more numerous and more powerful far-right parties

The vote is getting closer and the troops candidate to enter the European Parliament are sharpening their weapons. According to polls, parties affiliated with the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) and Identity and Democracy (ID) groups, of which the National Rally is a part, can hope to become the third and fourth political forces in the European Parliament.

During the 2019 European elections, the far right marked an unprecedented breakthrough, particularly in Italy (34% for Matteo Salvini’s League) or in France (the National Rally came first). In around ten other member countries, the far right obtained scores between 10% and 20%, going from 37 to 115 seats in the hemicycle.

In 2019, five far-right parties participated in government coalitions, of which only one, Austria’s Freedom Party (FPÖ), was in control. Among the thirty far-right parties competing for the European elections in June, seven are strong enough to participate in the government of their country: the far right has entered a coalition in Sweden, Finland and Slovakia, and could do so in the coming weeks in Croatia and the Netherlands if the discussions are successful. Above all, she heads the executive in Hungary and Italy.

“The arrival of the coalition led by Giorgia Meloni is one of the biggest changes since 2019”, underlines Catherine Fieschi, specialist in extremism at the consultancy firm Counterpoint. By normalizing relations with Brussels and supporting Ukraine, parties like Fratelli d’Italia and the Polish PiS have “gave credibility to the group of European Conservatives and Reformists” – which favored their rapprochement with a right which, for its part, has hardened (Les Républicains in France, the CDU in Germany), explains the political scientist.

Another novelty, the Hungarian Fidesz has gradually slid towards an assertive extreme right. Unlike Atlanticist parties like the Brothers of Italy and the Polish PiS, it now embodies an authoritarian and pro-Russian current whose influence extends to Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Bulgaria.

Until now little present in these countries, the far right has made a breakthrough in Bulgaria, Cyprus and Portugal, where the Chega (“enough”, in Portuguese) has established itself in a few years as the third political force from the country.

In countries where the far right has remained weak or even non-existent, xenophobic rhetoric is sometimes spread by other groups. In Slovenia, the conservative party has appropriated far-right themes. In Ireland, where no far-right party had managed to obtain representatives in Parliament, anti-migrant campaigns carried out by small violent groups are beginning to permeate public debate.

“The proximity between the right and the extreme right translates institutionally into a greater number of government coalitions integrating the most radical groups”, confirms Cas Mudde, professor of international affairs at the University of Georgia (United States). However, according to this specialist on the extreme right in Europe, ” the results [de juin] will likely show a fairly steady continuation of the rise of the far right rather than a huge increase”.

Find below the presentation of the main far-right or populist parties in each of the twenty-seven European countries and their electoral dynamics over the past fifteen years, in the European elections and during the main national elections.