The spectre of far-right authoritarianism is becoming an increasingly plausible future for Europe, driven by a continent-wide sense of economic gloom and a political failure to offer hope. This stark warning comes as figures like France's Jordan Bardella, president of the Rassemblement National, capitalise on public discontent, a scene captured at a book signing in Hauts-de-France on 6 December 2025.
The Zero-Sum Narrative and the Migrant Scapegoat
Since the financial crash of 2008, a corrosive narrative has taken hold across Western nations. The public has been encouraged to believe they are trapped in a zero-sum competition for ever-diminishing resources. The far-right's message is brutally simple: if there isn't enough to go around, why are scarce resources being given to migrants? They argue that removing this 'undeserving' competition will allow the 'indigenous' population to prosper once more.
This argument persists despite evidence to the contrary. Data shows that, on average, migrants are net contributors to European economies. Between 2014 and 2018, migrants contributed approximately €1,500 more per capita than European-born citizens. In Germany, the labour force would shrink without migrant workers, deepening economic stagnation.
Mainstream Echoes and a Failure of Alternatives
The potency of this scapegoating is amplified when mainstream politicians, responding to far-right advances, adopt similar rhetoric. This is coupled with media coverage that often inflames rather than informs. Underpinning it all is a pervasive economic pessimism. Following the Cold War, the public was told there was no alternative to neoliberal economics – austerity, deregulation, and weak unions were presented as inevitable.
This narrative of inevitability continues. In France, President Emmanuel Macron tells citizens they must work longer. In Britain, the Labour government suggests support for pensioners and disabled people is unaffordable. It is little wonder that pledges from parties like the National Rally to 'reserve social assistance for French citizens' find a receptive audience, or that Nigel Farage's claims about migrant benefits resonate.
A Continent Soaked in Gloom
The data reflects a deep-seated malaise. Nearly two-thirds of German consumers feel negative about their national economic situation. Faith in democracy is collapsing, with only a quarter of British voters and fewer than one in five French voters satisfied with how it works. As political elites fail to deliver improved living standards or security, the space for populism grows.
The German model itself, long held up as an example, is now under severe strain. Built on wage suppression and chronic underinvestment, and hit by the shock of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, its growth has evaporated and living standards are falling, fuelling the rise of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD).
The Stark Choice: Economic Reform or Democratic Erosion
The comforting belief that Western democratic institutions are an automatic bulwark against authoritarianism has been shattered, first by Hungary's democratic backsliding and now by Trumpism in the US. The new US National Security Strategy, under Donald Trump, explicitly commits to cultivating resistance in Europe against 'civilisational erasure' through immigration, directly boosting far-right 'patriotic' parties.
The core issue is a political choice, not a law of nature. While millions struggle, wealth is concentrated in the hands of a tiny elite. The EU's nearly 500 billionaires saw their combined fortunes grow by over €2 billion a day in the first half of this year. When this inequality is treated as unavoidable, people logically conclude their survival depends on fighting others for scraps.
The warning is explicit: Europe faces a stark choice. Either it ends an economic model that condemns millions to insecurity and stagnation, or it risks losing democracy itself. The stigma around the far-right has evaporated; the cordon sanitaire is incinerated. The failure to heed these warnings, the argument concludes, will have consequences regretted for generations.
