Dr. João Ferreira Dias argues that the rise of anti-immigrant unrest across Europe reflects not simply tensions over migration, but a deeper crisis of democratic integration. In this timely commentary, he contends that diversity alone cannot sustain social cohesion without strong institutions capable of transforming difference into common citizenship. Drawing on scholarship by Robert Putnam, David Goodhart, Yascha Mounk, and others, Dr. Dias examines how weakening civic institutions, declining social trust, and unresolved integration challenges create fertile ground for nativist mobilization. Rather than framing the debate as a choice between openness and exclusion, he calls for renewed attention to the civic foundations that make pluralism politically sustainable. At stake, he argues, is Europe’s ability to reconcile diversity, solidarity, and democratic stability.
Recent episodes of anti-immigrant unrest in cities such as Southampton and Belfast are often interpreted through the lens of public order, criminality, or political extremism. Yet these events may also be symptomatic of a deeper challenge confronting liberal democracies across Europe: the growing tension between openness and social cohesion.
One of the defining assumptions of the late twentieth-century liberal order was that increasingly open societies would naturally generate greater inclusion. Diversity, mobility, and multiculturalism were frequently treated not merely as compatible with democratic stability, but as self-evident expressions of it. What this assumption overlooks, however, is that openness alone does not produce integration.
Democratic societies require more than legal frameworks and economic opportunities. They depend upon a shared civic foundation capable of sustaining trust, cooperation, and political legitimacy. As Robert Putnam (2007) argued in his influential work on diversity and social capital, heterogeneity can enrich societies in the long term, but it may also create short-term challenges for social trust when institutions fail to mediate difference effectively.
The fragility of contemporary liberal democracies lies not in diversity itself, but in the weakening of the mechanisms that transform diversity into common citizenship. Schools, political parties, trade unions, local associations, and public institutions historically played a crucial role in integrating individuals from different backgrounds into a shared civic culture. When these mediating institutions weaken, identities that might otherwise coexist within a broader political community increasingly become sources of social fragmentation (Judt, 2010).
Immigration policy illustrates this dilemma particularly clearly. Contemporary European migration regimes often emerge from the intersection of several legitimate objectives: humanitarian obligations, historical responsibilities, labor market demands, and demographic decline. Yet political debate frequently neglects a more uncomfortable question: the absorptive capacity of receiving societies.
The notion that democratic states must continuously assess their capacity to integrate newcomers is often portrayed as morally suspect, as if limits necessarily imply exclusion. Yet a growing body of scholarship suggests the opposite. Sustainable inclusion requires not merely access, but incorporation into a common civic framework defined by rights and responsibilities, constitutional norms, linguistic participation, gender equality, and democratic values (Mounk, 2022; Miller, 2016).
Without such a framework, diversity risks evolving from pluralism into segmentation. Social groups become increasingly disconnected from one another, trust declines, and political entrepreneurs find fertile ground for mobilizing resentment. It is under these conditions that nativist movements gain traction.
The appeal of contemporary nativism rests on a powerful narrative: that European societies are losing control over their cultural continuity, historical identity, and political sovereignty. Whether empirically accurate or not, this perception acquires political force when citizens conclude that mainstream institutions are either unwilling or unable to address concerns related to integration, social cohesion, and public order.
Importantly, the rise of nativism should not be understood as a simple reaction to immigration itself. Such explanations are analytically insufficient. The same levels of migration can produce dramatically different political outcomes depending on the strength of institutions, the effectiveness of integration policies, and the degree of social trust present within a society (Goodhart, 2017; Krastev & Holmes, 2019).
The danger emerges when individual acts of crime, disorder, or social conflict cease to be interpreted as the actions of particular individuals and instead become symbolic markers of collective identity. In such contexts, immigrants are increasingly viewed as representatives of an undifferentiated out-group, while native populations come to see themselves as members of a threatened in-group. The resulting dynamic resembles what social psychologists have long identified as the transition from individual judgment to group-based political cognition.
History suggests that democracies become particularly vulnerable when they lose the ability to interpret and respond to the anxieties of their own citizens. Polarization thrives when complex social challenges are reduced to simplistic moral binaries, dividing societies into opposing camps of “us” and “them.” In this environment, both exclusionary nativism and uncompromising forms of ideological universalism feed off one another, narrowing the space for pragmatic democratic solutions.
The challenge facing Europe today is therefore not simply whether to accept more or fewer immigrants. It is whether liberal democracies can rebuild the institutional and civic foundations necessary to transform diversity into solidarity. The question is not openness versus closure, but whether openness can remain politically sustainable without a renewed commitment to integration.
The events witnessed in Southampton, Belfast, and elsewhere may not signal the inevitable triumph of nativism. They do, however, suggest that the political center is increasingly squeezed between competing certainties: on one side, an understanding of inclusion that often underestimates the importance of social cohesion; on the other, a nativist reaction that seeks belonging through exclusion.
Europe’s democratic future may well depend on its ability to recover the difficult middle ground between these two positions.
References
Goodhart, D. (2017). The Road to Somewhere: The Populist Revolt and the Future of Politics. London, UK: Hurst.
Judt, T. (2010). Ill Fares the Land. New York, NY: Penguin Press.
Krastev, I., & Holmes, S. (2019). The Light That Failed: A Reckoning. London, UK: Allen Lane.
Miller, D. (2016). Strangers in Our Midst: The Political Philosophy of Immigration. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Mounk, Y. (2022). The Great Experiment: Why Diverse Democracies Fall Apart and How They Can Endure. New York, NY: Penguin Press.
Putnam, R. D. (2007). “E Pluribus Unum: Diversity and Community in the Twenty-first Century.” Scandinavian Political Studies, 30(2), 137–174.
In this commentary, Dr. Oludele Solaja challenges conventional explanations of xenophobic violence in South Africa by underscoring the concept of “survival populism.” Rather than viewing anti-immigrant mobilization simply as irrational hatred or economic frustration, Dr. Solaja argues that it represents a decentralized form of grassroots political reasoning emerging from structural abandonment, fractured citizenship, and deep socio-economic inequality. Drawing on the legacies of apartheid, decolonial theory, and contemporary populism studies, the commentary explores how marginalized communities construct exclusionary notions of belonging in their struggle for resources, dignity, and recognition. By examining xenophobia as a political response to insecurity rather than merely a social pathology, Dr. Solaja offers a compelling reinterpretation of populism from below and highlights the profound crisis of citizenship, solidarity, and democratic inclusion in post-apartheid South Africa.
Familiar narratives about unemployment, criminality, poverty, and social frustration have been used repeatedly to account for recurrent attacks against foreign nationals in South Africa. Politicians, commentators, and sometimes even academics depict xenophobic violence as either “irrational hatred” or “spontaneous public anger” over economic decay. Such accounts, although not completely false, are analytically weak. They do not reflect the underlying political logic of anti-immigrant violence in post-apartheid South Africa. Xenophobia in this case is not only hatred toward foreigners; increasingly, it has come to constitute a form of grassroots political reasoning rooted in conditions of structural abandonment, economic precariousness, and fractured citizenship.
What we have witnessed in South Africa might best be described as survival populism: the everyday, decentralized form of exclusionary politics in which economically marginalized populations establish moral and territorial boundaries in an effort to safeguard their access to scarce resources, space, urban living, and social legitimacy. Unlike conventional populism mobilized by leaders with charismatic personalities in an electoral context, survival populism evolves horizontally through conversations, neighborhood watch meetings, community patrols, forums, taxi associations and informal markets, in addition to social networking sites. It is populism without populists; an everyday political reasoning that communities use to construct a definition of “the people” in contrast to outsiders.
The above understanding challenges popular thinking on populism within contemporary political theory. Most studies of populism concentrate on political actors of elite origin such as the United States’ Donald Trump, Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro, or Hungary’s Viktor Orban, who have mobilized nationalist resentment via an anti-elite and anti-immigrant stance (Mudde & Kaltwasser, 2017). Within this context, populism is understood as an electoral strategy led by charismatic personalities. What takes place in South Africa is different in that xenophobic mobilization seldom appears through coherent ideologies and central leaders. Rather, exclusionary politics arise from what could be called everyday populism: everyday political reasoning that shapes a people against outsiders.
From Internal Foreigners to External Outsiders
This differentiation is critical because it exposes populism as not just a form of political expression occurring in parliaments, ballot boxes or rallies, but also an element that emerges from places of survival like informal settlements, townships economies, crowded taxi ranks and local markets where politics takes place through practical struggles.
The architecture of exclusion has much to do with the history of South Africa as not merely a racial but also a spatial and economic system defined by the containment of Black South Africans. Pass laws, migrant labor hostels, separate territorial structures, and fragmented spatial organization resulted in a society in which Black Africans were regarded as only temporary residents. For many decades, millions of Black South Africans were stripped of their permanent urban citizenship, yet they built South Africa’s cities through their labor.
Apartheid made many Black South Africans internal foreigners, with conditional residency in urban South Africa. Understanding the fact that Black South Africans were internal foreigners helps us realize how the modern form of xenophobia reproduces these spatial logics, with migrants presented as illegitimately possessing jobs, wealth and legitimate residency. The policing of migrants and their access to urban South Africa mirrors previous systems of apartheid governance.
One of the striking features of xenophobic attacks in South Africa is that they almost exclusively target foreign Africans from countries such as Somalia, Ethiopia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, and Nigeria, rather than European migrants and expatriates. This racial and national specificity of South African xenophobia reveals a history of unequal relations, the persistence of colonial hierarchies, and ideas of belonging that continue to shape post-apartheid South Africa (Mignolo, 2011). The most ironic and tragic fact is that it is precisely here—the place from which the international struggle against apartheid was championed and which was seen as a beacon of African liberation and pan-African unity—that a recurrent war against Africans takes place. The support that Africa provided in the struggle against apartheid has not been reciprocated with welcome and security for African immigrants in post-apartheid South Africa.
The Unfulfilled Promise of Democratic Citizenship
In 1994, the democratic dispensation promised inclusion, human dignity, and socio-economic justice. Yet political liberation has neither brought about structural transformation nor eliminated the socio-economic inequalities inherited from the apartheid state. South Africa remains one of the most unequal countries in the world, characterized by widespread poverty, high unemployment, and spatial segregation (Piketty, 2014). For many Black South Africans, formal citizenship and the promise of democratic rule remain shallow promises.
It is this disconnect between formal political inclusion and the lack of concrete socio-economic benefits for most South African citizens that helps explain how survival populism is born. While citizens exist on paper, they often fail to achieve basic human dignity. In a society where access to and the distribution of resources are fiercely contested, particularly where the state is absent in providing economic security, protection, and opportunities, people find themselves in conditions of chronic abandonment and exclusion. Xenophobia emerges as an ultimate response to exclusion from economic benefits in society, becoming a tool through which individuals establish an ethical claim to resources and place.
It is here that the township economy becomes an interesting phenomenon. While it provides alternative livelihoods, it also represents conditions of uncertainty, competition, and survival. Furthermore, it is a site where foreign migrants often display economic success, in part through the transnational networks and cooperative practices they share, as well as their lower overhead costs (Crush & Ramachandran, 2014). Their relative visibility within township economies allows them to appear as an important source of economic anxiety for some citizens in this society.
In many township spaces, foreigners and the shops they own are portrayed not merely as competitors but as those responsible for taking over opportunities. Such descriptions and narratives serve as a way of politicizing migrants as legitimate strangers who have illegitimately claimed a portion of the available resources, while local citizens have been abandoned and subjected to misery by their own government.
Here, a Laclauian understanding of populism becomes significant. According to Laclau, populism is essentially a political discourse structured around enmity between “the people” and their enemies (Laclau, 2005). In this context, “the people” are framed as deprived yet hard-working citizens of the South African state who have been excluded from its promises. Migrants are thus represented as foreigners who, despite lacking rights and a legitimate stake, have invaded the state and appropriated what rightfully belongs to South Africans.
Populism without Leaders: Informal Sovereignty from Below
The interesting dimension here is that no such political reasoning necessarily arises from the leadership of populist figures. Rather, it is reproduced within political networks on the ground, from street committees and neighborhood patrols to organizations like Operation Dudula, which not only advocate for stricter immigration policies but also actively patrol urban areas, monitor shops and businesses, and enforce exclusive boundaries, thereby performing informal sovereignty in the absence of legitimate state authority (Misago, 2019).
Such actions are a response to a deeper malaise within the post-apartheid state. It is clear that, in many cases, state institutions have become delegitimized; citizens, feeling neglected by the state, resort to popular measures to enforce governance. Thus, xenophobic movements are not merely attacks against immigrants but expressions of citizens’ anger over the state’s incapacity to provide. Communities assert control over their territory and defend it against perceived external threats.
However, an exclusively domestic reading of the popular dynamics of discontent obscures the decolonial underpinnings of xenophobic violence in South Africa. The reality of xenophobic violence is inextricably linked to a coloniality of power (Quijano, 2007) that persists beyond the period of colonial rule and continues to value and categorize people according to histories of colonial experience. African immigrants are often despised simply because they are African and are treated by many South Africans in ways similar to how they themselves would have been treated by colonial rulers.
This means that, in a tragic sense, one formerly oppressed population has turned against another. This has much in common with what Frantz Fanon warned about decades ago in The Wretched of the Earth—that without genuine redistribution, liberation could transform former victims into oppressors themselves.
Survival populism arises precisely in this vacuum of fractured solidarity. As citizenship loses its material content due to ever-increasing economic insecurity, a range of alternative political communities based on exclusion are formed by ordinary citizens. Migrants then become convenient targets onto whom structural frustrations can be projected. Xenophobia, in this sense, is not the absence of politics; it is politics under conditions of abandonment. Yet, while the political logic of xenophobia may be recognizable, its moral implications cannot be condoned.
Migrants themselves often become victims of precisely the neoliberal inequalities from which poor South Africans suffer. Many have fled persecution, economic disaster, or armed conflict in neighboring countries, only to be subjected to violence and exclusion in South Africa. Ultimately, xenophobic mobilizations provide scapegoats that divert anger away from structural causes—corruption, inequality, unemployment, and policy failures—and toward vulnerable migrants and poor South Africans. However, ignoring these factors will result in underestimating the significance of xenophobia as a political practice and force.
Xenophobia can persist only as long as it provides a language through which the abandoned can voice their grievances, articulate a form of resistance, and renegotiate access in contexts where formal citizenship offers little tangible substance—in other words, as a distorted political response to systemic marginalization. The global significance of such a phenomenon cannot be overstated.
The Global Lessons of Survival Populism
Everywhere across the globe—from Europe to Latin America, across Africa and into Asia—increasing economic precariousness can foster exclusionary ideologies targeting migrants and minority groups. However, South Africa is remarkable because it is the historically oppressed Black majority that is involved, largely without elite populist rhetoric or direction. This challenges our conventional ways of understanding populism, nationalism, and citizenship. While populism is usually understood in elite- and election-driven terms, in South Africa it demonstrates how a populist discourse can emerge from the ground up, be highly localized, and center on survival.
A populist mode of address can emerge whenever abandoned people face the struggle for self-defense and access to resources under conditions of precarity. It is South Africa’s greatest post-apartheid tragedy that populations once excluded under the apartheid system now themselves construct an “outsider” in order to re-establish their own space through exclusion.
Xenophobic violence is a testament to a deeper crisis of belonging within the democratic framework and to the lack of transformation of apartheid’s economic landscape. This is a world in which citizenship and political freedom coexist with mass abandonment, a world where the challenge lies not only in containing migration and the violence that accompanies it, but also in reforming society so that citizenship offers material benefits, the capacity to exercise and enjoy the material aspects of citizenship is more equitably distributed, and an inclusive sense of belonging becomes the norm rather than exclusion. Until that happens, survival populism will remain one of the defining languages of the post-apartheid urban sphere.
References
Crush, J., & Ramachandran, S. (2014). “Xenophobic violence in South Africa: Denialism, minimalism, realism.” Migration Policy Series, 66, 1–35.
Fanon, F. (1963). The wretched of the earth. Grove Press.
Laclau, E. (2005). On populist reason. Verso.
Mamdani, M. (1996). Citizen and subject: Contemporary Africa and the legacy of late colonialism. Princeton University Press.
Mignolo, W. D. (2011). The darker side of Western modernity: Global futures, decolonial options. Duke University Press.
Misago, J. P. (2019). “Political mobilisation as the trigger of xenophobic violence in post-apartheid South Africa.” African Studies Review, 62(4), 111–135.
Mudde, C. & Kaltwasser, C. R. (2017). Populism: A very short introduction. Oxford University Press.
Neocosmos, M. (2010). From “foreign natives” to “native foreigners”: Explaining xenophobia in post-apartheid South Africa. CODESRIA.
Piketty, T. (2014). Capital in the twenty-first century. Harvard University Press.
Quijano, A. (2007). “Coloniality and modernity/rationality.” Cultural Studies, 21(2–3), 168–178.
Please cite as: ECPS Staff. (2026). “ECPS Symposium 2026 / Panel 1: From Grievance to Radicalization — Rhetoric, Ideology, and the International Politics of Populism.” European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS). April 28, 2026. https://doi.org/10.55271/rp00149
This panel offered a concise yet conceptually rich account of how contemporary populism transforms diffuse grievances into structured political radicalization. Bridging discourse analysis, religious studies, international political economy, and historical sociology, the discussion illuminated the multi-layered processes through which democratic erosion unfolds. Rather than locating the problem solely within institutional decline, the panel foregrounded the interplay of rhetoric, identity, and emotional mobilization—particularly the roles of humiliation, status anxiety, and perceived loss of recognition. Contributions by Professors Ruth Wodak, Julie Ingersoll, Stephan Klingebiel, and Benjamin Carter Hett collectively demonstrated that populist dynamics are sustained by both narrative construction and structural change. The session thus advanced a nuanced analytical framework for understanding how anti-pluralist politics emerge, normalize, and gain legitimacy across diverse contexts.
Reported by ECPS Staff
Panel 1 of the ECPS Fifth Annual International Symposium, titled “From Grievance to Radicalization: Rhetoric, Ideology, and the International Politics of Populism,” offered a rich and interdisciplinary examination of how discontent is translated into exclusionary politics, institutional erosion, and authoritarian opportunity. Bringing together perspectives from discourse studies, religious studies, development policy, and modern history, the panel explored the pathways through which grievance is narrated, organized, and mobilized across national and transnational contexts. Although the presentations addressed distinct empirical terrains—from far-right rhetoric in Europe and Christian nationalism in the United States to multilateral institutions and the lessons of Weimar Germany—they converged around a shared concern: democratic decline rarely emerges suddenly, but is prepared through the cumulative interaction of ideas, identities, institutions, and political strategies.
Moderated by Professor Ibrahim Ozturk, the session unfolded as a tightly connected conversation on the mechanisms through which populist and far-right forces gain traction in moments of social unease and political dislocation. A central strength of the panel lay in its refusal to treat populism as a singular or self-explanatory phenomenon. Instead, the speakers unpacked the rhetorical, ideological, emotional, and institutional infrastructures that enable anti-pluralist politics to flourish.
Professor Ruth Wodak showed how democratic norms are eroded through discourse, provocation, and the normalization of exclusionary language. Professor Julie Ingersoll demonstrated how theocratic and anti-democratic religious movements, though internally diverse, have strategically converged to influence contemporary American politics. Professor Stephan Klingebiel widened the frame to the international level, showing how populist governance affects not only domestic politics but also the normative foundations of multilateral cooperation. Professor Benjamin Carter Hett, drawing on the history of late Weimar Germany, highlighted humiliation and status anxiety as powerful emotional drivers of anti-system politics, offering a historically grounded lens for understanding present-day grievance mobilization.
Taken together, the panel made clear that contemporary democratic crises cannot be understood through institutional analysis alone. What emerged instead was a layered account in which fear, humiliation, identity, ideology, and strategic communication are inseparable from formal political change. The subsequent discussion deepened these insights further, linking personal experience, comparative reflection, and normative concerns in ways that reinforced the panel’s interdisciplinary value.
In this sense, Panel 1 did more than diagnose the current moment. It established an intellectual framework for thinking about how democratic erosion is prepared, legitimized, and accelerated across multiple arenas. By tracing the movement from grievance to radicalization, the session illuminated not only the fragility of democratic norms, but also the urgency of confronting the political, cultural, and institutional conditions that allow authoritarian and exclusionary projects to take root.
Professor Ruth Wodak: ‘Driving On the Right’: Analyzing Far-Right Rhetoric.
Professor Ruth Wodak is Emerita Distinguished Professor of Discourse Studies at Lancaster University, affiliated with the University of Vienna, and a member of the ECPS Advisory Board.
Professor Ruth Wodak’s presentation offered a theoretically grounded and empirically attentive exploration of how democratic erosion unfolds through discourse, rhetoric, and the gradual normalization of exclusionary politics. As the first speaker of the panel, Professor Wodak set a reflective and analytically rigorous tone by anchoring her remarks in a historical insight from John Dewey. Quoting his 1931 warning that democracy becomes a farce when citizens are not equipped to think critically and recognize propaganda, she established a conceptual bridge between past and present. While acknowledging that historical analogies must be handled with caution, she argued that certain patterns—particularly the weakening of critical judgment and the manipulation of public discourse—remain deeply relevant for understanding contemporary political developments.
Building on this premise, Professor Wodak turned to the identification of observable criteria that signal when democracies are under threat. Drawing in part on recent analytical frameworks and public debates, she outlined a series of interrelated developments that characterize processes of autocratization. These included attacks on freedom of expression, the systematic defamation or marginalization of political opponents, pressures on judicial independence, and the potential use of emergency powers to bypass institutional constraints. Additional indicators encompassed the gradual discrimination of minorities, the erosion of press freedom, the undermining of academic and scientific autonomy, the emergence of personality cults, the spread of corruption and kleptocratic practices, and the strategic redesign of legal and electoral frameworks to consolidate power.
The Politics of Shameless Normalization
A central emphasis of her argument was that these developments rarely appear in their most extreme form at the outset. Rather, they emerge incrementally, as part of a cumulative and often normalized process. Each step, while perhaps appearing limited or defensible in isolation, contributes to a broader trajectory in which democratic norms are steadily weakened. This step-by-step dynamic, she suggested, is crucial for understanding why democratic backsliding can advance without triggering immediate resistance.
The core of Professor Wodak’s presentation focused on the linguistic and rhetorical mechanisms that facilitate this gradual transformation. At the center of her analysis was the concept of “shameless normalization,” which she has developed extensively in her work. This refers to a process through which the boundaries of what is publicly acceptable are progressively expanded. Statements, ideas, and attitudes that were previously considered taboo or beyond the limits of legitimate discourse are reintroduced, repeated, and ultimately rendered acceptable. Political actors present themselves as articulating what “ordinary people” supposedly think but have been unable or unwilling to express, thereby framing transgressive speech as a form of authenticity.
Professor Wodak highlighted that this process is often driven by continuous provocation. By deliberately testing and crossing normative boundaries, political actors can shift the parameters of public debate. Over time, what initially appears shocking or unacceptable becomes familiar and normalized. This strategy, she argued, is particularly effective when it is reinforced by broader political dynamics, including the willingness of mainstream actors to adopt or adapt elements of far-right discourse.
