Long Read — Securitized Borders, Migrantized Grievances: Populism, Migration Governance, and Europe’s Postcolonial Entanglements
Activists from the Identitarian Movement Austria block the access road to the Hungary-Austria border at Nickelsdorf on October 17, 2015. Photo: Johanna Poetsch.
Europe’s migration politics in 2026 reveal a growing convergence between radical-right populism and mainstream migration governance. In this scholarly review, Shaza Khalid and Maryam Hameed examine how grievances over housing, living costs, education, and public services are increasingly reframed through migration-related narratives—a process they conceptualize as the “migrantization of grievance.” Analyzing the EU Pact on Migration and Asylum, return hubs, reception conditions, and the October 2026 protest wave, the authors argue that populist influence extends beyond electoral success into institutional policymaking. Through a structural, postcolonial perspective, they further connect Europe’s contemporary border externalization policies to historical interventions and asymmetrical relationships with the Global South, highlighting the tensions between migration control, democratic accountability, and fundamental rights.
By Shaza Khalid & Maryam Hameed*
This review examines the intersection of migration politics in Europe in 2026, focusing on populist radical-right agendas, mainstream policy convergence and Europe’s external relations. It argues that migration functions more as a screen onto which housing, cost-of-living and generational grievances are projected than as the root cause of the current unrest.
The review considers three developments: the Pact on Migration and Asylum and the Returns Regulation, which institutionalize deterrence, speed up returns and establish offshore ‘return hubs’; reception conditions for migrants, which remain far from uniform; and the protest wave that spread across France, Italy, Spain and beyond in October 2026. It situates these developments within a structural, postcolonial interpretation of Europe’s role in the Global South, linking the 2011 intervention in Libya, instability in the Sahel and the outsourcing of border control to Tunisia, Libya and Mauritania. It shows that setting the agenda, rather than holding office, is key to a populist movement’s success, and identifies gaps in research on populism and migration governance.
From Paris to Marseille, from Milan to Madrid, from Lisbon to Tirana, demonstrations spread in the second half of October 2026 across Europe. 1,314 people were arrested in nationwide protests in France just on Saturday, October 24, 2026, over the cost of living and the education system (CBS News/AP, 2026). Italy deployed more soldiers in Milan after looting and clashes, and the Italian government announced harsher punishments for minors (Barry & Associated Press, 2026). These scenes were quickly turned into an immigration story and Al Jazeera (2026) reported that “violence imagery is being used to back anti-immigration claims online, despite the root causes of these.”
This review begins where the gap left by protesters and the public discussion about what they mean lies. Insecurity is so diffuse that it can be filled with a ready-made explanation, and this is what populist actors do. Populism studies have long demonstrated that radical-right parties do well when they offer a ready-made explanation for diffuse insecurity (Mudde, 2007). The present moment implies another step: that unrelated grievances are being narrated in the language of migration, not only by populists but by growing numbers of mainstream governments.
The article proceeds in three steps. First, it examines the agenda of the radical right and how mainstream parties have embraced it. Second, it looks at the new policy design from 2026 and the reception conditions it promises and provides. Third, it raises questions that the prevailing discussion neglects: the historical and current position of Europe in the political economies from which many migrants originate. The argument is structural and does not attribute any instability in other parts of the world to any one European policy. It is also deliberately conceptual, inviting conceptual reflection as well as empirical material.
Populism, Civilizationism, and the Migrantization of Grievance
The populist radical right is a combination of nativism, authoritarianism and populism, in which “the people” are pitted against “elites” and “culturally threatening outsiders” (Mudde, 2007). Much of the modern right in Europe views this opposition in terms of civilizations, not just ethnic ones, and sees itself as a Christian or liberal Europe against Islam, as Brubaker (2017) notes. This is why the hostility to migrants can be supplemented with the claims to protect women’s rights, secularism or “European values.”
