TheEconomistOctober 5th 2019 451L
ook backa year, and remember how
disquieting European politics seemed.
Matteo Salvini, by far the most popular pol-
itician in Italy, and France’s equally xeno-
phobic Marine Le Pen had just teamed up
with Steve Bannon, Donald Trump’s former
strategist, as part of what Mr Bannon called
The Movement. This alliance of nativist
parties of the right, soon to acquire a “gladi-
ator school” based in a monastery near
Rome, intended to sweep the forthcoming
European elections and tilt the continent’s
politics firmly away from the liberal centre
ground. They had their difficulties, of
course. The Eurosceptic and anti-migrant
Alternative for Germany (afd) decided to
steer clear of Mr Bannon, and other right-
wingers were wary too. But, with or with-
out the American Svengali, populists
seemed in the ascendant. In France the gi-
lets jaunes(yellow jackets), who drew sup-
port from the radical right and left, were
about to explode onto the streets.
The scene today is rather different. The
European Parliament elections in May
dashed Mr Bannon’s hopes. Mr Salvini’sNorthern League did do well. But else-
where the parties of the hard right fell back,
or at best marked time. Since then, things
have on the whole got worse for them. Mr
Salvini is out of Italy’s government, having
bungled an attempt to secure uncontested
power, and has fallen back in the polls; in
Hungary, Viktor Orban’s populist ruling
party faces the threat of losing control of
the country’s capital, Budapest, and per-
haps other cities at local elections later this
month. The gilets jauneshave been tamed
by President Emmanuel Macron. And this
week came the news that another key com-
ponent of the populist right, Austria’s, has
come to grief at the ballot box.Gloating is not advised
All of these setbacks are partial and revers-
ible. Even where the right-wingers have
fallen back in places, they are far from a
spent force. In Poland, for instance, the Law
and Justice party, another example of the
populist right, is expected to be re-elected
on October 13th; the afdalso did well in
state elections in Germany last month.But liberals can be excused a little satis-
faction as they look at recent events. Take
Austriafirst. In May the government col-
lapsed after two German newspapers re-
vealed footage from a video shot inside an
Ibiza villa in 2017, showing Heinz-Chris-
tian Strache, Austria’s vice-chancellor and
the leader of the hard-right Freedom Party
(fpö), discussing corrupt deals with a
woman posing as a Russian oligarch’s
niece. The election on September 29th,
triggered by the scandal, was a disaster for
the fpö. It took just 16% of the vote, almost
ten points less than in the 2017 election,
and lost 20 mps. Many voters defected to
the centre-right People’s Party (övp), which
until Ibiza-gate was the fpö’s senior
partner in government. Its young leader,
Sebastian Kurz, will now sound out the
Greens, the other big winner, as a coalition
partner. Mr Strache has quit politics.
Mr Kurz had invited the fpöinto co-
alition in 2017, telling concerned European
leaders that he could tame its worst im-
pulses. That seems to have been optimistic.
The government was scarred by scandal
during its short life, ranging from racist in-
cidents involving fpöofficials to an illegal
raid on the domestic intelligence agency
orchestrated by Herbert Kickl, an fpöhard-
liner who served as interior minister.
Being out of office does not, of course,
mean that the fpöhas vanished. The party
hopes to recuperate in opposition. History
suggests it will do so. It has been a fixture of
Austrian politics for over 60 years, exploit-Europe’s right-wingersPopulists under pressure
BUDAPEST, ROME AND VIENNA
After a series of reverses they are down, though certainly not outEurope
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