Importantly, she emphasized that normalization does not always take an overtly aggressive or confrontational form. Alongside provocation, one also encounters what she termed “coarse civility,” a mode of communication in which exclusionary or discriminatory ideas are presented in a seemingly moderate, polite, or technocratic language. This rhetorical softening allows such ideas to circulate more widely and gain legitimacy, especially when they are taken up by mainstream conservative parties. In this way, the normalization of far-right discourse often proceeds not only through radicalization at the margins, but through incorporation at the center.
To illustrate these dynamics, Professor Wodak drew on examples from Austrian politics. She traced the trajectory of a slogan originally used by a far-right politician in the 1980s, which emphasized speaking “the language of the people.” Over time, this slogan was adopted by a mainstream conservative leader and subsequently reappropriated by the far-right Freedom Party (FPÖ). This example demonstrated how political language travels across ideological boundaries, shedding its original stigma and becoming part of a broader repertoire of acceptable discourse. Such processes, she argued, reveal how the mainstreaming of far-right ideas occurs through repetition, adaptation, and gradual legitimation.
Euphemism and Power: Sanitizing Coercion in Democratic Politics
In the final part of her presentation, Professor Wodak turned to the role of euphemism in shaping public perceptions of policy. Drawing on contemporary European debates on migration and asylum, she showed how practices such as detention are reframed through sanitized terminology, including phrases like “waiting zones” or “closed control access centers.” These linguistic choices, she argued, obscure the coercive nature of such measures and render them more palatable to the public. In this sense, language functions not merely as a descriptive tool, but as a mechanism that shapes what can be politically imagined and justified.
Professor Wodak concluded by synthesizing the broader implications of her analysis. Shameless normalization, she argued, performs multiple functions: it constructs a sense of authenticity, rejects the norms of rational deliberation, fosters identification between political leaders and “the people,” and diverts attention through provocation and scandalization. Most significantly, it facilitates the implementation of exclusionary and anti-democratic policies by embedding them within mainstream political discourse.
Her presentation thus underscored that democratic erosion is not only an institutional or legal process, but also a profoundly discursive one. The weakening of democracy occurs through shifts in language, norms, and public sensibilities, often long before formal institutional breakdown becomes visible. By foregrounding the role of rhetoric and normalization, Professor Wodak provided a compelling framework for understanding how contemporary democracies are challenged from within, and why resisting such processes requires not only institutional safeguards but also sustained critical engagement with political language and discourse.
Professor Julie Ingersoll: The Theocratic Blueprint of Christian Nationalism, Reconstructionism, the New Apostolic Reformation, and Catholic Integralism Behind Trump’s Agenda
Julie Ingersoll is Professor of Philosophy & Religious Studies and Religious Studies Program Coordinator at the University of North Florida.
Professor Julie Ingersoll’s presentation offered a detailed and analytically nuanced account of the ideological and organizational foundations of contemporary Christian nationalism in the United States, situating it as a significant—though not singular—driver of democratic erosion. Her intervention moved beyond surface-level interpretations of religion in politics, instead tracing the historical formation, internal diversity, and strategic convergence of several distinct religious currents that have, over time, coalesced into a politically influential coalition aligned with authoritarian and anti-pluralist tendencies.
Professor Ingersoll began by clarifying a crucial analytical point: Christian nationalism in the United States is not a monolithic or representative expression of Christianity as a whole. Rather, it is a minority movement whose political influence far exceeds its demographic weight. This disproportionate power, she argued, is the product of decades-long institutional work, coalition-building, and strategic positioning within key domains of political and cultural life. Understanding its impact, therefore, requires attention not only to its beliefs but to the mechanisms through which it has embedded itself within broader structures of authority.
Three Strands, One Project: The Convergence of Christian Nationalism
At the core of her analysis was the identification of three principal strands that together constitute contemporary Christian nationalism: a white conservative evangelical tradition rooted in Christian Reconstructionism, a Catholic integralist tradition, and a Pentecostal-charismatic current associated with the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR). Each of these strands, Professor Ingersoll demonstrated, has its own theological foundations, historical trajectories, and internal logics. Yet, despite significant doctrinal differences, they have converged around shared political objectives and a common perception of existential crisis.
The first strand, Christian Reconstructionism, was presented as a theocratic and patriarchal movement with origins in mid-twentieth-century American religious thought and deeper roots in earlier Southern Presbyterian traditions. Professor Ingersoll emphasized its rejection of pluralism and its insistence that biblical law should govern all aspects of social and political life. Central to this framework is the concept of “calling,” derived from Calvinist theology, which legitimizes hierarchical social arrangements and challenges the democratic principle that authority derives from popular consent. In this view, leadership is not conferred through elections but through divine designation, a premise that fundamentally undermines democratic legitimacy.
The second strand, Catholic integralism, similarly rejects the separation of church and state, advocating instead for a political order grounded in religious authority. Professor Ingersoll noted its growing influence within legal and judicial institutions, particularly through long-term efforts to shape the composition and orientation of the judiciary. Integralist thought, she argued, frames modern liberal institutions—especially those promoting equality—as sources of moral and social decay. Its critique of the administrative state and its support for a strong, centralized executive authority align closely with broader authoritarian tendencies.
The third strand, the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR), introduces a distinct but complementary dimension rooted in charismatic and Pentecostal traditions. This movement emphasizes ongoing revelation, spiritual warfare, and apocalyptic expectation. Its doctrine of the “Seven Mountains Mandate” envisions the systematic transformation of key societal domains—such as government, media, education, and culture—under Christian authority. Professor Ingersoll highlighted the movement’s belief in the active presence of spiritual forces in contemporary political life, a worldview that intensifies polarization and, in some cases, increases the potential for legitimizing conflict and even violence.
Political Convergence in Religious Movements
A central analytical contribution of the presentation lay in explaining how these three strands, despite profound theological disagreements, have formed a cohesive political alliance. Professor Ingersoll challenged the conventional “world religions” model, which treats religious traditions as internally coherent and mutually distinct systems. Instead, she proposed a more fluid understanding of religion as a set of practices and narratives that can be selectively combined to serve social and political purposes. In this framework, doctrinal inconsistencies are less significant than shared goals related to power, identity, and social ordering.
To illustrate this point, she examined differing approaches to biblical authority across the three traditions. While Catholic integralists rely on the interpretive authority of the Church, evangelicals emphasize direct textual interpretation, and Pentecostal-charismatic actors embrace ongoing revelation. These differences, while substantial, are subordinated in practice to a set of shared political commitments: the rejection of pluralism, the affirmation of hierarchical social structures, the belief in divinely ordained leadership, and the pursuit of a theocratic or quasi-theocratic order.
Professor Ingersoll further argued that these movements are united by a common narrative of civilizational crisis. Each interprets contemporary social and political developments—whether related to gender equality, racial justice, or secular governance—as evidence of moral decline. This sense of crisis provides both a justification for radical political intervention and a framework for mobilizing supporters. Within this narrative, democratic institutions are often portrayed not as safeguards of freedom, but as obstacles to the restoration of a divinely sanctioned social order.
Internal Tensions within Christian Nationalism
The presentation also addressed the strategic flexibility of this coalition. While its proponents may utilize democratic mechanisms to gain power, they do not view democracy as intrinsically valuable. Rather, democracy is treated instrumentally, as one possible means of achieving a broader objective. Authoritarian or hierarchical forms of governance are equally acceptable if they are perceived to align with divine authority. This instrumental view of democracy, Professor Ingersoll suggested, represents a fundamental challenge to liberal democratic norms.
In her concluding remarks, Professor Ingersoll pointed to emerging internal tensions within the movement. Differences in theological interpretation, strategic priorities, and leadership styles are beginning to generate visible fractures. For example, divergent understandings of apocalyptic timelines or the role of political violence create points of friction. Additionally, certain political developments—such as controversial leadership claims or symbolic actions—have alienated segments within the coalition. While these divisions do not currently outweigh the movement’s shared objectives, they may become more significant over time.
In sum, Professor Ingersoll’s presentation provided a comprehensive and deeply contextualized analysis of Christian nationalism as a complex, evolving, and strategically coordinated force. By highlighting its internal diversity, institutional entrenchment, and ideological coherence around anti-pluralist principles, she illuminated the ways in which religious narratives and political power intersect in contemporary democratic backsliding. Her analysis underscored that the challenge posed by such movements is not merely theological or cultural, but fundamentally political, with direct implications for the future of democratic governance.
Professor Stephan Klingebiel: International Organizations in Times of Populism
Professor Stephan Klingebiel is Head of the Department of Inter- and Transnational Cooperation at the German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS).
Professor Stephan Klingebiel delivered a wide-ranging and analytically grounded presentation examining how the contemporary rise of populism—particularly under the second administration of Donald Trump—is reshaping international organizations, development cooperation, and the normative foundations of global governance. His intervention moved carefully between institutional analysis and broader systemic implications, offering both empirical observations and conceptual framing.
At the outset, Professor Klingebiel positioned his remarks at the intersection of two overlapping domains: the functioning of international organizations and the evolving discourse on development and sustainability. He focused especially on the United Nations Development System, the OECD, and multilateral development banks such as the World Bank. These institutions, he argued, serve not only operational roles in development assistance but also act as key norm-setters in shaping global cooperation. It is precisely these normative and institutional roles that have come under increasing pressure in the current political climate.
From Multilateralism to Uncertainty
Reflecting on developments since early 2025, Professor Klingebiel suggested that the treatment of development cooperation—particularly the dismantling of USAID—served as an early signal of broader patterns in the second Trump administration’s approach to international engagement. What initially appeared as a sector-specific shift quickly revealed itself as part of a more comprehensive reorientation affecting multilateralism as a whole.
To explain these dynamics, Professor Klingebiel identified four interrelated driving logics. First, he pointed to what he termed “crude transactionalism,” a form of foreign policy that reduces international cooperation to immediate, bilateral exchanges rather than long-term institutional commitments. While transactional approaches have long existed in development policy, he argued that the current form is qualitatively different in its intensity and scope, extending into areas such as conflict mediation and geopolitical bargaining.
Second, he highlighted the role of ideological motivations, particularly in relation to issues such as family planning, gender policy, and population governance. Certain international agencies, including those working on reproductive health, have become focal points of contestation, reflecting deeper ideological divides over the scope and purpose of development cooperation.
Third, Professor Klingebiel emphasized the element of institutional disruption driven not by coherent strategy but by what he described as systemic unpredictability. Drawing on insider accounts of the dismantling of USAID, he suggested that many policy decisions appear to lack a consistent strategic foundation, instead reflecting fragmented and reactive processes.
Finally, he identified an “obsession with disruption” as a defining feature of the current approach. This involves the deliberate use of abrupt and highly visible actions—such as withdrawal announcements or dramatic policy shifts—to reshape expectations and unsettle established practices within international cooperation.
Populism and the Fragmentation of Global Cooperation
These underlying logics have translated into a series of concrete policy outcomes. Among the most striking is the dramatic reduction in US foreign aid, which, according to recent OECD data, declined by approximately 57 percent within a single year. Such a contraction, Professor Klingebiel noted, has profound implications not only for recipient countries but also for the broader ecosystem of development actors, including civil society organizations and democracy-support initiatives.
Equally significant is the announced withdrawal from dozens of international bodies. While the practical implementation of these withdrawals remains uneven, their symbolic impact is considerable. They signal a retreat from multilateral engagement and contribute to an atmosphere of uncertainty regarding the future of global cooperation.
However, Professor Klingebiel’s central concern extended beyond these immediate policy shifts to their deeper normative consequences. He argued that the most consequential impact of contemporary populism lies in its erosion of shared frameworks that have historically underpinned international cooperation. These include not only formal institutions but also the implicit agreements on language, priorities, and goals that enable collective action.
This erosion was illustrated through the example of the United Nations 2030 Agenda and its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Once widely accepted as a minimal global consensus on issues such as poverty reduction, inequality, and gender equality, this framework is now increasingly contested. Professor Klingebiel noted that it has been reframed by some political actors as a form of “soft global governance” incompatible with national sovereignty, leading to active efforts to undermine it.
Fragmented Vocabulary, Fragmented Order
A particularly revealing dimension of this shift is the politicization of language itself. Drawing on recent analyses, Professor Klingebiel described how specific terms—such as “gender,” “gender-based violence,” and “climate change”—have become sites of contestation within international forums. The rejection of these terms is not merely semantic; it reflects a broader attempt to reshape the normative boundaries of acceptable discourse. In practice, this has led to subtle but significant changes, with institutions adopting alternative terminology that dilutes or reframes established concepts.
This process, he argued, contributes to a broader fragmentation of normative consensus. Where international cooperation once relied on a shared vocabulary and a baseline agreement on goals, it now operates within an increasingly contested and politicized environment. This fragmentation is further intensified by the emergence of competing visions of world order, in which different actors promote alternative frameworks for development and governance.
At the same time, Professor Klingebiel cautioned against attributing these transformations solely to Western populism. He emphasized the growing agency of actors in what is often termed the Global South, including countries such as China and India, as well as smaller states that increasingly pursue multi-alignment strategies. These actors are not merely passive recipients of global norms but active participants in shaping them, contributing to a more complex and pluralistic international landscape.
Within this evolving context, development cooperation itself is undergoing a fundamental transformation. Rather than serving primarily as a tool for poverty reduction or social development, it is increasingly embedded within geopolitical and geo-economic competition. Institutions originally designed for development purposes are being repurposed to secure access to strategic resources or to advance national interests.
Pockets of Cooperation: Uneven Continuity in Global Governance
Despite this challenging environment, Professor Klingebiel identified areas of cautious optimism. He pointed to the emergence of what he termed “mixed coalitions”—alliances that bring together actors from both the Global North and South who remain committed to multilateralism. Additionally, he highlighted the existence of “pockets of effectiveness,” instances in which international cooperation continues to function successfully despite broader systemic pressures.
These pockets, while limited, suggest that multilateralism is not uniformly in decline but rather unevenly contested. Understanding the conditions under which cooperation remains viable, Professor Klingebiel suggested, may offer valuable insights for sustaining and rebuilding international frameworks in the future.
In concluding, his presentation offered a sober but nuanced assessment. The current moment is marked not only by policy shifts but by a deeper transformation of the principles and assumptions that have long guided international cooperation. Yet within this transformation, there remain spaces for adaptation, coalition-building, and renewed engagement—provided that these efforts are grounded in a clear understanding of the changing landscape.
Professor Benjamin Carter Hett: Humiliation, Elite Impunity, and the Anti-System Gamble — Weimar-Type Mechanisms in Contemporary Grievance Politics
Professor Benjamin Carter Hett is a leading historian of Nazi Germany at Hunter College and the Graduate Center, CUNY.
Professor Benjamin Carter Hett’s presentation offered a historically grounded and analytically provocative reflection on the political mechanisms that enabled the collapse of the Weimar Republic and the rise of National Socialism, while also considering the relevance of those mechanisms for contemporary grievance politics. Drawing on decades of research into late Weimar Germany, Professor Hett approached the subject with both scholarly caution and interpretive clarity. He was careful not to collapse historical contexts into one another, yet he argued that certain recurring dynamics—particularly humiliation, status anxiety, and the search for anti-system solutions—remain crucial for understanding how democratic orders become vulnerable to authoritarian appeals.
Professor Hett began by acknowledging the uneasy position of the historian in conversations about the present. Historians, he suggested, may at times reconstruct the past with care, but they are not necessarily the best guides to contemporary politics or future developments. Nonetheless, his long engagement with the final years of the Weimar Republic had led him to a set of conclusions about why that democracy failed, and these conclusions, he argued, may still offer insight into current political developments.
Humiliation and Status Anxiety
The core of Professor Hett’s argument was that the Nazi breakthrough in Germany cannot be fully understood simply through economic distress, institutional weakness, or generalized political radicalization. While all of these factors mattered, he emphasized that the message which most powerfully resonated with Nazi voters was a message organized around humiliation and its close companion, status anxiety. The emotional and symbolic dimensions of political life, in his reading, were central. What drove substantial sectors of the electorate toward the Nazis was not only hardship, but the belief that they had been dishonored, displaced, and stripped of their rightful standing.
To develop this claim, Professor Hett drew on voting studies, especially the work of German political scientist Jürgen W. Falter, whose statistical analyses remain among the most important accounts of Nazi electoral support. Since Germany in the late 1920s and early 1930s did not have opinion polling in the modern sense, scholars must reconstruct political behavior by examining constituency-level voting patterns and comparing them with the themes emphasized in Nazi campaigning. This allows one to identify which messages resonated with which groups, and why.
From this evidence, Professor Hett argued that Nazi appeals found their strongest reception among those constituencies most susceptible to humiliation and fears of status loss. These were particularly concentrated among Protestant middle-class voters, especially in rural northern and eastern Germany. The Nazi Party’s success, in his account, lay in its ability to transform diffuse anxieties into a coherent political narrative: Germany was being humiliated by external forces, weakened by internal enemies, and betrayed by a democratic system incapable of defending national dignity.
A major source of this humiliation, he suggested, was Germany’s place in the post-World War I international order. The Treaty of Versailles, reparations, the international oversight of German finance, and the constraints imposed on national sovereignty created a pervasive sense that Germany had lost control over its own destiny. Economic arrangements linked to reparations, including the role of international banking mechanisms and the subordination of German monetary policy to Allied preferences, reinforced this sense of national dependency. What later generations might describe as resentment toward globalization, Professor Hett argued, already had clear political expression in this period, even if the term itself was not yet available.
Seeds of Nazi Mobilization
This resentment was especially powerful in the countryside. Reduced tariffs and intensified agricultural competition placed heavy pressure on German farmers, especially in the north and east, where farm bankruptcies became common. At the same time, Germany’s limited ability to control its eastern border, particularly with newly established Poland, turned migration and refugee flows into volatile political issues. These developments fed the perception that the democratic state was either unwilling or unable to defend the nation’s interests. The Nazis capitalized on precisely these grievances, presenting themselves as nationalist champions against foreign domination, financial dependency, border insecurity, and economic dislocation.
Professor Hett also introduced a second, equally important dimension of humiliation: the perceived loss of religious and cultural status among German Protestants. Here his analysis intersected with broader questions of identity and belonging. Before World War I, Protestantism had enjoyed a privileged position within the German Empire. But the Weimar Republic, in the eyes of many Protestants, appeared to be politically shaped by forces outside that tradition. Its principal architects and defenders included Social Democrats, Catholics, and the Jewish legal scholar Hugo Preuss, who played a major role in drafting the constitution.
For many Protestants, Professor Hett argued, this generated a deep sense of displacement. They experienced the new order not merely as politically different, but as a system in which they had lost social and moral primacy. In electoral terms, this proved crucial. Catholics largely did not vote Nazi, in part because they had a confessional political home within the Center Party and did not feel comparably estranged from the Weimar system. Nor did the industrial working-class core of the Social Democrats move en masse toward the Nazis. The party that the Nazis most successfully destroyed, Professor Hett observed, was the Protestant middle class. In this sense, National Socialism became, to a significant degree, the party of aggrieved Protestant respectability.
This reading also enabled Professor Hett to place Weimar Germany within a broader comparative pattern. Across the authoritarian turn of the 1920s and 1930s, humiliation appeared repeatedly as a politically generative force. Citing the work of historian Robert Paxton, he noted that the rise of fascist or authoritarian systems correlated strongly with defeat in World War I—or, in some cases, with a perceived defeat. Italy, for example, had technically emerged from the war on the victorious side, yet many Italians experienced the outcome as a “mutilated victory,” a phrase that captured their sense of insult and dispossession. Authoritarian politics fed on that perception.
Global Echoes: From MAGA to European Anti-Globalization Movements
Having established these historical mechanisms, Professor Hett turned more tentatively to the present. Here he stressed again that analogies must remain cautious, yet he argued that the politics of humiliation and status anxiety are clearly visible in contemporary democracies, especially in the United States. In his view, these dynamics are among the strongest factors behind support for Donald Trump. Trump’s appeal, he suggested, has been rooted not simply in policy commitments or ideological clarity, but in the promise of retribution for those who feel displaced by social and demographic change.
The rhetoric of “I am your retribution,” which Trump used in the 2024 campaign, was especially telling in this regard. Retribution for what, Professor Hett asked implicitly, if not for a perceived historical loss of primacy? The contemporary politics of race, migration, and hostility to diversity initiatives were, in his interpretation, best understood as efforts to reassure a predominantly white constituency that feels that others have unjustly advanced at its expense. The appeal to a mythologized past—captured in slogans such as “Make America Great Again”—functions not simply as nostalgia, but as a restoration narrative aimed at those who believe they have been humiliated by modern equality.
Professor Hett then broadened the frame to Europe. Anti-globalization sentiment, he argued, has played a comparable role in the rise of populist and authoritarian parties across the continent. The Brexit vote, the rise of the Alternative for Germany (AfD), and wider resentment toward migration all reflect forms of status anxiety tied to the belief that one’s country is becoming “someone else’s country.” In the German case, he pointed especially to eastern Germany, where support for the far right remains heavily concentrated. Drawing on personal observations as well as broader political patterns, he described a durable sense among many East Germans that they have been serially humiliated since reunification.
From Status Loss to Authoritarian Opportunity
These feelings, he suggested, are not reducible to economics alone. They involve wounded dignity, symbolic exclusion, and the perception that one’s world has been politically and culturally devalued. In this sense, grievance politics becomes especially potent when it can link structural change to a narrative of dishonor.
Professor Hett concluded by suggesting, modestly, that if humiliation and status anxiety are indeed major drivers of anti-system politics, then effective democratic responses must address the material and symbolic conditions that sustain them. He mentioned the idea of a kind of “Marshall Plan 2.0” as one possible way of mitigating some of the economic transformations that deepen discontent. Yet he remained cautious about prescribing solutions beyond his field of expertise.
What his presentation offered most powerfully was not a simple warning from history, but a historically informed framework for thinking about how democracies are undone. By centering humiliation, elite impunity, and status loss, Professor Hett illuminated the emotional structure of grievance politics and the ways in which anti-system actors transform wounded identities into authoritarian opportunity.
Discussions
The Q&A session following the first panel unfolded as a reflective and deeply engaged exchange, bringing together personal testimony, empirical insight, and conceptual debate. The discussion not only reinforced several core arguments presented earlier—particularly those concerning humiliation, status anxiety, and democratic erosion—but also broadened the analytical frame by introducing additional variables, including pandemic effects, structural inequality, and adaptive institutional responses.
Irina von Wiese opened the exchange with a personal intervention that lent lived texture to the abstract dynamics discussed by Professor Benjamin Carter Hett. Drawing on her own experience as a West German working in eastern Germany immediately after reunification, she offered a candid account of the asymmetries that characterized that moment. As a young legal advisor involved in constitutional development in Mecklenburg-West Pomerania, she observed what she described as a pervasive arrogance among West German professionals toward their East German counterparts—many of whom had endured political repression but lacked formal credentials. This imbalance, she suggested, generated a reservoir of resentment that remained latent for decades before finding political expression.
Her reflections underscored a central theme in Professor Hett’s analysis: that humiliation is not always immediate in its political effects, but can endure, accumulate, and eventually crystallize into protest or support for anti-system actors. Von Wiese noted that the eventual rise of far-right mobilization in eastern Germany was not sudden, but rather the delayed outcome of long-standing grievances awaiting political articulation. In this sense, the emergence of parties such as the far right can be seen less as the origin of discontent than as its vehicle.
