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Inpolitics,cordon sanitaire (French:[kɔʁdɔ̃sanitɛːʁ];lit. 'sanitary cordon') is the refusal of one or morepolitical parties to cooperate with certain other political parties. Often this is because the targeted party has strategies or anideology perceived as unacceptable or extremist. The termcordon sanitaire has been applied to refusals to cooperate with parties which arepopulist,[1] extremist left[1] or extremist right. The cordon sanitaire can be seen as a social norm.[2]
AfterJörg Haider became leader of theFreedom Party of Austria in 1986, all other parties refused to cooperate with them until 2000 when thefirst Schüssel government was formed. This coalition government would last from 2000 to 2005, and a second coalition government would last from 2017 to 2019.
Beginning in the late 1980s, the term was introduced into the discourse on parliamentary politics by Belgian commentators. At that time, the far-rightFlemish nationalistVlaams Blok party began to make significant electoral gains. Because the Vlaams Blok was considered a racist group by many, the other Belgian political parties committed to exclude the party from anycoalition government, even if that forced the formation ofgrand coalition governments betweenideological rivals. Commentators dubbed this agreementBelgium'scordon sanitaire. In 2004, its successor party,Vlaams Belang changed itsparty platform to allow it to comply with the law. While no formal new agreement has been signed against it, it nevertheless remains uncertain whether any mainstream Belgian party will enter into coalition talks with Vlaams Belang in the near future.[3] Several members of variousFlemish parties have questioned the viability of thecordon sanitaire.[original research?]
InFrench-speaking Belgium a policy exists called thecordon sanitaire médiatique, wherefar-right politicians are banned from live media appearances such as interviews and debates.[4][5] The ban has also affected more mainstream right-wing parties such as theN-VA.[6]
InFlanders, no media ban exists, though there is still a politicalcordon sanitaire against the far-rightVlaams Belang.[7]
In Canada, resistance to the formation of coalition governments among left-of-centre parties has been attributed to an unwillingness to be seen as collaborating with theBloc Québécois, which advocates forQuebecois independence. However, during the2008–2009 Canadian parliamentary dispute, an agreement was made where the Bloc Québécois would providesupply and confidence to a potentialcoalition government formed by theLiberal Party andNew Democratic Party. That government was never formed as theConservative Party minority government ultimately retained the confidence of the House.
TheCommunist Party of Bohemia and Moravia is effectively excluded from any possible coalition because of a stronganti-Communist presence in most political parties, including theCzech Social Democratic Party. This policy on national level remained up until 2018, when the KSČM supported theAndrej Babiš' cabinet. In recent years the policy has become moot, as the party has lost support and no longer has any presence in the legislature. On regional level the KSČM still remains excluded from coalitions (e.g. after2020 regional elections this policy forced theCzech Pirate Party and theCivic Democratic Party to form coalitions with theANO 2011 in regions ofÚstí nad Labem,Zlín andMoravia-Silesia).
Acordon sanitaire was also placed aroundMiroslav Sládek'snational conservative partyRally for the Republic – Republican Party of Czechoslovakia while it was active in theCzech Parliament between 1992 and 1998. When any of its members was set to speak, other deputies would leave theChamber of Deputies.
All of the political groups declaredcordon sanitaire on far-rightIdentity and Democracy group in theNinth European Parliament, elected in 2019.[8][9]
Some (though not all) of theNon-Inscrits members of theEuropean Parliament are unaffiliated because they are considered to lie too far on the right or left of the political spectrum to be acceptable to any of theEuropean Parliament party groups.[citation needed]
Following the formation of thePatriots for Europe andEurope of Sovereign Nations groups in 2024, acordon sanitaire was declared by most political groups in theTenth European Parliament. However, thecordon sanitaire was broken when theEuropean People's Party sided with theEuropean Conservatives and Reformists, Patriots for Europe and Europe of Sovereign Nations in supporting a resolution recognisingEdmundo Gonzalez as legitimate President-elect of Venezuela.[10]
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InEstonia,Constitution Party andCentre Party have been excluded from participation in ruling coalitions at a national level until leadership change. Differing interpretations of theSoviet occupation between 1940 and 1990 and attitudes towardsVladimir Putin's currentUnited Russia government in the Russian Federation are often cited as reasons to conclude coalition talks with other parties, even if said parties are perceived to be on theradical right. Thecordon is not absolute; the Centre Party of Estonia has briefly participated in three coalition governments in 1995, 2002–2003 and 2005–2007. Thecordon was renewed in 2007, due toEdgar Savisaar's attitudes toward theBronze Night. In 2016Jüri Ratas of Centre becamePrime Minister of Estonia, effectively ending anycordon around the party.
