A direct cultural threat’: your questions on the rise of the right across Europe answered

 

A direct cultural threat’: your questions on the rise of the right across Europe answered

 

With support for far right politics well established across Europe, how might upcoming elections shape its future? Europe correspondents Jon Henley and Ashifa Kassam answered Reddit users’ questions about their reporting from the continent

 

Jon Henley, Ashifa Kassam and Lucy O’Brien

Fri 16 Oct 2026 11.00 CEST

https://www.theguardian.com/community/2026/oct/16/far-right-politics-rise-across-europe-afd-germany-elections-your-questions-answered

 

Support for far-right parties has been growing across Europe, with radical right, populist parties in coalition governments in Croatia, Czechia, Italy and Finland, and leading in the polls in Austria, Belgium, France and Germany.

The Guardian reported this year that nearly a quarter of voters in Europe voted for far-right parties in their most recent national elections, a fivefold increase since 1995.

In Germany, Alternative für Deutschland recently booked a historic state election victory in Saxony-Anhalt. Elsewhere, though – in the Netherlands, in Hungary and in Sweden, where the Sweden Democrats lost vote share – far-right parties have suffered defeats. But their ideas – and their influence on mainstream politics – are today clearly visible across the continent, notably on policies around immigration and law-and-order.

The coming months will see further crucial elections, beginning in Spain in November and continuing in France, Estonia, Finland, Greece, Slovakia, Poland and Italy next year.

How might these elections shape the political future of Europe? What is the impact of their policies – and what might prevent their continuing rise?

The Guardian’s Europe correspondent Jon Henley has reported for the Guardian from 23 of the EU’s 27 member states, while Europe community affairs correspondent Ashifa Kassam was on the ground in Sweden and Germany’s Saxony-Anhalt state to speak with people ahead of the elections.

Jon and Ashifa answered questions about their reporting and experiences. Read the Q&A below.

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Giorgia Meloni and Marine Le Pen have openly criticised Donald Trump. Photograph: Evan Vucci/Reuters

One user asked: It’s no secret in Europe that Donald Trump and his allies are funding far-right parties all over the continent. Trump is unpopular enough in Europe that even the majority of people planning to vote for the AfD et al despise him. So how can so many Europeans who hate Trump still vote for the far right?

Jon Henley: You’re absolutely right about the Trump administration’s efforts to promote far right parties in Europe. That was made very plain in the US National Security Strategy policy document last year – I wrote about that here.

But while there may be an ideological affinity between European far right and nationalist voters on issues like anti-immigration, hostility toward the EU, and softer stances on Russia, Trump’s “America First” policies (demands re Greenland, tariff threats, etc.) and constant unpredictability pose major problems for far-right leaders trying to look credible in Europe, because they scare all European voters – including far-right voters.

Leaders including Giorgia Meloni in Italy and Marine Le Pen in France have openly criticised Trump and distanced themselves from his more erratic pronouncements, conspiracy claims and hostility toward European security.

European far-right voters’ support for Trump varies from country to country but is broadly low – clearly peace and security in Europe matter more than anti-immigration sentiment. Ultimately, nation-first means putting your nation first, and Trump has made clear that the US’s interests are not Europe’s interests.

The evidence would seem to suggest that many of Europe’s far-right voters think their own far-right parties will be more responsible as regards (many of) those issues – though whether they actually will be or not is moot, of course.

00000000000000000000 asked: How do you measure when a grassroots movement represents a genuine structural shift versus an isolated vocal minority?

Ashifa Kassam: Our jobs involve covering a wide range of community actions, whether it’s people fighting back against datacentres, protests against tourism, or the vandalisation of mobile phone masts by people who seemingly linked them to the coronavirus pandemic.

Oftentimes the reporting starts small and local. For example, perhaps it’s focused tightly on a protest against tourists in Barcelona or a push to restrict cruise ship dockings in Dubrovnik. From there, myself and the editors often continue to watch these movements and their reach; are politicians responding in any way? Are others joining in? Will the movements lead to policy changes? These are the kinds of questions that I tend to consider when deciding how much to make of the grassroots movements and how much coverage to give them.

At times it’s been incredible to see just where these movements will go, whether it’s the housing protests in Spain that led to snap general elections or the opposition movement that coalesced around Péter Magyar in Hungary in 2024 and which, more than a year later, saw him oust Viktor Orbán from power.

 

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As president, Marine Le Pen is unlikely to have a parliamentary majority, which will limit her room for manoeuvre. Photograph: Stéphanie Lecocq/Reuters

Gramoun-kal asked: Can the EU survive the rise of the extreme right? What if AfD and RN get into power at the same time?

Jon Henley: One of the very few upsides of Brexit is that hardly any European far right parties now want their countries to leave the EU. Instead, they want to “transform it from within”, turning it more into a looser “Europe of nations”.

