Why are younger voters leaning far right in some parts of Europe? Many are not xenophobic, but their lives are precarious, experts explain, amid housing and healthcare crises. “I voted for Wilders and a lot of my friends did too. I don’t want to live with my parents forever. I want to have my own house and be able to support my family in the future. Wilders promises to solve the housing crisis and improve our healthcare. Those are the most important issues for me,” explains Gerald, 24, referring to his vote in the recent Dutch elections, in which Geert Wilders, the far-right populist, shocked Europe by retaining the largest number of parliamentary seats with the Party for Freedom (PVV).
Wilders swept the under-35 vote, as Marine Le Pen had done in the French presidential second round last year: he obtained 39% of the votes of people between 18 and 24 years old and 49% of those between 25 and 34 years old.
And in the Italian elections in September last year, Giorgia Meloni and the Brothers of Italy were also the most voted force in that segment: 22% among those under 35 years of age. Across the continent, the image of the radical right voter (typically white, male, uneducated and, above all, elderly) is changing, with studies suggesting that, in several countries, support for the far right is growing more rapidly among younger voters.
Crisis
Several factors may explain the phenomenon. “We should really be careful about assuming a cultural or ideological alignment between young voters and the far right,” says Catherine de Vries, a political scientist at Italy’s Bocconi University. “We know that in many countries young people are more in favor of immigration than older voters. They have not become xenophobic. But their lives are more precarious. “It is often about what in these Dutch elections was called ‘livelihood security’.”
The Dutch word for this is bestaanszekerheid, and it translates as an existence with sufficient and predictable income, a satisfactory home, adequate access to education and healthcare, and a savings cushion against unexpected eventualities.
Issues such as housing, overcrowded classes in public schools and hospitals in difficulties were key to the young people’s vote for Wilders, who like Donald Trump in the United States, promised: “The Dutch first.” “I am frustrated that immigrants receive more help from the government than the Dutch, but I am not against Islam. I don’t want the mosques to close. I just think we need to control immigration better,” says Koen, 19, a student in Amsterdam. “I still live with my parents; I can’t afford a room in Amsterdam. I have to travel every day. Wilders promises to house people from here. I don’t think the result of the elections is strange in that sense,” he adds.
Countries
On these bases, political analysts warn that far-right parties are the preferred option among young voters throughout Europe. And the trend seems stronger in the “traditionally rich” such as Austria, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden and Denmark, which are now suffering an economic crisis and expectations.
“It’s a different story in Eastern Europe and often in the South where expectations were traditionally different. But the truth is that far-right parties attract a lot of support among younger voters,” confirms Pawel Zerka, senior policy member at the European Council on Foreign Relations.
Anyway, in Italy the right governs. And in Spain, despite the fact that Pedro Sánchez and the PSOE achieved a new mandate, the participation of the ultra-conservative Spanish party Vox grew strongly in the under-35 vote: it shot up from 22% in April 2019 to a record of 34%.
In the Netherlands, the PVV became the largest party among young people aged 18 to 34, winning 17% of their votes, up from 7% previously. In the 2022 elections in Sweden, 22% of the 18-21 year-old cohort voted for the far-right Sweden Democrats, up from 12% in 2018. And in the 2021 Saxony-Anhalt state election, in the east In Germany, the far-right party Alternative for Germany (AfD) won first place among voters under 30 years of age.
Profile
Young voters have not moved to the right on immigration, abortion and minority rights. And far-right parties have convinced them that they offer a credible economic alternative. In addition to positioning themselves as a “cool” electoral option, something that did not happen in the past when they leaned to the left.
Part of it has to do with the emergence of a new slate of leaders. “They offer younger voters equally young, often charismatic politicians, people who speak their language,” adds Zerka. This is the case, for example, of Jordan Bardella, president of the National Rally (RN) of France, who was only 23 years old when he led the successful 2019 European election campaign, and 27 when he succeeded Le Pen as official leader of the far-right party. in 2022.
And it goes for Sławomir Mentzen, 37-year-old leader of Poland’s far-right ultraliberal Konfederacja (Confederation) party, he has 800,000 followers on TikTok. Or also Michal Simecka, who serves as vice president of the European Parliament (he is 39 years old) and is founder of the socioliberal party Progressive Slovakia.
In Latin America this phenomenon is replicated. Behind the Salvadoran Nayib Bukele (42) the figure of Javier Milei appeared, winning with the vote of young people and his militancy on social networks to incline even his parents to vote against the more traditional political forces. In the same way that Corina Machado in Venezuela trusts in the young vote to end Chavismo after a quarter of a century. l