In Estonia, thecordon also was set up against theConservative People's Party of Estonia between 2015 and 2019.
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The policy of non-cooperation withNational Rally, together with themajoritariantwo-round electoral system, leads to the permanent underrepresentation of the FN in theNational Assembly. For instance, the FN won no seats out of 577 in the2002 elections, despite receiving 11.3% of votes in the first round, as no FN candidates won a first-round majority and few even qualified (either by winning at least 12.5% of the local vote with 25% turnout or by being one of the top two finishers with less) to go on to the second round. In the2002 presidential election, after the Front National candidateJean-Marie Le Pen unexpectedly defeatedLionel Jospin in the first round, the traditionally ideologically opposedSocialist Party encouraged its voters to vote forJacques Chirac in the second round, preferring anyone to Le Pen. In2017 election, and2022 election his daughter and party successorMarine Le Pen reached the second round of the presidential election; both the Socialist Party and Republicans encouraged votes for her opponentEmmanuel Macron.
Nonetheless, the policy ofcordon sanitaire applied against theNational Rally (RN) has faded since 2011 when Marine Le Pen became party leader: her "detoxification" efforts that have led to a greatly improved image of the party, as repeatedly confirmed by polling numbers, and the fall of the left-right cleavage since Macron's election in 2017 are considered to be key components of the Frenchcordon sanitaire's dwindling.
In 2022, thecordon sanitaire strategy symbolically broke twice, first in the parliamentary elections when Macron's coalition refused to openly endorse left-wing candidates facing RN candidates in the second round, in part helping the party to achieve a record number of elected MPs (89 out of 577, winning 55% of runoffs against left-wing candidates), and second, when 2 RN members of the National Assembly were elected as vice presidents of the Chamber. Additionally, due to RN being the largest opposition party in the Assembly, members from the party were designated or elected in key parliamentary roles (such as Caroline Colombier, an RN MP, who was designated by the centrist President of the lower houseYaël Braun-Pivet as the only opposition member of the National Assembly to sit in the parliamentary Intelligence Committee).
Furthermore, since the formation of the left-wingNUPES coalition in May 2022, the notion ofcordon sanitaire has moved away from the notion of a cross-party policy designed to beat far-right parties and candidates (the "republican front") to a notion of an electoral strategy applied, alternatively or jointly, to both political "extremes" on the left (namely, Mélenchon'sLa France Insoumise) and the right (Le Pen's RN or Zemmour'sReconquête party). In the same way, talks about a "republican arch" (Macron's centrist coalition, LR, PS, Greens and Communists), as opposed to the "extremes" (RN on the right and LFI on the left namely), have emerged following the2022 French legislative elections, especially coming from Macron's political side.[11][12]
Such a strategy being applied to left-wing parties as well as right-wing parties reminds of the policy ofcordon sanitaire applied to theFrench Communist Party and to the gaullistRally of the French People between 1947 and 1958 under theFourth French Republic.
TheSocial Democratic Party of Germany was excluded until the beginning ofWorld War I (Burgfriedenspolitik). The SPD was even banned by theAnti-Socialist Laws in the end of the 19th century.
AfterGerman reunification,East Germany's former ruling party, theSocialist Unity Party of Germany (Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands, or SED), reinvented itself first (in 1990) as theParty of Democratic Socialism (PDS) and then (in 2005 before the elections) as theLeft Party, in order to merge with the new groupLabour and Social Justice – The Electoral Alternative that had emerged in the West. In the years following 1990, the other German political parties have consistently refused to consider forming a coalition with the PDS/Left Party on a federal level (which was possible in2005 and2013), while onstate levels, so-called red-red coalitions with theSPD were formed (or red-red-green). The termcordon sanitaire, though, is quite uncommon in Germany for coalition considerations.