Extending her argument beyond Germany, von Wiese pointed to similar dynamics in other contexts, including her experiences in the United States and the United Kingdom. She recalled the stark social contrasts she encountered outside elite academic environments in the United States during the early 1990s, particularly in relation to poverty and racial segregation. These conditions, she argued, formed part of the underlying landscape that later enabled figures like Donald Trump to mobilize political support. Likewise, she interpreted the Brexit campaign as deeply rooted in narratives of national decline and loss of status, with appeals to a diminished imperial past serving as a powerful emotional driver.
While affirming the explanatory value of humiliation and status anxiety, von Wiese also raised a critical question regarding remedies. She expressed skepticism about whether economic interventions alone—such as a modern “Marshall Plan”—would suffice, suggesting that deeper systemic transformations may be required, particularly in relation to inequality and the structure of contemporary capitalism. Her intervention thus shifted the discussion from diagnosis to the more difficult terrain of response.
The Multi-Dimensional Nature of Democratic Backsliding
Professor Ruth Wodak followed by situating the panel within a broader interdisciplinary framework. She emphasized the importance of integrating multiple analytical perspectives in order to grasp the complexity of contemporary democratic challenges. While acknowledging the relevance of Professor Hett’s emphasis on humiliation and recognition, she cautioned against overly singular explanations. In her view, democratic backsliding and far-right mobilization are multi-causal phenomena that cannot be reduced to a single driver.
Professor Wodak introduced two additional factors that she argued deserve greater attention. The first was the long-term impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. She suggested that the pandemic generated widespread fear and uncertainty on a global scale, creating fertile ground for both authoritarian narratives and renewed forms of religiosity. Drawing on sociological insights, she noted that periods of existential anxiety often lead individuals to seek stability in identity-based frameworks, including religion, while also increasing susceptibility to aggression and polarization. In this sense, the pandemic may have functioned as an accelerant in the latest phase of far-right mobilization.
The second factor she highlighted was what might be termed anticipatory anxiety. While Professor Hett’s framework emphasizes the experience of humiliation and loss, Professor Wodak pointed to cases where far-right support is strongest not among the most economically deprived, but in relatively affluent societies. Citing examples such as Austria, Switzerland, and Denmark, she observed that high levels of prosperity have not prevented the rise of far-right parties. Instead, she suggested, these contexts are characterized by a fear of losing existing advantages—a forward-looking anxiety rather than a retrospective grievance. This introduces a subtle but important distinction: the politics of resentment may be driven as much by perceived future decline as by past injustice.
Turning to the question of institutional response, Professor Wodak engaged with the earlier presentation by Professor Stephan Klingebiel on the politicization of development discourse. She noted that while certain policy areas—such as gender and climate—have become targets of political contestation, actors within international organizations have begun to develop adaptive strategies. One such strategy involves reframing or relabeling projects in order to avoid triggering ideological opposition, while continuing substantive work under different terminology. This form of quiet institutional resilience, she suggested, illustrates how bureaucratic actors may navigate hostile political environments without abandoning core objectives.
At the same time, Professor Wodak did not understate the severity of recent developments, particularly the dismantling of major development institutions and the reduction of aid flows. She highlighted the moral and human consequences of such policies, noting the stark contradiction between global wealth concentration and the withdrawal of support for the world’s most vulnerable populations. Her remarks conveyed both analytical concern and normative urgency.
Explaining Religious-Political Convergence
The Q&A session continued with a focused exchange between Dr. Bulent Kenes, and Professor Julie Ingersoll, centering on the timing and recent consolidation of religiously driven political movements in the United States. The question probed a central puzzle emerging from the panel: while religious actors have long played a role in American public life, why have certain strands of Christian nationalism reached a new peak of visibility and influence at this particular historical juncture?
In posing the question, Dr. Kenes framed the issue as one of convergence. He invited Professor Ingersoll to reflect on whether the current moment could be explained by the interaction of structural and contingent factors—demographic change, economic insecurity, intensifying political polarization, and the strategic mobilization of religious networks within populist movements. His formulation implicitly shifted the discussion from historical description to causal explanation, asking not simply what these movements are, but why their influence has crystallized now.
In her response, Professor Ingersoll offered a careful recalibration of the premise. She challenged the assumption that these religious formations have always existed in their present form, emphasizing instead their relatively recent consolidation. While acknowledging that certain traditions—particularly Catholic political engagement—have deep historical roots, she argued that the specific configurations associated with contemporary Christian nationalism represent a more recent development. These movements, in her account, should not be understood as continuous extensions of longstanding traditions, but as new iterations shaped by decades of strategic organization.
A central element of her explanation was the long-term institutional work undertaken by groups such as the Christian Reconstructionists. Over several decades, these actors invested in building parallel educational infrastructures, including private Christian school networks that later evolved into homeschooling systems. These institutions did more than provide alternative education; they cultivated generational continuity, transmitting a distinct worldview and historical narrative that diverged from mainstream interpretations. This process, Professor Ingersoll suggested, has created a durable social base capable of sustaining and amplifying political influence.
Importantly, she situated the expansion of these networks within a specific historical context: the desegregation of public schools. The timing was consequential. As integration policies reshaped the public education system, segments of white evangelical communities withdrew into private and religious schooling structures. While often framed in theological terms, this shift also intersected with broader social and racial dynamics, allowing communities to maintain separation while articulating their choices through religious language. Over time, these parallel institutions became key sites of ideological formation.
Professor Ingersoll also pointed to more recent catalysts, particularly the COVID-19 pandemic. Echoing earlier remarks in the panel, she argued that the pandemic functioned as a moment of intensified mobilization. Religious actors capitalized on widespread uncertainty and fear, framing public health measures—such as restrictions on gatherings—as threats to religious freedom. This narrative, she suggested, resonated strongly within conservative constituencies, reinforcing existing suspicions of state overreach and contributing to a broader sense of existential threat.
At the same time, Professor Ingersoll emphasized that no single factor can account for the current prominence of these movements. Rather, their rise reflects the cumulative effect of long-term organizational strategies interacting with more immediate political and social disruptions. What appears as a sudden surge is, in her formulation, the visible outcome of processes that have been unfolding over decades.
Secularization, Inequality, and Backlash
The exchange moved beyond diagnosis toward a more reflective interrogation of responsibility, causality, and the limits of existing analytical frameworks. Professor Jack A. Goldstone suggested that what is currently unfolding across multiple contexts is not merely the resurgence of religion or populism in isolation, but the normalization of an assertive and exclusionary ideological fusion—where perceived humiliation is channeled into aggressive identity-based politics. In this reading, religious nationalism operates not only as belief, but as a vehicle for reasserting dominance in response to status loss.
Professor Goldstone then turned a critical eye toward the role of social science itself, arguing that earlier intellectual assumptions may have inadvertently contributed to the present moment. The expectation that secularization would steadily marginalize religion, he suggested, proved deeply misleading. Instead, policies and discourses shaped by this assumption often alienated religious communities, creating fertile ground for backlash movements that now seek to reintegrate religion into the core of political authority. Parallel to this, he identified a second misjudgment in economic thinking: the prioritization of growth over distribution. While aggregate prosperity increased, the failure to address inequality produced widespread discontent, reinforcing perceptions of exclusion and injustice.
Extending this argument, Professor Goldstone highlighted a longer-term global transformation. Over the past half century, the relative dominance of Western societies has eroded, as economic and technological advancements in other regions have reshaped the global hierarchy. This shift, he argued, has unsettled previously taken-for-granted assumptions of superiority among segments of Western populations. The resulting nostalgia—rooted in a memory of unchallenged status—feeds contemporary grievance politics. His central question, directed to the panel, concerned how societies might address this structural recalibration without intensifying resentment, exclusion, and the normalization of antagonistic rhetoric.
The Deepening Impact of Populist Pressure
Responding to earlier interventions and this broader framing, Professor Stephan Klingebiel emphasized that the current transformations cannot be reduced to discursive shifts alone. While the strategic avoidance or substitution of politically sensitive terminology—such as replacing “climate change” or “gender” with more neutral language—may offer short-term tactical advantages, he cautioned that such practices risk deeper forms of self-censorship. This “self-policing,” as he described it, signals not adaptation but internalization of external pressure, ultimately weakening the normative foundations of international cooperation.
Professor Klingebiel further underscored that the stakes extend beyond language to the substance of policy and institutional priorities. Changes in funding allocations, the redirection of development agendas, and the politicization of multilateral institutions reflect a broader erosion of solidarity. He pointed to a shifting political climate in which engagement with development cooperation—once a source of professional and political legitimacy—has become increasingly stigmatized. This transformation, he suggested, illustrates how populist pressures reshape not only public discourse but also the incentives and self-perceptions of policymakers.
At the same time, Professor Klingebiel stressed the necessity of active resistance. Silence or strategic accommodation, in his view, risks accelerating the very dynamics it seeks to navigate. Instead, he advocated for the formation of new coalitions among actors committed to multilateralism and democratic norms. Crucially, he also called for a rethinking of how academic and policy communities communicate their work. Empirical evidence, while indispensable, is no longer sufficient in isolation. To counter populist narratives effectively, scholars must engage more directly with the emotional and symbolic dimensions of political life—crafting narratives that resonate beyond technocratic audiences.
In sum, this segment of the discussion highlighted a convergence around a central insight: contemporary democratic challenges are sustained by an interplay of structural change, emotional response, and discursive transformation. Addressing them requires not only institutional reform or policy adjustment, but also a deeper engagement with the narratives through which individuals interpret their place in a rapidly changing world.
Conclusion
Panel 1 of the symposium offered more than a set of parallel analyses; it articulated a coherent and multi-dimensional understanding of how contemporary democratic erosion takes shape. Across the presentations and subsequent discussion, a consistent insight emerged: populist radicalization is neither episodic nor accidental, but the outcome of long-term interactions between structural transformations, ideological projects, and affective dynamics. Grievance, as the panel demonstrated, does not automatically translate into anti-democratic politics. It becomes politically consequential when it is narrated, organized, and strategically mobilized through discursive, institutional, and symbolic means.
A central contribution of the panel lies in its insistence on integrating the emotional and the structural. Processes such as humiliation, status anxiety, and fear of future loss were shown to operate not as secondary effects, but as constitutive elements of political mobilization. At the same time, these affective dynamics are embedded within broader shifts – economic dislocation, geopolitical reordering, and the erosion of normative consensus in international cooperation. The convergence of these factors creates conditions under which exclusionary ideologies can gain legitimacy and resonance across diverse contexts.
Equally important was the panel’s attention to the role of agency – both in the emergence of populist forces and in the responses available to democratic actors. The discussions highlighted how political entrepreneurs, religious movements, and institutional actors actively construct narratives that transform diffuse unease into coherent political projects. Yet they also pointed to the adaptive capacities within democratic systems, including the formation of new coalitions, the persistence of institutional “pockets of effectiveness,” and the possibility of recalibrating political communication to address not only facts, but meanings and emotions.
The implications of these insights are both analytical and normative. If democratic erosion is prepared through gradual normalization, discursive shifts, and the instrumentalization of identity, then its counter requires equally sustained and multidimensional responses. Institutional reforms, while necessary, are insufficient in isolation. What is required is a renewed engagement with the cultural, social, and emotional foundations of democratic life – an effort to reconstruct not only policies, but also the narratives and forms of recognition that underpin democratic legitimacy.
In sum, the panel underscored that the trajectory from grievance to radicalization is not predetermined. It remains contingent on how societies interpret, articulate, and respond to the pressures they face. Understanding this contingency is essential not only for diagnosing democratic decline, but for imagining pathways of resilience and renewal in an increasingly unsettled global order.
In this incisive commentary, Dr. Gwenaëlle Bauvois examines the broader European implications of Viktor Orbán’s electoral defeat, focusing on its strategic significance for France’s Rassemblement National (RN) ahead of the 2027 presidential race. Moving beyond surface-level interpretations, she argues that Orbán functioned as a crucial “proof of concept” for sovereigntist politics within the EU—an external validation that strengthened the RN’s claims to governability. His defeat, therefore, does not destabilize the party electorally but compels a recalibration of its narrative. By reframing the outcome as democratic alternation rather than ideological failure, the RN preserves its political coherence. The analysis offers a nuanced account of how transnational references shape—and are reshaped within—contemporary far-right strategy.
The defeat of Viktor Orbán is not merely a Hungarian political event. It constitutes a broader stress test for the coherence of the European far right—and, more specifically, for the strategic positioning of the Rassemblement National (RN) ahead of the pivotal 2027 French presidential election. For years, Orbán was more than an ally for Marine Le Pen and her party; he served as a demonstration case—a tangible and living example that a sovereigntist, anti-liberal project could not only attain power within the European Union but sustain it over time.
Orbán as a ‘Proof’ That the Model Works
Hungary under Orbán has long served as a proof of governability, allowing the RN to argue that its political project is not theoretical but already implemented in another EU member state. Marine Le Pen’s participation in the Budapest rally on March 23, 2026, illustrated this alignment. During the event, she explicitly praised Viktor Orbán, describing him as “a visionary” and “a pioneer,” while also referring to him as her “friend” (Le Monde, 2026). This reflects a broader pattern in far-right politics: the use of cross-national examples as legitimacy tools, where foreign governments become narrative evidence of domestic feasibility. However, the RN’s strong endorsement of Orbán, followed by his significant electoral setback, forced the party to reinterpret the result in a way that preserves its own political narrative.
Reframing Defeat as Democratic Confirmation
The RN has strategically reframed the meaning of the defeat. Rather than appearing weakened by its strong support for a losing leader, it presents the outcome as evidence of normal democratic functioning. Orbán is depicted as a legitimate leader who, after a prolonged period in power, is simply being replaced through free elections. In this narrative, he is not discredited; instead, his defeat is recast as part of routine democratic alternation.
RN leading figure Jean-Philippe Tanguy stated: “We see that not only are voters free, but they are free to make a massive choice… After 16 years in power […] it is the desire for alternation expressed by a sovereign people,” (France Inter, April 13, 2026).
In this reading, Orbán’s defeat does not call his political model into question, because it is explained as the result of voters freely exercising their sovereignty. The RN therefore maintains a dual posture: continued political sympathy for Orbán’s project combined with respect for electoral sovereignty. This allows the party to neutralize any potential credibility costs associated with its earlier endorsement, while also reinforcing the idea that national political changes do not disrupt the broader continuity of sovereigntists politics across Europe.
No Electoral Spillover into France
Electorally, the impact on the RN in France is likely to be limited. Despite Orbán’s defeat, the RN remains one of the strongest political forces ahead of 2027 and is consistently ranked as the leading party in voting intention polls. Its support base continues to be shaped primarily by domestic factors, including immigration, cost-of-living pressures, and persistent dissatisfaction with traditional governing parties. Orbán’s setback does not significantly alter these underlying dynamics.
However, it does remove an important external reference point that the RN had used to demonstrate that its political model had already been successfully implemented elsewhere in Europe. Without this example, the argument shifts from demonstrative to more declarative, weakening the party’s comparative narrative without significantly affecting its core electorate.
Orbán’s weakening, therefore, does not destabilize the RN’s position in France, nor does it alter its trajectory toward the 2027 presidential election. What it does affect is a narrative structure—the party’s ability to rely on external validation as evidence of political feasibility. The key development, then, is not an ideological rupture but an interpretative adjustment.
In an era marked by intensifying polarization and electoral fragmentation, France’s 2026 municipal elections offer a revealing lens into the country’s shifting political equilibrium. In this ECPS interview, Professor Philippe Marlière argues that while mainstream parties retain urban strongholds, the populist radical right continues to consolidate its territorial and sociological base. Crucially, he underscores that “polarization… tends to benefit the far right,” enabling the National Rally to advance its normalization strategy within an increasingly conflictual political environment. Beyond electoral outcomes, the interview highlights deeper structural transformations—from cross-class realignment to the erosion of centrist politics—suggesting that France is not experiencing a rupture, but a gradual reconfiguration that may decisively shape the dynamics of the 2027 presidential contest.
Giving an in-depth interview to the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS), Philippe Marlière, Professor of French and European Politics at University College London, offers a nuanced and empirically grounded assessment of France’s evolving political landscape in the wake of the 2026 municipal elections.
Held against the backdrop of an increasingly polarized European political environment, the elections revealed a fragmented yet structurally revealing electoral map. While mainstream parties retained control of major metropolitan centers such as Paris, Marseille, and Lyon, the populist radical right—anchored by the National Rally (RN)—continued to expand its territorial base across smaller municipalities and peripheral regions. Notably, the RN and its allies consolidated support in medium-sized towns and traditional strongholds in northern deindustrialized zones and the Mediterranean southeast, while also making inroads into previously resistant regions such as western France. At the same time, opinion polls suggest that RN candidates remain above the 30 percent threshold ahead of the 2027 presidential race, underscoring their growing electoral competitiveness.
As Professor Marlière emphasizes, these results must be understood through the dual lens of fragmentation and consolidation. “The French electoral landscape is deeply fragmented and also polarized,” he observes, highlighting the coexistence of institutional instability with the strengthening of ideological blocs. Indeed, he notes a “consolidation of the two blocs at the extremes,” with both the far right and the radical left reinforcing their positions without producing a decisive electoral rupture.
At the core of his analysis lies a striking argument captured in the headline insight: polarization itself has become a structural driver of far-right normalization. “This kind of polarization tends to benefit the far right,” Professor Marlière explains, as it enables the RN to position itself as a seemingly “reasonable, ‘moderate’ political force” within an increasingly conflictual political field. In this context, the long-term strategy of dé-diabolisation appears to be advancing, albeit unevenly. While the RN remains constrained in major urban centers, it has become, in Professor Marlière’s words, “a party that is increasingly on course to become normalized.”
Equally significant is the sociological transformation of the far-right electorate. No longer confined to economically marginalized groups, the RN now draws support across a broader cross-class coalition, including professionals and retirees—a shift he identifies as a critical turning point since the 2024 European elections.
Taken together, the 2026 municipal elections do not signal a dramatic rupture but rather a deepening of structural trends. As Professor Marlière cautions, “the tectonic plates… are aligning in a way that looks favorable for the National Rally,”even as electoral uncertainty persists. In this interview, he unpacks the implications of these developments for democratic resilience, party competition, and the high-stakes trajectory toward 2027 presidential elections in France.
Philippe Marlière is a Professor of French and European Politics at University College London.
Here is the edited version of our interview with Professor Philippe Marlière, revised slightly to improve clarity and flow.
France’s Electoral Landscape Is Fragmenting While Extremes Consolidate Their Ground
Professor Marlière, welcome, and let me start right away with the first question: The 2026 municipal elections seem to have produced a fragmented but revealing map of French politics; the far right advanced in many provincial towns, mainstream parties held key metropolitan strongholds, and the left remained unevenly competitive. From your perspective, what do these results tell us about the current stage of France’s populist realignment?
Professor Philippe Marlière: I think the main lessons of that local election are, first of all, the very high level of abstention. That confirms that, when it comes to voting, the French are voting less and less. Some would call it civic disengagement. It does not necessarily mean that the French are no longer interested in politics; it simply means that they vote less. Turnout was also lower in 2014, which was the last “normal” local election, as the previous one took place during the COVID pandemic and is therefore not really comparable.
The second point, as you mentioned, is fragmentation. The French electoral landscape is deeply fragmented and also polarized. I think we will return to this later.
Thirdly, there is a form of consolidation of previous electoral trends. I am thinking here of the two major elections in 2024—the general election and the European election. There was no major upset or breakthrough, but rather a continuation of existing dynamics. Notably, as you pointed out, there is a consolidation of the two blocs at the extremes: on the far right with the National Rally, and on the far left—the radical, populist left—with Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s France Insoumise. Both camps can claim gains, and their positions appear to have strengthened.
So, overall, that would be my general assessment of this local election.
The National Rally Consolidates Territorially but Still Struggles in Major Cities
The National Rally expanded its local presence but again struggled to convert momentum into decisive victories in major cities. Should this be read as evidence that the populist radical right is becoming structurally embedded in French politics, or do these results still reveal significant sociological and territorial ceilings to its expansion?
Professor Philippe Marlière: I think for the National Rally it is hard to say that this was a bad election. It is not a fantastic election, because a fantastic result would have meant winning a number of large cities, and in France a big city is one with over 100,000 people. They did not manage to do that. They had hoped to win the city of Toulon. That said, they did win one, and, to be fair, that is at least a good result in Nice, which is, of course, one of the bigger French cities. They won in Nice with Éric Ciotti. Technically, he is not a member of the National Rally, but he is the former leader of Les Républicains, who left the party in 2024 and now runs a small party allied with the National Rally. So that is a significant gain.
Apart from that, however, the election highlighted the weakness of the National Rally in big cities and urban areas, which are now strongholds of the left. My assessment, therefore, is that this was not a breakthrough in terms of winning major cities; it did not achieve that. What it did do, however, is to consolidate its power base in medium-sized cities—places with around 20,000 inhabitants or fewer. It is now a party with a solid and territorially widespread base.
There are also three regions where it is particularly dominant: in the north, especially in former mining areas that were once socialist bastions but are now strongholds of the far right; in the southeast, which has long been a strong area for the National Rally; and in parts of the southwest as well. So I would not describe this as a setback, but neither is it a major victory. It is a party that is increasingly on course to become normalized—people in small towns now vote for the National Rally in ways that were not typical before.
At the same time, when you look at opinion polls—which is what ultimately matters for a presidential election in a year’s time—they are very favorable for the National Rally. Any candidate, whether Marine Le Pen or Jordan Bardella, is polling well above the 30% threshold, while all other competitors remain significantly behind.
A Weakening Center and Identity-Driven Politics Reshape French Populism
The crowd and supporters with French flags during the campaign meeting (rally) of French presidential candidate Eric Zemmour, on the Trocadero square in Paris, France on March 27, 2022. Photo: Victor Velter.
In your work, you have emphasized that populist projects must be understood in relation to their national political cultures rather than as interchangeable European phenomena. What, in your view, is specifically French about the current configuration of populism and the populist radical right revealed by these municipal elections?
Professor Philippe Marlière: It is an important point to contextualize the rise, or sometimes the setback, of the populist far right across Europe. You cannot compare all situations; they are not entirely similar. However, there are similar trends. There are differences, but also common patterns.
So, while sharing similarities with other national contexts, the French case may be specific in the sense that it exacerbates some of these trends. One example is polarization. The French political landscape is extremely polarized, and that makes a very significant difference. Polarization means that you have left-wing parties, right-wing parties, and a political center, which in France is weakening—Macron’s party did not perform well in this election, which is not a surprise.
When polarization intensifies, it creates a climate of tension in which debates revolve less around economic and social issues and more around personalities and questions of identity. We have seen a great deal of that. In the end, this kind of polarization tends to benefit the far right. The far right has used this climate to position itself as a reasonable, “moderate” political force, in contrast to other parties that have contributed to this polarized environment. I am thinking here in particular of the populist radical left associated with Jean-Luc Mélenchon.
