From the Atlantic to the Urals, from the North Sea to the Mediterranean, we see nationalist leaders and right-wing parties either assuming power or on the brink of power.
As the ashes smoulder in French towns and cities following the recent nationwide riots, the National Rally leader Marine Le Pen must know that the next presidential election in 2027 is hers to lose. In Spain, both the hard-right Vox and the conservative People’s Party are ahead in the polls in advance of this month’s general election. In Germany, the insurgent Alternative for Germany has not only won its first mayoral election, it has drawn level with the venerable ruling Social Democrats in one recent poll. In Greece, Kyriakos Mitsotakis of New Democracy has won not one but two elections in quick succession, the second called five weeks after the first, in May, failed to produce a government. Mitsotakis used the second election to complete his electoral rout of the leftist Syriza, mopping up the remnants of a party whose ascent to national power once thrilled the European left. Even the neo-Nazi Spartan group gained 12 seats in the Greek parliament, directed from prison by Ilias Kasidiaris, the former leader of Golden Dawn.
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