Ten years ago, the political landscape of Europe looked very different. Far-right factions commanded just 11.1% of voter share across the continent, aided by a cordon sanitaire that kept parties like Germany's Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) and France's Rassemblement National (RN) out of coalitions and in the fringes of society.  

Yet the years since have been telling. A dramatic retreat of Europe's left-leaning parties has left traditional socialist parties like France's Parti Socialiste and Denmark's Social Democrats in tatters.

Amid this, support for the far-right has more-than doubled to 23%. 

In November 2023, the far-right Partij voor de Vrijheid (PVV) won the Dutch parliamentary elections and subsequently formed a coalition government. 

Austria’s far-right Freedom party (FPÖ) reached 29% of voter share in 2024, achieving its best result in the party's history. 

In France, Rassemblement National (RN) became the largest single party in parliament with 37%. At the European Parliament, coalitions such as Patriots for Europe and Europe of Sovereign Nations now hold more than a quarter of the total seats.

With Monday's seismic news that the AfD has won regional elections in Germany's Saxony-Anhalt, Europe's mainstream parties seem to be balancing on a precipice. Yet with the right-wing rollercoaster showing no signs of slowing down, just how did we get to this place?

Immigration, weaponized

A core political identity of far-right parties is that of strict nationalism, with anti-immigration policies becoming a significant rallying-point for politicians and supporters alike.  

The weaponisation of anti-immigration rhetoric is nothing new, but Europe's 2015 'immigration crisis' became a catalyst for far-right figureheads to reshape the continent's perspective of refugees.

During this period, more than one million refugees arrived in the European Union, mostly by sea, fleeing wars and violence in the Middle East and Africa.

For the UK's then-UKIP leader Nigel Farage, it became a focal-point of his Brexit campaign: he unveiled in 2016 a controversial billboard featuring a massive queue of Syrian refugees with the slogan "Breaking Point: The EU has failed us all."

The poster was heavily criticised as racist and compared to 1930s Nazi propaganda, with 40,000 people signing a petition against the imagery.

Nevertheless, ten years on, the conversation hasn't changed for Farage: last Friday, he invited RN's Jordan Bardella to the Reform Party Conference stage, where they signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on stopping migration across the English Channel. This comes as small-boat crossings to the UK continue to fall, in line with the UK's Labour government's objectives.

Yet Farage isn't the only one. Anti-immigration defines large parts of AfD's manifesto, with campaigns on closing EU borders, processing asylum claims outside of Germany, restricting asylum rights, and cutting social benefits for foreign nationals.

The concept of remigration, involving the mass deportation or repatriation of unassimilated migrants and rejected asylum applicants, has also found a foothold in far-right parties across the EU, with the AfD, Reform and Austria's Freedom Party notable supporters.

These campaigns have had significant impacts regarding voter issues. The May 2026 Ipsos Issues Index revealed an increase in public concern about immigration in the UK, with 41% of those polled mentioning it as an important issue for the country - ahead of concerns surrounding the NHS. 

Similarly, a recent YouGov study found that Britons now are most likely to say migration has been mostly bad for the UK (43%), a 10-point increase from 2016.

These trends are driven by the far-right voter base: 56% of Reform voters say immigration should be the government's top priority.

Across Europe more widely, a seven-country survey published in December last year found that majorities or near-majorities in all countries favoured a “large decrease” in the number of migrants allowed to come to their country.

The same poll found that pluralities or majorities of respondents polled in a survey said they thought “many” or “somewhat” more migrants were staying illegally than legally.

Ultimately, anti-immigration campaigns and populist rhetoric have helped to cement far-right parties as serious contenders in the European political landscape of today.   

The shifting vote of Europe's youth

Across Europe, young voters have traditionally supported progressive, left-leaning parties that advocate for issues like climate action, social justice, and democratic reform.

Yet discontent amongst the youth as they grapple with eroding wages, sky-high property prices and growing unemployment has led to a shift in support.

In Germany, there was an increase of 11% in support from voters aged between 24 and 30 in the 2024 European Parliament elections; and France's RN celebrated some 30% of the youth vote nationally, a 10-point rise compared to 2019. In Spain, 12.4 % of voters aged under 25 turned out to support the ultra-conservative Vox party.

Reasons behind the shift range from dissatisfaction are varied, with unemployment widely cited as a significant factor: youth unemployment among Europeans aged 15 to 24 reached 13.8% in 2023, reaching  27.9% in Spain, 27.7% in Greece, and 20.7% in Italy.

Many under-30s also report feeling politically jaded and disillusioned, with nearly half of young Europeans (47%) stating a deep sense of political deprivation, according to research across the EU’s five largest countries.

These changing attitudes reveals that under-30s across Europe are no longer a voter base that centrist and left parties can rely on.

Social media fueling the fire

However, the gender split embedded in the far-right historic wins is hard to ignore: over one in five young men voted for far-right factions in 2024, compared to 14% of young women.

Here, the rise of unchecked far-right online content has been identified as stoking grievances. Once-fringe political parties have now become mainstream through social media, with the well-documented growth of the 'manosphere' becoming a recruitment ground for anti-establishment sentiment and growing political extremism amongst young men especially.

One such example is Spain's Alvise Perez, leader of "The Party Is Over" party ("Se acabó la fiesta"). A fringe figure of Spain's far right who rails against unauthorized immigrants, he was mostly unknown until he leveraged his diatribes on Instagram and Telegram. 

He also railed against claims of widespread corruption among politicians to score three of the 61 seats Spain gets in the European Parliament in the 2024 elections. 

By bypassing traditional media gatekeepers, rapidly normalising radical or divisive language and finding a foothold in a tech-savvy, youthful audience, fringe movements and independent political actors have found a voice - and a vote - in online spaces.

Europe 2029

While there are still five years until the next set of European Parliament, the scene is increasingly being set for a dramatic shift in the political landscape of the continent. 

Yet politics is anything but predictable - and most politicians will agree that in three years, anything can happen. 

Nevertheless, as AfD celebrates their victory in Germany's east, parties up and down Europe will be thinking just how many historic moments are set to occur in the run up to Europe 2029.