This dynamic becomes a tool that enables the National Rally to present itself—rightly or wrongly—as a more mainstream party. The mainstreaming of the National Rally is still ongoing. It is a process that could potentially enable the party to win the presidential election in a year’s time.
So far, there has been what is often described as a “glass ceiling” in presidential elections: the far right could not win because it was perceived as too extreme, prompting a counter-reaction from voters. This time, however, if the party succeeds in presenting itself as part of the mainstream—regardless of whether that perception is accurate—it may facilitate its path to electoral victory.
From Peripheral Protest to Nationwide Presence, the RN Vote Is Expanding
The far right’s local breakthroughs were especially visible in smaller towns, deindustrialized areas, and parts of Mediterranean France. How far do these results confirm that support for the populist radical right continues to be rooted in a combination of territorial abandonment, social insecurity, and cultural anxiety?
Professor Philippe Marlière: There are aspects of the National Rally vote which clearly underline what you have just said—social insecurity, anxiety, and a feeling of being abandoned by the central state. There are some strong indicators, such as people feeling that when you live, for instance, in a small town, or in a suburban or peri-urban area, you lack many of the things that make life easier, such as good public transport and good public services. There are issues around that, and studies have shown that this feeds and strengthens the National Rally vote in general. So there is clearly that aspect.
But I think what is new, and something which will worry anyone concerned about a major National Rally victory in France in a year’s time, in the presidential election, is that this vote has not only nationalized. You mentioned the three zones of strength of the National Rally in the north, in the southeast, and the southwest—that is true—but it is also present in other parts of France. Think, for instance, of Brittany in the western part of France, a place where traditionally the National Rally would get very few votes. Now, the party can also get very decent scores in that part of France.
So, there is a nationalization of the vote, but it is also a vote that has spread across different social classes. It is no longer only the vote of the young, unemployed, relatively uneducated working class, or the working class in general. It also includes professionals and retired people, which is a new development. The turning point was the European election of 2024, when, for the first time, retired people—who had been the main supporters of Macron—switched en masse to the National Rally. That is a sign of electoral strength, because retired people tend to vote more than younger people, who abstain more.
All in all, the tectonic plates, so to speak, are aligning in a way that looks favorable for the National Rally. That said, I am not suggesting that the presidential election is a foregone conclusion or that the far right will win. A great deal can happen between now and April 2027, notably a last-ditch reaction from French voters who might prefer to vote for another candidate simply to prevent the far right from winning the highest political office in France. Much will also depend on the candidate who faces the National Rally in the second round.
Education and Class Remain Key Barriers to Far-Right Urban Expansion
University teachers, research staff, and students demonstrate against French government reforms to the academic system in Paris, France on April 2, 2009. Photo: Olga Besnard / Dreamstime.
Conversely, the RN’s continuing weakness in many large metropolitan centers suggests that urban France still resists the populist radical right. To what extent is this an effect of class composition, educational attainment, immigration-linked demography, or the continued political toxicity of the far-right label?
Professor Philippe Marlière: There are very strong sociological variables or indicators that explain why some populations and categories of voters support the far right, and why others distrust and resist it. I think there are such sociological variables at play.
Gender is one of them. Women still tend to vote less, in general, than men for the far right. The gender gap has narrowed compared to 20 or 30 years ago, but it remains. Interestingly, among younger voters—the 18–24 age group, for instance—the gender gap is even wider. There is a broader trend, not only in Europe but globally, of young men being more attracted to the far right than young women. Women, in fact, are often put off by the far right and tend to resist it.
The second variable is education, and here again the French case is not particularly unique. It is a pattern observed in many countries. The general sociological rule is that the more educated you are, the more likely you are to vote for the left. Conversely, those with lower levels of education—primary or secondary schooling, possibly the baccalaureate but no university education—are more likely to support the National Rally.
This also applies to younger voters. While Jean-Luc Mélenchon does appeal to the youth, his support is concentrated among more educated young people—those pursuing higher education and living in urban areas—as opposed to young salaried workers who left school early and live in rural areas, who tend to support the National Rally. In this sense, education is an even more decisive factor than age.
This helps explain why France’s major cities are now governed by the left. Paris and Marseille have socialist mayors, while Lyon has re-elected a Green mayor. This reflects the sociological profile of urban electorates, which tend to be more educated and relatively well-off, and therefore more inclined to support left-wing parties. By contrast, in smaller localities across France—where there is a lack of public services and higher unemployment—the National Rally performs more strongly.
The RN’s Normalization Is Aided as Much By Opponents as by Strategy
In light of these municipal results, do you think Marine Le Pen’s long strategy of dé-diabolisation has reached its limits at the local level? Or has it succeeded enough to normalize the RN in parts of France even if it still falls short of full urban legitimacy?
Professor Philippe Marlière: De-demonization is to start with—yes, you are right to stress that—a process. If it is a process, it has been initiated by political forces, and obviously, the forces that want de-demonization to happen are the National Rally, to begin with. Marine Le Pen has been very clear about this in the past. “We have been demonized,” she has said several times, and that has to stop.
So, what do you do about that? You adopt a strategy. First, you try to appear less radical, less far-right in the way you conduct your political activities and in your discourse. You remove the more radical, extremist elements within your party. This has been done.
However, I would say this has mainly been implemented among RN officials—that is, those in elected positions, particularly at the national level. For instance, considerable effort has been made by the National Rally to ensure that, within its group of MPs in the National Assembly, there are no sympathizers of extremist or fascist groups, and that no one makes anti-Semitic or Islamophobic statements. A great deal of work has gone into this. Marine Le Pen herself and Jordan Bardella present a very polished image to the public, unlike Jean-Marie Le Pen, who was repeatedly convicted for racist or anti-Semitic statements. That marks a clear difference.
Nonetheless, there are still, among supporters and even at the local level, elected RN representatives who occasionally—and quite often—make such statements. So the process is not entirely complete. Much has been achieved, but it remains ongoing.
There is also another dimension to de-demonization. It can only succeed if it receives some assistance from opponents, and in France, opponents of the far right have, in fact, contributed to this process. This is not a recent development; it began some time ago. Parties on the center-right and the right have progressively adopted elements of the RN’s discourse, and sometimes even aspects of its policy agenda. By doing so, they contribute to making the RN appear more moderate and more mainstream. If mainstream parties frame issues in similar terms to the far right, then the far right no longer appears as extreme or dangerous.
A certain degree of support has also come from the media. French media, as studies suggest, have shifted to the right. Some private channels, such as CNews, owned by the billionaire Bolloré Family, as well as formerly mainstream radio stations with large audiences, have clearly moved in that direction, if not toward the radical right. In such a context, de-demonization becomes more likely.
However, as you pointed out, there is still resistance, particularly at the grassroots level. We saw this again in 2024. After the first round of the general election, the far right was ahead and appeared on track to secure a possible absolute majority. Then what the French call a “Republican front” emerged, involving significant tactical voting between left-wing parties and also between the left and Macron’s supporters. This tactical coordination led to the defeat of many RN candidates, and in the end, the RN did not win.
So, overall, de-demonization has been underway and has been quite successful for the RN. However, the process is not yet complete. There remains a kind of anti–far-right reflex among the electorate, which has so far prevented the RN from winning major elections.
The Boundary between Mainstream Right and Far Right Is Increasingly Blurred
Photo: Dreamstime.
One of the most striking outcomes of the elections was Éric Ciotti’s victory in Nice and the broader sense that parts of the mainstream right are moving closer to the RN. Do you see this as a local anomaly shaped by specific rivalries, or as a more durable sign that the boundary between mainstream conservatism and the populist radical right is eroding?
Professor Philippe Marlière: That is a very important point, and it concerns the future not only of the far right—whether it will eventually win a major election, such as a presidential or general election—but also the future of the mainstream right, the post-Gaullist right, which is what Les Républicains represent, with their legacy of de Gaulle and Chirac. I would say it also concerns the future of French politics in general, because having a far-right president and government would be a major development not only in French politics, but also in European and even global politics.
The mainstream right, notably Les Républicains (LR), plays a pivotal role in this, because figures and studies show that there is a porosity between the LR electorate and the far-right electorate. In some constituencies, voters from both sides support each other’s candidates when needed, for instance in the second round of an election. If the only candidate facing a left-wing contender is from the National Rally, you will often see a significant transfer of votes from LR voters to RN candidates, and vice versa. So it works both ways.
However, the rising and dominant force is not LR. LR is now a shadow of what used to be the dominant party on the right in French politics, particularly until the Sarkozy era. It is a party that has been losing votes and representation with each election.
As a result, LR finds itself in a kind of impossible situation. If it forms an alliance with the far right—which some within the party are now considering—it risks accelerating its own decline. That was Éric Ciotti’s choice in 2024, when he was leader of LR. He argued that the party should form an alliance and work with the far right. This represented a complete break with the tradition of figures like Charles de Gaulle and Jacques Chirac, who were firmly opposed to the far right. When the party rejected this line, Ciotti left, taking with him more than 20 MPs. Yet this has not resolved LR’s dilemma, as there remains a strong temptation among some of its officials and elected representatives to cooperate with the RN.
The problem is that by working closely with the far right, LR further legitimizes it and signals to voters that there is little difference between the two. This could lead to a scenario similar to what happened on the left in the 1970s, when the Socialists, under François Mitterrand, formed an alliance with the Communists and eventually became the dominant force.
In the current context, however, with a de-demonized far right and potentially a figure like Jordan Bardella running a relatively mainstream campaign, not very different from LR on socioeconomic issues, there is a real risk that what remains of the LR electorate could shift further toward the RN.
So, it is a very complex situation for LR. What we may be witnessing is a broader recomposition of the right, with the RN potentially becoming the dominant party and LR relegated to the role of a junior partner. This would represent a complete reversal of the post-war political order, where the far right becomes the main party, and what is considered the mainstream right becomes a junior partner.
The Macronite Center Has Given Way to a Reconfigured Right-Wing Bloc
More broadly, do these elections suggest that the French right is moving toward a process of recomposition in which traditional conservatism, Macronite liberalism, and the populist radical right are being forced into a new and unstable relationship?
Professor Philippe Marlière: Yes, the striking thing about that local election is that it really marks the end—although we already knew this—of the Macronite center. It was, in a way, positioned both on the left and on the right. Macron wanted to strike a balance between the moderate left and the moderate right. That was his project in 2017, when he was first elected. We saw that during his first term there was a shift to the right, and in his second term nothing has changed. The Macron party is now firmly on the right and has been governing with right-wing forces. It has been in power with LR, for instance. So there is no doubt that this marks the end of the attempt to find a kind of centrist position in French politics, where one could combine elements of the center-right and the center-left. That is over. The Macron party is firmly on the right.
Moreover, the local election showed that the electorate of Macron, in general, clearly supports the forces of the right in the second round when their candidate cannot run. So this very original attempt to create a genuine center that synthesizes the moderate left and right has come to an end.
As for the rest of the right, I have already addressed this in my previous answer. LR finds itself between a rock and a hard place. It has tried to cooperate with the Macron party in government, but that has not really helped, as it continues to lose votes. At the same time, it faces the major and direct challenge from the RN. So it is a very complex situation for the right.
Just one more point about LR: it did relatively well in this local election, and the reason is the same as for the Socialist Party—they entered the election from a position of strength. They already governed many cities across France. LR is the party that runs the greatest number of cities. The difference with the Socialist Party is that the latter tends to be strong in large cities with over 100,000 inhabitants, whereas LR is stronger in medium-sized cities with fewer than 100,000 inhabitants, where it governs many municipalities. So it has managed to survive this election and perform relatively well.
This illustrates the paradox of French politics. The two parties that dominated French politics from the 1970s until 2017, when Macron was elected—the Socialists and LR—are no longer in a position to win national elections. However, they remain dominant at the local level, where they still have strong territorial bases.
French President Emmanuel Macron at the Cotroceni Palace in Bucharest, Romania on August 24, 2017. Photo: Carol Robert.
Republican Discourse Now Normalizes Formerly Far-Right Themes
Your work on laïcité and the “islamo-gauchisme” controversy has shown how republican language can be reworked in increasingly exclusionary ways. Do you think the municipal campaign confirmed that themes once associated with the far right have now migrated into broader mainstream discourse, thereby indirectly strengthening the populist radical right?
Professor Philippe Marlière: Yes, you are right on that. It is not only the far right, the National Rally, that has been normalized and mainstreamed; a certain type of racist discourse has also become quite mainstream, particularly around Islamophobia. But that is not new. This is part of the debate on so-called Islamo-gauchisme. Islamo-gauchisme was essentially directed at French academics or intellectuals who were allegedly in cahoots with Islamists in France. That was never demonstrated, but nonetheless it became a central claim. And, of course, when such claims are made, they give a significant boost to the far right, because the far right does not even need to intervene in that debate. That debate was largely carried out by the Macron government and by LR. So this is where we are.
What is interesting is that the election also showed that, in some areas—particularly in the outskirts of major cities, including several cities around Paris—mayors from ethnic minorities were elected. They are French citizens, but they come from minority backgrounds. The most notable example is Saint-Denis, a large city of around 150,000 inhabitants. It was traditionally a communist stronghold, then governed by a socialist mayor for one term, and has now been won by a La France Insoumise candidate who is Black. This is very good news for Mélenchon, who has recently advanced the idea of a “new France.”
What does this “new France” represent? It is a multicultural France shaped by immigration. France has long been a country of mass immigration, and the sons and daughters of migrants—born on French soil and holding French citizenship—are now increasingly involved in political life. Some have been elected as mayors, local councillors, and even MPs, which marks an important shift. Twenty years ago, the French political class was overwhelmingly white. While this remains the case for some parties, others—particularly on the left—have increasingly incorporated this diversity.
This is what Mélenchon has gained. He won a number of cities, I believe up to seven, which is a solid result. It is not a major breakthrough, given that La France Insoumise is a relatively young party that started from scratch, but moving from zero to seven is significant. These include important cities such as Saint-Denis, Roubaix, Vénissieux, Vaulx-en-Velin, La Courneuve, and Créteil—places with substantial populations of ethnic minorities.
What La France Insoumise is doing is quite specific. It reflects Mélenchon’s broader strategy of mobilizing young voters—particularly those pursuing higher education and living in urban areas—alongside ethnic minority communities in the banlieues. He believes that by consolidating this electorate, he can position himself to reach the second round of the presidential election.
Without Alliances, the Far Right’s Path to the Second Round Appears Assured
Torn campaign posters of Jean-Luc Mélenchon during the French presidential election in Bordeaux, France on February 19, 2022. Photo: Jerome Cid / Dreamstime.
And finally, Professor Marlière, looking ahead to the 2027 presidential election, do these municipal results suggest that France is still moving toward a contest structurally shaped by the RN and the populist radical right, or do they also reopen the possibility that broader democratic coalitions—of the mainstream left, center, and moderate right—can still contain that trajectory?
Professor Philippe Marlière: That is an important question. It is also a difficult one to answer, because the situation is so fluid and things can change from one month to another. It will very much depend on the work on the ground by political parties. Can they enter into an alliance? It seems that, if you want to defeat—or to qualify for the second, decisive round of the presidential election, you need to enter into an alliance. If you go it alone, if you do not make an alliance on the left or on the right, you will further split the total vote of your political family. And if you further split the vote, everyone expects the far right to qualify, given how strong it is in the polls.
There are two places in the second round, and it seems that one is already taken by the far right. It used to be a major upset when the far right qualified for the second round; now it would be a major upset if it did not. So, let us assume the far right will be in the second round. The question then becomes: who will face it? I think there are three possible scenarios.
One appears to be a lose-lose scenario, but paradoxically it is quite plausible today. This would be the qualification of Jean-Luc Mélenchon. He is a well-known figure who can appeal to highly mobilized segments of voters—particularly young people and ethnic minorities. In a fragmented electoral landscape, the threshold to qualify for the second round could be relatively low, around 15–17 percent, which he could reach. However, this would be a lose-lose scenario because, despite the de-demonization of the far right, Mélenchon himself has been heavily demonized. According to polls, he is the most disliked political figure in France, even more so than far-right leaders. In such a case, he would likely be defeated, and the far right would have a relatively easy path to victory.
The two other scenarios would involve either a candidate from the center-left or from the right reaching the second round. For the center-left, this would likely require unity, possibly through a primary election to select a common candidate. I am quite pessimistic about this, as the left remains highly fragmented. Some support the idea of a primary, while others oppose it. For instance, former President François Hollande may be considering another run and does not favor a primary.
On the right, a similar question arises: will they unite and organize a primary to choose a candidate? There are significant differences between figures such as Édouard Philippe, a former prime minister under Macron, and Bruno Retailleau, the leader of LR, whose discourse and policies are closer to the RN. So there is a clear gap.
Without such unity, the first scenario remains plausible. In that case, one could say, as a scholar of populism, that the two populisms in France are converging—one on the radical left and the other on the far right. And, unfortunately, it seems that of these two, the one that repels more voters is Mélenchon.
Please cite as: Al-Sheikh Daoud, Emad Salah & Al-Dahlaki, Khudhair Abbas. (2026). “French Court Ruling Convicting Marine Le Pen: Implications for the Future of the Far Right in France.” Populism & Politics (P&P). European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS). March 26, 2026. https://doi.org/10.55271/pp0052
Abstract This article examines the political and institutional repercussions of the French court ruling convicting Marine Le Pen, leader of the National Rally, of embezzling public funds and barring her from holding public office. Using a case study approach, the study analyzes how the verdict reshapes the trajectory of the French far right, the internal dynamics of the National Rally, and broader debates on judicial independence and democratic legitimacy. It explores competing interpretations of the ruling—as either a manifestation of rule-of-law accountability or an instance of political targeting—while assessing its impact on public opinion and electoral prospects ahead of the 2027 presidential election. Drawing on polling data and political reactions, the article argues that the ruling may paradoxically reinforce populist narratives of victimhood in the short term, even as it introduces strategic uncertainty for the party’s future leadership. Ultimately, the study highlights the tension between legal accountability and symbolic politics, positioning the case as a critical moment in the evolution of contemporary European populism.
Keywords: French judiciary, National Rally, Marine Le Pen, Jordan Bardella, European Parliament, Populism, Far-right politics, Political polarization, Rule of law
Marine Le Pen, leader of the far-right National Rally party in France, has long been a controversial figure in French and European politics. Since succeeding her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, as party leader, the party has seen its presence grow in the political and media landscape, even making gains in French legislative elections and European Parliament elections. It now holds the largest bloc in the National Assembly (the French lower house), and Marine Le Pen herself reached the second round of the French presidential elections, facing President Emmanuel Macron in both 2017 and 2022.
However, qualification for the second round of the presidential election did not prevent Marine Le Pen and 12 members of her party from being convicted of embezzling public funds by the Paris Criminal Court on March 3, 2025. The total damage was estimated at approximately €2.9 million, relating to funds from the European Parliament that were used to pay individuals who were in fact working for the far-right party. The French judiciary ruled that Le Pen would be barred from running for public office for five years, effectively preventing her from contesting the 2027 presidential election. She was also sentenced to four years in prison, two of which are to be served under electronic monitoring.
The significance of this research lies in its analysis of the repercussions of the French court’s decision to convict Marine Le Pen on France’s social and political landscape. It examines how major judicial rulings shape the trajectory of political parties—particularly the party under study—and how French public opinion responds to such decisions. In doing so, the study adds an important dimension to understanding the relationship between the judiciary and politics in democratic systems.
Research Objective
This research aims to analyze the details of the conviction issued by the French judiciary, its repercussions for the political and personal future of the leader of the National Rally (RN), and to assess the impact of this decision on the party’s popularity and political discourse, particularly in the context of preparations for upcoming elections.
Research Problem
This research seeks to address the central question: “Was the French court’s decision influenced by hidden political pressures, or was it a fully independent judicial ruling based solely on legal evidence?”
To explore this, the study further examines two sub-questions: How independent is the judiciary in cases with clear political dimensions? And how do such decisions shape public trust in judicial institutions?
Research Hypothesis
The main hypothesis of this research is that the popularity of the National Rally will not decline significantly and may even increase among certain groups. This is based on the possibility that the party’s supporters may interpret the decision as part of a “political conspiracy” against them, thereby reinforcing the cohesion of their base and strengthening loyalty to the party and its leadership.
Research Methodology
The topic will be studied using the case study method in dissecting the details of the French court’s decision and its political repercussions.
The Origins and Ideology of the National Rally and Its Political Role
France is the home of the emergence of extreme right-wing movements and parties. One of the repercussions of the French Revolution was the emergence of forces and figures who adopted radical visions, positions and policies accompanied using armed violence and repression against opponents. This led to the division of political forces into a right–left dichotomy, which has persisted and become deeply entrenched in shaping the French political system across all historical periods up to the present.
In this regard, Article (4) of the French Constitution issued on October 4, 1958, specifies the function of political parties: “Political parties and groups participate in the exercise of the right to vote. They are formed and carry out their activities freely. They must respect the principles of national sovereignty and democracy. The laws guarantee the right to express different opinions and the fair participation of political parties and groups in the democratic life of the nation,” (French Constitution, 1958). The freedom of formation and exercise granted to them by the Constitution did not prevent successive governments from banning small local or national extremist parties, whether right-wing or left-wing.
The National Rally, previously known as the National Front, has been—and remains—a controversial and divisive force in the French political scene due to its extreme right-wing ideology, ideas, and programs, as well as the political influence and personal charisma of its founder, the late Jean-Marie Le Pen, and his daughter and successor, party leader Marine Le Pen, along with the political and media discourse they have advanced. Therefore, the party can be regarded as a significant and influential actor in France’s political, social, and cultural landscape.
The National Rally is widely regarded as one of the most successful right-wing populist parties and a source of inspiration for similar movements across Europe, having achieved notable gains both domestically in France and in European Parliament elections. The party has undergone several phases of development and political influence, which can be broadly divided into two main periods. The first is the founding phase, led by its founder Jean-Marie Le Pen, beginning with the party’s establishment in 1972 and lasting until 2011, when leadership passed to his daughter, Marine Le Pen.
This initial period saw significant transformations in the party’s orientation, organizational structure, and political activity, alongside growing electoral success at both national and European levels. Marine Le Pen’s rise to the presidency not only resolved internal leadership questions but also clarified the party’s future direction. Her leadership strengthened the party’s effectiveness, improved its public image, and facilitated its integration into the French political mainstream. Moreover, the party expanded its agenda beyond security and immigration, presenting itself as a credible alternative to governing parties rather than merely a source of political disruption (Ivaldi & Maria Elisabetta, 2016: 138).
Marine Le Pen’s first task after being elected party leader was to implement a “de-demonization” agenda aimed at shedding the party’s far-right image and enhancing its credibility. However, the changes introduced also reflected the continuation of a dynastic model of leadership characterized by strong centralization and hierarchical organization. Marine Le Pen capitalized on this transformation, particularly through media and social media engagement—appearing frequently on television and radio—to reshape the party’s ideological discourse and adopt a more “populist,” or at least “neo-populist,” orientation.
The party increasingly positioned itself as a defender of “the people” against globalization, outsourcing, and mainstream parties such as the Union for a Popular Movement and the Socialist Party, which it accuses of betraying the public (François, 2014: 52–53). At the same time, it has been argued that Marine Le Pen’s populism also reflects resistance to sharing welfare benefits, perceived by supporters as hard-won entitlements (Marcus, 1995: 105).