A strict political non-cooperation is only exercised against right-wing parties, such asthe Republicans, and even the Republicans have exercised a cordon against the neo-NaziThe Homeland. Since 2013, the established major parties have refused to form state-level coalitions with the new right-wing populist partyAlternative for Germany (AfD).Brandmauer (firewall) is the term most often used in Germany to refer to this non-cooperation policy against the AfD.[13]
In February 2025, theChristian Democratic Union of Germany collaborated with the AfD in the Bundestag to push through a non-binding motion on the detention of undocumented foreigners at borders. This was the first time since 1945 that thecordon sanitaire had been broken in Germany. This event provoked large-scale demonstrations across Germany, with between 160,000 and 250,000 people in Berlin on February 2, and over 220,000 demonstrators in several of the country's major cities the day before.[14][15]
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TheItalian Communist Party (PCI) and theItalian Social Movement (MSI) were excluded fromChristian Democracy-led coalition governments during theCold War. Only during theZoli government, thesecond Segni government, and theTambroni government (1957–1958; 1959–1960) and theHistoric Compromise (1976–1979), Christian Democracy relied on either the MSI or the PCI. The end of the Cold War along with theTangentopoli scandal andMani pulite investigation resulted in a dramatic political realignment that saw the fall of theFirst Italian Republic and gave rise to theSecond Italian Republic.
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TheJoint List and its component parties—Hadash,Balad,Ta'al,Ma'an, and (formerly)Ra'am—are under a de facto cordon sanitaire, primarily for not supportingZionism. Following the2021 Israeli legislative election, the conservative Ra'am, which had left the joint list and run on its own, entered into coalition with a number of predominantly Zionist parties to form thethirty-sixth government of Israel.
Between 1984 and 1988, there was acordon sanitaire against theKahanist partyKach. Famously,Likud prime ministerYitzhak Shamir walked out of theKnesset floor duringMeir Kahane's speeches. Thecordon ended in 1988 after the party was outlawed and disbanded, and cordons of various levels have been enforced on its successor parties, which were mostly limited to cooperation within theNational Union and its successor coalitions until 2019, when then prime ministerBenjamin Netanyahu orchestratedOtzma Yehudit's involvement in an electoral coalition in hopes of securing a parliamentary majority of supporters.
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InLatvia theLatvian Russian Union,For Stability! andSocial Democratic Party "Harmony" have been excluded from participation in ruling coalitions at a national level. Thecordon against the Harmony party remains up to this day.
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In Lithuania, theCommunist Party of Lithuania (CPSU) was not a party with which other parties would cooperate on the national level. The situation would exist from March 1990 to August 1991, when CPL (CPSU) was banned. A similarcordon was in place between 2002 and 2006, when all other parties refused to cooperate with theLiberal Democratic Party in theSeimas and municipal councils. Another similarcordon existed against theWay of Courage between 2012 and 2016.
In theNetherlands, a parliamentarycordon sanitaire was put around theCentre Party (Centrumpartij, CP) and later on theCentre Democrats (Centrumdemocraten, CD), ostracising their leaderHans Janmaat. During the2010 Cabinet formation,Geert Wilders'Party for Freedom (Partij voor de Vrijheid, PVV) charged other parties of plotting acordon sanitaire; however, there never was any agreement between the other parties on ignoring the PVV. Indeed, the PVV was floated several times as a potential coalition member by severalinformateurs throughout the government formation process, and the finalminority coalition underMark Rutte between Rutte'sPeople's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) and theChristian Democratic Appeal receivedparliamentary support by the PVV. The coalition collapsed after PVV withdrew its support in 2012. Since then, all major parties refuse to cooperate with PVV. Since the split of theForum for Democracy in 2020, all major parties but PVV also refuse to cooperate with FvD.
The cordon sanitaire against the PVV ended after the2023 Dutch general election, when the VVD offered external support to a prospective PVV government.[16]
Starting in the 1970s, all parliamentary parties consistently refused to formally join into a governing coalition at state level with the right-wingProgress Party. Thecordon was broken in 2013, when theConservative Party did so. In some municipalities however, the Progress Party cooperates with many parties, including the centre-leftLabour Party.[17]
Ever since the conservative partyChega gained parliamentary representation in 2019, there have been several attempts to establish a "cordon sanitaire", with most parties refusing to associate with them.[18] On the2024 Portuguese legislative election campaign, center-right candidateLuís Montenegro popularized the expression "Não é não" (No means no) to reiterate unwillingness to negotiate with Chega.[19]
InSlovenia liberal, centre-left and left-wing parties led byLMŠ leader and later Prime MinisterMarjan Šarec declared de factocordon sanitaire and excluded theSlovenian Democratic Party (SDS) from coalition negotiations following the2018 parliamentary election, due to its xenophobic and divisive rhetoric and policy, which was based primarily on the opposition to illegal migrations and the discreditation of political opponents. The same parties also claimed that SDS was illegally financed by foreign donations via its media (mostly capital from Hungarian companies close toViktor Orbán, with whom SDS closely cooperates) and by loans from foreign national Dijana Đuđić, who personally financed the party with almost half million €. SDS won the election but all parties from centre to left wing rejected its invitation to start negotiations.[20]
After a governmental crisis in 2020 the social liberalModern Centre Party and theDemocratic Party of Pensioners of Slovenia formed a coalition with SDS.
