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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  • @NOT_RICK@lemmy.worldEnglish
    -20•6 months ago

    I would always point out that European security has been subsidized by the American taxpayer for 70 years. Finally starting to see that change, I just hope idiots like Geert aren’t the ones leading that charge.

    • @conditional_soup@lemm.eeEnglish
      13•6 months ago

      I mean, not trying to sound like a pessimist as much as a realist. Even if Europe started paying the full sum of what we’re paying in defense subsidies, I seriously doubt we’d cut that spending. Raytheon and Lockheed’s investors are counting on us.

      • @NOT_RICK@lemmy.worldEnglish
        3•6 months ago

        Yeah you’re probably right. It’d likely just move the bulk of the expenditure over to Asia to contain China

    • TheChurn
      12•6 months ago

      American hegemony was a conscious American policy choice. We didn’t want the Euros having an independent foreign policy, we wanted them reliant on American military protection. This was how the US kept those bits of its empire in line.

      Notice how the only Western European country that even pays lip service to independent action is France, the one Western European country with a military capable of independent operation. And then we get “Freedom Fries” and all that shit whenever they don’t do whatever the current US admin wants.

      The single biggest thing Trump fucked up for the US was pushing NATO countries to spend more on defence. This will drastically reduce US influence over the continent in the coming decades, speeding up America’s worsening diplomatic isolation.

      • @NOT_RICK@lemmy.worldEnglish
        3•6 months ago

        I’d prefer a multipolar world provided the other poles are actual democracies. Europe should step up and have a bigger say

      • @afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1•6 months ago

        Freedom fries = that thing that was a week long 21 years ago.

        If it were a person it could legally drink…but you are welcome to bring it up again for another 21 years as some sorta attempt a a deep conversation killer.

        • @conditional_soup@lemm.eeEnglish
          6•6 months ago

          I think that’s a bad take. Here’s the thing, “freedom fries” wasn’t a self-enclosed phenomenon. It was part of a broader jingoistic fever that swept through the US post-9/11. Yeah, sure, it’s fair to joke about Americans being dumb, but our brains dead ass shut off after 9/11, and anyone could do anything if they just waved their hands and said “terrorists, 9/11”. And Operation Iraqi freedom was just one of the turd sandwiches we ferociously gobbled down under such framing. Freedom fries happened because France wouldn’t support our stupid, pointless invasion, and the boomer email network kicked into overdrive to create a new meme (in the literal sense of the word) of replacing anything having to do with the treacherous French with Freedom. And that was what we did to people who owed us nothing, so it felt much more dangerous to step out against it as an American, at least in the early days of the war.

          • @afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.worldEnglish
            -2•6 months ago

            Never found any of it funny. You go ahead and make your “jokes” for another 21 years. Maybe someone will laugh at them.

            Oh and btw I went to the Iraq protests. Maybe you were afraid but I wasn’t. Maybe that’s why I don’t feel like making “jokes” to feel tough now.