The ideology, policies, and programs of the National Rally are based on several key principles, most notably:
Emphasis on national identity: The party highlights the perceived existential threat to French identity posed by foreigners and immigrants. This threat is framed as coming from two directions: historically from the east, associated with communist ideology in the former Soviet model, and from the south, associated with what is described as an Islamic threat (Marcus, 1995: 103).
National preference: A fundamental element of its economic doctrine, “national preference” prioritizes French citizens in access to limited state resources such as healthcare, housing, and social welfare benefits (Marcus, 1995: 103).
Foreign and security policy vision: The party’s outlook is grounded in the idea that France has a unique global mission. It advocates restoring national independence and prioritizing French national interests, arguing that relations with European Union should not come at the expense of sovereignty and that ties with the United States should remain balanced.
Rejection of globalization and market liberalization: The party views the ideology of globalization as an embodiment of the hegemony of a global superpower, particularly the United States. At the same time, despite elements of neoliberal rhetoric and some criticism of the welfare state, “the party adopts a pro-market liberal economy and combines traditional left-wing themes of social and economic protectionism and anti-globalization with strong working-class appeal” (Ivaldi & Elisabetta, 2016: 17).
Regarding the electoral performance of the National Rally, since its founding, the party has participated in all elections for the National Assembly (Parliament/Lower House) and the European Parliament, aiming to consolidate its presence on the political scene. However, it was unable to surpass the 5% threshold required for entry into the National Assembly during the 1970s and until the mid-1980s, as it remained in a formative stage, seeking to attract and persuade different segments of French society of its political project and socio-economic program.
At the same time, the French party system was characterized by strong polarization and competition between two major blocs—the right and the moderate left—which by the mid-1980s had shifted toward the ideological center, limiting the party’s electoral gains. The number of seats the party won in the 2017 elections was insufficient to form a parliamentary group, as the rules of the National Assembly require at least fifteen deputies, with groups playing a central role in parliamentary organization and committee formation.
In the 2022 legislative elections, however, the National Rally achieved a major breakthrough, securing 17.30% of the vote and forming, for the first time, a significant parliamentary bloc with 89 seats (Al-Dahlaki, 2024: 250).
In French presidential elections, and in the context of demonstrating the strength and popularity of the party and his ambitions as the party’s leader, Jean-Marie Le Pen participated in several electoral cycles and achieved notable gains. Most prominently, in the 2002 election, he secured an unprecedented result with 16.9% of the vote, advancing to the second round against Jacques Chirac, which he ultimately lost, receiving 17.8% of the total vote. This outcome was described as a political earthquake and a wake-up call for moderate French political forces, underscoring the need to unite against the far right. At the time, many voters resorted to “punitive voting,” supporting Chirac despite reservations (Shields, 2007: 196).
In the 2012 presidential election, opinion polls indicated that Marine Le Pen was a serious contender, though she did not advance to the runoff. She ran again in 2017, reaching the second round, where she faced Emmanuel Macron, who won with 65.82% of the vote compared to her 34.18% (Nordstrom, 2017). In the 2022 presidential election, she once again reached the second round but was defeated by Macron, despite achieving the highest result for a far-right candidate under the Fifth Republic, established in 1958. Macron received 58.5% of the vote, compared to 41.5% for Le Pen (Al-Dahlaki, 2022).
In this regard, we refer to the accusation leveled by President Emmanuel Macron against Marine Le Pen during the televised debate ahead of the 2017 presidential elections, when he accused her of “financial subservience and dependence on Putin’s broader project, and submission to values that are not our own.” This allegation stemmed from a loan Le Pen obtained from the First Czech-Russian Bank, which she denied (Vie Publique, 2017). The National Rally party also reportedly received a loan of eight million euros from Laurent Foucher, a French businessman with investments in the Republic of Congo. These funds were channeled through the UAE-based financial company Noor Capital and deposited into the party’s accounts at the end of June 2017, shortly before being transferred to Le Pen’s presidential campaign account (Laske & Turchi, 2019).
It is also worth noting that French prosecutors questioned billionaire Pierre-Édouard Stérin in June 2024 as part of an ongoing investigation into campaign finance violations linked to the National Rally. According to the Marseille prosecutor’s office, the inquiry concerns loans totaling 1.8 million euros granted to several party candidates for the 2020 municipal and 2021 regional elections, including in major cities such as Lyon and Nice. In parallel, the European Public Prosecutor’s Office has opened an investigation into alleged misuse of funds by the now-defunct Identity and Democracy group in the European Parliament, of which the National Rally was a member (Goury-Laffont & Solletty, 2025).
It is also worth noting that French prosecutors questioned a French billionaire in June 2024 who was allegedly seeking to use his wealth to promote a radical liberal and anti-immigrant agenda, as part of an ongoing investigation into campaign finance violations involving the National Rally party. The Marseille prosecutor’s office stated that it had questioned Pierre-Edouard Sterin, a media mogul who made his first millions with the gift card company Smartbox.
The questioning formed part of an investigation into loans totaling 1.8 million euros granted to several National Rally candidates to finance campaigns in the 2020 municipal and 2021 regional elections, including in major cities such as Lyon and Nice. In parallel, the European Public Prosecutor’s Office has launched an investigation into alleged misuse of funds by the now-defunct Identity and Democracy group in the European Parliament, of which the National Rally was a member (Goury-Laffont & Solletty, 2025).
Details of the European Funds Embezzlement Case
In a French court ruling considered by political and media circles to be a political earthquake with far-reaching repercussions on the French political scene, and potentially even at the European Union level, the French judiciary issued a verdict convicting Marine Le Pen of embezzling public funds. The court also ruled to disqualify her from running for office, with the sentence to be carried out immediately. Alongside Le Pen, the Paris court convicted eight other members of the European Parliament from her party in connection with the same case. As a result, Le Pen will, most probably, be unable to run in the upcoming presidential elections. The court estimated the total damage at €2.9 million, as the European Parliament was charged with the costs of individuals who were effectively working for the far-right party. Although her seat in the French parliament will not be threatened, Marine Le Pen may be barred from running in the 2027 presidential election. This follows the confirmation of her political disqualification, which will be enforced immediately (Le Monde, 2025).
Le Pen’s National Rally received money from the European Parliament for parliamentary assistants who were working either partially or wholly in favor of the party. These allegations, relating to the years 2004 to 2016, have haunted Marine Le Pen and her party for years. The total number of defendants in the case is 28. The amount of money involved is approximately €7 million ($7.3 million). Le Pen repaid €330,000 to the European Parliament in 2023; however, her party insisted that this was not an admission of wrongdoing.
A conviction for Le Pen would have serious consequences. The prosecutor requested a five-year ban from holding public office if she were found guilty, which would effectively end her hopes of running again in the 2027 presidential election. The prosecution also called for the sentence to be applied immediately, not only after a legally binding ruling from a higher court. The investigation into the case began in 2015, involving the National Rally’s head of personnel along with 24 other members, and extended to contracts for political aides between 2004 and 2016. It also included figures such as an assistant and a secretary of Marine Le Pen who received their salaries from recruitment bonuses under false and fabricated pretexts (Eremnews, 2025).
As part of the campaign targeting the National Rally, on July 9, 2025, French authorities raided the headquarters of the National Rally as part of a major investigation into whether the party violated campaign finance laws during the last election. Prosecutors said the investigation, which began the previous year, is examining whether the party partially financed its campaigns through illegal loans between January 1, 2020, and July 12, 2024.
Party leader Jordan Bardella confirmed this on platform X, stating that the National Rally headquarters, “including the offices of its leaders,” had been searched. Bardella described the raids as “unprecedented” and “a serious attack on pluralism,” although several other party headquarters in France have been raided in recent years, including those of the center-right Republicans and the far-left France Unbowed. He added that “emails, documents, and accounting records belonging to the party” were confiscated, and later claimed in a subsequent post on X that the investigations were based on “a vague, undefined criminal offense” and were politically motivated (Jory-Lafont, 2025).
Echoes and Reactions to the Court’s Decision
Reactions to the French court’s decision varied and were marked by a clear division between those who supported and endorsed the ruling and those who condemned and rejected it, describing it as political targeting aimed at preventing Marine Le Pen from running in the 2027 presidential elections. This division was not confined to the French political and media scene but extended to differing positions among far-right leaders in Europe and the United States, as well as the Russian stance on the matter. We will review these positions as follows:
The Positions of Marine Le Pen and the National Rally
Marine Le Pen appeared in a television interview hours after the verdict, during which she commented on the ruling. Speaking on TF1, she demanded a swift appeal hearing and affirmed that she would not retire from politics, describing the verdict against her as a “political decision.” “I will not allow myself to be eliminated in this way,” she declared, referring to practices she believed were “the preserve of authoritarian regimes.” In a hearing before the National Assembly the following day, she asserted that the judiciary had used a “nuclear bomb” to prevent her from winning the 2027 presidential election.
Jordan Bardella, the leader of the National Rally and a potential replacement for Le Pen in the 2027 presidential election, said the court had “sentenced French democracy to death.” Bardella called for popular protests, stating, “Through our peaceful mobilization, let us show them that the will of the people is stronger.”
The Positions of French Political Actors
Regarding political actors’ positions on the ruling, they were varied and divided between those who considered it a purely judicial decision and others who viewed it as an unprecedented political targeting of a political figure. Sources close to the right-wing French Prime Minister Francois Bayrou reported that he expressed his “displeasure” with the ruling, although his entourage added that he does not intend to comment publicly on the court’s decision. Bayrou had previously been tried for defrauding European Parliament assistants, who were suspected of actually working for the MoDem party, and was acquitted in February 2024.
Former French President Francois Hollande stated that the “only response” to the condemnation of Marine Le Pen was “to respect the independence of the judiciary,” adding that “it is unacceptable in a democratic system to attack judges and the court.” Following Le Pen’s conviction, the Socialist Party issued a press release calling for “respect for the independence of the judiciary and the rule of law” (Henley, 2025).
Jean-Luc Melenchon, leader of the far-left France Unbowed party, stated in a television interview following Marine Le Pen’s conviction: “The decision to dismiss an elected official should be in the hands of the people” (Le Monde, 2025).
External Reactions and Positions
Several leaders and heads of far-right parties in the European Union and the United States have expressed anger and condemnation over the French court’s decision, describing the ruling as politically motivated and personally targeting Marine Le Pen. In any case, the sympathetic and supportive reactions toward Le Pen are likely to remain limited to media appearances, social media posts, and press conferences. Among these reactions are:
Leaders of far-right European parties have declared their support for Marine Le Pen, including Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who expressed his solidarity by writing “Je suis Marine!” on platform X. Geert Wilders, leader of the Dutch far-right Party for Freedom (PVV), also expressed his shock at what he described as an extremely harsh sentence (Le Point, 2025). Meanwhile, Matteo Salvini, leader of the far-right League party and Italy’s deputy prime minister, considered the ruling a declaration of war from Brussels and a conspiracy by leaders of EU institutions, stating that “the exclusion of individuals from the political process is particularly troubling in light of the aggressive and corrupt legal battle being waged against President Donald Trump.”
In the United States, billionaire Elon Musk said that the decision to prevent Marine Le Pen from running “will backfire,”adding: “When the radical left cannot win through democratic voting, it uses the judicial system to imprison its opponents. This is how it operates all over the world.”
As for the Russian position, it was reflected in a statement expressing regret over what was described as a violation of democratic standards. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov stated that a growing number of European capitals are moving toward “a violation of democratic standards,” while also describing the ruling as a French internal matter (Mediapart, 2025).
Strategic Options for Marine Le Pen and the National Rally
Marine Le Pen announced that she would not give up and would appeal the decision, while working to garner support from her followers and political forces opposed to the ruling. Simultaneously, she planned a media campaign and public mobilization to pressure the judiciary to reverse its decision. Le Pen reiterated this in her address to the French National Assembly, stating that the French people would not accept the verdict. Indeed, her party organized demonstrations in several French cities.
A potential appeal to the Court of Cassation could be decided within six months. With the presidential elections approaching in mid-April 2027, approximately five to six months would remain. However, the chances of overturning the verdict before the presidential elections are slim. Le Pen’s problem lies in the fact that there is no real guarantee that the Court of Appeal will reach a different conclusion than the lower court. However, theoretically, there are three possible outcomes:
The first option is acquittal on appeal. However, given the well-documented nature of the system in question, achieving this outcome would be difficult. The second, and more plausible, option is that the appeals court reduces the period of ineligibility to one and a half or two years. Since this period would run from the date of the lower court’s decision, it could expire in time for her to meet the eligibility requirements for candidacy. The third option is that the lower court’s ruling is upheld—the likelihood of the appeals judges refraining from imposing ineligibility is low, as, under existing jurisprudence, disqualification from holding office is typically imposed in similar cases (Schmitt-Leonard, 2025).
The Paris Court of Appeal confirmed that it had received three appeals against the decision issued by the Paris Court of Justice and stated that it would examine the case “within a timeframe that allows for a decision in the summer of 2026.” If these deadlines are met, the decision will therefore be issued several months before the 2027 presidential election. The party’s lawyer also announced that he had filed an appeal on behalf of the party and its former treasurer (Wallerand de Saint-Just, 2025).
The Impact of the Decision on Le Pen’s Popularity and Presidential Prospects
Following the French court ruling, there is a possibility of increased public support for the party in the short term. This is because what occurred aligns closely with the National Rally’s narrative that the populist right is a victim of “the system.” It is likely that many of those who voted for the party do not seriously blame Marine Le Pen for the illegal funding of her party with money from the European Parliament, for which she was convicted. It is widely perceived that many French political parties have, at times, resorted to similar practices.
Similarly, her “harsh” punishment—the ban on running for president—may be interpreted as a badge of honor, reinforcing the idea that she is the only one standing up to the establishment. In the long run, however, this level of support may diminish, especially if Marine Le Pen fails to prove her innocence (Schofield, 2025).
The results of polls conducted by various media outlets and polling centers regarding Marine Le Pen’s popularity and chances of running for president varied as follows:
Marine Le Pen tops the list of political figures with whom the French feel the most sympathy, with an approval rating of 37%, according to an Odoxa poll conducted by the Mascaret Institute for the Senate and the regional press. A majority of the French do not believe she received special legal treatment: 53% felt she was treated “like any other person subject to the law,” according to the same poll.
Around 24% of the French (and 25% of National Rally supporters) even view the situation as an opportunity for the party, as it could allow it to turn the page on Le Pen. In this context, Jordan Bardella has entered the race for the Élysée Palace. The young MEP also surpasses Le Pen in popularity: 31% of the French prefer him to Marine Le Pen, a figure that rises to 60% among National Rally supporters.
Nearly one in two French people (49%), a 7-point increase in one month, want Marine Le Pen to be a candidate in the next presidential election, according to a poll conducted by Ifop-Fiducial for Sud Radio. On the other hand, 51% of French people said they do not want the National Rally leader to be able to run for the Élysée Palace, a result that has dropped by 7 points compared to a previous survey conducted at the end of February 2025.
However, according to the same poll, only 37% of French people believe that Marine Le Pen will ultimately be a candidate, a figure that has fallen by approximately 37 points in one month. Only supporters of the Republicans (69%) believe their candidate will be competitive. An overwhelming majority of respondents (79%) consider Marine Le Pen to be far-right, including 76% of supporters of the Republican Party. The poll was conducted via an online self-administered questionnaire among a sample of 1,000 people representative of the French population aged 18 and over (quota sampling method), with a margin of error between 2.8 and 3.1 points (RTBF, 2025).
A poll conducted by the Ifop-Opinion polling institute in early April 2025 predicted that Marine Le Pen, the long-time leader of the French far right, would garner up to 37% of the vote in the 2027 presidential election—more than 22 points higher than in 2022 and 10 points ahead of any other candidate. Frédéric Dabi, the institute’s president, stated that “the page has certainly been turned.” The poll was widely interpreted as confirmation of Le Pen’s successful rebranding strategy in her effort to normalize the far right (Al Jazeera, 2025).
Conclusion
The French court’s decision against Marine Le Pen was a legal and political blow. However, it did not weaken her influence or undermine the credibility of her party. Instead, the trial became a platform for Le Pen to reaffirm her political narrative. Despite the legal condemnation and moral tarnishing, the National Rally maintained its political relevance by framing the verdict as an act of political persecution, and Marine Le Pen proved resilient in the face of public opinion. This resilience is rooted in a post-truth populist strategy that prioritizes narrative over norms and emotional appeal over factual reality. It has been particularly evident among her supporters, who view the ruling as a symbol of political oppression and an attempt to preempt the 2027 election.
If the French judiciary fails to overturn the appeal and instead upholds the verdict against Marine Le Pen, the options available to the National Rally—and its margin for maneuver to remain politically competitive and enhance its candidate’s prospects in the presidential elections—will, in our estimation, be reduced to one of two:
The first option is to nominate Jordan Bardella, the current party leader. Being young, he could help attract younger voters, and the party may present him as a model of youth leadership. He has already played a significant role in increasing support among younger voters in France; within two years, the percentage of 18- to 24-year-olds who voted for the National Rally in parliamentary elections doubled. However, this option may carry risks for the party, given Bardella’s limited political experience and relatively less developed debating and public speaking skills. He may require time and effort to reach the level of Marine Le Pen. At the same time, he holds somewhat different positions on key issues, such as immigration, where he is more hardline, while in economic policy he appears more liberal and supportive of a laissez-faire approach.
The second option is to nominate Marion Marechal, Marine Le Pen’s niece. She left the party a few years ago to join the far-right party led by Eric Zemmour, from which she has recently separated, and she enjoys considerable acceptance and popularity among the party’s voters.
The case of Marine Le Pen and her party members is not merely a corruption case being examined by the judiciary; it is a test of the ability of European institutions and judicial authorities to confront populist rhetoric that thrives on mobilizing the public and fostering an atmosphere of distrust. It is not simply a matter of reframing a single political figure’s conviction as a form of persecution; rather, it is a case study of how the legal process can be transformed into an arena of competing realities shaped by partisan political struggles.
At its core, this case reveals a deeper tension between practical accountability and symbolic politics, and represents a new chapter in the struggle between moderate and more radical forms of populism.
(*) Dr. Emad Salah Al-Sheikh Daoud is a Professor of Public Policy and Sustainable Development, College of Political Science, Al-Nahrain University.
References
Al-Dahlaki, Khudhair. (2022). Analysis of the speeches of the French presidential candidates after the announcement of the results. https://www.bayancenter.org/2022/04/8397 /
Al-Dahlaki, Khudhair. (2024). The European Populist Right: Vision, Role and Influence. Dar Al-Shamel for Publishing and Distribution, Ramallah, 1st Edition.
François, Stephane. (2014). “Recent developments in the French far right, The Far Right in Europe.” European Summer University for Social Movements, Rosa Luxburg Stiftung Brussels Office.
Ivaldi, Gilles & Maria Elisabetta. (2016). The French National Front: Organizational Change and Understanding Populist Party Organization the Radical Right in Western Europe, Adaptation from Jean-Marie to Marine Le Pen,Macmillan Publishers Ltd. London.
Schmitt-Leonard, Charlotte. (2025). “Dictatorship of the Court vs. Will of the people? Marine Le Pen’s Embezzlement Conviction.” Verfassungsblog. April 7, 2025. https://verfassungsblog.de/marine-len-pen-verdict/
Schofield, Hugh. (2025). “Comment l’extrême droite française se présente-t-elle après la condamnation de Marine Le Pen (et qui peut la remplacer en tant que candidate à l’élection présidentielle)?” BBC News Afrique. April 2, 2025. https://www.bbc.com/afrique/articles/cvgq3rrgjzvo
Shields, JG. (2007). The Extreme Right in French from Petian to Le Pen, Routledge, London and New York.
Professor Jean-Yves Camus, a leading scholar of the far right and researcher at the Observatory of Political Radicalities at the Jean Jaurès Foundation in Paris, argues that France’s 2026 municipal elections revealed more than the continued advance of the National Rally (RN): they exposed a deeper reconfiguration of the French right. In this interview with ECPS, Professor Camus shows how the RN’s local gains—57 municipalities and over 3,000 council seats—coexist with persistent weakness in major metropolitan centers. More importantly, he underscores that “the boundary between the mainstream and the radical right is blurring locally,” particularly where segments of Les Républicains and RN voters increasingly converge. The interview offers a nuanced account of electoral realignment, selective republican resistance, and the uncertain road to 2027.
Giving an interview to the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS), Professor Jean-Yves Camus, a researcher at the Observatory of Political Radicalities at the Jean Jaurès Foundation in Paris, underscores that France’s 2026 municipal elections reveal not only the continued advance of the National Rally / Rassemblement National (RN) but, more importantly, a gradual reconfiguration of the right in which the lines separating mainstream conservatism and radical populism are increasingly porous at the local level.
Reflecting on what he calls a “mixed bag” outcome, Professor Camus notes that the RN has achieved “a substantial gain” by winning 57 municipalities and securing over 3,000 council seats, yet “failed in all major cities and metropolises.” This dual pattern—territorial expansion alongside persistent urban resistance—captures the paradox at the heart of contemporary French politics. While the party has consolidated its presence in “small and medium-sized cities”and in economically distressed regions such as Pas-de-Calais and Moselle, it continues to face structural limits in gentrified metropolitan centers like Paris, where “the extreme right is very weak for obvious sociological reasons.”
Yet, the most consequential development, as Professor Camus emphasizes, lies not simply in where the RN wins or loses, but in how it increasingly interacts with the broader right-wing ecosystem. In several regions, particularly along the Mediterranean corridor, “the core voters of the Conservatives… are very close to voters of the National Rally,”facilitating patterns of vote transfer and informal cooperation. This dynamic signals a shift from the once rigid cordon sanitaire toward what Professor Camus describes as a more “selective” Republican front, contingent on local contexts and strategic calculations.
The significance of Éric Ciotti’s victory in Nice further illustrates this transformation. While rooted in the city’s longstanding conservative and post-colonial sociological profile, the result also points to a deeper convergence: “locally… the Republicans and the National Rally have platforms that are very similar.” In this sense, Ciotti’s ascent functions as both a local phenomenon and a symbolic “vitrine,” enabling the RN to present itself as part of a broader conservative continuum rather than an isolated extremist force.
At the national level, however, this convergence remains contested. Professor Camus highlights an unresolved strategic dilemma within Les Républicains, torn between maintaining ideological autonomy and pursuing alignment with the RN. As he cautions, any such coalition would likely be asymmetrical: “the dynamic is on the side of the National Rally… the agenda will be set by the National Rally.”
Taken together, the interview suggests that France is not witnessing a straightforward normalization of the far right, but rather a more complex process of political recomposition. The RN’s rise is embedded in enduring socioeconomic grievances and cultural anxieties, yet its ultimate trajectory will depend on whether the boundaries that once separated it from the mainstream right continue to erode—or are strategically reasserted—in the run-up to 2027.
Here is the edited version of our interview with Professor Jean-Yves Camus, revised slightly to improve clarity and flow.
The RN Has Expanded Locally, but Still Hits a Metropolitan Ceiling
Cyclists and pedestrians take over the Champs-Élysées during Paris Car-Free Day, filling the iconic avenue from the Louvre to the Arc de Triomphe under a clear sky. Photo: Dreamstime.
