When a far-right party won a landslide victory on Sunday in a small state in eastern Germany, its reverberations could be felt from Downing Street in London to the Élysée Palace in Paris. Rarely has the result of a regional election been viewed with such portent for the fate of democracy in Europe.
This wasn’t just any European country; it was Germany, a country that has relentlessly isolated far-right political parties since the calamity of Nazism. And it wasn’t just a strange outlier, but rather the latest step in a steady, decade-long march that has brought the far right ever closer to the fulcrum of power in Europe.
With elections scheduled across Europe next year, the striking success of the party, Alternative for Germany, could be a harbinger of further far-right victories, according to analysts, as well as a template for how they can be engineered. Its populist, anti-immigrant message echoes those of nationalist leaders in Britain, France, Italy and Spain, all countries where voters harbor many of the same grievances as those in Germany.
French voters will elect a new president next spring. An election is due in Spain by August, and in Italy by the end of next year. Far-right candidates are surging in all of them, threatening incumbents blamed for systemic problems with their countries’ economies.
“Developed Europe is going through a version of sophisticated state failure,” said Mujtaba Rahman, an analyst who specializes in Europe at Eurasia Group, a political risk consultancy. “Governments are unable to address cost-of-living concerns. They are not able to deliver for their voters.”
In Germany, rising prices and high unemployment helped win the far-right party, known by its German initials, AfD, more than twice the number of votes as Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s center-right incumbent party.
The result laid bare a divide between Europeans who see the far right as a threat to democracy, and a growing number who see it as democracy’s savior. The former warn that the far right will dismantle checks and balances, while treating minorities as second-class citizens. The latter see it as a bulwark against an out-of-touch elite that has eroded their national identity and endangered their livelihoods.
Because the AfD appeared to fall just short of an outright majority, according to near-final results, it may not end up governing Saxony-Anhalt, the state where the election was held. Rival parties have vowed that they would not form a coalition government with the AfD, whose leaders have used Nazi slogans and minimized the Holocaust. The AfD is designated as a “suspected” extremist group by German intelligence, partly because the group portrays Germans of immigrant backgrounds as second-class citizens.
Still, the result could hobble Mr. Merz if members of his party blame him for the loss, at a time when Germany’s leadership in Europe was already faltering. Mr. Merz’s standing has deteriorated so badly that political analysts talk openly of his ouster, a once-far-fetched scenario in German politics.
“It’s a big concern in Europe,” said Mr. Rahman, who previously worked for the European Union’s civil service. “A weak Germany, with a chancellor who is coming unstuck and being forced to deal with domestic problems, is bad and will ultimately subtract from Europe’s ability to confront its challenges.”
Worries among centrists about France, where President Emmanuel Macron will step down next spring, are no less acute. Marine Le Pen, the candidate of France’s main far-right party, the National Rally, holds a commanding lead in first-round polls, and has even finished first in recent second-round matchups. That puts her closer to power than at any time in her 14 years of seeking the presidency.
A far-right government in Paris, Mr. Rahman said, would destabilize the European Union in a way that no other national election has, given France’s size, nuclear arsenal and founding role in the European project. It might also bring an end to the so-called cordon sanitaire, under which mainstream parties in France, as in Germany, have refused to enter governing coalitions with the far right.
“In both countries, the antifascist front that had prevailed since the end of the Second World War seems on the verge of collapse,” said Philippe Marlière, a professor of French and European politics at University College London.
In Spain, analysts said the far-right Vox Party could elbow its way into the next coalition government, with the current Socialist-led government tarnished by corruption scandals and an immigration crisis. In Britain, the governing Labour Party ousted its unpopular prime minister, Keir Starmer, in July to try to regain traction against a fast-rising far-right party, Reform U.K.
Still, the rise of the far right is not inexorable. Reform’s success has been rudely interrupted by a series of financial scandals involving its firebrand leader, Nigel Farage. That has given the Labour government, under a new prime minister, Andy Burnham, some unexpected breathing room.
In April, the far-right leader of Hungary, Prime Minister Viktor Orban, was swept out of power after 16 years, a casualty of widespread perceptions that his government was corrupt, inattentive to the economy, and had picked needless battles with the European Union. The defeat of his Fidesz party gave hope to mainstream politicians that the far right, too, is vulnerable.
The extent to which those mainstream politicians “need to worry” about the AfD’s success, said Timothy Bale, a professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London, “is going to depend on whether, if it ends up in office, it behaves relatively normally, and whether or not it’s able to run things competently.”
Italy’s prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, whose populist party has neofascist roots, offers a playbook to other like-minded leaders. Having modulated her tone on issues like Ukraine and the European Union, she recently celebrated her government’s becoming the longest continuously serving in the history of the Italian Republic.
Ms. Meloni is in a decent position to extend that run when she faces voters next summer. But the rising profile of a rival even further to her right, Roberto Vannacci, has led her to harden her positions on issues like immigration. Ms. Meloni heaped criticism on Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, after a sudden influx of migrants from Morocco into a Spanish territory in late July.
Mr. Farage risks being similarly outflanked in Britain. Rupert Lowe, a disaffected member of his party, defected to start an even more right-wing group that is siphoning votes from Mr. Farage. Given that competition, and the proliferating questions about Reform’s finances, Professor Bale said it was difficult to see how Mr. Farage could cobble together enough votes to form a government.
In France, Ms. Le Pen’s path to power is more plausible. Her poll numbers are more than double those of the leading centrist, Edouard Philippe, or the leading far-left candidate, Jean-Luc Mélenchon.
The big question in France is whether Mr. Philippe or anyone else will be able to gather enough support from the center right and left to emerge as the consensus mainstream candidate. In a second round of voting, analysts said, such a candidate would stand a chance of beating Ms. Le Pen.
But if France’s center remains fractured, as it is now, that would give Mr. Mélenchon a shot at making the second round, likely facing off against Ms. Le Pen. In that scenario — one that France’s political establishment views as a nightmare — Ms. Le Pen would be the odds-on victor.
Like other far-right leaders in Europe, Ms. Le Pen has kept her distance from President Trump. But she and other populist candidates could be buffeted by him anyway, according to analysts. Mr. Trump remains deeply unpopular in Europe and is fast losing popularity in the United States as well.
The lesson that Europe’s beleaguered centrists hope voters will take from America’s turmoil, Mr. Rahman said, is that “if you experiment with non-mainstream parties, you risk making mistakes.”
