This is not a tidal wave, but rather a slow and steady advance. From south to north, far-right parties are making progress across Europe. If current trends continue, a particularly cynical statistician might hazard the following prediction: Within five to 10 years, Nigel Farage (Reform UK) will be in power in the United Kingdom, Alice Weidel (Alternative für Deutschland, AfD) in Germany and Marine Le Pen (Rassemblement National, RN) in France. A grim but unlikely trio? Not so sure. The magnitude of the phenomenon – which should preoccupy both center-right and center-left parties – demands attention. How did this happen? And why?
The latest elections have been telling. In Poland, Portugal and Romania, protest-driven far-right parties have come close to first or second place. In early May, during a series of local elections in England, Reform UK dealt a defeat to Labour under Prime Minister Keir Starmer and outpaced the opposition Conservatives, the Tories, led by Kemi Badenoch. Brexit in 2016 failed to deliver on any of its promises – in fact, quite the opposite – but one of its most notorious standard-bearers, Farage, has returned to the heart of British politics.
In France, the Rassemblement National is the party with the largest number of MPs in the Assemblée Nationale – and is best positioned for the first round of the 2027 French presidential election. On a national-populist, euroskeptic and Putin-friendly platform, Robert Fico once again heads the Slovak government. In Northern Europe, protest movements sometimes take part in governing coalitions. In Italy, far-right Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has struck a shrewd balance: tough on immigration, pro-European, supportive of Ukraine and on good terms with Donald Trump.
Frequent hostility toward the EU
The image of a uniform rise of the far right, with the same causes and actors defending the same agenda, must be qualified. National differences matter. The cocktail of right-wing populism is mixed differently from one country to another. The sense of being outnumbered by immigrants is often assumed to be universal. Yet Romania and Slovakia, for example, suffer more from emigration than immigration.
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