Far-right parties are growing in Europe
Far-right political parties in Europe are having something of a moment and their electoral success threatens to eclipse that of traditional conservative parties in some countries. Right-wing populists are now in government or supporting ruling coalitions in Italy, Belgium, Croatia, Finland, Hungary, the Netherlands, Slovakia, and Sweden. Karol Nawrocki, a conservative nationalist, narrowly won the Polish presidency recently. Bolstered by U.S. President Trump’s re-election, the normalization of the far-right is characterizing European politics more broadly.
Germany held a snap election in February following the collapse of former Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s coalition government in late 2024. And while Friedrich Merz of the Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union (CDU/CSU) prevailed, the Alternative for Germany (AfD) finished second in the election and is by far the biggest party in the former East Germany DDR. In the western state of Rhineland-Palatinate election in March 2026, AfD was the biggest winner of the night in terms of vote share gained, doubling its vote share to 20%, deepening its foothold in the west of the country.
The conservative and far-right gains come at the expense of Merz’s federal coalition partners, the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD), which came second. The SPD’s defeat at the hands of its coalition partner could plunge it deeper into crisis nationally and destabilize the government in Berlin as the party seeks to retrench and appeal to what’s left of its left-leaning base. The SPD’s vote share collapsed by around 10 percentage points to 25.9%. The election in Rhineland-Palatinate was the second of five state races to be held this year in what Germans are calling a Superwahljahr, that is seen as a key test of the national mood as the AfD seeks to overtake Merz’s conservatives in national polls. The AfD is on track to secure big victories in two eastern states in votes set for September, according to polls.
In last week’s municipal runoff elections in France, Paris stayed Socialist, but the far right scored a precedent-shattering win in Nice and the race to lead Lyon came down to the wire. Marine Le Pen, Jordan Bardella and their allies took control of 310 cities across the country. The Socialist Party, meanwhile, finds itself at a crossroads after many of its ad-hoc alliances with the hard-left France Unbowed fell flat. President Emmanuel Macron’s party Renaissance wasn’t terribly well represented in these municipal contests, but it managed to snatch two key cities from the Greens. The National Rally may have failed to win the big races, but it made serious gains in the rest of the country. The far-right party and its allies won power in 55 new municipalities and has representation in 310 of them. The party now has 3,019 elected municipal officials in 84 departments, up from 827 across 24 departments. Those additions will help the far-right party win more representation in the indirectly elected Senate, the less-powerful upper house of parliament.
The far-right movement in Europe has gain traction and seems to increase the momentum. The movement has benefited from high-profile support from individuals like Elon Musk and VP J.D. Vance, but most of all grown naturally as a result of immigration and unemployment. In the context of the populist Reform UK party led by Brexit-campaigner Nigel Farage has made unprecedented gains, with the party siphoning eight authorities from Conservative strongholds in local elections that took place this year, and roughly 42 percent of seats. Once considered a peripheral organization, the party has transformed into a mainstream political force and is what Starmer recently stated as his main competitor for No. 10 Downing Street. Bottom line is that far right parties are becoming mainstream and voters find them acceptable and appealing. This trend will most likely continue.