This review suggests that a similar process can be called migrantization of grievance. Housing shortages, stagnant living standards and pressure on public services are real and politically potent. When political entrepreneurs blame them on migrants, they are expressed in terms of membership, border control and issues that can be “solved” by visible state action. After that, mainstream parties use that translation to regain the voters, which in turn gives it respectability. Hans Kundnani has pointed to the influence of far-right ideas on identity, immigration and Islam, with the center-right becoming more like the far right (Ridgwell, 2024). This creates a vicious circle where populist agenda-setting outpaces populist office-holding.
Far-Right Objectives and Mainstream Convergence
This kind of agenda has strong grassroots support. The Alternative for Germany (AfD) achieved its highest result in Ipsos polling up to that point, at 28 percent in August 2026, while other polls in October showed the same result (International News and Views, 2026). In early 2026, France’s National Rally (RN) was reported to be getting more than 30 percent of the vote, and a French restriction on migration coincided with a surge in the far-right vote share, with housing problems and public service stress being key factors in the government’s thinking (Vision of Humanity, 2026). These are poll numbers, not election results, so the volatility of these numbers needs to be recognized.
The content of the agenda is not limited to restrictions. The AfD advocates “remigration” and was deemed an extremist organization by Germany’s domestic intelligence agency (The Conversation, 2026b). In Italy, a citizens’ initiative called “Remigration and Reconquest” garnered more than 50,000 signatures to initiate a discussion in parliament, including incentives for some migrants to leave and expanded deportation policies (Newsweek, 2026). The common thread is that people who are already residents, including second-generation citizens, are potentially removable, rather than controls being limited to who can enter.
Yet convergence is uneven. There is disagreement about Russia and Ukraine within the far right, but there is agreement on migration (Ridgwell, 2024), making migration a unique bridging issue for far-right parties. There is a spectrum of interventions, from restrictive policies to cordons sanitaires, with mixed outcomes. The case for studying convergence rather than party competition is that the policy shifts likely to have the greatest impact in 2026 come from institutions where the radical right does not govern.
The 2026 Policy Architecture: The Pact, Returns, and Externalisation
On June 12, 2026, the Pact on Migration and Asylum, comprising nine regulations and one directive designed to reform the Common European Asylum System (CEAS), entered into force across the EU (Consilium, 2026a; Eurodiaconia, 2026). Its declared objectives are “orderly” arrivals, “uniform” procedures, and a “fair balance” of solidarity and responsibility. Backers cite the real benefits: applicants now have access to free legal advice, and adults can work after 6 months instead of 9 (Eurodiaconia, 2026; Human Rights Watch, 2026a). Critics have replied that the same instruments can be used by states to block access to asylum procedures in vague cases of “mass influx” or “instrumentalization” of migration by third countries, and that states can “accomplish” their solidarity obligations by paying for asylum rather than accepting people (HRW, 2026a: 19).
The Pact is supported by the Returns Regulation. EU negotiators reached a provisional agreement on a new regulation that imposes strong measures on those without a right to stay and allows member states to designate a return hub in a third country as a final destination for migrants or as a transit point (Consilium, 2026b). Deportees could be dispatched to hubs with which they have no connection, and the Netherlands is looking to coordinate the movement with Denmark, Germany, Greece, and Austria, although it is said that discussions with Uganda have stalled (France 24, 2026). Legal analysis highlights that, under the framework, there is greater scope for longer detention, including for children and families, and that there is greater use of an expanded “safe third country” concept, which was adopted in February 2026 (The Conversation, 2026a). The EU Agency for Fundamental Rights (European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, 2025) has set out prerequisites without which return hubs could not comply with EU fundamental rights law.
Legal analysis highlights that, under the framework, there is greater scope for longer detentions, including for children and families, and that there is greater use of an expanded “safe third country” concept, which was adopted in February 2026 (The Conversation, 2026a). The EU Agency for Fundamental Rights (European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights [FRA], 2025) has set out prerequisites without which return hubs could not comply with EU fundamental rights law.