But that’s not to say the EU would not be considerably weakened by, say, a President Le Pen, who could paralyse decision-making, challenge the supremacy of EU law and push a “France First” agenda undermining the single market and Schengen free-travel zone and opposing EU expansion, climate action, etc.

I’m not sure there’s any imminent risk of the AfD coming to national power in Germany (and if Le Pen wins France’s presidential election, which isn’t certain but looks highly plausible, she is also unlikely to have a parliamentary majority, which will limit her room for manoeuvre).

Plus, the AfD is too extreme even for the RN – Le Pen’s outfit (which kicked the AfD out of its European parliament grouping a while ago over various issues including comments to the effect that not all Nazis were bad), has repeatedly made it clear it is not an ally of the German party and does not share its views on eg. “remigration” – the mass deportation of immigrants.

But for sure – if Spain, Italy, France and Poland all see far-right parties in government after elections due over the next 12 months or so, the EU will face some major challenges. I don’t think it will collapse, but it will certainly find it even harder to reach agreement on many major issues than it already does, and so move (even) more slowly. Natalie Tocci wrote a great comment piece about this.

OrangeSpaceMan5 asked: Do you see Nato and the EU disintegrating if we see Far-Right victories across Britain, Germany and France?

Jon Henley: No, I don’t see the EU and Nato disintegrating, just becoming a lot more complicated/difficult to run … The EU could be “eroded from within” above all by far right-led governments using their veto (as Orbán did with Hungary) in major decisions like the EU budget, EU enlargement, the green deal, etc. They may well also simply ignore EU law, as Orbán also did. And for Nato, see previous answer – it would survive but become more paralysed in terms of longer term decision making.

Ashifa Kassam: I think we saw a glimpse of how complicated things can become in the European parliament after an EU vote earlier this year aimed at increasing deportations. The immediate aftermath laid bare just how deeply polarised the EU has already become, as right-wing MEPs chanted “send them back” and centre-left and left-wing MEPs shot back with “Shame on you.”

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The long-simmering anger over soaring housing costs in Spain burst into public view. Photograph: Daniel Gonzalez/EPA

ElendX asked: Why and how have the left and centre parties failed to respond to the concerns of the electorate? How do they now need to respond?

Ashifa Kassam: What comes to mind immediately is the housing crisis in Spain and beyond. It’s been just over two weeks now since the Spanish protests and encampments over the housing crisis burst into public view, laying bare the long-simmering anger over soaring housing costs.

I think it’s an issue that has long been overlooked by many left and centre parties across Europe, even as vulnerable people and minorities have been disproportionately affected, and analysts warn that the crisis could drive voters into the arms of the far right. Last year I spoke to Jaume Collboni, the Socialist mayor of Barcelona, who (along with 21 mayors across Europe) are urging the EU to treat the surging housing costs as a “new pandemic” by unleashing billions in funding to boost affordable housing and give mayors a seat at the table to ensure measures capable of tackling housing speculation. Speaking to me, Collboni warned: “We cannot remain stuck in the rhetoric of defending democracy, inclusive societies and equal opportunities if people’s standard of living is getting worse.”

I also think left and centre parties have done little to address the precariousness of the labour market, ie. the rise of gig jobs and, in many cases, the deterioration of public services. If you keep an eye on the Eurobarometer, the cost of living constantly ranks among the top concerns for people across Europe, hinting at the idea that this could be fertile territory for politicians to focus on. Immigration, in contrast, was in 7th place in the most recent survey.

Jon Henley: I think broadly speaking mainstream parties have failed to adequately address people’s concerns about the cost of living, declining public services (healthcare, education, transport), economic/job security, etc. – as I said above, fear of/anger at some kind of “loss of status” is one of the key drivers of the far right vote. (I’m not suggesting that’s easy – it clearly isn’t, economies are struggling.)

I’d also add that far-right parties are clearly extremely effective at exploiting voters’ concerns politically, including by pointing the finger at the group they think are most to blame and promising to fix things by getting rid of them.

And I’d also note that mainstream parties really have not helped themselves by adopting far-right parties’ framing on several issues in hopes of hanging on to disillusioned voters – electoral evidence shows that almost never works, mainly because, as Marine Le Pen’s father Jean-Marie put it, people tend to prefer the original to the copy.

Dc740 asked: Did you measure any change in online activity for extremist parties like Vox in Spain after the Yandex datacentre was targeted by Ukraine?

Ashifa Kassam: Funny you should ask – earlier this week, I sent out queries on this to several research groups, so it’s something we’re looking into. It’s a really interesting question. Last week, in an interview with news site Eldiario.es, the Spanish prime minister, Pedro Sánchez was asked whether he was worried about foreign interference in the elections given his high profile opposition to Israel’s war on Gaza and the US-Israeli attack on Iran. His answer: “Yes, and not only by nations, but also by non-state actors.”