Professor Jean-Yves Camus, welcome, and let me start right away with the first question: The 2026 municipal elections seem to have produced a paradoxical outcome: the National Rally / Rassemblement National (RN) expanded its local footprint yet failed to secure the kind of major urban victories that would have symbolized full normalization. How should we interpret this mixed result—does it confirm the RN’s structural implantation, or does it reveal enduring sociological and territorial ceilings?
Professor Jean-Yves Camus: You’re right to say that the outcome of this election is very much a mixed bag for the Rassemblement National (RN). On the one hand, they significantly increased the number of seats they gained on city councils—up to more than 3,000. They won 57 cities, which is, of course, a substantial gain compared to the 13 cities they secured in 2020. But they failed in all major cities and metropolises, with very significant losses. They expected to win Toulon and secured 42% in the first round, but ultimately did not win. Due to a consolidation of votes against the National Rally, they were also expected to seize Marseille but did not. Paris remains a territory where the extreme right is very weak, for obvious sociological reasons. It is a gentrified city, which is largely alien to the ideology of the party. So, the cities they seized are small and medium-sized. The largest is Perpignan, which they retained in the first round with just over 50%, but this is the only city with more than 100,000 inhabitants that will be in the hands of the Rassemblement National.
So, I would say there is still significant progress to be made. In view of the presidential election, winning 57 cities is a notable achievement, but when it comes to the presidency, you need votes from the main metropolises. It remains to be seen whether, in a presidential contest, the outcome will be more favorable for the party. Let us remember that city council elections are based on proportional representation, which is not the case for presidential elections. These are local votes that rely heavily on the personality of the candidate for mayor, making this a very different mode of voting, with distinct patterns. Most voters in city council elections focus on very local issues, whereas presidential elections operate on an entirely different level.
What I take from this vote is that the party has expanded its reach to many small cities where it already had a number of strongholds. For example, in the département du Pas-de-Calais, one of the former industrial areas in northern France, they were highly successful and captured more than 10 small cities with populations between 3,000 and 10,000—a significant gain. On the other hand, if you look at a department with a similar sociological profile just north of Pas-de-Calais—the département du Nord, at the border with Belgium—they did not seize any towns, contrary to expectations. This suggests that electoral success depends heavily on how well the local branches of the party are organized, the quality and performance of the candidates, and whether there is genuine local momentum.
They also performed very well in the former industrial area of Lorraine, particularly in the département of Moselle, which borders Belgium, Luxembourg, and Germany. These are areas where unemployment remains high, where we see multiple generations struggling with long-term economic insecurity, and where many people face difficulties maintaining stable and adequately paid employment. Unsurprisingly, the party performs strongly there. They also did well in the Mediterranean belt, from Perpignan at the Spanish border to Menton at the Italian border—an area where the party has long enjoyed support. However, despite failing to win Toulon or Marseille, they made a very significant gain in Nice, a major city with international appeal.
That said, it was not the Rassemblement National itself that won Nice. Rather, it was a smaller party, Les Républicains, led by Éric Ciotti, now the mayor of Nice, who identifies as a Gaullist and is working toward uniting the right ahead of 2027.
Populism in France Is Deeply Rooted, Not a Temporary Surge
You have long argued that right-wing populist parties must be understood through their specific national histories rather than as a perfectly homogeneous European bloc. In the French case, what do these local election results tell us about the specifically French configuration of populism, nationalism, and anti-elite politics in 2026?
Professor Jean-Yves Camus: This situation tells us, first of all, that in most cases the Rassemblement National is still unable to build a coalition with the mainstream conservative right. In many cities, Les Républicains, the mainstream conservatives, remain strong. I think the main outcome of this election is that both Les Républicains on the right and the Socialist Party—the Social Democrats on the left—retain most of their strongholds. They are still the most important and relevant parties at the local level.
The National Rally has two options. The first is that of Marine Le Pen, who said after the vote: “My party is neither left nor right. I want to call on all people, regardless of their political affiliation, to vote for us in 2027. So, not left, not right.” The second option is that of Jordan Bardella, the new president and chairman of the party, who argues that, if they want to win in 2027, they must work toward a coalition of the right. But this coalition of the right is still very much contested from within among mainstream conservatives. Some of them, like Xavier Bertrand, chairman of the northern region of France, or Valérie Pécresse, chairperson of the Île-de-France region, argue that if they ally with the National Rally solely to defeat the left, they will probably lose their specificity. If they enter into a coalition with the National Rally, the policies of the National Rally will prevail, and they will not be able to act as the driving force in recovery.
That is a very wise analysis of the situation. If the conservative right enters into a coalition with the National Rally, the dynamic is on the side of the National Rally. Politically, the agenda will be set by the National Rally—by Le Pen or Bardella—and the conservatives will become a second-ranked partner in the coalition.
Another specificity of France is that it has a populist far-right party that has been above the 10% mark since 1984—over 40 years. Contrary to what many analysts have suggested, this is not a short-term political phenomenon. It is a structural part of political life, both at the local and national levels.
This also means that the French right, which until the 1980s had been divided between a liberal wing and a conservative wing, is now divided into three segments: a liberal, center-right one; a mainstream conservative one; and an identitarian, populist, anti-EU family. This is a major challenge.
Finally, there were elections in Denmark yesterday (March 24, 2026), and the outgoing Prime Minister, Mette Frederiksen, stated in her acceptance speech that there is a broad consensus on restricting immigration policy in Denmark, which is true. This consensus ranges from the Social Democrats to right-wing populists. In France, however, this is not the case. Immigration and asylum policies remain highly contentious issues, and there is no way the Socialist Party—the Social Democrats—can find common ground even with the mainstream conservative right. Restricting immigration and limiting the rights of asylum seekers is still associated with a small segment of the right wing of the Conservative Party, within Éric Zemmour’s party, which does not perform very well at the local level. Yet this remains central to the ideology of the National Rally. Any coalition, any cohesion of the right for 2027 will therefore have to confront these policy differences on immigration. No agreement, no coordination.
Marine and Jean-Marie Le Pen rallied during the meeting for the celebration of May 1, 2011 in Paris, France. Photo: Frederic Legrand
Blocking the RN Remains Possible, but No Longer Automatic
Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella framed the elections as evidence of a historic breakthrough, yet the two-round system once again appeared capable of blocking the far right in key urban contests. Does the municipal vote suggest that the so-called “Republican Front” is weakened, resilient, or merely transforming into more selective and local forms?
Professor Jean-Yves Camus: The so-called Republican front has become more selective. Obviously, in the southern part of the country, from Perpignan to Menton, the fan base—the core voters of the Conservative Party, the Republicans—are very close to voters of the National Rally. So they tend to transfer their votes to National Rally candidates in the second ballot because they share common ideas: mostly rejection of the left, even when it is moderate, a desire to curb immigration, and a very strong stance against what they call Islamic fundamentalism. Sometimes, the distinction between fighting Islamism and opposing Islam and Muslim immigrants becomes blurred. So, there is considerable cooperation at both the membership level and among voters between the Republicans and the National Rally.
In other cases, such as Toulon, it seems—although it is still too early to say definitively—that one of the reasons why the National Rally did not win is that the local bourgeoisie and business community had concerns about what the city would look like under National Rally governance. This is a very local situation. Toulon was won by the Front National in 1995, and the way the city was governed at the time was widely regarded as dreadful. It was a total failure, both economically and administratively. There may still be lingering negative memories from that period. You must remember that this whole area of France is heavily dependent on foreign investment and tourism, including mass tourism, with foreigners building and buying homes and condominiums, sometimes for retirement and sometimes for vacation. In such a context, how the city is perceived by outsiders—especially from other countries—is extremely important. I believe that the Rassemblement National is still not seen by these foreign investors as a fully normalized party. There remains a fear of what it might do, a fear of the future, and uncertainty about how things would look under its rule.
But this is only one example; Toulon is a very specific case. In Marseille, it was a completely different story. First of all, turnout was much higher in the second round than in the first. Secondly, the candidate from the radical left chose to withdraw, and it appears that a significant portion of his voter base supported the Socialist Party candidate in the second ballot, thereby limiting the National Rally’s chances of winning. This is particularly interesting because voters from the far left seem to have backed the Socialist candidate, despite Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the leader of the radical left La France Insoumise, being highly critical of the Socialist Party.
It, therefore, appears that left-wing voters still seek to block the National Rally from winning their cities. They may not like the Socialist Party—they may view it as too moderate, too pro-business, too pro–free market, and too strict on immigration—but when faced with a choice between the National Rally and the left, they ultimately vote for the left.
There is, therefore, still a possibility that in 2027, if Jordan Bardella or Marine Le Pen reach the second round, some form of Republican front will re-emerge to block the National Rally from winning the presidency. Why? Because Marine Le Pen remains associated with an embezzlement case involving funds from the European Parliament, and she is expected to stand trial next June. Jordan Bardella, meanwhile, is a 32-year-old, relatively inexperienced politician who has never been a mayor or a member of the National Assembly. He is a Member of the European Parliament but has never served in the National Assembly.
France still sees itself as one of the world’s major powers. It possesses nuclear weapons and plays a role in numerous international negotiations, as seen in both the Ukraine conflict and the Iran–Israel–United States tensions. Many French people may therefore feel that it is somewhat unwise to entrust such responsibility to someone who, while undoubtedly capable, lacks the necessary experience.
In 2017, France elected the youngest president in its history—Emmanuel Macron—who was only 39. By the end of Macron’s second term, many French citizens may feel that he lacked sufficient experience, as he had not been a Member of Parliament and had only briefly served as a minister. He may be seen as one of those figures from the higher administrative elite with limited experience at the grassroots level—someone who had never previously been elected—and that this, in hindsight, may have been a mistake.
Ciotti’s Victory Signals Convergence Between Republicans and the RN
How significant was Éric Ciotti’s victory in Nice for the broader right-wing ecosystem? Should we read it as an isolated local triumph shaped by personal rivalry, or as a more durable sign that the boundary between the mainstream right and the Le Pen camp is continuing to erode?
Professor Jean-Yves Camus: There are two different things here. The first is the Nice election, with Éric Ciotti winning over Christian Estrosi, who had the backing of the center-right and President Macron. And then there is what it represents at the national level.
Nice has always been a very peculiar city. Back in the 1970s and 1980s, the mayor was Jacques Médecin, who was officially a center-right member of the government but was very close to the local extreme right, even before the Front National was founded in 1972. This has traditionally been a stronghold of the arch-conservative right. That was the situation before World War II, and it remained so afterward. The Gaullist movement was never very strong, especially after 1962, when Algeria was granted independence. A large number of what we call repatriés—repatriated people—settled in the area, and they were strongly opposed to de Gaulle for obvious reasons. They were also very right-wing, particularly on the issue of immigration and the Muslim population. That remains an issue to this day.
In addition, Christian Estrosi performed very poorly. You have probably heard about the many controversies that emerged during the campaign, and there are ongoing inquiries into some of them. So he is partly responsible for his own failure.
So, the election of Éric Ciotti aligns very well with the sociology of this city and with expectations for change. It also reflects the fact that, locally, between Nice and Menton, the Republicans and the National Rally have platforms that are very similar, or at least very close to each other.
At the national level, Ciotti’s party is, in a way, a Gaullist formation. Marine Le Pen and Bardella also refer to General de Gaulle when it comes to the idea of France being independent, both from the United States and from other powers. They claim to be Gaullist in their approach to relations with the European Union and in their economic policy, emphasizing a return to strong industry, and so on.
This movement, when it was launched as a splinter group from the Republicans, was both a personal project of Éric Ciotti—he wanted to achieve something he felt he could not achieve within the Republicans—and a reflection of a broader trend within the Gaullist movement to drift toward a more right-wing stance on immigration and on relations with, especially, Muslim immigration.
This group has captured several cities, such as Montauban, Vierzon, and Sablé-sur-Sarthe. These are medium-sized cities. It can serve as what we call in French a vitrine—a kind of showcase demonstrating that there is an ally which is, in fact, part of the mainstream conservative right and not burdened by the controversies that have surrounded the history of the National Front and the National Rally. So Marine Le Pen and Bardella can say: look, we have mayors from a Gaullist party, which shows that we do not belong to the extreme right. We are simply the real conservative right, while the Republicans are no longer truly conservative because they have governed alongside Macron’s ministers and are, ideologically, closer to the center-left than to traditional right-wing ideas.
Republicans Remain Strong Locally but Divided Nationally
Éric Zemmour’s election campaign, meeting in Cannes,France on January 22, 2022. Photo: Macri Roland.
At the same time, Les Républicains retained or regained a number of municipalities. Do these results indicate that the traditional right still possesses a meaningful territorial base independent of the RN, or is it increasingly being forced into a strategic choice between centrism and nationalist realignment?
Professor Jean-Yves Camus: Les Républicains retain a significant base at the local level. The controversy within the Republicans concerns the presidential contest.What we have seen after the city council vote is two leaders from the Republicans, Laurent Wauquiez and Bruno Retailleau, expressing opposing views regarding the presidential election. One explanation is that both of them are, in fact, candidates for the presidency. Retailleau argues that if they retain traditional conservative ideology, and perhaps go a little further on the issue of immigration, they can still win the presidency. Wauquiez, by contrast, argues that if they remain alone as Les Républicains, they will not succeed.
So, he suggests that they already have much in common with the National Rally. What, then, are the differences between them? On this basis, he proposes organizing a primary among all right-wing candidates, from Édouard Philippe on the center-right to the National Rally, to Zemmour’s party and its candidate, who will obviously be Sarah Knafo. They would then rally behind whoever wins the primary election.
Retailleau, however, rejects this approach outright. In other words, he insists that they have nothing in common with Zemmour’s party. So, why hold a primary contest with actors who do not share the same platform and ideology?
In other words, part of the center-right does not want to become hostage to the most right-wing parties in the country, especially since Zemmour’s party stands to the right of the National Rally. Zemmour’s party promotes the idea of the “Great Replacement.” It also advances the view that Islam is not compatible with French citizenship and supports the idea of “remigration,” that is, the compulsory return of all non-European immigrants. This is, therefore, a completely different ideological framework.
My view is that this controversy will continue for many months to come, especially since we do not yet know who the National Rally’s candidate will be. As I mentioned earlier, Marine Le Pen will stand trial on appeal next June, and the outcome will be known then. She may be disqualified from running. If that happens, Bardella will carry the colors of the National Rally. This means that, for the time being, the National Rally faces some difficulty in entering the pre-campaign phase, and this gives the Republicans time to take advantage of the situation and clarify their strategy.
Perceived Cultural Loss, Not Just Reality, Drives RN Support
Muslims demonstrating against Islamophobia outside the Grande Mosquée de Paris, France. Photo: Tom Craig.
Your previous work has emphasized the role of cultural insecurity, as well as socioeconomic dislocation, in shaping support for the populist right. Did these local elections confirm that diagnosis, especially in provincial France and smaller towns where the RN performed more strongly than in metropolitan centers?
Professor Jean-Yves Camus: It is absolutely true. When we look at the map of the cities won by the National Rally, what we see are many small and medium-sized cities where there is a strong feeling of cultural loss—a perception that there is more immigration, more mosques being built, and more immigrants and refugees arriving. Many people feel very uneasy about this. It is a perception of insecurity, even in cases where there is no actual crime or insecurity. That is very important to understand.
It is not because you live in a safe city that you do not believe immigration is increasing—10, 20, or even 50 kilometers away in a larger city—and that sooner or later immigrants will come to your own town and change its cultural history, what you consider necessary to be truly French, and what you think is required to live in your community.
I think we still have a problem with immigration from former French colonies, whether from North Africa or West Africa. It is as if we have not fully come to terms with our colonial past, and with the fact that we not only accepted these immigrants but actively encouraged them to come. Large industries and major business interests brought them to this country. So, they deserve recognition for what they contributed and for the role they played in building the country’s industrial base. Yet, they remain disadvantaged, and racism and xenophobia persist.
On the other hand, among native French people—those whose families have lived in the country for generations—especially in today’s unstable international context, there is a growing perception of a clash of civilizations between the West and the Muslim world. This perception plays an important role, particularly along the Mediterranean coast, in shaping support for the National Rally.
The social situation is also very important. As I mentioned earlier, in many parts of France, these areas have been deindustrialized since the late 1970s, and there is no realistic prospect that these jobs will return. You may recall that President Trump, during his campaign in Pittsburgh, told steelworkers that their jobs would come back—but they did not. The same is true in northern France: industrial jobs will not return.
In other words, people feel they have no future, no new forms of employment or specialization for younger generations. There is a strong sense of dispossession, alienation, and abandonment. In some small towns, public services are also disappearing. Public services include the post office, the local school, the railway station—everything that signals the presence of the state. This also includes the presence of police or access to hospitals. Many hospitals have been closing in this country, and when people have to travel an hour to reach emergency care, they understandably feel that the state is no longer taking care of them. So, a protest vote in favor of the National Rally emerges in this context.
Major Cities Favor Stability Over Populist Alternatives
Conversely, how do you explain the RN’s continuing difficulty in major cities? Is this primarily a matter of candidate quality, urban demography, coalition arithmetic, class composition, or the party’s still-incomplete process of dédiabolisation?
Professor Jean-Yves Camus: In major cities, you have to remember that most of them, including Paris, have become gentrified. A gentrified city means a high proportion of people with higher education, better-paid jobs, and incomes above the average wage. There is also a tendency to reject extremes and to seek stability.
If you look at cities like Marseille, Paris, Lille, Strasbourg, and so on, there is also a significant share of the population that comes from an immigrant background and who, obviously, do not want to vote for the National Rally. So the conditions are in place to prevent the National Rally from winning in the largest cities, such as Lyon, Paris, and Marseille.
This is not the case in small or medium-sized cities. There, the population is different, often with incomes below the average and facing many difficulties, including in rural areas where the National Rally has made very significant inroads.
Moreover, the organizational apparatus of the major parties still retains some hold over the electorate in major cities, whereas the electorate in small and medium-sized cities and rural areas is much more volatile.
Municipal Results Do Not Predict Presidential Outcomes
Leaflets featuring candidates for the 2024 legislative elections in Versailles, France, on June 28, 2024. Photo: Dreamstime.
Finally, Professor Camus, do these municipal elections offer any reliable indication for the presidential race ahead? More specifically, do they suggest that France is still heading toward a Le Pen– or Bardella-centered contest, or do they reopen the possibility that broader coalitions of the mainstream left, center, and moderate right could yet alter the expected scenario?
Professor Jean-Yves Camus: First of all, in political science, we know that we cannot infer from city council elections what the outcome of a presidential election will be. These are two very different types of elections, not the same mode of scrutiny, and, of course, a very different context—especially in a country like France, where the presidency is very powerful. We are a semi-presidential system.
Second, I would insist that there is still one year to go until the election. The only thing we know for sure is that Emmanuel Macron is not allowed to seek a third term. As for the other contenders, we know quite a few—especially Édouard Philippe, who retained his mayorship of Le Havre last Sunday and is one of the contenders for the center-right—but there are others, and there are many contenders within the Republican Party. We do not yet know who will be the candidate of the Social Democratic left; there may even be several. The only thing we know for sure is that the candidate of the National Rally will be either Le Pen or Bardella, and we know that the candidate of the radical left will be Jean-Luc Mélenchon. So let us wait until we really know who will stand for president, and then look at the first polls.
What the National Rally expects is a second round between Mélenchon and Bardella. Why? Because opinion surveys show that the dédiabolisation of the National Rally has progressed to such an extent that the radical left is now rejected by a higher proportion of voters than Le Pen or Bardella. This is something we would not have said 10 or even 5 years ago. The rejection level of the radical left is around 60%. Fewer than 50% of French people today say that the National Rally is a threat to democracy—49% still see it as such, but that is no longer a majority. So, the hope of the National Rally is a second round between two candidates from the extremes, which would allow it to win.
On the other hand, what I see emerging is what we call the central bloc—that is, Macron’s majority—playing the card of stability: you do not want to vote for one or another extreme, so let us vote for stability.Maybe you do not agree with everything the center-right has done over the past decade, but if you are faced with the National Rally in the second round, please vote for stability—keeping France a democracy and keeping France within the European Union. This kind of strategy may work.
The only problem is that in 2017 and in 2022, the majority of the French did not vote for Macron because they shared his ideas; they voted for him because they rejected Le Pen. And if, in 2027, we again have to vote for a candidate whose policies we do not truly support, only out of rejection of the National Rally, then I would expect very difficult times. Because voting for a president, at least in the French context, should mean supporting his ideology, his project for the country, what he wants to do, and the kind of legislation he wants to pass. If you vote only to avoid what you perceive as a threat, then democracy is not very solid.
In this interview with the ECPS, Professor Nandini Sundar (Delhi School of Economics, Delhi University) delivers a stark assessment of India’s institutional trajectory under the BJP and its ideological parent, the RSS. Her central claim is unequivocal: “Almost every institution in this country has now collapsed, or has been subverted, in order to further the supremacist agenda.” She situates current developments within the longer history of Hindutva ideology, emphasizing the RSS’s founding goal of a Hindu supremacist state. Professor Sundar argues that a narrative of majoritarian victimhood underpins historical revisionism, institutional capture, and restrictions on academic freedom. She also highlights transnational pressures, noting that a “very active Hindutva diaspora” has targeted scholars abroad, constraining research and debate globally.
In this wide-ranging interview with the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS), Professor Nandini Sundar— Professor of Sociology at the Delhi School of Economics, Delhi University, and one of India’s most prominent sociologists and a leading voice on democracy, violence, and state power—offers a stark assessment of the trajectory of Indian institutions under the rule of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its ideological parent, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). Her central claim is unequivocal: “Almost every institution in this country has now collapsed, or has been subverted, in order to further the supremacist agenda.” Situating contemporary developments within the longer history of Hindutva ideology, Professor Sundar argues that the BJP cannot be understood apart from the RSS, “an unregistered, secretive organization” founded in 1925 “to establish a Hindu supremacist state in which all others would be second-class citizens.”
At the heart of this project, she explains, lies a powerful narrative of majoritarian victimhood. RSS discourse portrays Hindus as historical victims of “800 years of colonialism,” conflating Muslim rule with British imperialism and mobilizing a sense of lost civilizational pride. This paradox—an overwhelming majority imagining itself as dispossessed—underpins a wide array of policies, from historical revisionism to institutional capture. According to Professor Sundar, the claim to represent a wronged majority translates into concrete restrictions on academic freedom through ideological appointments, funding pressures, surveillance, and curricular transformation. Universities, in particular, have been reshaped to ensure that “only our narrative, only our voice, should count,” transforming spaces once associated with pluralism into arenas of political conformity and patronage.
The interview highlights how Hindutva governance operates not only through formal state mechanisms but also through diffuse networks of affiliated organizations and vigilante actors. Student groups such as the ABVP (the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad) and other RSS-linked formations function simultaneously as political mobilizers and instruments of intimidation, embedding campuses within what Professor Sundar calls a broader “ecosystem of vigilantism.” Meanwhile, democratic institutions—from courts to electoral bodies and media regulators—are portrayed as formally intact yet substantively hollowed out, enabling what she describes as the preservation of democratic form alongside the erosion of democratic substance.
