Although some wish to save appearances and keep alive the border between the right and the far-right, the reality is that the right-wing parties are looking for each other, and increasingly shamelessly. The taboo of pacts with neo-fascists is falling across Europe as conservative or liberal right-wing parties fail to stop the leaks towards the far-right. Every day they incorporate more elements of reactionary thought: patriotic retreats are returning, a symptom of a moment of growing confusion, with an absence of reference authorities. A time of distrust.
The democratic right-wing parties have not found their tone. The neoliberal radicalization that at one point was led by Emmanuel Macron –who believed himself to be the anti-De Gaulle who could definitively liquidate the Fifth Republic–, lowering the corporate dimension and incorporating it into the new trend set by the USA, was a failure from the start. He is now a clearly diminished president who sees events passing him by from an increasingly less decisive role. France has left behind the spirit of the Fifth Republic, where everything passed through the Elysée, and has shifted the axis towards Parliament. And there, as in almost all of Europe, with the left-wing in a phase of confusion, it is where the far-right parties are making their way towards normalization. For now, they are achieving a first unsettling success: that the agenda is turning towards their preferred themes –the rejection of immigration, the denial of gender equality, the downplaying of environmental issues, and the manipulation of historical memory–. The sad reality is that the right-wing is buying into this drift, as it sees votes slipping away, and not precisely towards the left.
The fact is that right now, both in France and Italy, the far-right is ahead of the right-wing, which, instead of reacting in defense of its positions, is increasingly focused on the reactionary agenda. And here, if the PP is increasingly focused on Vox, Junts is already feeling the friction with Aliança Catalana. Sílvia Orriols has captured the critical moment of a party clinging to Puigdemont, who is the one the current leadership uses to legitimize itself, even knowing that his time has passed.
It is true that the French municipal elections have generated some doubt about the expansionist capacity of the far right. Despite continuing to grow, it has shown very irregular implantation in the territory, a negative indicator for presidential elections. But it is also true that where the far right feels strong and takes the initiative, the right capitulates. The Italian case is evident. But so is Spain, where the PP is already moving from whispering to normalizing relations with Vox. And Feijóo takes for granted the support of the far right to form a potential majority after the next elections, willing to make whatever concessions are necessary. The PP has made the reactionary clichés its own: against feminism, immigration, and climate change policies that largely mark the border between democracy and post-democratic authoritarianism. The issue of war remains: even though Europe has ended up embracing the rejection of aggression against Iran, the far rights unconditionally support Trump. And the same PP, by approaching Vox, also does so, with a kind of wordplay that would say they are not for war but for victory.
It is evident that Trump's exhibitionism has been a favorable wind for the far rights. And, therefore, if the war in Iran were to accelerate the growing discredit of the American president among his own and this were to carry over to the 2027 elections, everything could start to turn around. But right now, without ruling out one of politics' great vices, which is the psychopathology of small differences, which could block it, the neo-fascist temptation has the right softened. And we will see them together everywhere. All this, with European social democracies – which Pedro Sánchez now wants to awaken – very blurred. And the parties to its left are incapable of motivating the sectors of the popular classes who feel marginalized and who are joining those who shout the loudest. The war in Iran has led Europe to mark a point of distance with the US. And this should be the way. To grow up, to mark our own path and share it. But for this, social democracy must regain initiative, and the right, the values that distinguished it from authoritarianism.
