PARIS - FROM the council house estates of Britain's former industrial heartland to French cities looking out across the Mediterranean to North Africa, European far-right parties have picked up an army of supporters in the international recession.

Families who have lost jobs and homes became an automatic target for the British National Party (BNP), Jobbik in Hungary, the National Front in France and the Party for Freedom (PVV) in the Netherlands with their anti-immigrant, anti-Islam, anti-establishment proclamations.

The BNP picked up two seats in the just ended European parliament election that have brought all the parties into the spotlight.

BNP leader Nick Griffin is a Cambridge University educated political scrapper who has completely recast his party's image.

But his message is much the same as in the other countries. The far-right Jobbik party, participating in the elections for the first time, finished third in Hungary with 14.74 per cent of the vote and will get three deputies. The ultra-nationalist Ataka party in Bulgaria also expects three seats after getting 10-12 per cent of the vote.

Jobbik has seized upon what it calls 'Roma crimes' and set up a paramilitary offshoot, the Hungarian Guard, to stage marches in Roma dominated villages. The head of a police trade union was on its European election candidates list.

The Greater Romania party was predicted to get about seven per cent and two deputies, according to exit polls.

Amsterdam University political analyst, Fouad Laroui, said that there was a growing move toward leaders like the populist Wilders 'who use simple language - caricatures'.

In the Netherlands and the rest of Europe, this sector makes up a fifth of all voters, he estimated - a group, 'who understand little apart from feeling threatened.' Alfred Pijpers, researcher at the Dutch international relations institute Clingendael, said Wilders had tapped into voters who 'veer from left to right without subscribing to the specific policies of political parties'.

The BNP described the election of its two deputies at the expense of the scandal stricken ruling Labour Party in Britain as a 'historic moment'. -- AFP