is good for Le Pen
Anger at
the rising cost of living spells danger for incumbents everywhere.
By MARION SOLLETTY
in Paris
Photo-illustration by Gibson Kochanek for POLITICO
November
4, 2026 9:34 pm CET
https://www.politico.eu/article/cost-of-living-europe-elections-france-spain-italy/
Beware
the angry voter. That’s the message Europeans are taking from the crushing
defeat suffered by Donald Trump’s Republicans in the U.S. midterm
election.
The fury
over the cost of living that helped propel the U.S. president to power has now
turned against him. And with elections looming in heavyweight EU countries like
Spain, Italy, France, Greece and Poland, Trump’s fate is a warning for
incumbents across the continent.
Growing
anger over rising prices and unaffordable housing is likely to spell trouble
for Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who has already faced waves of
protests over the cost of fuel.
The
blowback in the U.S. shows what happens when right-wing populist leaders take
charge and then don’t deliver on their promises, said Irene Tinagli, an Italian
member of the European Parliament from the opposition Democratic Party.
“Trump
came up with the promise of lowering the cost of living. He was attacking the
previous administration for the inflation. He promised to bring back quality
jobs,” Tinagli said. “This didn’t happen.”
Surveys
show voters focused on economic concerns, said Mathieu Gallard, research
director at polling firm Ipsos.
Demonstrators protest against rising housing prices in
Barcelona on Oct. 5, 2026. | Manaure Quintero/AFP via Getty Images
In Spain,
affordability is already a major issue in the campaign for an election
scheduled for Nov. 29. Most polls predict the far-right Vox party, which has
been accusing Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez of failing to meet
citizens’ basic needs, will gain enough seats to enter into government for the
first time as a coalition partner to the conservative People’s Party.
Whatever
their political stripes, incumbents are vulnerable, Gallard said.
“The
far-right or radical right [leaders], when they arrive in power, find
themselves in the same situation as traditional parties and have the same
difficulties,” he added, pointing to this year’s defeat of Hungary’s Viktor
Orbán and a sharp
drop in support for the far-right Sweden Democrats.
For
insurgents like France’s Marine Le Pen and her far-right National Rally party,
however, voter discontent offers opportunity.
The cost
of living “will be the major issue in the campaign,” said Alexandre Loubet, a
lawmaker for the National Rally and a key architect of Le Pen’s economic
platform. “The advantage [for us] is that we are very consistent on this issue.
It’s a bit like immigration — we are already in people’s minds on these
subjects.”
Le Pen,
who is the frontrunner in next spring’s presidential race, has long made
cost-of-living a central issue for her platform and is capitalizing on the
government’s current economic and fiscal woes.
She made
affordable housing a central theme in her first campaign appearance and has
doubled down on her promises to shield pensioners from upcoming budget
squeezes. The far-right veteran is also campaigning on lowering energy taxes,
brushing aside criticism that her proposals are unaffordable.
The blocked entrance of the Saint-Sernin high school in
Toulouse on Nov.2, 2026. | Matthieu Rondel/AFP via Getty Images
At her
party congress last week, Le Pen pushed a message of change and hope, adopting
her rival President Emmanuel Macron’s catchword, “Renaissance,” as her campaign
motto.
The
positive tone “was intentional,” said Loubet. “There’s a sense of gloom in the
country. We need to offer a little hope, a vision, a direction.”
The
recent protest movements that
have swept Spain, France, Italy and, to a lesser extent, Germany, have
centered around complaints about the cost of living, especially for the young.
They echo anger in the U.S., where polls
showed young Americans felt their economic situation was deteriorating as the
country headed in the wrong direction.
“The
affordability debate in the United States breaks on class lines,” said Penny
Naas, a senior vice president at the transatlantic think tank German Marshall
Fund. “If you’re an American and you are not well off and energy plays a much
bigger part in your household income, you’re feeling much more hurt by the
current situation.”
“There
are some similarities with what’s going on in Europe,” she added, pointing at
school protests in France that started in the relatively poor outskirts of
cities.
So far,
centrist candidates have struggled to find the right messaging on the issue. Le
Pen’s top centrist challenger, former Prime Minister Edouard Philippe, has
struggled to gain traction with a pitch centered on economic realism.
A protest to demand more funding for schools and support for
housing, on Oct. 30, 2026 in Rome. Filippo Monteforte/AFP via Getty Images
In
Germany, Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s conservative Christian Democrats are also
feeling the squeeze after suffering a series of electoral defeats, losing to
the far right in eastern states and the radical left in Berlin.
“What
this election shows is that if you want to win the hearts and minds of
citizens, you cannot fight populism by trying to be the defender of the status
quo,” said Sigrid Friis, a 32-year-old member of the European Parliament from
the Danish Social Liberal Party.
“Those
who have won this campaign are the young, the progressives, the forces that
really are the forces of change,” she added.
Sem comentários:
Enviar um comentário