Austria Coalition Talks Collapse, Raising Prospects for Far-Right Freedom Party

The far-right Freedom Party of Austria gained a realistic chance this weekend of leading the country’s next government, after talks between three mainstream parties collapsed.

The Freedom Party’s ascent would put its firebrand leader, Herbert Kickl, into the position of chancellor and signal a new high-water mark for the rise of the far right in Europe.

Austria’s president, Alexander Van der Bellen, was expected to give Mr. Kickl, whose party won the most seats in the national assembly in September elections, the task of forming a coalition when the two men meet on Monday. The meeting could be the first formal step in the path that ultimately leads to a new government.

Mr. Kickl, whose party was founded in the 1950s by former members of the SS, the Nazi paramilitary police, campaigned on a strong anti-immigrant platform. The party has a history of denigrating migrants in Austria as criminals and welfare sponges.

He has called for a temporary halt to accepting new asylum seekers and for a law that would ban asylum seekers from becoming Austrian citizens. Mr. Kickl has promised to make Austria a fortress, and his party introduces him by using the word “Volkskanzer” before campaign speeches, which evokes the rise of German fascism.

A senior leader of the conservative Austrian People’s Party, known by its Austrian initials ÖVP, announced on Sunday that it would be open to entering into coalition talks with the Freedom Party, despite a campaign promise that ÖVP would not form a coalition with the party as long as Mr. Kickl was running it.