Europe’s Far Right Is Not Going Away — Two Different Lessons From France And Italy

–Analysis–

ROME — By now it’s evident to all: representative democracies in the West are in trouble for structural reasons, not due to some accident or coincidence.

We are witnessing a profound protest from significant segments of the population who have largely been abandoned by an oligarchic and self-referential ruling class, and feel at the mercy of an increasingly complex and changing world in which the West enjoys a position of diminishing privilege.

If this is the case, the most urgent question that democracies must answer is how to absorb this protest. How well they respond may be the greatest challenge of our times, whether they do it alone or along with fellow members of the European Union and the Atlantic alliance.

Three stages of reckoning

Democracies seem to react to protest in three stages.

First, there is rejection and demonization: political forces that claim to represent the unhappy voters are ridiculed for their approximation and incompetence and/or delegitimized because they are considered harmful to liberal democracy.

In the second phase, these political forces grow to such an extent that it becomes difficult not to deal with them, and the tacit agreement to exclude them from power begins to waver.

In the third and final stage, these movements that were born as an act of protest come to power, alone or in coalition, and the entire political balance must restructure around them.

With some approximation, we could say that today Berlin is experiencing the first stage, Paris the second, and Rome the third.

Meloni to Le Pen

In Germany, traditional parties have held up better than elsewhere, and it is possible to imagine that even after the anticipated national election in February, they will be able to form a majority that excludes the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD). The Brandmauer (firewall) against the far-right still holds, albeit with difficulty.

In Italy, the first phase opened with the elections of 2013, when the anti-establishment Five Star Movement became a major political force; the transition to the second stage occurred with the vote of 2018, when the far-right and the Five Star Movement formed the governing coalition. And since 2022, with the election of Giorgia Meloni as prime minister, we have finally entered the third phase.

After nearly 10 years during which we have seen everything — rollercoaster electoral results, rivers of demagoguery, and the peak of parliamentary opportunism — Italy has completed its transition and is now the most politically stable among the large countries of the European Union.

In France, the establishment has relied on the institutions of the Fifth Republic — presidentialism and two-round voting — to keep protest parties as much as possible in opposition. This has allowed it to prolong for several years the duration of the first phase, but at the cost of a series of forced measures for which it is now paying the price.

France is clearly entering the second phase, as evidenced both by the appeal to the far left to stop Marine Le Pen’s‘s far-right National Rally (RN) in the second round of elections in June, followed by the collapse of Prime Minister Michel Barnier’s government after he showed a willingness to open to Le Pen.

Remember that the second phase, with its transition from demonization to some form of integration of the protest movements, is the most chaotic phase.

From one stage to another

The forward succession from one stage to another is not inevitable. Nothing prevents AfD in Germany from remaining behind the Brandmauer for a few more years and then slipping into irrelevance. And nothing prevents France from rising back toward the first phase from the second instead of descending into the third phase — although this is much more difficult.

The protest — since its roots are structural — must find a way to have voice and representation.

What is necessary, however, is that protest — since its roots are structural rather than connected to the context — finds some way to have voice and representation. In recent years, historical conditions have changed too profoundly for democratic politics not to adapt to these new forces.

For this reason, it is easier for Germany to stabilize in the first phase than for France to return there: with its healthy traditional party in the Christian Democrats, Germany might be able to deal with change, while in France it is unclear who could possibly fulfill this role.

Reaching out to Orban

With some caution, this reasoning can also be extended to the entire European Union. The recent formation of Ursula von der Leyen’s second mandate has shown that it is at the beginning of its second stage: the firewall has now been crossed by part of the conservatives, particularly Meloni’s Brothers of Italy, and the center-right Popular Party appears willing when necessary to open even further rightward toward Viktor Orbán’s Patriots for Europe and Europe of Sovereign Nations Group.

Hard to imagine that the EU can make progress without support from at least part of the right-wing parties

It is evident how continental politics is also changing as public opinion shifts. And just as in Berlin, much will depend on how things unfold in Brussels when it comes to the center-right Popular Party.

In this situation, it remains difficult to imagine that the European Union can make progress without support from at least part of the right-wing parties, despite their general opposition to greater continental cooperation.

A major question for 2025 will be how to reconcile the idea of Europe with a far-right protest movement that has reached its second stage. And Italy, stable within its now consolidated “third phase,” could make a significant contribution toward finding an answer.