The policy justifications are not only political but also administrative: EU institutions have observed that merely 20% of deportation orders are implemented every year (Euronews, 2025). Yet, the design is strikingly similar to a populist idea that migration is, at its core, an issue of deportation. The center has not been taken over by populists, but it has adopted populist means to address real implementation shortcomings.
Reception Conditions and the Politics of “Amenities”
The recast Reception Conditions Directive lays down minimum standards for applicants (Consilium, 2026a; European Commission, n.d.), such as the requirement to provide housing, food, and clothing. The political dimension of the gap between standards and practice is twofold. Shortages and withdrawals are recorded for migrants. The FRA (2026) notes that, in Finland, reception conditions were temporarily reduced for asylum seekers, with their basic needs being met; a High Court judgment in Ireland awarded damages to asylum seekers who were left homeless on their arrival; and an Italian case involved the withdrawal of reception conditions from an asylum seeker and a child who refused a transfer. In the Netherlands, capacity has been under pressure, and there are limited prospects of being reallocated to housing (European Union Agency for Asylum, 2026). There is a description of uneven implementation of the Pact itself, with the legislation largely in place but the capacity for operational implementation limited in some places (Eurodiaconia, 2026). Moreover, there is criticism from advocacy organizations of the approach of placing asylum seekers in large centers away from host communities, which reduces contact with the host population (Jesuit Refugee Service Europe, 2024).
Visible reception arrangements are symbols for host societies. In areas with limited housing, the presence of government-sponsored housing for newcomers may be perceived as a privilege, even when it is of low quality. As AP reported, Spanish protests this autumn were fueled by a housing shortage, driven in part by population growth and the rise of short-term rentals, with the eviction of an 87-year-old tenant becoming a focal point of mobilization (Barry & Associated Press, 2026). The point is not that migrants are to blame, but that scarcity sets the stage for the success of such populist narratives of competition. Reception policy is thus a communication problem rather than a welfare one, and the lack of enough housing for everyone is the common denominator.
The October 2026 Protests: Migration as a Frame, Not a Cause
Students march through the streets of Paris, France, during protests that ended in riots on October 6, 2026.
The “Oct. 17 Movement,” which has just been formed, has been the principal instigator of these demonstrations, along with student federations, grassroots unions, and anti-war coalitions, and the demands include pensions, housing, anti-war activism, education, and corruption (Barry & Associated Press, 2026). Protests against the cost of living and over education in France resulted in 1,314 arrests just on Saturday, October 24, 2026 (CBS News/AP, 2026); another protest, organized by around 50 organizations, including unions, left-wing parties, and student groups, and aimed at a far-right demonstration, was also reported (CBS News/AP, 2026). Police counted 11,000 participants, while organizers claimed 26,000. Mobilization against the radical right is thus part of the protest landscape as well.
Milan is an illustration of the interpretive contest. In addition to foreign nationals, police reported that about 2,000 “very young” protesters took part in the looting, many of whom were “naturalized, second-generation Italians” who had not felt a connection to Italy and lacked prospects, according to a center-left city official (Barry & Associated Press, 2026). In Rome, a right-wing student organization broke away from the violence, and peaceful student demonstrations emphasized that they were not “rioters.” There are several additional factors, such as pension and housing marches in Spain, tenant protests in Lisbon, and student protests in Tirana, as well as a snap election in Spain planned for next month (Barry & Associated Press, 2026).
There are two analytical points to follow. The first is that most of this wave would be misdescribed as an “anti-immigration protest”; treating it as such embodies what this review terms the migrantization of grievance. Second, the actors who benefit from the misdescription are those who profit from making social conflict into border politics. Whether the radical right will gain electoral traction remains an empirical question; early polls offer some indication but should be treated with caution until elections are held.
