Europe’s far-right problem is not going away.  

The farmers’ protests of early 2024, readily instrumentalised by right-wing populists, were the first, noisy skirmishes of a consequential year in European politics. June’s elections delivered the most right-wing European Parliament in history. Hard-right parties are involved in government in over a quarter of EU member states. Austria’s FPÖ won the October elections just five years after being caught in a major scandal. In Germany, the AfD is poised to win a large chunk of the vote in next year’s elections, and in France, Marine Le Pen has her eyes set on the presidency. Even once-celebrated exceptions to the rise of far-right forces, such as Spain and Portugal, have now conformed to the rule. 

Far-right politics seems to be part of the global zeitgeist too. Donald Trump’s re-election was greeted with jubilation by his transatlantic allies. Wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, while different on most accounts, are both waged by reactionary leaders with neocolonial agendas and a blatant disrespect for international law. Ethnonationalism is on the rise in the world’s two most populous countries, India and China. Argentina’s Javier Milei and El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele show Latin America’s fascination with strongman leaders. 

How did we get here? 

In Europe, the appeal of right-wing populism is nothing new: parties like the FPÖ and the political predecessor of Brothers of Italy, with their roots in 20th-century neo- and post-fascism, were first admitted into coalition governments decades ago. The structural transformation of societies and the fragmentation of the working class contributed to their growth and, by contrast, to the decline of social-democratic parties. 

In the 2010s, in the wake of the global financial crisis, anti-austerity populist forces such as Spain’s Podemos, Greece’s SYRIZA, and Italy’s Five Star Movement tried to articulate a critique of the neoliberal centrist consensus. While they partly succeeded in picking apart the “common sense” of crisis management, the far-right iteration of the populist movement proved more enduring. 

The far right has successfully evolved to capitalise on persisting socioeconomic insecurities ranging from unemployment and the healthcare and housing crises to the divide between “urban elites” and left-behind rural communities. The disorientation linked to globalisation, geopolitical turmoil, rapid technological change, and the climate crisis has also rekindled the idea of the (ethnically homogeneous) nation-state as a safe haven. 

But it is mainly through influencing discourse that the far right has cemented its success. The digital revolution and the crisis of traditional media have ushered in an era of endless possibilities for right-wing ideologues, unscrupulous campaigners, and political entrepreneurs. Culture wars against real or imagined enemies – the Left, “gender ideology”, the “Great Replacement”, or “Frankenstein meat” – serve to conceal the far right’s internal divisions and the gap between its rhetoric and its largely pro-elite track record. If economic insecurities are the causes of far-right support, cultural panic is its fuel. 

Immigration, because of its potential to encapsulate both orders of insecurities – economic and cultural – is the far right’s favourite theme. Asylum seekers are blamed for the erosion of both workers’ rights and the welfare state and are seen as a threat to national identity and tradition. Some of these narratives have become part of the EU’s mainstream immigration discourse and have been actively embraced by supposedly progressive forces and governments. Europe is in the midst of a race to reintroduce border controls, threatening Schengen and the very understanding of the European project as more than a single market. In Germany, Sahra Wagenknecht’s radical-left party is lashing out against immigration under the pretext of fighting the AfD and reuniting the working class. 

While the far right has successfully evolved to broaden its base, mainstream parties and societies at large have evolved too, assimilating its stances – and not just on immigration. The criminalisation of climate activists, a backlash against climate policies, crackdowns on civil society and independent media, and the restriction of LGBTQIA+ rights are no longer the exclusive domain of the radical right. Hence, to rejoice when “the centre holds” at European or national elections is to ignore that the centre is increasingly skewed in that direction. 

Normalising right-wing populists by allowing them into coalitions, reproducing their positions, blaming voters for their misconceptions – none of these strategies seems to have any effect other than strengthening the far right and increasing polarisation. So what next in the fight for free, just, and inclusive societies? 

Green forces have been the most consistent in standing up to the far right. In the Dutch-speaking Belgian region of Flanders, for example, Greens were the architects of the cordon sanitaire against the far-right Vlaams Blok in the 1990s, and today they remain the most steadfast opposition to its successor, Vlaams Belang, whose positions have meanwhile become more widely accepted in politics, society, and the media. 

Uncompromising opposition has made Greens the main political target of the far right. They are singled out as simultaneously too liberal (through their support for “woke” politics), authoritarian (through the imposition of “political correctness”), and punitive (through the climate policies they advocate for). This is partly an opportunistic attempt to exploit the backlash against the Green Deal and discontent with climate politics. But the far right’s hostility to the ecological movement (including climate activists and environmental civil society organisations) also reveals a fundamental incompatibility: with its commitment to democracy, feminism, human rights, and individual and collective freedom, political ecology offers a radical alternative to the world of social, racial, and gender hierarchy presented by the far right as the precondition for political order and economic prosperity. 

The viability of such a green alternative will depend on its ability to mobilise majorities, forge alliances to address material insecurities, and wrestle cultural hegemony from the Right. Engaging with trade unions, activist movements, and identity groups needs to be part of the solution, along with understanding rather than dismissing the political salience of emotions. 

This task may seem daunting, but it is not quixotic: there are sparks of positive change to build on. Fridays for Future, #MeToo, and #BlackLivesMatter have managed to reshape public discourse around the climate emergency, sexual abuse, and racial discrimination. In France and elsewhere, an ecosystem of politically committed independent media is challenging the Right’s control of the narrative and gathering public support. And in Georgia, civil society and grassroots organising is giving tangible meaning to European values at a time when rights are being curbed both within the EU and in some of its aspiring members. 

Facing the far right also means not overestimating its appeal. Its support base is often comprised of a loud minority in societies that are evolving towards more progressive values. In this sense, perhaps the best way to confront the far right is not to centre its narratives in order to counter them, but to find the courage to look elsewhere: to focus less on what we oppose and more on the world we desire.