Far-right and immigration: there is no correlation, not even in Europe

For a long time, the debate has revolved around the question of what explains the rise of the far right. Last Sunday's ARA dedicated In the rest of Europe, this correlation between the far right and immigration is also not found. This is the conclusion of the French demographer Hervé Le Bras in his book El gran engaño (Editorial Hacer, 2024), where he compares the relationship between populism and immigration in six European countries (Austria, Spain, Switzerland, Italy, Germany, and the United Kingdom) and the United States. According to Le Bras, this correlation can even be inverse, meaning that the less immigration there is, the more votes for the far right. There are not a few examples: in Germany, immigrants are in the west, while far-right votes are concentrated mainly in the east. In the United States, Trump wins in the Midwest and the Deep South, which is precisely where immigrants are least present. While in France and Italy there does seem to be some correlation in regional terms, when we go down to the local level, this relationship disappears.According to Le Bras, this unequal distribution of votes for the far-right is mainly explained by the divide between the countryside and the city. For example, in France, in the 2017 elections, 32% of voters in municipalities with fewer than 1,000 inhabitants opted for Marine Le Pen, while this percentage dropped to 12% in cities with more than 100,000 inhabitants and 5% in Paris. It is the same divide we saw in the United Kingdom with the Brexit referendum, where urban areas were predominantly against it and rural areas in favor.

Coinciding with the analysis on Catalonia, Le Bras also does not find the relationship between anti-immigration votes and socioeconomic factors conclusive. Immigration follows an economic logic, meaning it establishes itself in the most economically dynamic regions, which tend to be the most urban and least favorable to far-right parties. In the case of Italy, the geographical distribution of unemployed people is inversely proportional to that of far-right voters: the further south, the more unemployment but fewer votes for these parties. If we go down to the individual level, the profile of far-right voters differs from country to country: in France and Germany they are workers; in Italy, Switzerland, and Austria they are independent workers, and in Spain they are middle classes.There is indeed a clear correlation, as in Catalonia, in the political factor. According to Le Bras, the rise of the far-right is inseparable from discontent with central power, which takes different forms in each national context: that of a northern Italy that considers Rome to be unfairly redistributing to the benefit of the south, that of a part of the United Kingdom that accuses the government of yielding to Brussels, that of an East Germany that feels scorned by the West, or that of a Spain that considers the government to be yielding to the demands of the periphery. In the case of Catalonia, the perception of contempt from Madrid and, as Jordi Muñoz points out, the post-independence movement disillusionment with the pro-independence parties is a determining factor.But this discontent with central power, which overlaps with old historical fractures, is inseparable from material issues. As shown by the excellent reports on the different municipalities of the transversal axis, the saturation of public services, the degradation of urban centers, residential and school segregation, the housing crisis, or the growth of inequalities are behind this perception of abandonment. From this perspective, the anti-immigration discourse and the rise of the far-right are symptoms of a larger problem, which has to do with a crisis of representation and democracy. Faced with a state that is perceived as incapable of responding to its promise of improving social conditions, immigration becomes the scapegoat and voting for the far-right an option of protest and anti-system.the excellent reports on the different municipalities of the transversal axis