Europe in the Global South: A Structural and Postcolonial Perspective
Discussions of populism and migration in Europe often begin at the border, overlooking the broader political economy that shapes migration patterns. A structural, postcolonial reading expands this analytical framework without reducing migration to a single cause. Libya provides one of the most extensively studied cases. Scholars link the collapse of Libyan state institutions following the NATO-led intervention in 2011 to the expansion of smuggling routes through the country. They also argue that Europe’s subsequent policy of transferring responsibility for migration control to Libya has facilitated exploitation and abuse (Feldstein, 2018). Pradella and Taghdisi Rad (2017) examine the same sequence of events through theories of imperialism and the global reserve army of labor to analyze migration from Libya. This does not necessarily mean that the intervention itself directly caused displacement—a question that remains contested—but rather that European policy decisions form part of the causal chain, rather than standing outside it.
The Sahel extends the claim. European-funded programs assumed that people migrate from the Sahara to Europe, yet research in the region shows that these initiatives disrupted a centuries-old migration system between Niger and Chad, where people suspected of smuggling were arrested (CORDIS, n.d.). Critics argue that EU migration control in the Mediterranean and military stabilization in the Sahel recreate a colonial asymmetry and geography in which the two regions are kept apart, and that today’s border violence is “a late consequence” of the violent confrontation between Europe and the Global South, as Danewid (2017) puts it.
This trend continues with the current policy package in the form of externalization. In its January 2026 update, the Commission allocated EUR 675 million for the southern neighborhood migration measures for 2025–2027 (borderline-europe, 2026). The 2023 EU-Tunisia memorandum is a template for the arrangements with Egypt and Mauritania (EUobserver, n.d.), and the EU agreed on EUR 210 million with Mauritania in 2024 (European Council on Refugees and Exiles, 2024). Tunisia was added to the EU list of safe countries of origin in February 2026, and in July 2026, a group of 46 organizations called for the suspension of border and migration-control support for the security forces in Tunisia because of violent interceptions and expulsions (HRW, 2026b). But analysts say that these funds go to the security forces of authoritarian allies rather than to local economies, which could address the drivers of migration (Khan, 2024).
The connection to “populism” runs both ways. Both externalization and return hubs enable governments to project control to domestic audiences while removing the violence from sight. Meanwhile, the populist rhetoric of “invasion” relies on forgetting that the policies it demands and the people those policies affect are historically rooted in the same relationships that explain the movement of people. So, no actors are excused from postcolonial analysis; the border is not the start of a chain; it is the end.
Conclusion and Future Research Agenda
This review has suggested that Europe’s migration politics of 2026 can best be understood as an interplay between three processes: agenda-setting by the populist radical right, convergence of policy in the mainstream, and an ongoing “externalization” of migration with the Global South. Migration as the master explanation of the unrest fails to come to terms with the fact that the grievances concerning housing, pensions, education, and corruption are real, and that their migrantization is more to the benefit of political entrepreneurs than protesters.
Four research gaps are identified below.
First, comparative research is needed to examine the effects of restrictionist policies on support for the radical right, drawing on election results rather than polling data.
Second, empirical studies should test the migrantization-of-grievance hypothesis—for instance, by examining how media coverage and parliamentary attention frame demonstrations over housing and the cost of living.
Third, the operational pressures on fundamental rights guarantees should be assessed through systematic monitoring of the Pact’s implementation and the establishment of the first return hubs.
Fourth, postcolonial studies and populism studies need to be brought into dialogue, as each generally treats the other as background context. As with many political movements, however, populism’s power in Europe lies in the questions it forces the mainstream to confront, while the answers offered by populists reveal as much about Europe’s historical entanglements as they do about the continent’s contemporary borders.
(*) Shaza Khalid is affiliated with Universitas Islam Internasional Indonesia (UIII), Depok, West Java, Indonesia (ORCID ID: 0009-0009-7331-0329). Maryam Hameed is a student at the same university (ORCID ID: 0009-0001-7424-0459).
