The recent European elections confirmed a trend that began in the 1990s, showing that support for far-right parties has spread like wildfire across the continent. In France, Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National (RN) won 31.5 percent of the vote and reached the second round of the national legislative elections, although it ultimately lost. In Italy, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party came first with 28.8 percent, while the Freedom Party of Austria (formerly led by Jörg Haider) also topped the polls with 25.4 percent of the preferences. Alternative for Germany (AfD) achieved a startling result: Germany’s ultra-right party became the second-largest political formation (16 percent) after the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and ahead of Olaf Scholz’s Social Democratic Party (SPD). As traditional parties struggle to maintain their foothold, Reset DOC turns to Yves Mény, the first Director of the Robert Schuman Center at the European University Institute, to delve into the political dynamics that have contributed to the rise of right-wing parties in Europe.
Professor Mény, we are trying to understand the roots of this long-standing phenomenon: it was 1995 when some voters who had supported the Communists began to flow towards Jean-Marie Le Pen, while Jacques Chirac received broad popular support. What political dynamics have contributed to the rise of right-wing parties in Europe?
As early as the 1980s, a certain decline of parties in advanced democracies was observed, as they gradually, almost imperceptibly, transformed themselves into what Peter Mair called “cartel parties”: political formations that cooperate to retain power, increasingly distancing themselves from the electorate. The fatal blow, however, was the fall of the Berlin Wall, which seemed to be a total victory for liberalism and effectively marked the end of the traditional party system.
How did political parties respond to this change, and how did it affect their electoral bases?
On the one hand, political parties tried to accept the dominance of economic liberalism and globalization – which became the mantra of international politics. On the other hand, even those who did not want to support this banalization were more or less forced to do so by participating in social democratic or socialist governments. Two significant examples are François Mitterand in France and the Italian Communist Party (PCI). At first, Mitterand pursued a socialist policy, but after two years, he had to adjust to the failure of this strategy. The PCI, eager to govern, accepted the rules of the game. I still remember the controversies when the party newspaper, L’Unità, began to publish stock market flows. Thus, there was an emptying of the popular parties, which converted to globalization and Europeanism (which in fact allowed the introduction of globalization at the European level), also because sometimes there seemed to be no other option.
Why is the political evolution you have just outlined significant?
Because left-wing parties had a function of channeling social protest within an ideological framework. The PCI represented the working class and an important part of those who were discontented with the Christian Democrats (DC). The French Communist Party took on every protest, so much so that one politician [Georges Lavau, Editor’s Note] spoke of its fonction tribunitienne, its “tribunician function.” This role diminished from the 1990s, leaving space for parties or rather social movements led by political entrepreneurs. Initially, with protests based on limited elements: in France, immigration; in Italy, the centralization of policies, as in the case of the Northern League; in Germany, the euro; in the United Kingdom, the European Union. Perhaps the most notable example was the Yellow Vests movement in France, which had no program, no leader, no desire to govern, but wanted to protest against the government’s social policies. This populist protest was then “expropriated” by existing parties, such as Le Pen’s party, or by new movements, as in Germany.
How does the ideological element fit into all this?
In addition to the political crisis, there is the ideological element: until the 1990s, the dominant ideologies were either communist or social democratic. Even non-social democratic French governments have always pursued a social democratic policy, a bit like Bismarck did at the end of the nineteenth century, not out of love for the working class, but to avoid revolution. This dominance of the left and its participation in government meant that a large portion of those who were part of this social protest no longer felt represented.
This issue of representation is central today. So much so that the left is accused of elitism…
The left has gradually forgotten some central issues for the working class. Think about the coexistence with migrants in the suburbs. The French Communist Party entrusted municipal public housing to the poorest, who in the 1970s and 1980s were increasingly often immigrants from North Africa. This coexistence was difficult because it was a cultural competition before even being a labor one. Perhaps a notable case today is that of Jordan Bardella, of Italian origin, who lived in the suburbs and adopted the quite common characteristic of the children of migrants to reject those who arrive later.
Turning to the economic reasons behind this phenomenon, what do you see as the key steps?
