Progressives have long counted on young people to champion their causes. Just five years ago, young Europeans voted for parties that championed climate action, social justice and democratic reform. But this may no longer be a viable political strategy. The European Parliament elections in June showed that many young voters have shifted to the far right, allowing Eurosceptic, anti-immigrant and anti-establishment parties to score significant victories.
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This trend is not limited to Europe. Young Kenyans opposed to new taxes stormed parliament in June, and several were killed when police opened fire. A new youth politics is emerging around the world. And while not always aligned with the far right, this movement is often at odds with the status quo, providing a powerful warning to politicians that they need to rethink both their message and their ways of communicating when appealing to disaffected young voters.
The rightward shift of these voters is evident across the European Union. After overwhelmingly backing the Greens in 2019, 16 percent of German voters under 25 voted for the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party in this year’s European elections, propelling the party into second place behind the center-right Christian Democrats and well ahead of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats.
In France, 30 percent of the youth vote went to the National Rally, the far-right party led by Marine Le Pen. This result was in line with the runoff vote for the 2022 presidential election, when Le Pen won 39 percent of the vote among 18- to 24-year-olds and 49 percent among voters aged 25 to 34.
Meanwhile, 21 percent of Italian voters aged 18-34 helped Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy win a strong mandate to pursue its agenda. In Spain, the ultra-conservative Vox party increased its share of the vote among younger voters (under 25) to 12.4 percent. By contrast, the far-right Sweden Democrats came in fourth, despite 10 percent of the vote among 22-30 year-olds.
It’s not the migrants
Europe’s shift to the right has led many politicians to harden their stances on issues such as immigration. But the growing support among young voters for xenophobic, anti-EU and ultra-conservative parties is not so much motivated by anti-immigrant sentiment as by a strong sense that establishment politicians have betrayed them.
As older generations, who have led economically secure lives, consume a growing share of government budgets through generous pensions and healthcare, young Europeans are grappling with a cost-of-living crisis and worsening economic prospects.
This growing frustration can be attributed, in part, to the failure of EU politicians to guarantee secure and well-paid jobs for young people. Youth unemployment among Europeans aged 15 to 24 reached 13.8 percent in 2023. In Spain, the rate was 27.9 percent, compared to 27.7 percent in Greece, 20.7 in Italy and 18.9 in Sweden.
To be sure, some progress has been made in tackling the problem. Youth unemployment in France fell from 25 percent in 2016 to 15.7 percent in 2023, in Italy it fell from 42.7 percent in 2014 to 22.8 percent in 2024, in the Netherlands it fell from 13.2 percent in 2013 to 8.7 percent in 2023, and in Germany it collapsed from 15.5 percent to 6 percent between 2005 and 2023. Still, support for the far right has risen across the bloc amid mounting evidence that no matter how hard they work, most young people will end up poorer than their parents.
The problem extends beyond the labor market. In many European countries, young people are also facing a housing crisis, overcrowded classrooms and failing health care systems. Faced with rising rents, exorbitant education fees and stagnant real wages, young voters are increasingly asking who is going to take care of their problems. Far-right politicians, while wrongly blaming immigration, at least acknowledge that there is a problem, and often do so in ways that resonate with young voters.
A serious mistake
Social media is a case in point. In the 1960s, communication theorist Marshall McLuhan stressed the importance of how messages are communicated, not just what is being said. The media through which people communicate, he argued, shape their interactions. His famous observation that “the medium is the message” is even more pertinent today in this age of platforms like TikTok, which allow far-right demagogues to tailor their messages for young people.
What veteran politicians who mistake social media for a means of broadcasting fail to understand is that it can be a powerful tool for fostering engagement, bonding and identity formation. Politicians who view social media as a focus group available at all hours, shaping their policies based on the whims and immediate reactions of voters, are just as dangerous as those who ignore it altogether.
By fuelling shared grievances, social media can help political movements expand and gather supporters. For example, while Scholz was a latecomer to TikTok in April, the German far right has used the platform to create a powerful discourse – some might say an alternative universe – that speaks to the fears and anxieties of young voters. As a result, many EU policymakers feel increasingly isolated in their attempts to carry out their work as online groups mobilise against them.
With much of the younger generation of voters spending a significant amount of their time on platforms like YouTube, TikTok and Instagram – in the US, teens spend an average of 4.8 hours a day on social media – the result could be a toxic political cocktail. To win back disaffected youth, political leaders must work on two things: offering them a future they can believe in and embracing the media platforms on which young people live.
NGAIRE WOODS
© PROJECT SYNDICATE
Oxford
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