Brubaker, R. (2017). “Between nationalism and civilizationism: The European populist moment in comparative perspective.” Ethnic and Racial Studies, 40(8), 1191–1226. https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2017.1294700
CORDIS. (n.d.). International mobility, local economics and European cooperation policies in the central Sahara (MOLECOPS, Project No. 652755). https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/652755
Danewid, I. (2017). “White innocence in the Black Mediterranean: Hospitality and the erasure of history.” Third World Quarterly, 38(7), 1674–1689. https://doi.org/10.1080/01436597.2017.1331123
Pradella, L., & Taghdisi Rad, S. (2017). “Libya and Europe: Imperialism, crisis and migration.” Third World Quarterly,38(11), 2411–2427. https://doi.org/10.1080/01436597.2017.1350819
Ridgwell, H. (2024, October 2). “Far-right gains in Europe drive debate on migration, Ukraine aid.” Voice of America. https://www.voanews.com/a/far-right-gains-in-europe-drive-debate-on-migration-ukraine-aid-/7808290.html
Long Read — Securitized Borders, Migrantized Grievances: Populism, Migration Governance, and Europe’s Postcolonial Entanglements
Europe’s migration politics in 2026 reveal a growing convergence between radical-right populism and mainstream migration governance. In this scholarly review, Shaza Khalid and Maryam Hameed examine how grievances over housing, living costs, education, and public services are increasingly reframed through migration-related narratives—a process they conceptualize as the “migrantization of grievance.” Analyzing the EU Pact on Migration and Asylum, return hubs, reception conditions, and the October 2026 protest wave, the authors argue that populist influence extends beyond electoral success into institutional policymaking. Through a structural, postcolonial perspective, they further connect Europe’s contemporary border externalization policies to historical interventions and asymmetrical relationships with the Global South, highlighting the tensions between migration control, democratic accountability, and fundamental rights.
By Shaza Khalid & Maryam Hameed*
This review examines the intersection of migration politics in Europe in 2026, focusing on populist radical-right agendas, mainstream policy convergence and Europe’s external relations. It argues that migration functions more as a screen onto which housing, cost-of-living and generational grievances are projected than as the root cause of the current unrest.
The review considers three developments: the Pact on Migration and Asylum and the Returns Regulation, which institutionalize deterrence, speed up returns and establish offshore ‘return hubs’; reception conditions for migrants, which remain far from uniform; and the protest wave that spread across France, Italy, Spain and beyond in October 2026. It situates these developments within a structural, postcolonial interpretation of Europe’s role in the Global South, linking the 2011 intervention in Libya, instability in the Sahel and the outsourcing of border control to Tunisia, Libya and Mauritania. It shows that setting the agenda, rather than holding office, is key to a populist movement’s success, and identifies gaps in research on populism and migration governance.
From Paris to Marseille, from Milan to Madrid, from Lisbon to Tirana, demonstrations spread in the second half of October 2026 across Europe. 1,314 people were arrested in nationwide protests in France just on Saturday, October 24, 2026, over the cost of living and the education system (CBS News/AP, 2026). Italy deployed more soldiers in Milan after looting and clashes, and the Italian government announced harsher punishments for minors (Barry & Associated Press, 2026). These scenes were quickly turned into an immigration story and Al Jazeera (2026) reported that “violence imagery is being used to back anti-immigration claims online, despite the root causes of these.”
This review begins where the gap left by protesters and the public discussion about what they mean lies. Insecurity is so diffuse that it can be filled with a ready-made explanation, and this is what populist actors do. Populism studies have long demonstrated that radical-right parties do well when they offer a ready-made explanation for diffuse insecurity (Mudde, 2007). The present moment implies another step: that unrelated grievances are being narrated in the language of migration, not only by populists but by growing numbers of mainstream governments.
The article proceeds in three steps. First, it examines the agenda of the radical right and how mainstream parties have embraced it. Second, it looks at the new policy design from 2026 and the reception conditions it promises and provides. Third, it raises questions that the prevailing discussion neglects: the historical and current position of Europe in the political economies from which many migrants originate. The argument is structural and does not attribute any instability in other parts of the world to any one European policy. It is also deliberately conceptual, inviting conceptual reflection as well as empirical material.
