After a short summer break, leaders of the four parties making up Finland's new government coalition, met in Helsinki on Wednesday, August 16, led by the conservative Petteri Orpo. Their agenda was drawing up a "joint declaration," demonstrating their determination to fight for equality and against discrimination. As they stated in a press release on July 11, "the government has zero tolerance for racism."

A few days earlier, the Finnish media had published old messages attributed to Riikka Purra, chairwoman of the True Finns party. Having come second in the parliamentary elections on April 2, her nationalist party had just won seven ministerial portfolios, after lengthy negotiations with the conservative National Coalition Party, the Christian Democrats and the Swedish People's Party. Purra has found herself not only Finance Minister, but also number two in the government.

Less than three weeks after her appointment, Finnish newspapers revealed that she was the author of deeply racist comments posted in 2008 on the blog of Jussi Halla-aho, the former leader of the True Finns. He was elected to head the Finnish Parliament at the end of June and has himself been convicted of inciting racial hatred.

Under the signature "riikka," for example, she asked: "Does anyone feel like spitting on beggars and beating up black children today in Helsinki?" In another message, she mentioned a confrontation with young people of immigrant origin: "If they gave me a gun, there'd be bodies on the regional train," she wrote.

Elsewhere, she referred to a "Turkish monkey" – a comment for which the current foreign minister, the conservative Elina Valtonen, formally apologized to her Turkish counterpart, Hakan Fidan, on the sidelines of a NATO meeting in Brussels on July 11.

Initially refusing to acknowledge that she was the author of these messages, the leader of the True Finns eventually apologized too, calling her comments "stupid" and regretting "the hurt and resentment they naturally caused." "I'm not a perfect person, I've made mistakes," she admitted.

Since then, Purra has repeatedly stated that her party "is not racist." But there have been a series of scandals involving far-right ministers since the government took office. The first of these led to the resignation of Economy Minister Vilhelm Junnila, just 10 days after his appointment. Suspected of links with the ultra-right, he was also implicated for having praised the number 88 – the code used by the neo-Nazi movement, corresponding to the two "h"s in "Heil Hitler."

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