FPÖ leader Heinz-Christian Strache declared that “Vienna must not become Istanbul,” a move sparked by the “Kanak Attack” art project organized by Feridun Zaimoglu, which involved wrapping the Kunsthalle Wien in Turkish flags. Dominik Nepp, Strache’s successor, revived the Istanbul slogan in 2020 by posting an image of himself holding a sign referencing historical Ottoman sieges of the city with the text: “Whether 1529, 1683 or 2020. Vienna must not become Istanbul!”
Herbert Kickl and the Evolution of Party Messaging
Current federal party chairman Herbert Kickl shaped much of the party’s foundational rhetoric from behind the scenes during the Haider and Strache eras. Slogans such as “Daham statt Islam” (Home instead of Islam) and “Pummerin statt Muezzin” (Pummerin bell instead of Muezzin) originated from his pen. Under those campaigns, the Vienna branch reached its historical peak with 30.8 percent of the vote in 2015, before dropping to 20.4 percent in the 2020 municipal elections.
Political Fallout Over Rhetoric and Municipal Appointments
The combative language has previously carried direct political consequences for Krauss. In 2014, then a 21-year-old politician, Krauss referred to then-Michael Häupl as a “Turkish mayor” who received direct orders from Ankara. Krauss later stated he had adopted the sharp phrasing from party leader Strache. The remarks prompted Häupl to block Krauss from taking office as vice president of the Vienna city school board. Häupl refused the appointment, stating that Krauss’s statements disqualified him from the role and criticizing the FPÖ’s formal procedures by remarking, “I am not the waiter who takes orders from the FPÖ.”
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