Europe's far-right surge a lesson mainstream can't afford to ignore

If we only see a far-right surge in some major European countries, we are missing a more important story — how mainstream parties have spent decades promising that globalization, economic integration and technological progress would deliver broad prosperity, while doing too little to address the concerns of people and communities that felt left behind.

It doesn't mean voters have fallen in love with the far-right parties; it just means that increasing numbers have stopped believing the centrist parties can solve their problems.

Germany offers the clearest illustration. AfD's 43.8 percent in Saxony-Anhalt, just three seats short of an absolute majority, was a verdict on a government struggling to revive a sluggish economy while divided over taxes, welfare and reform.

AfD co-chair Alice Weidel's taunt that voters had not merely punished German Chancellor Friedrich Merz but also "pulverized" his party captured something real. Merz can call AfD a "destructive force" and insist it will not win a national majority.

Yet a party does not need to govern to change the terms of government, if mainstream parties devote more energy to maintaining a "firewall" than demonstrating that their own policies work.

In France, the story is similar. Marine Le Pen's National Rally has spent years transforming itself from a political outcast into a plausible governing alternative. Its leader's renewed eligibility to contest the 2027 presidential election has strengthened that trajectory.

Meanwhile, French President Emmanuel Macron's government has adopted tougher positions on immigration. But when parties begin imitating their opponent, they simply forget that the original usually gets credit for the idea, while the imitator loses its own identity.

Likewise, in the United Kingdom, Reform UK's capture of 1,453 local council seats showed how thoroughly it has disrupted the traditional party map. Its £72 million ($97.40 million) windfall from cryptocurrency billionaires has given it the resources to build a formidable electoral machine.

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage's promises to deport 600,000 migrants in five years, leave the European Convention on Human Rights and scrap the "net zero" emissions objective may sound extreme. But why are so many voters attracted to them?

Because, after Brexit, when living standards have been squeezed, Conservatives and Labour are increasingly viewed as establishment parties that have failed to deliver in many sectors. Reform UK doesn't even need to prove it is good, it needs only to convince voters that it is not part of the establishment.

That is the shared warning. Some mainstream parties have failed to honestly confront the unequal consequences of globalization in some fields. On immigration, they either managed the issue technocratically or borrowed the right's language without resolving the underlying challenges. On governance, internal divisions have turned major reforms into hesitant compromises.

Although the probability of the far-right parties coming to power varies sharply in different countries, European Union officials are already seeking to settle major budget and climate files before France's election, concerned that a National Rally government could challenge the bloc's priorities.

AfD's opposition to aid for Ukraine, sanctions on Russia and its interest in restoring Russian energy ties could complicate Europe's "strategic unity". A stronger alliance between the UK and French right-wing forces on migrant returns could further reshape the debate.

Yet the closer the far right comes to power, the more it must answer a question it has often avoided: How exactly will you govern? Anger can help win elections. But budgets, hospitals, energy systems and international relations require choices, trade-offs and results.

Europe's real stress test is being able to tell the people where they are going — and to give those who feel forgotten a credible reason to believe they have not been abandoned. Because when people have been ignored for too long, a controversial direction can look preferable to no direction at all.

— LI YANG, CHINA DAILY