Today's blog post is written by Klara Schmitz, research and policy analyst at the Runnymede Trust

In the past few months several developments have reignited concerns about the prevalence of racist murders and the role of the far-right across Europe. 

Firstly, the passing of Holocaust Remembrance Day and the six month mark since attacks in Norway at the hands of far-right sympathiser Anders Breivik, have both renewed calls to tackle right-wing extremism in Europe. 

Secondly, some influential figures have recently highlighted the urgent need to combat racism, both in the UK and across the continent. In the wake of the convictions for the racist murder of Stephen Lawrence, mother of the victim Doreen Lawrence has called for the UK government to do more to tackle racism in the UK. In addition, Europe’s human rights commissioner Thomas Hammarberg recently stated in a speech to the Council of Europe that not enough political leaders in Europe are taking a stand against racism and xenophobia in their countries.

Today's blog post was written by Runnymede's deputy director Sarah Isal

Any general election or presidential campaign is interesting for many reasons, not least the fact that this is the time when different parties and candidates lay out their plans, vision and aspirations and put forward their case for being elected. The upcoming French presidential election campaign is particularly important to keep an eye on from the perspective of race equality and immigrants’ rights. 

This is partly because ever since 2002, when Jean Marie Le Pen, then leader of the extreme right party Front National made it into the second round of the election at the expense of socialist Lionel Jospin, French politicians, especially on the right, know all too well that they need to capture his electorate to win the election. In order to do so, they have to make sure that certain themes are central to the campaign, namely immigration, law and order and of course more recently Islam and Muslims.