Ahead of the European election, striking data shows where Gen Z and millennials’ allegiances lie.

Far-right parties are surging across Europe — and young voters are buying in.

Many parties with anti-immigrant agendas are even seeing support from first-time young voters in the upcoming June 6-9 European Parliament election.

In Belgium, France, Portugal, Germany and Finland, younger voters are backing anti-immigration and anti-establishment parties in numbers equal to and even exceeding older voters, analyses of recent elections and research of young people’s political preferences suggest.

In the Netherlands, Geert Wilders’ anti-immigration far-right Freedom Party won the 2023 election on a campaign that tied affordable housing to restrictions on immigration — a focus that struck a chord with young voters. In Portugal, too, the far-right party Chega, which means “enough” in Portuguese, drew on young people’s frustration with the housing crisis, among other quality-of-life concerns.

The analysis also points to a split: While young women often reported support for the Greens and other left-leaning parties, anti-migration parties did particularly well among young men. (Though there are some exceptions. See France, below, for example.)

  • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    14
    arrow-down
    3
    ·
    edit-2
    5 months ago

    In the EU.

    In America, it’s starkly divided by generational lines, with the remainder being down to race, education, wealth and urbanness, which actually makes me think what’s going on in Europe is a somewhat unrelated phenomenon.

    • kent_eh@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      5 months ago

      In America, it’s starkly divided by generational lines,

      Not as much as the “lol boomers” crowd would have you believe.

      There’s a lot more <50 at Trump’s rallies than >60.

      Same with the Jan6 traitors. Lots of them were <40

      • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        5 months ago

        Jan 6 guys are nothing like a representative sample. Trailer park grandpa couldn’t show up to that for multiple reasons. Even then, I’d guess a median age of 45 just based on the videos. The shaman guy was like 32 and he was kind of a baby.

        I know less about normal Trump rallies, but I don’t really need to because there’s actual polling to rely on. MAGA youth exist, but they’re underrepresented and even more heavily poor, white, uneducated and rural. Meanwhile, in Europe, there’s basically no correlation. Young and old alike support AfD about the same.

        What we have on this continent is definitely fascism, fueled by pure, barely-directed hate and hostile to democracy. In Europe, I wonder if it’s more of a reversion to Japan-like policy, which might have been more natural for these ancient kingdoms all along. That’s just a wild guess, but I hope so, because I like democracy.

        • kent_eh@lemmy.ca
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          5 months ago

          From your first link:

          Across the country, small business owners who attended the pro-Trump event are facing backlash

          That gives me some small measure of hope for the future.