In 2003, a majority of theParliament of Catalonia consisting in the left-of-centre and pro-decentralisationPSC,ERC andICV-EUiA parties reached a coalition agreement that included vetoing the right-of-centre, centralistPeople's Party in both subnational and national instances.[21] This point of the agreement was later criticised by the resulting President of CataloniaPasqual Maragall.[22] The coalition agreement was reedited in 2006, but by 2010 the then PSC candidateJosé Montilla said his party wouldn't seek a new agreement with ERC.[23]
In Sweden, the political parties in theRiksdag adopted a policy of non-cooperation with the right-wingSweden Democrats (SD). However, there have been exceptions where local politicians have supported resolutions from SD.
In October 2018, the Sweden Democrats went into a governing coalitions with theModerate Party and the Christian Democrats for the first time inStaffanstorp Municipality,Sölvesborg Municipality,Herrljunga Municipality andBromölla Municipality.[24][25] In Bromölla, the coalition felt apart in 2020, while new coalitions with the SD emerged inSvalöv Municipality (2019),Bjuv Municipality (2020) andSurahammar Municipality (2021).
However, in March 2019,Christian Democratic leaderEbba Busch announced that her party was ready to start negotiations with the Sweden Democrats in the Riksdag. The same year,Moderate Party leaderUlf Kristersson also signalled an end to the non-cooperation policy by holding meetings with the Sweden Democrats' leadership. Since 2018, the SD has formed governing coalitions in municipal councils with theModerate Party and Christian Democrats.[26] The opening of M and KD to SD and theJanuary Agreement led to the dissolution ofThe Alliance. After theLiberals stopped supporting the minority government they stopped with ruling out a coalition with SD.
In2022, following theTidö Agreement, Kristersson would form aminority government made up of M, KD, and L withconfidence and supply support from SD.
A 2024 study found that when the mainstream parties in Sweden ended the cordon sanitaire approach towards the Sweden Democrats, voters increasingly saw the Sweden Democrats as legitimate and as less threatening to democracy.[27] When the mainstream parties re-established a cordon sanitaire, it did not shift voters' perceptions of the Sweden Democrats.[27]
Pro-Kurdish parties like thePeoples' Democratic Party (HDP) are under a cordon sanitaire because of the accusation of cooperation with the bannedKurdistan Workers' Party which is currently designated as a terrorist organisation by European Union,[28] UK,[29] USA,[30] Turkey[31] and other countries. Kurdish parties that have allegedly cooperated with terrorist organisations have also been banned by the Constitutional Court of Turkey several times in the past. This process of banning, led the Kurdish Movement to be more willing to solve problems in favour of democratisation of Turkey and regionalism, rather than separating the country.[32]
During the 1990s Islamist parties of theMillî Görüş movement were excluded from government formation and were banned several times with the exception of the so-called "Refahyol" (1996–1997). The cordon sanitaire was lifted when the more moderateJustice and Development Party (AKP) in 2002 rose to power and the more radical heirFelicity Party joined theNation Alliance in 2018.
In the United Kingdom, the far-rightBritish National Party is completely ostracised by the political mainstream. Prominent politicians, including formerPrime Minister andConservative Party leaderDavid Cameron, have been known to urge electors to vote for candidates from any party except the BNP.[33] TheEuroscepticUK Independence Party (UKIP), which has itself been labelled as far-right,[34] has categorically refused even limited cooperation with the BNP.[35] Although the party has never held more than 60 of the some 22,000 elected positions in local government, it is generally agreed by all parties that the BNP should be excluded from any coalition agreement onthose councils where no single party has a majority. When two BNP candidates were elected to theEuropean Parliament at the2009 election, the UK Government announced that it would provide them both with only the bare minimum level of support, denying them the ready access to officials and information that the other 70 British MEPs received.[36] In 2017 thecordon was alleged to have been broken inPendle, when the council fell underno overall control, but this was denied by theLabour andLiberal Democrat council leaders.[37]