Professor Sundar also draws attention to the transnational dimension of these dynamics. A “very active Hindutva diaspora,” she notes, has targeted scholars abroad, orchestrating harassment campaigns and reputational attacks that restrict academic inquiry on India globally. As a result, she warns, it has become “very difficult for anyone working on India to be able to research, write, and think freely, whether inside the country or outside the country.”
Taken together, her analysis presents Hindutva not merely as a domestic political ideology but as a comprehensive project of institutional transformation, cultural redefinition, and epistemic control. By foregrounding the links between majoritarian resentment, institutional subversion, and the policing of knowledge, this interview offers a sobering account of how democratic systems can be repurposed to sustain exclusionary rule while maintaining the appearance of constitutional continuity.
Here is the edited version of our interview with Professor Nandini Sundar, revised slightly to improve clarity and flow.
The BJP Cannot Be Understood Apart from the RSS and Its Supremacist Project
A man chanting songs with a dummy cow in the background during the Golden Jubilee celebration of VHP – a Hindu nationalist organization on December 20, 2014 in Kolkata, India. Photo: Arindam Banerjee.
Professor Nandini Sundar, thank you very much for joining our interview series. Let me start right away with the first question: In your recent work on majoritarian resentment and the inversion of victimhood, how do you conceptualize the BJP’s claim to represent a historically wronged “majority,” and how does that claim translate into concrete restrictions on academic freedom (appointments, funding, policing, curricula)?
Professor Nandini Sundar: The BJP was founded by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), an unregistered, secretive organization that has proliferated into many different fronts—education, labor, and virtually every sector, each with its own affiliated bodies. The BJP is the political wing of the RSS, which was founded exactly 100 years ago, in 1925, to establish a Hindu supremacist state in which all others would be second-class citizens.
If you look at RSS literature, it consistently portrays Hindus as victims suffering from what they call 800 years of colonialism, because they conflate periods of Muslim rule with British colonialism. This reflects a deep sense that India was ruled by Muslim rulers for many centuries and that a lost Hindu pride must now be regained. The past they invoke—often framed as a glorious Vedic age—overlooks the fact that ancient India consisted of many different communities practicing a variety of religions, rather than a unified “Hindu” civilization.
This constructed sense of victimhood, despite Hindus being the overwhelming majority—over 80 percent of the population—translates into efforts to rewrite history, for example by erasing the Mughal period. Yet it is impossible to understand India without considering the Mughal era or the various sultanates that existed from the 12th to the 18th centuries.
It also manifests in demographic anxieties, such as claims that Hindus are being overtaken by Muslims due to allegedly higher Muslim fertility rates—claims that are not supported by empirical evidence, since fertility rates among Muslims have declined sharply and vary across regions. In short, historical narratives, demographic fears, and broader perceptions of victimhood are mobilized together.
As noted, this translates first into historical revisionism. Second, in universities, vacancies have been systematically filled with individuals aligned with their ideology. This is not simply a matter of feeling victimized, because in the past, although the system was not always perfect, there was at least a perception that appointments were based on merit. If their candidates were not selected, it was often due to a lack of scholarly expertise rather than ideological exclusion.
Now, victimhood is invoked to claim that “our people” were neglected while positions were monopolized by the left. In reality, universities have been systematically reshaped to reflect their ideological preferences, and this has also become a source of patronage for their cadre.
Taken together, these developments reveal not only a discourse of victimhood but also a broader assertion of dominance—the belief that they are now the only legitimate force, and that only their narrative and voice should prevail.
Democratic Institutions Have Been Hollowed Out from Within
Indian Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi addressing the Nation on the occasion of 75th Independence Day from the ramparts of Red Fort, in Delhi on August 15, 2021.
In “Inside Modi’s Assault on Academic Freedom,” you trace how formally democratic institutions can be repurposed to discipline dissent. What are the key mechanisms—legal, bureaucratic, and vigilante—through which democratic form is preserved while democratic substance is hollowed out?
Professor Nandini Sundar: Almost every institution in this country has now collapsed, or has been subverted, in order to further the supremacist agenda. If you look at the judiciary—take the Supreme Court, for instance—we have had several BJP chief ministers issuing hate speeches. There was a recent incident involving the chief minister of Assam, which has quite a sizable Muslim minority, putting out a video of him shooting Muslims with a gun, targeting them so that you could see Muslims in the viewfinder being shot at. People took this to the Supreme Court, and the Court refused to intervene, saying that you are only targeting BJP chief ministers, and has basically refused to do anything about hate speech coming from the highest constitutional authorities. If you look at any number of judicial pronouncements in the last decade and a half, they have consistently favored the BJP.
If you look at the Election Commission, which again has been packed with chosen bureaucrats, right now they are conducting a massive exercise across the country to register voters. Historically, everybody who has been living here has been considered a voter, apart from immigrants or others. The onus used to be on the state to find and register voters. Now the onus is on voters to prove that they are citizens of this country and produce birth certificates of their parents, grandparents, their own exam mark sheets, and a whole range of certificates to show that they are indeed genuine citizens. That has led to the disenfranchisement of large numbers—hundreds of thousands of people in each state. For example, about 600,000 in one state. It is just ridiculous, because these are all actual, genuine voters who have not been able to produce the right certificates, often because they are poor, or especially women who migrate. So, you can see that elections, too, are completely controlled by the BJP.
When it comes to the media, if you look at the Modi government’s spending on advertisements, the amount that goes to favored media, and the way that media critical of the government has repeatedly had court cases slapped on them, with independent journalists arrested—every field is under attack. Universities are one major field—higher education in particular, but education more generally—where the BJP and the RSS have been attacking all conventions, all democratic procedures, and installing their own people.
Precarity in Universities Is Undermining Academic Freedom
How do budget cuts, contractualization, and precaritization in higher education function as governance tools—producing compliance not only through ideology, but also through material dependence and career risk?
Professor Nandini Sundar: There’s been a change in the way universities are funded. Many university colleges are being asked to go autonomous, which means that they will be responsible for raising their own funding. This increases fees for students, and at the same time, minority students—say Muslims and Christians who were receiving fellowships—have seen those fellowships cut down. So, there has been a general reduction in student fellowships.
In terms of faculty recruitment, we see that even earlier there were a number of precarious positions—contractual teachers—and that still continues quite widely across private colleges. Precarious teachers, those without fixed contracts, obviously find it hard to be critical of anything that is going on and hard to teach freely. But you also see that now, whenever the precarity issue among teachers has been addressed, those positions have been filled with their own people.
So, in either situation, both among students and among faculty, contractualization and the reduction of fellowships are making it difficult for there to be a strong autonomous voice from students and faculty.
Terror Laws Are Weaponized Against Democratic Protest
Protest against the CAA and NRC at Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Marathwada University (BAMU), Aurangabad, Maharashtra, India, as students and citizens demonstrate in defense of constitutional rights. Photo: Imran Shaikh.
Many accounts emphasize arrests, sedition/terror charges, and prolonged pre-trial detention. Analytically, how should we understand “process as punishment” as a populist-authoritarian technique of rule in India?
Professor Nandini Sundar: Absolutely. The whole judicial system is designed for process without punishment. If you take the case of Sharjeel Imam and Umar Khalid, two student leaders who have been arrested for over five years now without the case even coming to trial. The charges relate to their involvement in a movement for equal citizenship. In 2019, the government passed an act that would grant citizenship to refugees from every other country except Pakistan and Bangladesh, and to every other religion except Islam. This was also seen as the first step toward disenfranchising Indian Muslims, and there was a massive protest against it—a huge, peaceful, democratic protest, predominantly led by women in many parts of the country, but especially in Delhi.
These students, both from JNU (Jawaharlal Nehru University) and from Jamia (Jamia Millia Islamia), were involved in this democratic protest, and it was actually a very powerful democratic moment in this country’s history. But many students—predominantly Muslim students—were arrested. There were many people who took part in that protest, Muslims and Hindus, but only the Muslim students were arrested, and they have been in jail for the last five years. We have recorded speeches from them talking about the need for unity, upholding the Constitution, and love, yet they have been accused under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, which deals with terror.
They have been accused of terror conspiracies, which is completely ludicrous. The case has not even come to trial, and the evidence against them is completely flimsy. But everyone knows that they are being kept in jail because they are articulate student leaders who had a democratic vision for this country.
Campuses Are Embedded in a Wider Ecosystem of Vigilantism
How do you interpret the role of affiliated organizations (student wings, vigilante groups, informal “sentiment” enforcers) in expanding state capacity to intimidate universities while maintaining deniable distance?
Professor Nandini Sundar: The RSS has the biggest student wing in the whole country, the ABVP, the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, which has been engaged in a number of attacks on other student organizations. It has also attacked various seminars that have gone against BJP ideology. It functions both as a student wing—providing the kind of membership and mobilization for ordinary student activities that any student organization does—and as a vigilante force.
There are also a number of other fronts of the RSS—the Bajrang Dal, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, and various other wings—which intimidate students and faculty on campuses. This is part of a more generalized surge in vigilantism, as vigilantes have been attacking Muslim traders, Muslims transporting cattle across state boundaries, Muslim shopkeepers, and Christian pastors. There is a whole range of vigilante forces that the RSS tacitly supports and grants immunity and impunity. So, the university is not free of this; it is completely embedded in that wider ecosystem of vigilantism.
Universities Modeling Diversity Became Central Adversaries
Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), a public central university in New Delhi, India. Photo: Mrinal Pal.
Why do institutions like JNU become such central targets in majoritarian projects? Is it their historical role in mass politics, their social composition, their epistemic authority—or the way they model pluralism?
Professor Nandini Sundar: All of the above, I should say. Many universities in India were set up as part of a nationalist project. For instance, Jamia, which was established before independence, was founded by nationalist leaders to provide an alternative form of education to the British colonial model, and it has had a very long, rich tradition of scholarship and student mobilization.
JNU was set up in the 1970s on a very distinct model of higher education, where the effort was to bring in students from all across the country, especially from underserved regions. It had an extremely interesting system of deprivation points, whereby students from backward regions would receive extra marks in addition to whatever they obtained in the entrance test. In this way, it managed to achieve a real plurality of students from across the country. They also had excellent faculty, and some departments were truly the best in the country, known for their academic excellence. Even today, it remains one of the strongest universities academically in India.
Partly because of this academic excellence and the pluralism of its students, JNU also developed a very strong left tradition. It is one place where left student unions have consistently won student elections, and it has had a distinctive style of politics in which debates on a wide range of national issues would continue late into the night, alongside campus concerns such as hostel bills, food, accommodation, and fees. So, it has been a very unusual kind of university, an iconic institution for liberal-left education, and that was something the BJP felt it had to attack and destroy.
Rewriting the Past to Control the Nation’s Narrative
How do textbook “rationalization” and selective historical erasure operate as a struggle over national temporality—who gets to narrate the past, and who is authorized to speak for the nation?
Professor Nandini Sundar: The RSS thinks that it is authorized to speak for the nation, and since it has control over the government and textbooks—because under the Indian system education is a matter both for the central (federal) government and for the states—there are also some boards that operate nationally, in addition to the state boards. So, the major producer of textbooks in India is the NCERT, the National Council of Educational Research and Training, which produces textbooks that are then used by these different boards or even used by state boards as models.
What the BJP has been doing is systematically changing these NCERT textbooks. For instance, removing references to caste, removing all traces of Mughal history from middle school textbooks, and giving more space to certain false narratives that promote Hindu rulers at the expense of others. So, it has huge power. I mean, the central government has enormous power to rewrite historical narratives. It is also, if you look at other fields—archaeology, for instance—it underplays the contributions of the South in historical research.
I don’t know how to put it, but it is enormously powerful in rewriting history and rewriting sociology, rewriting politics—everything, really.
National Security as a Catch-All Tool of Suppression
The state’s framing of “internal affairs,” “sensitive issues,” and “national security” often appears deliberately expansive. What does this elasticity reveal about authoritarian boundary-making in the knowledge sphere?
Professor Nandini Sundar: It also reveals something about authoritarian fragility. Just to give you a very recent example.The Wire, which is a news portal, ran a 52-second clip showing Prime Minister Modi running away from Parliament. This was during a debate in Parliament about how he had not taken a resolute stand when the Chinese were coming into India in 2020, and then he claimed that women MPs were threatening to bite him, and that’s why he didn’t attend Parliament. So, this was just a somewhat humorous video about how Modi was supposedly scared of being bitten by women MPs. The Wire’s Instagram page was shut down, there was a privilege motion against them from Parliament, and it was described as a national security issue. Now, there was nothing remotely related to national security about a small cartoon of Modi running away from women MPs.
But anything and everything can be described as a national security issue. People are being arrested, especially journalists in Kashmir, or students in Kashmir, who are really living under a state of terror. It is such a loosely applied concept, and the problem is that the law puts the onus squarely on the person who is accused under such laws. It is very hard to get bail under UAPA (Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act), which is why people like Umar and Sharjeel and other human rights activists in what is called the BK16 case (the 16 individuals locked up without a trial in the Bhima Koregaon case. S.G.), or across the country more generally, are finding it very difficult to get out of this, because they are accused under national security acts.
So, it is a very expansive definition. It is very, very open to abuse, and these laws should have no place in any democracy.
Food, Caste, and Control under Hindutva Governance
Volunteers of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) on Vijyadashmi festival, a large gathering or annual meeting during Ramanavami a Hindu festival in Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh on October 19, 2018. Photo: Pradeep Gaurs.
Beyond overt ideological control, what is the relationship between Hindutva governance and everyday disciplinary practices (food regimes, hostel rules, policing intimacy), and how do these practices intersect with gendered and caste-based hierarchies?
Professor Nandini Sundar: One of the things that the RSS, the Hindutva regime, has been trying to promote is the idea that India is a vegetarian country, and that people who eat meat are in some way inferior or should not be eating meat. They have been trying to associate that with Muslims and use it to target Muslims or Dalits, who were formerly called untouchables and who are still treated very badly and exploited by the system.
In fact, about 80% of India is non-vegetarian. But this has become a big issue in certain hostels. For instance, some of the Indian Institutes of Technology have had separate messes in hostels for vegetarians and non-vegetarians. In the past, people were free to eat whatever they wanted, and they could sit together and eat, but this kind of segregation creates a hierarchical divide in which those who eat pure vegetarian food are seen as somehow superior, because historically it has also been a caste issue.
There have been student movements against this segregation and hierarchy, but they have again been suppressed by the administration. A lot of what the Hindutva regime is doing is feeding into existing caste and religious prejudices, aggravating them, and creating a hierarchy in which Hindu upper-caste voices are seen as representing the whole nation.
Just another example: for some strange reason—because it is inconceivable that this government would do anything that progressive—the University Grants Commission (UGC), which governs the higher education space, issued rules mandating equity for students from historically discriminated backgrounds, such as Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, minorities, and OBCs (The Other Backward Classes). There was a huge protest against this by upper-caste students, who have been coming out on the streets saying that they are under threat and in danger from this equity movement. The Supreme Court has stayed the equity regulations, and the BJP government is really happy, because it has got the Supreme Court to do so. On the one hand, they put out these UGC equity regulations, but they actually did not want to implement them; their constituency of upper-caste people is against it, and fortunately for them, it has been stayed by the Supreme Court.
So, there is a very neat dovetailing between Hindutva upper-caste ideology and the various practices of this government.
Masculinist Power and the Politics of ‘Teaching a Lesson’
How do masculinist styles of leadership and majoritarian “strength” narratives shape state behavior toward universities—especially in the public performance of punishment, humiliation, and “teaching a lesson”?
Professor Nandini Sundar: It is a very masculinist ideology, and historically the RSS did not have room for women as part of its cadre; there was a separate women’s wing.
If you look at the state of Kashmir, for instance, and education in Kashmir—higher education in particular—the entire process has been about this. In 2019, the state of Jammu and Kashmir was stripped of its constitutional autonomy and reduced from a state to a union territory. The whole thing was couched in terms of teaching them a lesson, because it was seen as a source of terrorism, since it is the only Muslim-majority state in India, and there was a conscious effort to show them their place.
When it comes to universities, Kashmiri students in different parts of the country have been especially targeted and victimized, and again this is very much part of showing Muslims their place, showing Kashmiris their place in India. When it comes to women, there are many more subtle ways in which women have been affected. If you look at the entrance exams, thanks to a new system of multiple-choice entrance exams, the number of women entering colleges has dramatically declined. Even if the government officially says that its policy is inclusive of women studying, in fact many of its practical policies discriminate against women.
People wait in queues to cast votes at a polling station during the 3rd phase of Lok Sabha polls, in Guwahati, India on May 7, 2024. Photo: Hafiz Ahmed.
Targeting Scholars Abroad: Hindutva’s Reach Beyond India
To what extent do you see an externalization of repression—through harassment campaigns, institutional pressure, and reputational attacks—aimed at shaping scholarship on India outside India?
Professor Nandini Sundar: There’s a very active Hindutva diaspora that has been targeting academics who work on India in the US, the UK, and Europe. There was this conference called Dismantling Hindutva some years ago, where the active Hindutva diaspora went after the organizers of the conference. They flooded universities with so much hate mail against faculty members who were part of this conference that some of their servers collapsed.
It is really an organized, very virulent Hindutva diaspora, especially in the US, which has links with Zionists and follows the same sorts of procedures as some of the American far right. Unfortunately for them, the American far right, because they are Christian fundamentalists, has no regard for Hindu fundamentalists, so they are not really sure where they stand now. But they are just a very vicious, virulent lot when it comes to attacking people who are working on India.
For instance, there is an American historian called Audrey Truschke, who writes on Aurangzeb, the last Mughal emperor, and she has been relentlessly attacked. One could name various other people who have been singled out and attacked. The Indian government has also denied visas to a lot of academics working on India. This is really kind of inexplicable, because some of these academics have hugely contributed to the understanding of subjects the government itself promotes. For instance, there is a historian who works on Hindi. Now, the BJP government is insistent that everybody in the country should speak Hindi, that everybody should replace their own languages and know Hindi, yet this historian, who has contributed greatly to the understanding and study of Hindi, was denied a visa. There is absolutely no sense in this, even from their own perspective, because it is not like she was studying anything they would consider anti-national; she was studying Hindi literature.
So, it has become very difficult for anyone working on India to be able to research, write, and think freely, whether inside the country or outside the country.
Recasting the Past for Power
How has the language of decolonization and cultural authenticity been retooled to delegitimate critique—both within India and in global academia—while recoding censorship as civilizational self-defense?
Professor Nandini Sundar: That’s a really good question, because if you look at some of these Hindutva ideologues, they’ve adopted the language of decoloniality to claim that whatever has been done in Indian history, for instance, is colonial because it does not go back to ancient Hindu roots or does not adopt an Indic perspective.
In fact, the BJP or the RSS version of history is itself following a completely colonial template. They have adopted a periodization of Indian history based on Hindu, Muslim, and British India, which is a colonial construct, and that is what they have been following in the name of decolonization.
If you look at one major thrust of their programs, it has been to develop what they call Indic knowledge systems. By Indic knowledge systems, they basically mean Hindu and Vedic knowledge systems. This is something they have been pushing in every syllabus revision process, along with organizing a wide variety of seminars on Indic or Indigenous knowledge systems.
They have actually ignored all the work that has been done over the years, because scholars have already been working on different versions of Indian history and Indian society from a variety of perspectives, many of them indigenous. So, to say that they are coming up with some new framework is actually reinventing the colonial wheel while at the same time claiming that they are adopting some kind of great decolonial epistemology.
A Global Crisis of Academic Freedom Requires Collective Resistance
And lastly, Professor Sundar, given the risks of speaking, organizing, and even researching “sensitive” themes, what forms of collective strategy (professional associations, transnational solidarity, union politics, legal defense infrastructures) do you see as most effective—and what ethical obligations do scholars outside India have in confronting these dynamics without reproducing paternalistic frames?
Professor Nandini Sundar: I don’t think it is about scholars outside India or inside India. I think that scholars across the world are now facing similar threats, whether in Turkey, the US, or Europe. We are all being censored. We are all facing the Palestinian exception—nobody can talk about Palestine or teach about Palestine, not just in the US but in Germany and everywhere.
So, I don’t think there are any easy answers as to what can be done. We are all facing similar kinds of issues, so we need to share across countries how people have dealt with this, and work out ways in which we can collectively keep the university going as a space for research and critical thinking, and above all for teaching freely.
And I have hope that students—not the ABVP type, but ordinary students—are keen and curious about what is actually happening in the world, and I have great hope that students will be the ones who keep the university going. That is something that I think we will all have to face collectively, together across the world.
André Ventura’s qualification for the presidential runoff marks a critical moment in Portuguese politics, long viewed as resistant to far-right breakthroughs. In this interview with the ECPS, Dr. Hugo Ferrinho Lopes (EEG-UMinho & Iscte-IUL; ICS-ULisbon) argues that Ventura’s advance is “less a sudden presidential earthquake than a clear manifestation” of an ongoing party-system shift—deepened by fragmentation on the mainstream right and declining abstention. Dr. Lopes explains how Chega mobilized “latent populists” once a viable radical-right option emerged, while also stressing the limits of authoritarian and nativist appeals in a second-round contest that requires broader legitimacy. The result, he suggests, is a normalized but still constrained radical right: agenda-setting and organizationally consolidated, yet facing ceilings shaped by elite incentives, affective polarization, and presidential norms of moderation.
The qualification of André Ventura, leader of the populist radical right party Chega, for the presidential runoff marks a watershed moment in contemporary Portuguese politics. Long regarded as an exception within Southern Europe for its resistance to far-right breakthroughs, Portugal now finds itself grappling with a transformed party system, declining abstention, and the normalization of a radical right actor at the highest symbolic level of the state. In this wide-ranging interview with the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS), Dr. Hugo Ferrinho Lopes, an invited assistant professor at EEG-UMinho and Iscte-IUL, and an associate researcher at ICS-ULisbon, offers a nuanced and empirically grounded analysis of what Ventura’s rise does—and does not—signify for the future of Portuguese democracy.
At the core of Dr. Lopes’s argument is a rejection of the idea that Ventura’s presidential advance represents a sudden rupture. Instead, he situates it within a longer trajectory of party-system transformation. As he notes, Ventura’s runoff presence is “less a sudden presidential earthquake than a clear manifestation of a party-system shift that has already been underway,” one that began with Chega’s parliamentary breakthrough and was accelerated by fragmentation on the mainstream right. In Sartorian terms, Portugal is experiencing increasing ideological distance and fragmentation, dynamics that presidential elections—through personalization and strategic voting—tend to amplify.
A central theme running through the interview is the role of political supply. Dr. Lopes emphasizes that Chega did not emerge because Portuguese voters suddenly radicalized, but because a long-standing gap on the cultural and conservative dimension of party competition was left unfilled. This allowed Ventura, an experienced political communicator with extensive media exposure, to capture what Dr. Lopes describes as “latent populists who were activated once a viable alternative became available.” Importantly, this mobilization was facilitated by institutional conditions—such as a lower effective electoral threshold in 2019—and by Chega’s rapid transition from entrepreneurial project to organizationally consolidated party.