Populism, Civilizationism, and the Migrantization of Grievance
The populist radical right is a combination of nativism, authoritarianism and populism, in which “the people” are pitted against “elites” and “culturally threatening outsiders” (Mudde, 2007). Much of the modern right in Europe views this opposition in terms of civilizations, not just ethnic ones, and sees itself as a Christian or liberal Europe against Islam, as Brubaker (2017) notes. This is why the hostility to migrants can be supplemented with the claims to protect women’s rights, secularism or “European values.”
This review suggests that a similar process can be called migrantization of grievance. Housing shortages, stagnant living standards and pressure on public services are real and politically potent. When political entrepreneurs blame them on migrants, they are expressed in terms of membership, border control and issues that can be “solved” by visible state action. After that, mainstream parties use that translation to regain the voters, which in turn gives it respectability. Hans Kundnani has pointed to the influence of far-right ideas on identity, immigration and Islam, with the center-right becoming more like the far right (Ridgwell, 2024). This creates a vicious circle where populist agenda-setting outpaces populist office-holding.
Far-Right Objectives and Mainstream Convergence
This kind of agenda has strong grassroots support. The Alternative for Germany (AfD) achieved its highest result in Ipsos polling up to that point, at 28 percent in August 2026, while other polls in October showed the same result (International News and Views, 2026). In early 2026, France’s National Rally (RN) was reported to be getting more than 30 percent of the vote, and a French restriction on migration coincided with a surge in the far-right vote share, with housing problems and public service stress being key factors in the government’s thinking (Vision of Humanity, 2026). These are poll numbers, not election results, so the volatility of these numbers needs to be recognized.
The content of the agenda is not limited to restrictions. The AfD advocates “remigration” and was deemed an extremist organization by Germany’s domestic intelligence agency (The Conversation, 2026b). In Italy, a citizens’ initiative called “Remigration and Reconquest” garnered more than 50,000 signatures to initiate a discussion in parliament, including incentives for some migrants to leave and expanded deportation policies (Newsweek, 2026). The common thread is that people who are already residents, including second-generation citizens, are potentially removable, rather than controls being limited to who can enter.
Yet convergence is uneven. There is disagreement about Russia and Ukraine within the far right, but there is agreement on migration (Ridgwell, 2024), making migration a unique bridging issue for far-right parties. There is a spectrum of interventions, from restrictive policies to cordons sanitaires, with mixed outcomes. The case for studying convergence rather than party competition is that the policy shifts likely to have the greatest impact in 2026 come from institutions where the radical right does not govern.
The 2026 Policy Architecture: The Pact, Returns, and Externalisation
On June 12, 2026, the Pact on Migration and Asylum, comprising nine regulations and one directive designed to reform the Common European Asylum System (CEAS), entered into force across the EU (Consilium, 2026a; Eurodiaconia, 2026). Its declared objectives are “orderly” arrivals, “uniform” procedures, and a “fair balance” of solidarity and responsibility. Backers cite the real benefits: applicants now have access to free legal advice, and adults can work after 6 months instead of 9 (Eurodiaconia, 2026; Human Rights Watch, 2026a). Critics have replied that the same instruments can be used by states to block access to asylum procedures in vague cases of “mass influx” or “instrumentalization” of migration by third countries, and that states can “accomplish” their solidarity obligations by paying for asylum rather than accepting people (HRW, 2026a: 19).
The Pact is supported by the Returns Regulation. EU negotiators reached a provisional agreement on a new regulation that imposes strong measures on those without a right to stay and allows member states to designate a return hub in a third country as a final destination for migrants or as a transit point (Consilium, 2026b). Deportees could be dispatched to hubs with which they have no connection, and the Netherlands is looking to coordinate the movement with Denmark, Germany, Greece, and Austria, although it is said that discussions with Uganda have stalled (France 24, 2026). Legal analysis highlights that, under the framework, there is greater scope for longer detention, including for children and families, and that there is greater use of an expanded “safe third country” concept, which was adopted in February 2026 (The Conversation, 2026a). The EU Agency for Fundamental Rights (European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, 2025) has set out prerequisites without which return hubs could not comply with EU fundamental rights law.
