The perception that traditional parties are ineffective is increasingly leading younger generations to place their trust in the reactionary messages of extremist parties.
He European Parliament leans more and more to the right and also the new generations of voters Europeans. Both the far-right group Identity and Democracy (ID) and the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) will exert greater influence during the next five years in the European Parliament, after adding nine and seven seatsrespectively, after the European elections held earlier this month.
Data from the think tank ThinkYouth suggests that young people have had a lot to do with it. He far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) took over a large part of the young votewhile around a third of young people They voted for the far-right National Rally (RN) in France and the Confederation of Freedom and Independence party in Poland, where the ultra-conservative Law and Justice party also took 16% of the vote. this demographic clave.
Get rid of the technocrats”, return to a “Europe of nations”, stop immigration and weaken the traditional parties “ineffective and corrupt” are some of the arguments put forward by young people who voted for far-right or ultranationalist parties.
A springboard into national politics
Enzo Alias, a young supporter of the National Rally, hopes that Marine Le Pen’s party “make history” in the next early legislative elections and “impose itself as first political force in France”.
French President Emmanuel Macron dissolved the National Assembly and called these elections after his centrist Renaissance party suffered a setback in the European electionscoming in a very distant second place after RN, which obtained more than 31% of the votes.
For Alias, who is also president of the youth organization ‘Patriots Network’, whose members are linked to far-right or populist parties of right-wing parties around the world, RN’s results in the European elections confirm that the party “has always been very popular among young people” and that it has managed to capture the segment that aspires to a “conservative, patriotic and security-oriented” France “.
He defends to Euronews that RN must work to “completely reform the European Union and put the technocrats out of business to return to a Europe of nations that respects the sovereignty of each nation.”
“I am committed to the party’s ideas because I am a patriot who can no longer bear to see his country sink without our government intervening or turning a blind eye to its destiny,” he adds.
Signe Vedersø Keldorff, president of the youth section Danish People’s Partynationalist and right-wing populistalso believes that the EU should “stay out of the daily lives of Danes.”
His party, led by Morten Messerschmidt, became the second political force in Denmark in 2015 and then lost popularity, but Vedersø is confident that the favorable results obtained by ID and ECR can help reverse this trend.
“Many people see us as an extremist party,” he tells Euronews, “but I think we are misunderstood because we only want a safe policy for Denmark.”
The corruption argument
The Spanish newcomer ‘The party is over’, a radical movement anti-systemhas won two seats in the European Parliament with the fight against corruption politics as the only real electoral proposal.
Its leader, Alvise Pérez, presents himself as an agitator who promises to raffle off his entire MEP salary if he manages to shake the politicians who “live off the impunity of theft.” Through his Telegram channel, he has managed to connect with a young and eurosceptic.
This is the case of IRL, a 29-year-old for whom Pérez “offers a fresh and direct alternative to traditional parties, which have proven to be ineffective and corrupt.” Furthermore, as the voter told Euronews, his presence on social networks has created a direct connection with this generationwho is tired of empty promises and wants to see concrete actions.
This young man’s distrust of the EU is due to its “excessive bureaucracy” and its inability to “protect the interests of Spanish citizens.”
Instead, he sees Pérez’s direct approach as “what we need to achieve real change and take the first steps toward improve the Spanish economy” and hopes that his presence in the European Parliament will be the springboard for a “solid landing of SALF (The party is over) in the Spanish general elections 2027″.
Right-wing counterculture
Young people are attracted to “a charismatic leader” and “innovative communication”, especially on social networks, where they show “courage to break with political correctness“says Rita Matias, president of the youth wing of the Portuguese far-right party ‘He arrives!’.
This party rose to third place in the last Portuguese elections in Marchgoing from 12 to 50 deputies and getting a quarter of the vote from 18 to 34 years, according to an ISCTE survey. In these European elections, ‘Chega!‘ won two seats, a “dishonest” comparison, argues Matías, who was elected MEP, “because the Portuguese do not feel represented at all by the European institutions.”
ADVERTISINGOnly 34.5% of Portuguese electorate participated in the European elections. According to this 25-year-old young man, the new generations see that “the counterculture is increasingly to the right”, where “it breaks with the single thought” and one can say “what everyone thinks, but is not said to be socially accepted.”
Lack of youth representation in institutions
For María Rodríguez Alcázar, president of the non-profit association European Youth Forum, the popularity of these parties increases due to “the perception that the parties traditional politicians fail and do not do enough to improve our lives. They also exploit the belief that the EU is a distant entity that does not care about the everyday worries of the citizen.
“The extreme right parties do not offer solutions, but they put the problems on the table,” he says. “In this game, the pro-european parties They have the commitment to explain to young people how institutions work, to attract them to democracy.” For the European Youth Forum, one way to achieve this is to improve youth representation in political institutions.
Unhappiness and high levels of anxiety
“Today’s young people are unhappier than previous generations,” Andrea Gerosa, founder of the think tank ‘Think Young’, explains to Euronews. This partly explains why “they are willing to seek alternative solutions“.
“Across all EU Member States, more than seven in ten are worried about the cost of living; 82% are worried about the threat of poverty and inequality“, he also states, citing the European Parliament’s Autumn 2022 Eurobarometer. These data “explain why young people channel these same concerns through far-right alternatives.”
ADVERTISINGGerosa believes that young Europeans have felt disenfranchised following the COVID-19 pandemic. She also sees a correlation between high levels of anxiety and an ideological turn to the right.
“In France, for example, where a significant trend towards the right has been observed, 32% of young people declare themselves anxious, and purchasing power and health “are among the issues that concern them most.” This makes them “attracted to populist discourses of change and promises to end the status quo,” he says.
Strong campaigns on social networks
“To combine strong messages con campaign strategies can create a solid base of supporters, regardless of the factual inconsistencies“explains Gerosa. Pérez’s campaign against immigration and corruption on Instagram and Telegram, in which “messaging triumphed over truthful information,” is a clear example of this, he says.
But the extreme right party that has known best strategically target young people, according to this expert, is Alternative for Germany. Labeled as the “TikTok party” has struck “a chord with young voters with easy-to-understand and emotional messages” and now “reaches as many young Germans on TikTok as all the other parties combined,” says Gerosa.
Think Young believes that one of the effective ways to challenge extremist discourses and populists would be to develop programs to encourage and promote critical thinking and literacy digital among young people.
ADVERTISING“The opinion that European youth has become reactionary is perhaps too advanced at the moment. For now, it is best to take this as a wake-up call that young people across Europe believe that the majority parties they are not providing answers and solutions good enough to their problems.”
“If the main issues that concern young people can be stabilized, there is no reason to think that extremist speeches are going to be the new status quo,” concludes Gerosa.
