Exultation and euphoria reigned in the auditorium of a Madrid hotel near the airport, where a dozen leaders from European far-right parties gathered on Saturday, February 8, for the first summit of the new Patriots for Europe (PfE) group. This movement, created in the European Parliament in July 2024 around the party of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and France's Rassemblement National (RN), brings together 86 MEPs, making it the third-largest force in Strasbourg.

The slogan chosen, "Make Europe Great Again," is a direct reference to Donald Trump's "Make America Great Again" (MAGA). And the shadow of the Republican's victory in the US presidential election hung over the event. Not all the leaders present shared the same admiration for the US president as that shown by the leader of Spain's far-right Vox party, Santiago Abascal, who described Trump as a "comrade-in-arms in the battle for good, for truth, common sense and freedom," or by the vice president of the Italian council, Matteo Salvini (League), for whom "Trump has shown that the common-sense revolution is possible." Yet all celebrated his victory as a sign of a global shift in their favor.

"At some point, you have to look at what's happening in the world today: Milei, Trump, Orban, Meloni, our Austrian allied party is in the lead, we're in the lead, our Flemish friends are in the lead. We need to analyze this, and I think we're witnessing a kind of renaissance," said Marine Le Pen, a few minutes before the big rally attended by almost 2,000 people. On stage, the French far-right leader called for "the global disruption" that Trump's victory represents to "sound the awakening of the Old Continent." "This power challenge is an urge to exist in the world that is coming, in the history that is being written," she concluded.

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