Why Europe’s centre will hold
The 1930s are not a good guide to the politics of the 21st century
Gideon Rachman
© Ann KiernanLast Chance: The New Chancellor and the Struggle for Democracy by Robin Alexander was a bestselling book in Germany last year.
It captured a widespread fear that, if Chancellor Friedrich Merz fails, the political extremes could overwhelm German democracy.
A year on, those concerns are rising.
The Alternative for Germany (AfD), a far-right populist party, has topped the polls in two recent state elections — while the far-left Die Linke has just won the Berlin state election.
Merz’s popularity rating has plummeted to 13 per cent.
There is widespread speculation that he may soon have to resign.
Germany is Europe’s largest economy, so whatever happens there will shake the whole continent.
Meanwhile, in France, the EU’s second-largest economy, Marine Le Pen, the parliamentary leader of the far-right Rassemblement National, leads the polls ahead of next year’s presidential election.
So is Europe’s centre about to crumble?
And is European democracy really squandering its “last chance”?
Fortunately, political reality is rather less dramatic.
Despite all the current turmoil, Europe’s political centre is likely to hold.
There are three main reasons for this.
The first is the widespread use of proportional representation in European elections.
The second is the tendency of far-right parties to either fail or moderate in government.
That reflects a third point — the serious constraints that membership of the EU places on populist, anti-establishment parties.
Parties that are widely regarded as “far right” have already entered government in important European countries.
The results were instructive.
In the Netherlands, the PVV led by Geert Wilders emerged from elections in 2023 as the single largest party and briefly anchored a coalition government.
But, eventually, the Wilders party became frustrated by the constraints of coalition politics and EU law and stalked out of government.
The PVV’s support fell sharply at the next election — and the Netherlands is currently governed by another centrist coalition.
Austria’s far-right Freedom Party has also been part of two coalition governments since 2000 — and won the most votes in the 2024 elections.
But it has been unable to form a coalition government and is currently out of power.
The Dutch and Austrian experiences underline how proportional representation limits the political options of the far right.
That is particularly relevant in Germany, where centrist parties have a “firewall” policy that prohibits going into office with the far right.
The AfD is currently polling just below 30 per cent at a national level.
If it hits those levels in a national election, or even goes above them, it would be much harder to form a centrist coalition.
But the chances are that the AfD would still be locked out of power.
The situation in France is different because the second round of the presidential election is a winner-takes-all contest.
If Le Pen is victorious next May, then she will enter the Élysée Palace.
But the example of Italy suggests that a far-right government in France might not be as extreme as some fear.
Giorgia Meloni, Italy’s prime minister, leads a political party that has its origins in the Mussolini-admiring far right.
But she has largely governed from the centre right — avoiding a confrontation with her EU partners that might have cost EU funds and spooked the debt markets.
The Italian left points to Meloni’s harsher policies on immigration and asylum as indications that she retains far-right instincts.
But almost all European governments are now searching for ways to limit the flow of asylum seekers.
This is a response to growing voter unease — so arguably an expression of democracy rather than its negation.
Le Pen has been moderating her party’s image for many years — shedding many of its more extreme policies and associations.
In the process, she has broken with her own father, the founder of the party, and ditched plans to leave the European single currency.
The far-right leader still retains instincts that differ sharply from the French mainstream.
She recently pledged to end all French financial aid to Ukraine.
Some of her policies — such as a pledge for national preference for French jobseekers and businesses — would put her at odds with EU law.
But, once in office, Le Pen is likely to find that a full-scale confrontation with the rest of the EU would come at too high a political and economic cost.
Membership of a functioning EU internal market remains key to the health of the French economy.
The country’s voters know this.
The bond markets — which are another big constraint on the indebted French and Italian governments — would also take fright.
Many of the fears around Le Pen, the AfD and the rest of the European far right reflect the memories of the 1930s.
The experience then was that once far-right leaders — such as Hitler or Franco — took power, they swiftly undermined democracy and only left office when they died.
But contemporary Europe’s experience has been very different.
The far right has entered government — and then left it peacefully.
Even Hungary’s Viktor Orbán accepted defeat in an election earlier this year.
The rise of the AfD and Le Pen is dramatic and will increase political tensions and instability.
But it does not spell the end of European democracy.
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