François Fillon’s victory in France’s rightwing presidential primaries shows that liberal progressive values in Europe aren’t just confronting the ghosts of fascist-type movements. There is now a threat from a new type of reactionary movement. Anyone who thinks that Fillon’s success clears the ground for a resounding defeat of far-right ideas in France’s 2017 presidential race should think again. Fillon’s most active support base has come essentially from hardline, traditionalist Catholics – people who generally aren’t described as far right, in the sense that they don’t affiliate themselves with Marine Le Pen’s Front National. But some of their ideas do overlap.

The new reactionaries stand for “family values”, they dislike same-sex marriage, they are opposed to adoption rights for gay couples and – like Fillon – they reject the notion of a “multicultural” society. Their mobilisation on social media has been astounding, and apparently played no small role in Fillon’s surprise emergence this month. His opponent in the runoff, Alain Juppé, a moderate candidate who embraced diversity as a “happy identity” for the nation and combated anti-Muslim sentiment, found himself the target of online hate campaigns, some of which nicknamed him “Ali Juppé”.

European liberal democrats tend to worry about the danger coming from far-right would-be autocrats – but that’s not the full picture. The rise of ultra-conservative religious, Christian movements must now be looked at more closely. In France, pundits and parts of the media were caught offguard by it. In the US, white Christian anger has stood at the heart of the Tea Party and the Christian right – groups that have now gained a president-elect. A somewhat similar type of thinking seems to be making inroads in France, plugging into a historical legacy of deeply entrenched rightwing Catholic networks.

Further east on the continent, that religious and reactionary line of thought has long been prominent in Vladimir Putin’s Russia – a regime in tight alliance with the Orthodox church. The key message is that Christianity is under threat from Islam – and it resonates strongly in outwardly secular France, a country still traumatised by jihadi terrorist attacks. It is no coincidence that Fillon was publicly lauded by Putin. This wasn’t just because the Kremlin hopes to find a French presidential ally on foreign policy. It’s also because Putin detects in Fillon streaks of his own ultra-conservative ideology.

According to this world-view, liberal progressive values have brought western societies to a state of “decadence”, as a result of sexual policies and immigration. Witness how Russian propaganda has dubbed Europe “Gayropa”. That’s not far from some of the social media propaganda spread by some Fillon supporters.

As national populism and social conservatism make gains in Europe, liberal progressives might be forgiven for thinking they are fast becoming the political underdog, or even an endangered species. Donald Trump’s election was applauded by Europe’s populists and far-right leaders – a sure sign that more illiberal contagion is under way. But the threat does not just come from groups or politicians labelled far right - it is larger than that.

‘Fillon will now battle against Le Pen whom he expects to face in the 2017 presidential runoff.’ Photograph: Action Press/Rex/Shutterstock

Radical Christian militant groups are hostile to social liberalism without having an obvious, direct connection to Europe’s dark past of fascist parties. Fillon will now battle against Le Pen, whom he expects to face in the 2017 presidential runoff. Yet it would be a mistake to think of him as the perfect antidote to the far right. Ever since the 2008 financial crisis, far-right groups across parts of Europe have benefited from the disgruntlement of the middle classes. Le Pen intends to capitalise on being the “anti-establishment” candidate – something Fillon, a former prime minister, can hardly claim for himself.

Comparisons with the Europe of the 1930s have been made, but they have their limits – armed militias aren’t exactly parading in the streets of European capitals. As the historian Ian Kershaw once wrote: “Trying to define fascism is like trying to nail jelly to the wall”. It’s because illiberalism comes in many shapes and forms that the fight for progressive democracy would do well to take some inspiration from past European dissident movements.

A few weeks ago, writers, artists and intellectuals from across Europe met in Bratislava at the Central European Forum, an annual gathering of people who cherish the legacy of dissidents such as Václav Havel, and believe it still carries many useful truths for today. Participants suggested that in these times of creeping authoritarianism and blatant intolerance, something akin to the dissident movements of the former communist bloc might now be reawakened. What’s needed are not new political parties but a wider, more inclusive grassroots approach, linking up Europe’s democratically minded beyond left-right criteria and beyond borders.

Of course, it is tricky to compare today’s liberal progressives to yesterday’s dissidents. Democracy the way we have known it may be in crisis, but it’s hardly as if a totalitarian police state – of the sort Havel experienced in communist Czechoslovakia – had descended upon us. Still, there is much inspiration to be drawn from Havel’s politics of hope. “Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well,” Havel once wrote, “but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.”

Charter 77, the movement Havel and his dissident friends founded nearly 40 years ago, called for a new brand of activism against the autocracy of both communism and fascism. It stood for a new type of participatory democracy, “a free, informal, open community of people of different convictions, different faiths and different professions united by the will to strive individually and collectively for the respect of civil and human rights”. Charter 77 was not an organisation, it had no permanent body nor formal membership, and it was neither left or right.

Today, western progressive liberals may have to imitate some of this. Mainstream rightwing politicians are loth to confront traditionalists, for fear of losing votes, and many pander to far-right themes. (In France, Alain Juppé has been an exception, not unlike Angela Merkel in Germany.) In many countries, the partisan left has become too weak, having failed to reach out to the lower and middle classes. We may now have reached a point where only cross-partisan, cross-faith, grassroots citizen responses can effectively defend liberal democratic values. This means breaking out of cultural and identity silos, class warfare and left-right polarisation.

New reactionaries believe they can widen their reach more than the organised far right can do, because at first glance they aren’t as toxic or threatening to democracy. This will surely be Fillon’s strategy in France. Yet beneath that veneer of respectability, these groups carry a fair dose of bigotry and social regression. They celebrate “French values” instead of humanist ones. They want a nationalist creed, not a European one. They welcome Christian migrants, not Muslim ones.

If in the age of Brexit, Trump and nationalist demagoguery, the liberal order is now under threat, then Havel’s message becomes very relevant once more: it’s when the odds are stacked against you that it becomes important to “continuously try new things”. Progressive liberals across Europe would do well to start thinking like dissidents.