2026-01-17 10:06:00
Younger voters across Europe are increasingly tempted by hard-right and anti-migrant parties, but experts say this can’t be explained by anti-immigration politics alone.
Political orthodoxy tells us that younger voters tend to be more progressive on issues like immigration. But in recent years, Europe has seen anti-migrant parties surge in the polls and gain youth support across the continent.
In Norway, for example, survey data shows that 24 percent of young people favour limiting immigration “to a large extent” and 23 percent “to some extent.”
Thirty-two percent of French voters aged between 25-34 backed the far-right National Rally in the 2024 European elections. In Germany, the hard-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) came second among voters between 16-24, winning 17 percent — an 11 point rise on 2019.
But why are young Europeans supporting far-right parties and is it actually about immigration?
One possible, seemingly obvious explanation would be that a large number young Europeans aren’t happy with levels of migration seen in recent years, something consistent with older voter cohorts. But experts say that doesn’t tell the full story.
“There is no one single explanation that leads young voters to vote for the far-right,” Toni Rodon, Associate Professor of Political Science at Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona, tells The Local.
“The two basic explanations are the economic one and the cultural one. One idea, on economics, is that young voters are more likely to have a pessimistic outlook of the future. The reality of their economic situation, plus the perspective of their economic situation in the future, are all worse than among other cohorts of people”.
Some view this shift therefore not as a policy preference or specifically anti-migrant position, but rather a protest against poor economic prospects and a generation of status-quo politicians viewed as incapable of improving them.
Professor Ngaire Woods, Dean of Oxford’s Blavatnik School of Government, has written that “young voters’ growing support for xenophobic, anti-EU, and ultra-conservative parties is driven less by anti-immigrant sentiment than by a powerful sense of betrayal by establishment politicians.”
“Far-right politicians, while wrongly blaming immigration, at least recognise that there is a problem, and they are doing so in ways that resonate with younger voters,” she adds.
Put simply: some young voters feel that consensus politics has failed them and far-right parties frame immigration as an explanation for these underlying economic, employment and housing insecurities while providing an outlet to protest against them.
“Essentially what we have witnessed over the last 20 years or more… is that most of the far-right vote is initially a protest vote,” Rodon explains. “Pretty much across Europe, the far-right emerges because it’s a decomposition of the traditional, mainstream conservative family.”
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Gender divide
Rodon stresses, however, that despite evidence of some younger voters moving rightwards, political apathy remains high: “The main winner among young people is abstention, it’s not one particular party,” he explains.
It’s also important to remember that in many countries young voters are still more likely to vote for progressive parties, despite the recent trend.
Yet the rise of hard-right politics among young Europeans also reveals a clear gender divide that distinguishes it from other generations. Rodon’s research found that “the electoral success of far-right parties among young voters is primarily driven by the support of young men, peaking at over 21 percent of all young men in 2024 compared to only about 14 percent among women of the same age cohort.”
In Norway, young men were found to be nearly twice as likely as women to prioritise restricting immigration.
Far-right Vox frames Spanish debate in civilisational terms — warning of an “Islamist invasion” — and polling data shows that 25 percent of Spanish voters under 24 back Vox. Among young men, it’s 36 percent.
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Social media
This tendency also roughly mirrors the rise of social media and more direct forms of political communication.
“Young people are more likely to get information from non-traditional media,” Rodon says. “There are differences across genders…boys are more likely to use TikTok or YouTube, whereas girls are more likely to use Instagram… [but] in general, overall young people are more likely to consume new media.”
That might include more extremist, ‘manosphere’ type influencers, or, as in many countries, far-right parties with slicker, social-media savvy operations that outmanoeuvre mainstream parties that still rely on broadsheets and broadcast television rounds.
It seems to be working: media analysis research by ZDF Huete confirmed that the AfD is significantly more successful than other German parties on TikTok and YouTube.
“Life was better under Franco” has become a popular catchphrase on Spanish social media, and in Britain Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has more followers on TikTok than the other 649 MPs combined.
There is no one headline answer to why more young Europeans are backing far-right parties. Some are simply anti-immigration. For others, it’s a protest or anti-politics vote and disentangling the cultural and economic causes underpinning them is difficult.
“The most likely answer,” Rodon says, “is that those factors, economic, cultural, plus the media going on around it, plus the political side of things, which inflates the rhetoric, combine in a sort of negative spiral”.
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What’s happening across Europe?
The team looked at why France deported 10 British activists involved in anti-migrant activities along the Channel coast, and editor Emma Pearson wrote a great 5 minute guide to understand Le Pen’s court case and what it means for France (and Europe).
In Sweden, we looked at government plans to ease rules for researchers and PhDs and why the Social Democrats backed a plan to strip citizenship for ‘harming Sweden’s interests’.
Our colleagues in Germany considered why a planned immigration crackdown by Bavaria’s CSU was slammed as ‘propaganda’ and Italy editor Clare Speak looked ahead to what’s in store for Italian politics in 2026.
Across the Med, I wrote a similar roundup of what’s in store for Spanish politics in 2026.
Austria editor Amanda Previdelli looked into changes that await foreigners in 2026.
We reported on how Denmark cut asylum figures to a historic low in 2025 and asked why 2026 will be a crucial year for EU free movement in Switzerland.
And finally, we found out why many immigrants think Norway’s health system is below par.