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Smoke billows from a Yandex datacentre, after a drone strike. Photograph: Social Media/Reuters

Capitao_barbosa asked: How much foreign funding, especially from Russia and America, is being funnelled to these parties? And can we value how much indirect support (bots, disinformation by state actors, algorithm meddling on X, etc.) they are receiving?

Jon Henley: Our data team looked at this question a couple of years ago, before the last European parliament elections. They concluded a quarter of all private money donated to political parties in the EU was going to far-right, far-left and populist movements – aided by the fact that only a quarter of EU countries require parties to identify private donors – with €97m (about one in every seven private donation euros across the EU) going to far-right parties.

A European parliament report from 2023 estimated that about $1.18bn in funding towards organisations targeting LGBTQ+ rights and promoting traditional family policies flowed into Europe from 2019 to 2023, and a 2022 declassified US intelligence assessment found the Russian government had covertly funnelled at least $300m to foreign political parties, often in Europe, from 2014.

Ashifa Kassam: We’ve also had some recent reporting on the flow of funds from the US. In July, the Guardian reported that Donald Trump’s state department intended to allocate $12m to organisations in the UK founded by prominent conservatives. Of these funds, $7m was to go to 878, a thinktank that describes itself as being devoted to “the rediscovery of our ancient culture” and “ending mass migration.”

In July, the state department issued a notice of funding, offering grants for organisations and institutions interested in promoting what it described as “civilisational self-confidence in Europe”.

While research out of Europe, such as the Munich-based Ifo Institute, has found “no correlation” between migration and higher crime rates, the US state department notice suggested it was hoping the grants would lead to outcomes including reports on the impact of mass migration on local safety and tools to analyse impact of mass migration on democratic institutions.

One user asked: How serious would you describe the threat these far-right parties pose to democracy? And to what extent do you think there is a collaboration between them and powerful social media personalities or state sponsored online social media propaganda?

Jon Henley: Some far right parties definitely pose more of a threat to democracy than others. Political scientists divide far-right parties into those that essentially operate within basic democratic norms (“radical right” parties), and those that seek to overturn the system, to the extent even of condoning violence (“extreme right” parties).

If we take one example, AfD in Germany could be described as extreme right in some respects (and some local branches are indeed classified as such by German domestic intelligence). Some of its positions are in clear contradiction with liberal democracy: it is openly racist, homophobic, misogynistic. It believes citizens should be ranked by its own warped criteria, including ethnicity, gender and religious belief. It flirts continually with Nazi rhetoric, imagery and symbolism.

On this question I recommend this column by Cas Mudde, a top scholar of populism and the far right, after AfD won in the recent state elections in Saxony-Anhalt. He argues that mainstream parties have to wake up to the fact that they are not in a battle that’s about vote share and elections, it’s about democracy itself.

Ashifa Kassam: I would add that we’ve seen some fairly high-profile examples of collaboration, from Elon Musk’s repeated endorsements of the AfD on X to his 2025 X talk with the party’s co-leader, Alice Weidel. The Guardian has also regularly explored the interplay between the far right and social media, such as a 2025 investigation that looked at how a network of far-right Facebook groups had become an “engine of radicalisation” by exposing hundreds of thousands of people in Britain to racist and extremist disinformation.

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Elon Musk has repeatedly endorsed the AfD. Photograph: Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP

KilmaSelth asked: Do you think the hard right parties tend to moderate as they approach power, or do they maintain their radicalism?

Jon Henley: Based on Meloni and Le Pen, I would for a long time have said yes – Meloni basically struck a bargain to get elected in which she promised to be responsible on the economy, in the EU and as regards foreign policy, as long as she could do her culture-wars stuff domestically. Le Pen has spent years “detoxifying” the National Rally and kicking out over-radical undesirables. But if you look at AfD, they haven’t moderated their language at all – if anything, they’ve hardened it – and it manifestly is not doing them any harm. And as Meloni and Le Pen have moderated their positions, we’ve started to see them being outflanked on their right, by the likes of Roberto Vannacci and his National Future in Italy and Eric Zemmour’s Reconquête in France. So I think we may be heading into a period where the former far right is effectively now part of the political landscape, like “regular” parties that will sometimes win and sometimes lose elections, and will be increasingly challenged on their right by more extreme elements.

Ashifa Kassam: Vox offers another way to look at this question, as the party was founded in 2013 by disgruntled members of the conservative People’s party (PP). Its leader, Santiago Abascal, is a career politician who was among those who saw an opportunity to push further on the right flank of Spanish politics when it came to Catalan separatism, immigration, abortion and LGBTQ+ rights. It was a hardline stance that was often (but not always) diluted when Abascal was part of the PP; now as a separate party, they’ve seized on their electoral momentum in some regions to push the party to heed their agenda.

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