Legal analysis highlights that, under the framework, there is greater scope for longer detentions, including for children and families, and that there is greater use of an expanded “safe third country” concept, which was adopted in February 2026 (The Conversation, 2026a). The EU Agency for Fundamental Rights (European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights [FRA], 2025) has set out prerequisites without which return hubs could not comply with EU fundamental rights law.
The policy justifications are not only political but also administrative: EU institutions have observed that merely 20% of deportation orders are implemented every year (Euronews, 2025). Yet, the design is strikingly similar to a populist idea that migration is, at its core, an issue of deportation. The center has not been taken over by populists, but it has adopted populist means to address real implementation shortcomings.
Reception Conditions and the Politics of “Amenities”
The recast Reception Conditions Directive lays down minimum standards for applicants (Consilium, 2026a; European Commission, n.d.), such as the requirement to provide housing, food, and clothing. The political dimension of the gap between standards and practice is twofold. Shortages and withdrawals are recorded for migrants. The FRA (2026) notes that, in Finland, reception conditions were temporarily reduced for asylum seekers, with their basic needs being met; a High Court judgment in Ireland awarded damages to asylum seekers who were left homeless on their arrival; and an Italian case involved the withdrawal of reception conditions from an asylum seeker and a child who refused a transfer. In the Netherlands, capacity has been under pressure, and there are limited prospects of being reallocated to housing (European Union Agency for Asylum, 2026). There is a description of uneven implementation of the Pact itself, with the legislation largely in place but the capacity for operational implementation limited in some places (Eurodiaconia, 2026). Moreover, there is criticism from advocacy organizations of the approach of placing asylum seekers in large centers away from host communities, which reduces contact with the host population (Jesuit Refugee Service Europe, 2024).
Visible reception arrangements are symbols for host societies. In areas with limited housing, the presence of government-sponsored housing for newcomers may be perceived as a privilege, even when it is of low quality. As AP reported, Spanish protests this autumn were fueled by a housing shortage, driven in part by population growth and the rise of short-term rentals, with the eviction of an 87-year-old tenant becoming a focal point of mobilization (Barry & Associated Press, 2026). The point is not that migrants are to blame, but that scarcity sets the stage for the success of such populist narratives of competition. Reception policy is thus a communication problem rather than a welfare one, and the lack of enough housing for everyone is the common denominator.
The October 2026 Protests: Migration as a Frame, Not a Cause
The “Oct. 17 Movement,” which has just been formed, has been the principal instigator of these demonstrations, along with student federations, grassroots unions, and anti-war coalitions, and the demands include pensions, housing, anti-war activism, education, and corruption (Barry & Associated Press, 2026). Protests against the cost of living and over education in France resulted in 1,314 arrests just on Saturday, October 24, 2026 (CBS News/AP, 2026); another protest, organized by around 50 organizations, including unions, left-wing parties, and student groups, and aimed at a far-right demonstration, was also reported (CBS News/AP, 2026). Police counted 11,000 participants, while organizers claimed 26,000. Mobilization against the radical right is thus part of the protest landscape as well.
Milan is an illustration of the interpretive contest. In addition to foreign nationals, police reported that about 2,000 “very young” protesters took part in the looting, many of whom were “naturalized, second-generation Italians” who had not felt a connection to Italy and lacked prospects, according to a center-left city official (Barry & Associated Press, 2026). In Rome, a right-wing student organization broke away from the violence, and peaceful student demonstrations emphasized that they were not “rioters.” There are several additional factors, such as pension and housing marches in Spain, tenant protests in Lisbon, and student protests in Tirana, as well as a snap election in Spain planned for next month (Barry & Associated Press, 2026).
There are two analytical points to follow. The first is that most of this wave would be misdescribed as an “anti-immigration protest”; treating it as such embodies what this review terms the migrantization of grievance. Second, the actors who benefit from the misdescription are those who profit from making social conflict into border politics. Whether the radical right will gain electoral traction remains an empirical question; early polls offer some indication but should be treated with caution until elections are held.
