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.)

  • acargitz@lemmy.caEnglish
    33·
    6 months ago

    Arguably the hard right foreign policies of the US from the last 10-20 years are responsible for a lot of the migrant waves Europeans are fearing. You guys blew up the middle east…

    • Maggoty@lemmy.worldEnglish
      10·
      6 months ago

      You think the EU didn’t have a hand in that? Who did Libya again? Who was famous for doing stuff in Northern and Western Africa? Who drew the lines that fucked half the world? Who insisted on keeping their colonies until it was absolutely too late to stop strong man rebellions from becoming dictatorships?

      The US is in the picture, but it’s not alone by a long shot.

      • acargitz@lemmy.caEnglish
        6·
        6 months ago

        God no, the EU countries are not blameless. But they by far not the prime mover of the blowing up of the Middle East.

        Junior partners are junior.

        • Maggoty@lemmy.worldEnglish
          2·
          6 months ago

          Oh? The US forced the French to keep operating in Africa until (checks notes) last year? The US forced them to operate colonies until they couldn’t be militarily sustained anymore? The US forced the dumbest drawing of country borders? The US forced Europe to take part in cold war geopolitics?

          Take some responsibility.

            • Maggoty@lemmy.worldEnglish
              2·
              6 months ago

              Are you aware of what’s happening in Gaza right now? Did you know France was one of Saddam’s biggest arms suppliers during the Iran Iraq war?

              You really really need to read more history.

              • acargitz@lemmy.caEnglish
                2·
                6 months ago

                None of this negates my argument.

                I’m making the argument that the Europeans, while being junior partners in imperialist domination are not the main drivers, and are in fact an order of magnitude less powerful than the US. Wtf is your argument? That they are co-equal to the Americans?

                • Maggoty@lemmy.worldEnglish
                  1·
                  6 months ago

                  Arguably the hard right foreign policies of the US from the last 10-20 years are responsible for a lot of the migrant waves Europeans are fearing.

                  That’s not what you said. The conflicts from the last 10-20 years are rooted in colonialism, the break up of the Ottoman empire, and the rise of single resource economies. The US is certainly the leading imperial power right now, but they didn’t set this stage.

                  • acargitz@lemmy.caEnglish
                    2·
                    6 months ago

                    Sure, but why stop in the 1600s? Let’s go all the way back to the agricultural revolution. I blame Sumer.

    • escaped_cruzader@lemmy.worldEnglish
      7·
      6 months ago

      are responsible for a lot of the migrant waves Europeans are fearing

      The EU is could very much send them right back where they came from, but they don’t and in a lot of cases, outright sponsor it

      This whole immigration kerfuffle is simply top down shenanigans from the ruling elite to divide the poor

      • WAKEUPWAKEUPWAKEUP@lemmy.worldEnglish
        7·
        6 months ago

        All immigration is a plot to divide us? Are the immigrants actors? That’s ridiculous, I know many people who wouldn’t support sending immigrants back and many people who don’t want any.

        • Asafum@feddit.nlEnglish
          3·
          6 months ago

          It’s a shame that there are people in this world so selfish that it’s literally inconceivable that others would willingly accept some economic pain in order to ensure people can be saved from almost certain death…

          If we can figure out how to land a goddamn satellite on an asteroid and then have it return, if we can design and land a freaking bus sized rover on another planet using a freaking sky crane, then I think we can handle figuring out how to properly incorporate immigrants into our economy if we’d only listen to actually intelligent experts…

          But no, let’s listen to angry shitty business running orange man and his contemporaries around the world… He said mean things about the people that make me mad so he’s my man!

      • SirQuackTheDuck@lemmy.worldEnglish
        4·
        6 months ago

        The EU is could very much send them right back where they came from, but they don’t

        That’s only for the war refugees. Sending people back to, say, Eritrea, would mean they’d be executed for leaving the country (which is illegal there).

        Those only represent a tiny fraction of the immigrants though, and they’re not the ones “taking all the jobs”, that’s the worker immigrants.

        • Maggoty@lemmy.worldEnglish
          5·
          6 months ago

          They aren’t even “taking” the jobs. That’s the suits doing that. They decide who to hire. And if they had to pay the immigrants what they have to pay you then it would be a lot more fair of a labor market. But they don’t want you thinking about that. They want you thinking the boss just had to go with this random immigrant who showed up one day. Like he got to work before you and the boss was like, “I guess I have to fire Quack now?”