Europe’s Populist Threat: A New Triangle

Can we imagine what Europe would look like today if Marine Le Pen was installed at the Elysée, Nigel Farage, the English ultra-nationalist champion, at 10, Downing Street and Alice Weidel, the boss of the German far right, with the federal Chancellery in Berlin? The scenario is political fiction and yet it has stopped being incredible. Because these days, the populist right is placed at the top of the voting intentions in the United Kingdom as in Germany and France.

Such a political configuration, simultaneously in the three largest countries in Western Europe, is unique in contemporary history. And although it hardly risks leading to a takeover in the immediate future, since no national election is currently scheduled in the three countries, it already weighs heavily on European political life.

In this trio, it is in the United Kingdom that upheavals are the most recent. At the beginning of last year, Nigel Farage, the Brexit inspirer, already had a foot outside of island political life. He explained who wanted to hear him that he would not be a candidate for the British legislative elections of July 4, 2024 because he was too busy helping his friend Donald Trump to be re -elected in America. He was changed and not only elected but his party, Reform UK, is credited today by more than 30 %of voting intentions, far ahead of the Labor Party in power (around 20 %) and eclipizing the Conservative Party (18 %).

Prime Minister Keir Starmer tried at the beginning of the summer than Farage, who prides himself on having more followers on Tiktok alone than all 649 other British deputies gathered, was now to be considered as the head of the “real opposition”. Far from weakening the troublemaker, this official recognition has further strengthened it, while Reform UK holds on September 5 and 6 in Birmingham a congress which promises to be Triumphal for the nationalist leader.

The central question of immigration

Reform UK, the alternative for Germany (AFD) or the national rally each have their own characteristics. But they also share a lot of common features. They use the same populist recipes, thrive in particular in the disadvantaged classes and all exploit the same substantive trends in opinion: the rejection of mass immigration, resentment against traditional elites, nostalgia for a largely fantasized past, climate skepticism. All three have an inclination for Vladimir Putin (less marked at Farage, however) and seek to draw inspiration from the electoral successes of Donald Trump.

Keir Starmer’s failure to stem illegal immigration helps explain the breakthrough of frage. The Labor had promised to curb the clandestine crossings of the English Channel. However, these approached the 30,000 during the first eight months of the year, a record since 2018. Legal arrivals, unlike the Brexit promise, also exploded under the previous conservative government: from 2021 to 2024, some 4.5 million people (notably from India, Nigeria or China) came to settle in the United Kingdom. One in 25 people living today in the country has arrived during these four years!

The diagram is similar in Germany. The decision made ten years ago by Chancellor Angela Merkel to welcome a massive arrival of refugees fleeing the civil war in Syria powerfully fueled the voting in favor of AFD. Thanks to the federal elections last February, the far -right party obtained the greatest number of deputies in the Bundestag, with 152 seats out of 630 (69 seats more than in 2021). Germany has thus joined France, where the national rally has since 2024 have been the first party represented in the National Assembly, with 123 deputies (including 3 related) out of 577. Surveys today place AFD very slightly in front of the CDU of Friedrich Merz (26 % against 25 % according to the Forsa survey for RTL published in late August).

Populist breakthrough

Even confined to the opposition, these parties already weigh heavily on national political life. In the United Kingdom, the Conservative Party continues to give in the field although its new chief, Kemi Badenoch, has largely taken up the anti-immigration themes. In Germany, the weight of AFD in the Bundestag obliges traditional parties to ally themselves with each other, which tends to paralyze national policy. As for France, it has become almost ungovernable since voters placed the RN at the top of their votes after the dissolution of 2024.

At European level, the populist breakthrough weakens the Franco-German duo, obstructs the reforms necessary for economic growth, nourishes the distrust between European countries and mortgages the project to build a Europe power in the face of the blackmail of Donald Trump and the revengeful appetites of Russia. Far the time when the extreme right was confined to Central Europe.