'The simultaneous rise of the far right and persistently sluggish growth in Europe is striking'
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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LeMonde
3 hours ago
- LeMonde
Top officers hold Ukraine talks after Trump rules out US troops
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LeMonde
4 hours ago
- LeMonde
'Russia has no reason to scale back its ambitions in Ukraine and beyond'
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Euronews
7 hours ago
- Euronews
Trump says US troops won't be sent to help defend Ukraine
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