Guardian Europe correspondents Jon Henley and Ashifa Kassam. Composite: Guardian DesignView image in fullscreenGuardian Europe correspondents Jon Henley and Ashifa Kassam. Composite: Guardian Design‘A direct cultural threat’: your questions on the rise of the right across Europe answeredWith 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 continentSupport 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.View image in fullscreenGiorgia Meloni and Marine Le Pen have openly criticised Donald Trump.
Photograph: Evan Vucci/ReutersOne 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.Sign up for the This Is Europe newsletter: our free continental emailRead moreView image in fullscreenAs president, Marine Le Pen is unlikely to have a parliamentary majority, which will limit her room for manoeuvre. Photograph: Stéphanie Lecocq/ReutersGramoun-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
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