Yet the interview also highlights the limits of Ventura’s appeal. Despite declining abstention disproportionately benefiting Chega, Dr. Lopes stresses that Ventura’s electorate remains strikingly stable rather than expansive. “Ventura is competing against himself,” he observes, as voters from eliminated candidates increasingly coalesce behind his opponent in the runoff. This pattern reflects what he characterizes as a de facto cordon sanitaire driven less by formal elite coordination than by affective polarization and voter hostility toward the far right.
Perhaps most importantly, Dr. Lopes cautions against overestimating the governing potential of authoritarian rhetoric in Portugal. While Chega has successfully imposed issues such as immigration and security on the national agenda, “relying solely on authoritarian and nativist appeals is insufficient” in a second-round presidential contest that demands broader democratic legitimacy. The interview thus paints a picture of a radical right that is normalized, agenda-setting, and organizationally entrenched—but still constrained by institutional structures, elite incentives, and the enduring appeal of moderation in Portuguese presidential politics.
Together, these insights offer a sober prognosis: Chega has reshaped the political landscape, but its path toward governing viability remains uncertain, contested, and far from inevitable.
Here is the edited version of our interview with Assistant Professor Hugo Ferrinho Lopes, revised slightly to improve clarity and flow.
Ventura’s Runoff Is No Shock—It’s the Symptom of a Shifting Party System
André Ventura of the Chega party speaking during the plenary session of the Portuguese Parliament debating the government’s motion of confidence, March 11, 2025.
Dr. Hugo Ferrinho Lopes, thank you very much for joining our interview series. Let me start right away with the first question: Ventura’s qualification for the presidential runoff marks an unprecedented moment for the Portuguese far right. How should we interpret his first-round performance in relation to the 2024 snap elections? Should it be understood as a continuation of party-system transformation toward polarized pluralism, or as a distinct presidential dynamic reshaping existing voter coalitions?
Dr. Hugo Ferrinho Lopes: Thank you very much for having me. I would argue that this development largely reflects the ongoing transformation of Portugal’s party system. Ventura’s presence in the runoff is less a sudden presidential earthquake than a clear manifestation of a party-system shift that has already been underway.
What I mean is that, one year earlier, in the general parliamentary elections, Chega’s legislative breakthrough signaled a departure from the traditional two-party system. In the first round of the 2026 presidential election, this shift was further reinforced by a coordination problem on the mainstream right. We witnessed several viable center-right and right-wing candidates competing simultaneously, which fragmented the vote and lowered the threshold for Chega to secure second place—an outcome that Ventura ultimately achieved.
In Sartorian terms, the longer-term trend in Portugal points to increasing fragmentation and growing ideological distance among the main parties and candidates. The distinct dynamics of presidential elections—shaped by personalization and strategic voting—are likely to accelerate a transformation that is already well underway in the Portuguese political system.
Why Declining Abstention Worked in Ventura’s Favor
The decline of abstention has been one of the most striking features of recent Portuguese elections. To what extent does the 2026 first round confirm your earlier finding that increases in turnout disproportionately benefit Chega, and what does this suggest about the political activation of previously disengaged voters?
Dr. Hugo Ferrinho Lopes: There are two main points I would like to emphasize here. First, the incumbent president, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, is constitutionally barred from running for a third term. In Portugal, when presidential elections take place without an incumbent seeking re-election, turnout tends to increase and abstention tends to decline, because the perceived odds of victory for competing candidates are higher. Historically, all Portuguese presidents who have run for a second term have been re-elected. From this perspective, it was expected that abstention would decrease in this election, at least in the first round.
Second, and more importantly, we know that turnout is closely related to voting for the far right in Portugal. In this election in particular, voting-intention data from public opinion polls show that Ventura had the most stable base of support. This means that he retained the largest share of voters who had previously voted for Chega in the legislative elections, compared to any other candidate.
By contrast, António José Seguro, who also advanced to the runoff, was less stable among socialist voters. Similarly, Luís Marques Mendes —supported and endorsed by the center-right PSD and CDS, the governing coalition—lost a significant number of votes from his party to other right-wing candidates.
As a result, we observed a first round in which Ventura amassed the largest number of votes from his own party relative to any other candidate. Other contenders not only needed to mobilize their core constituencies but also attempted to attract voters from different ideological camps. This proved far more difficult for them, and this dynamic is closely related to patterns of abstention.
Issue Ownership Opened the Door for Chega
Sign of the right-wing conservative political party Chega, led by André Ventura, in Faro, Portugal, March 16, 2023. Photo: Dreamstime.
In your work on the 2024 elections, you emphasize the “supply side” of party competition. Which supply-side factors—party fragmentation, leadership credibility, agenda ownership, or organizational reach—were most decisive in enabling Ventura’s advance to the runoff?
Dr. Hugo Ferrinho Lopes: That is a very interesting question. The first factor I would highlight is issue ownership. Applying a supply–demand logic to politics, Portugal experienced, for more than four decades, what is often described as “Portuguese exceptionalism” toward the far right: unlike in many other countries, the far right was unable to break through to Parliament. However, this situation left an opening on the supply side of party competition—particularly in the cultural and conservative dimension—for a new challenger party on the right to emerge.
For example, while the radical left in Portugal has been strong in Parliament for decades and has enjoyed stable representation—indeed, more than one radical left party has been represented—no radical right party managed to enter Parliament until 2019, with the emergence of André Ventura and Chega. Why did this happen?
First, it was due to this long-standing breach on the supply side of party competition. Second, it was related to leadership. André Ventura is an experienced politician who came from the PSD. He left the party following an internal split and benefited from extensive media coverage. Prior to founding Chega, he was a football commentator, which gave him a level of public visibility that previous far-right candidates had lacked.
There is also an additional institutional explanation. In the 2019 elections, the effective threshold of the electoral system was lower, making it easier for parties to enter Parliament with fewer votes than in previous elections. A recent example is LIVRE—a left libertarian party—which failed to enter Parliament in 2015 but secured one MP in 2019. Chega and the Liberal Initiative on the right similarly entered Parliament in 2019 with fewer votes than would have been required in earlier elections.
Once inside Parliament, the media coverage Ventura received and the institutional space to disseminate his message made further growth much easier in the years that followed.
The De Facto Cordon Sanitaire Around Chega
Election night event of the Democratic Alliance (AD)—a coalition of the Social Democratic Party (PSD) and the CDS–People’s Party—held at the Epic Sana Marquês Hotel, Lisbon, Portugal, on 18 May 2025. Photo: Ricardo Rocha.
Portugal’s presidential elections traditionally reward moderation and cross-party appeal. Does Ventura’s strong showing indicate a weakening of this logic, or has Chega successfully adapted its populist appeal to the presidential arena without fundamentally expanding its social base?
Dr. Hugo Ferrinho Lopes: Ventura’s presidential campaign is, in many ways, a continuation of the strategy he pursued in the parliamentary elections one year earlier. That said, presidential elections in Portugal have historically favored moderation and centrist candidates, and this pattern was still visible in the first round. If we look at the vote shares, candidates occupying moderate ideological positions collectively garnered far more support than Ventura. We are seeing a similar dynamic unfold in the runoff campaign.
Although we have only limited data so far, as the second-round campaign has just begun, most supporters of the eliminated candidates indicate that they are inclined to vote for Seguro rather than Ventura in the runoff. This reinforces my earlier point: Ventura’s support base is remarkably stable, with only marginal expansion beyond his core voters, while supporters of other candidates tend to coalesce around the alternative contender.
What does this imply? Essentially, Ventura is competing against himself, attempting to marginally expand his vote share, while all other candidates—now consolidated behind Seguro, who placed first in the opening round—are effectively competing against Ventura. In this sense, it becomes a contest of Ventura versus everyone else. This pattern aligns with findings in the literature on affective polarization, which show that the far right tends to be the primary target of hostility and negative affect, often to a greater extent than the hostility expressed by right-wing voters toward other parties. In practice, this amounts to a de facto cordon sanitaire around Chega in the second round.
Grievance, Not Poverty, Fuels Chega’s Regional Strength
Chega has performed particularly well in regions historically dominated by the center-right and, in some cases, the left. How do you assess the role of territorial grievance, regional economic restructuring, and perceived political neglect in shaping Ventura’s first-round electoral geography?
Dr. Hugo Ferrinho Lopes: That’s a very good question. Ventura’s electoral geography fits a broader European pattern. Places that feel bypassed by economic growth and unheard by the political center—namely Lisbon—tend to become more receptive to anti-establishment political entrepreneurs. Recent work on Portugal, for example a study by João Cancela and Pedro Magalhães links radical right support in these regions—often rural and formerly left-wing, even communist, strongholds—to perceived political neglect and broader economic transformations, rather than to a simple story of poverty.
What this suggests is that the key mechanism is often mediated: grievance, distrust, and resentment create openness to punitive, nativist, and anti-elite messaging, rather than voting behavior being driven solely by material hardship. In southern Portugal and in rural areas more broadly, voters are therefore more likely to support the radical right because they feel politically neglected and marginalized by decision-makers.
The Youth Gender Gap and Chega’s Electoral Future
Post-2024 analyses highlighted Chega’s disproportionate support among young, less-educated men and the emergence of a “modern gender gap.” How does the 2026 first-round vote confirm or complicate this sociological profile, and what does it imply for long-term ideological realignment?
Dr. Hugo Ferrinho Lopes: At this stage, we have very limited data from the first round, so any assessment must remain tentative. More robust evidence will emerge in the coming months. That said, existing data for Portugal point to a pronounced youth gender gap in far-right support, with young men far more likely than young women to back far-right parties—Chega in particular. This pattern is also consistent with trends observed across other European and Western democracies.
If this profile is reproduced in the second round of the 2026 presidential elections, it would suggest the presence of a pipeline for long-term ideological realignment. If, however, the pattern softens, it would indicate that Ventura’s presidential surge reflects coalition broadening rather than cohort deepening. Ultimately, more data will be needed to assess this dynamic conclusively.
Is Chega Still Expanding—or Hitting Its Limits?
Guarda, Portugal — June 12, 2018: The ancient Jewish quarter (Judiaria) of Guarda, Portugal, where residents live amid streets that retain much of their 14th-century character. Photo: Dreamstime.
Your research on party membership switching suggests that Chega mobilized “latent populists” rather than converting ideologically moderate voters. Does Ventura’s presidential performance suggest that this reservoir of latent support is still expanding, or are we approaching a ceiling effect?
Dr. Hugo Ferrinho Lopes: We may be approaching a ceiling effect, but it is still too early to tell. What we know so far relates to the supply-side dynamics I mentioned earlier. Many party members who were previously housed in other parties switched to Chega once a viable radical-right alternative became available. These were politically interested citizens who had already chosen to participate in politics through the options available to them at the time. When this new option emerged and became electorally viable—which is crucial—they felt able to switch to it.
That said, we do not yet know whether a ceiling effect has been reached, because this would require observing at least one election in which Chega or Ventura stops growing. At this stage, we cannot determine whether citizens’ preferences are stabilizing or continuing to shift over time.
What we do know, however, is that the far right has been increasingly successful in imposing its agenda on the media and on other political parties. These actors are now responding to the incentives set by the far right by prioritizing issues such as security and immigration. Immigration is a good example. For decades, Portugal stood out as one of—perhaps even the—European countries where the salience of immigration was lowest. In the standard Eurobarometer question asking citizens to name the three most important issues facing their country, immigration was frequently mentioned in most European democracies, but far less so in Portugal.
Although immigration remains less salient in Portugal than in many other countries, its importance has increased significantly over the past two years. This signals that Ventura and Chega have been able to place this issue firmly on the political agenda. We have also seen other parties responding to this rising salience, not only by positioning themselves against it, but also through concrete policy responses—for example, government legislation on the issue.
From Abstainers to the Right: A Narrow Path to Expansion
Chega’s rise has been driven largely by voters defecting from the mainstream center-right. How has this pattern shaped Ventura’s claim to leadership of the “non-socialist space” in the presidential election, and what limits does it impose on his runoff strategy?
Dr. Hugo Ferrinho Lopes: Ventura can plausibly claim that he represents the pole of the non-socialist electorate, but there are two important caveats. First, he draws more support from former abstainers than from the mainstream right, even though he does attract some voters from the PSD and CDS. Overall, however, his gains come primarily from previously disengaged voters rather than from direct transfers within the center-right.
Second, the runoff presents a different strategic context. In the second round, Ventura must rely on voters from parties that are unwilling to formally endorse him. A clear example is the PSD leadership, which refused to support either of the two candidates who advanced to the runoff. In this context, mobilizing center-right voters through individual-level choices rather than party-led coordination is far more difficult, creating a ceiling for Ventura’s expansion. Without elite cues and under greater public scrutiny, it becomes harder for Chega—and for Ventura in particular—to move beyond its core protest electorate.
Ventura the Brand, Chega the Machine
André Ventura of the Chega party speaks during a plenary session of the Portuguese Parliament debating the government’s motion of confidence in Lisbon, Portugal on March 11, 2025. Photo: Ricardo Rocha.
Presidential elections personalize politics more strongly than legislative contests. To what extent is Ventura’s success best explained by André Ventura as a political entrepreneur, rather than by Chega as a party organization?
Dr. Hugo Ferrinho Lopes: Ventura is clearly the brand; he is a political entrepreneur, as I have noted before. At the same time, Chega as a party has increasingly become the organizational machine that makes this brand effective. Ventura is electorally viable, and when he is not running, Chega’s results tend to be significantly lower than when he is on the ballot. Still, the party structure matters, and Chega now has a substantial grassroots base actively working on its behalf.
In presidential elections, voters tend to reward candidate-centered campaigns, making the contest highly personalized. In this respect, Ventura’s media skills are a clear asset. Yet Chega’s rise as a major political actor also signals growing organizational penetration and normalized visibility. What we are witnessing is a shift from an initial entrepreneurial breakthrough driven by Ventura toward a gradual—but increasingly solid—process of party institutionalization by Chega itself. This is an incremental development, not one that occurs overnight.
Authoritarian Appeals Mobilize Some—but Not Enough
Your findings indicate that Chega switchers often exhibit higher authoritarian attitudes than first-time party members. How might this shape Ventura’s rhetoric and positioning in a second-round contest that requires broader democratic legitimacy?
Dr. Hugo Ferrinho Lopes: First, my findings suggest that switchers resemble latent populists who were activated by the rise of Chega as a viable alternative. However, when we examine the data in more detail, we see that the higher levels of authoritarian values are driven mainly by former right-wing party members who switched to Chega.
What does this mean? It means that most of Chega’s base—around 74 percent—consists of first-time members who joined the party for a variety of reasons. In contrast, those coming from right-wing parties joined Chega primarily because they felt that the PSD and CDS no longer represented what they considered important in the sociocultural domain, particularly in terms of values and authoritarian preferences. As a result, these attitudes are not evenly distributed across Chega’s grassroots.
Second, in the context of the presidential runoff, Ventura needs to appeal to a much broader electorate. Relying solely on authoritarian and nativist appeals is therefore insufficient, as he must attract voters from the center-right. Voters who have not previously switched electorally to Chega are unlikely to do so based only on authoritarian cues. Consequently, Ventura needs to go beyond these appeals in the second round.
Anti-System Rhetoric Meets Institutional Trust
Some Chega supporters display relatively higher institutional trust than expected for a populist radical right electorate. How does this tension shape Chega’s “anti-system” discourse when competing for an institutionally symbolic office like the presidency?
Dr. Hugo Ferrinho Lopes: Chega’s base within the party generally distrusts politicians and political institutions. However, within its grassroots—at the level of party membership—those who switched from another party to Chega tend to display higher levels of institutional trust. This points to a legacy effect among those who were politically experienced prior to joining Chega, even though overall trust in institutions remains quite low. This suggests that many of these switchers moved to Chega primarily for ideological reasons, not solely because of institutional distrust or anti-elite sentiments. They are therefore mobilized more by ideological cues than by explicitly anti-system appeals.
This tension produces a dual message for the party. On the one hand, Chega needs to argue that the system is broken; on the other, it must present itself as capable of safeguarding the nation’s institutions. This balancing act is particularly difficult in presidential elections, given the debates surrounding the limits of presidential power and the Constitution—whether Ventura embraces those limits or seeks to revise them. Since the president does not hold executive power, the role is closer to that of a moderator. Ventura must therefore convince his electorate that he can still meaningfully influence policy despite not being part of the executive or the cabinet.
Between Containment and Accommodation
The refusal of the PSD to endorse a runoff candidate highlights elite fragmentation on the right. How does Ventura’s runoff presence recalibrate elite incentives around containment, tacit accommodation, or strategic neutrality?
Dr. Hugo Ferrinho Lopes: The PSD’s neutrality is a way of avoiding two risks at once: legitimizing Ventura on the one hand, and alienating voters who might defect if given explicit instructions on the other. In terms of party competition, this reflects a form of elite coordination failure with a strategic rationale. The party is attempting to contain Chega organizationally while allowing individual voters the space to vote strategically in the runoff.
Over time, this situation recalibrates elite incentives. Some elites double down on non-accommodation, while others experiment with selective or tacit accommodation toward Chega. Despite this, most PSD elites are, in practice, supporting Seguro against Ventura in the runoff.
Above all, the governing party is trying to avoid giving Ventura the opportunity to claim that it is aligned with the Socialists or the left, or to be accused of accommodating the left rather than the right. Nevertheless, the reality is that most governing party elites are backing Seguro against Ventura.
This stance is neither full strategic coordination nor outright accommodation; rather, it represents an attempt to occupy a middle ground. That strategy carries risks for PM Luís Montenegro and the governing party, because they do not want Ventura to secure even a single vote more than Chega obtained in the legislative elections. Otherwise, Ventura could claim—despite losing the presidential race—that he enjoys greater electoral legitimacy than the prime minister, on the grounds that more voters support him than the government. There is therefore a shadow form of strategic coordination aimed at preventing Ventura from achieving further electoral success.
Normalizing Chega at the Presidential Level
Photo: Tatiana Golmer.
Portugal’s semi-presidential system grants the president significant agenda-setting and veto powers. Even if Ventura is unlikely to win, how might his normalization as a runoff contender reshape expectations about presidential authority and democratic restraint?
Dr. Hugo Ferrinho Lopes: If Ventura loses the election, then there is no immediate risk. What it does is normalize the idea that a Chega-aligned presence in the presidential arena is thinkable, and it extends the party’s shadow over issues such as veto power, agenda-setting, and signaling—particularly through the president’s ability to publicly highlight certain issues as priorities when meeting weekly with the prime minister. International coverage of this election has often emphasized that the Portuguese presidency, despite frequently being described as largely ceremonial, still retains meaningful powers, including the veto and the dissolution of Parliament, which can be consequential under minority governments, such as the current one. However, with Ventura remaining outside the presidency, it is unlikely that expectations regarding presidential powers themselves—rather than government stability or future alternation in office—will change in any significant way.
An Uncertain Path for Portugal’s Radical Right
And finally, Professor Lopez, taken together—rising turnout, party-system fragmentation, youth realignment, and Chega’s organizational consolidation—what is your best scholarly prognosis for the populist radical right in Portugal? Are we witnessing a durable opposition hegemony, a future coalition actor, or the gradual construction of governing viability?
Dr. Hugo Ferrinho Lopes: That is a very good question, and one to which I do not have a clear answer—both in the absence of a crystal ball and because current government signals point in different directions. The government has been pursuing piecemeal deals with both the Socialists and the radical right to pass legislation, while the opposition often coordinates to block the government, including cooperation between the Socialists and the far right. As a result, the situation remains difficult to assess.
That said, as long as Luís Montenegro remains the leader of the PSD, the party is unlikely to enter a coalition with the radical right or include it in government. However, if Ventura were to win an election at some point, Montenegro would likely resign as PSD leader, and it is unclear who would succeed him or what strategy a new leader would adopt—whether a German-style cordon sanitaire or a path toward accommodation or coalition-building with the far right.
At this stage, the trajectory remains highly unpredictable. I realize this may not be the definitive answer you were hoping for, but it is the most accurate one that can be offered at present.
In this powerful reflection for ECPS – Voice of Youth, high school student Emmanouela Papapavlou warns that the rise of the far right is not a “youth trend” but a symptom of collective amnesia. The memory of the Polytechnic uprising—once a symbol of resistance to dictatorship—has grown hollow through ritual repetition, even as democratic backsliding accelerates across Europe, the US, and Greece. Papapavlou describes how everyday indifference and frustration quietly nourish extremist ideas, while pockets of young people fight back through music, art, and political expression. Her message is urgent: democracy erodes not when violence erupts, but when society forgets what unfreedom feels like. Memory, he reminds us, is not a burden—it is our first line of defense.
By Emmanouela Papapavlou
Every year, the same story unfolds… wreaths, school speeches, the same faded posters we barely notice. A ritual repeated, yet it barely moves us. The Polytechnic uprising, instead of warning us about the fragility of freedom, is often handed down as compulsory material. And so, the deepest wound of modern Greek history becomes just another “anniversary.”
Yet, precisely at a time when democracy worldwide is under threat, the Polytechnic should shake us more than ever.
In Europe, parties with fascist roots are entering governments. In America, authoritarian leaders are gaining unprecedented support. In Greece, the far-right is comfortably returning to public life. And still, the memory of that uprising leaves so many indifferent.
Everyday scenes reveal a harsh truth: indifference, frustration, and social decay fuel the rise of extremes. In quiet, almost unnoticed moments, the past comes alive: forgotten junta supporters chatting in neighborhood barbershops as if no time has passed, fascists and ex-junta members teaching outdated, dangerous ideologies to Greek children. This is not just about contemporary Greeks, nor a “lost segment” of society. It is a collective phenomenon: disillusionment breeds extremes, whether leaning right or left.
Silence in the face of looming threats is not innocent, it is complicity. Yet some young people refuse to stay silent. They turn to music that tackles social and political issues such as rap music, they write lyrics and stories, produce podcasts, murals, exhibitions, or small performances. Through these acts, they revive memory and keep resistance against darkness alive. The generation of the Polytechnic rebelled and showed us the way: how dictators fall, and how united people claim their rights. It is our duty to remember the fallen and the fighters of that bloody uprising and to understand what it takes to keep democracy alive.
Here lies the core message: the rise of the far-right is not “a youth trend.” It is a warning that society has begun to forget. Forgetting what unfreedom means. Forgetting how easily institutions once taken for granted crumbled. Forgetting that democracy does not die suddenly, it dies when we become accustomed to darkness.
The Polytechnic is not merely a monument of the past. It is a test: it will either remind us of what we risk losing, or we will watch history rewrite itself while we only hear the silence around us.
Indeed, memory is not an obligation. It is a shield, a defense against the darkness that threatens democracy. Remaining passive is easy. The hard part is seeing the bigger picture: Europe drifting back toward dark ideas, Greece flirting with amnesia, a world exhausted from losing and still keeping vigilance alive.
Memory is not merely duty. It is our first line of defense.
Emmanouela Papapavlou is a high school student from Thessaloniki, Greece, deeply passionate about social and political issues. She has actively participated in Model United Nations and other youth forums, serving as a chairperson in multiple conferences and winning awards in Greek debate competitions. Writing is her greatest passion, and she loves using it to explore democracy, civic engagement, and human rights. Her dream is to share her ideas, inspire action, and amplify the voices of young people who want to make a difference. Email: emmanpapapavlou@gmail.com