In the 1980s, there was a small revolution that, in my opinion, was misinterpreted. After Margaret Thatcher had obtained the famous “rebate”, she agreed to open up to the initiatives of Jacques Delors. He presented a fairly ambitious program, both economically and socially. However, he quickly realized that if he wanted to unleash market forces as was being sought, he had to abandon his social agenda. All that remained of the original social project were the EU structural funds, distributed to the poorest regions of Europe, a drop in the ocean of market forces. The almost complete victory of the market at the European level that followed resulted in a terrible division: everything economic and financial is under European competence, and each member state must deal with the negative consequences, also because welfare systems are national.
However, Delors showed “European patriotism”, for example against Asian cars, by putting up barriers as long as possible. He belonged to a time when the left, the most socially sensitive forces in Europe, resisted globalization…
Certainly, in that context, Delors did what he could and limited the damage. But it is a long story. During the negotiations on the Treaty of Rome, the French wanted to introduce a certain form of welfare state, because they knew that even at that time labor costs in France were not competitive with Germany, and Germany opposed any form of social dimension. The only thing that survived was the principle of equal pay for men and women, which is very little. In a way, we are in a better situation, but comparable to the United States. Every American state can engage in fiscal competition. In Europe, a little less, but the market forces the member states a lot. If Italy wants to tax capital income at 50 percent, two days later it collapses because all the capital goes away. The same thing happened in France with the wealth tax, which caused a large part of the richest to flee the country until Macron came back. On the other hand, to decrease or change indirect taxation, that is, VAT, the Commission’s agreement is needed, and it takes many negotiations because it directly affects market mechanisms, there is a kind of scissors range within which VAT rates can be set. So, the economy has become more globalized and the European Union has perhaps managed to mitigate the most dramatic effects of this globalization, but in a way, it has also been its Trojan horse. Clearly, closure is not an option, the only solution I see to try to limit these deleterious effects on our democratic systems is to strengthen democracy at the European level, that is, to give Europe a real capacity to act both strictly democratically and socially.
What emerges is the fact that economic nationalism was in a sense part of the nature of the European socialist parties, of the European left, even if perhaps not declared, but implicit. When it comes to delocalization, for example, unions and left-wing parties do not take an internationalist perspective; they defend national interests. This now seems to have become an essential prerogative of the right. Trump has a very clear model in mind: bringing factories back to the United States. And the left has no desire to radically oppose globalization.
There is another element of the left’s cultural heritage that puts it in front of contradictions: the infinite expansion of fundamental rights. Popular legitimacy is the basis of democracy, but it is not sufficient. It is the case of Orban, who has been in power for years, supported by his public opinion and with extravagant majorities. However, Hungary is a very imperfect democracy because it no longer respects the catalogue of fundamental rights, just look at the freedom of the media. Today there is an imbalance between the popular voice and fundamental rights that impose themselves even on popular will.
What is your view on populism and its impact on representative democracies?
Populism also arises from the fact that governments have not responded to the popular voice, and often are not even able to do so, given the set of national, European or international legal norms, and this is for me a great contradiction in the functioning of representative democracies. In this context, the left has not managed to find a balance between the almost blind defense of rights and the far-right positions that say enough is enough. This leads to a long-term reflection: we cannot continuously increase the non-negotiable part, the intangible part of the democratic structure, and at the same time allow the popular part to shrink. Also because democratic political rhetoric insists on the idea that the people are sovereign, while a part of the people feels that its voice is never heard.
For me, populism is almost a constituent element of democracies, and the best antidote is to allow populists to come to power when they win. We have seen what happened with the Five Star Movement or with Salvini, who wants to be a populist even in government and has not had much success… The main success of populism is to create new elites that fail or succeed but represent an opening, and I come back to Peter Mair, of a system that has become very closed.
What is your point of view on the French sanitary blockade against the National Rally?
It’s a bit like the construction of Roman walls to prevent the entry of barbarians into the Roman Empire. It works for a certain time, not in the long term. The cordon sanitaire worked much better than expected, but now the left-wing parties are so divided that they are not even able to agree on the name of a potential prime minister. So I am very skeptical.
Cover photo: Giorgia Meloni Prime Minister of Italy spotted talking with Viktor Orban Prime Ministry of Hungary among other European leaders, heading to take their position for the group family photo with President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy participating at the European Council Summit as he signs security pact with EU during his visit. Brussels, Belgium on June 27, 2024 (Photo by Nicolas Economou / NurPhoto / NurPhoto via AFP.)
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