Europe in the Global South: A Structural and Postcolonial Perspective
Discussions of populism and migration in Europe often begin at the border, overlooking the broader political economy that shapes migration patterns. A structural, postcolonial reading expands this analytical framework without reducing migration to a single cause. Libya provides one of the most extensively studied cases. Scholars link the collapse of Libyan state institutions following the NATO-led intervention in 2011 to the expansion of smuggling routes through the country. They also argue that Europe’s subsequent policy of transferring responsibility for migration control to Libya has facilitated exploitation and abuse (Feldstein, 2018). Pradella and Taghdisi Rad (2017) examine the same sequence of events through theories of imperialism and the global reserve army of labor to analyze migration from Libya. This does not necessarily mean that the intervention itself directly caused displacement—a question that remains contested—but rather that European policy decisions form part of the causal chain, rather than standing outside it.
The Sahel extends the claim. European-funded programs assumed that people migrate from the Sahara to Europe, yet research in the region shows that these initiatives disrupted a centuries-old migration system between Niger and Chad, where people suspected of smuggling were arrested (CORDIS, n.d.). Critics argue that EU migration control in the Mediterranean and military stabilization in the Sahel recreate a colonial asymmetry and geography in which the two regions are kept apart, and that today’s border violence is “a late consequence” of the violent confrontation between Europe and the Global South, as Danewid (2017) puts it.
This trend continues with the current policy package in the form of externalization. In its January 2026 update, the Commission allocated EUR 675 million for the southern neighborhood migration measures for 2025–2027 (borderline-europe, 2026). The 2023 EU-Tunisia memorandum is a template for the arrangements with Egypt and Mauritania (EUobserver, n.d.), and the EU agreed on EUR 210 million with Mauritania in 2024 (European Council on Refugees and Exiles, 2024). Tunisia was added to the EU list of safe countries of origin in February 2026, and in July 2026, a group of 46 organizations called for the suspension of border and migration-control support for the security forces in Tunisia because of violent interceptions and expulsions (HRW, 2026b). But analysts say that these funds go to the security forces of authoritarian allies rather than to local economies, which could address the drivers of migration (Khan, 2024).
The connection to “populism” runs both ways. Both externalization and return hubs enable governments to project control to domestic audiences while removing the violence from sight. Meanwhile, the populist rhetoric of “invasion” relies on forgetting that the policies it demands and the people those policies affect are historically rooted in the same relationships that explain the movement of people. So, no actors are excused from postcolonial analysis; the border is not the start of a chain; it is the end.
Conclusion and Future Research Agenda
This review has suggested that Europe’s migration politics of 2026 can best be understood as an interplay between three processes: agenda-setting by the populist radical right, convergence of policy in the mainstream, and an ongoing “externalization” of migration with the Global South. Migration as the master explanation of the unrest fails to come to terms with the fact that the grievances concerning housing, pensions, education, and corruption are real, and that their migrantization is more to the benefit of political entrepreneurs than protesters.
Four research gaps are identified below.
First, comparative research is needed to examine the effects of restrictionist policies on support for the radical right, drawing on election results rather than polling data.
Second, empirical studies should test the migrantization-of-grievance hypothesis—for instance, by examining how media coverage and parliamentary attention frame demonstrations over housing and the cost of living.
Third, the operational pressures on fundamental rights guarantees should be assessed through systematic monitoring of the Pact’s implementation and the establishment of the first return hubs.
Fourth, postcolonial studies and populism studies need to be brought into dialogue, as each generally treats the other as background context. As with many political movements, however, populism’s power in Europe lies in the questions it forces the mainstream to confront, while the answers offered by populists reveal as much about Europe’s historical entanglements as they do about the continent’s contemporary borders.
(*) Shaza Khalid is affiliated with Universitas Islam Internasional Indonesia (UIII), Depok, West Java, Indonesia (ORCID ID: 0009-0009-7331-0329). Maryam Hameed is a student at the same university (ORCID ID: 0009-0001-7424-0459).
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