A Hungarian court on Wednesday sentenced German national Maja T. to eight years in prison on charges related to an assault on a group of right-wing extremists in Budapest two years ago. The case attracted national attention in Germany following the extradition of the defendant to Hungary in 2024, a move which Germany’s top court subsequently judged to have been illegal. Politicians on the German left have repeatedly expressed concern over whether the defendant, who identifies as non-binary, was being treated fairly by Hungary’s legal system. Hungarian prosecutors accused Maja T. of taking part in a series of violent attacks on people during a neo-Nazi gathering in Budapest in February 2023, with attackers allegedly using batons and rubber hammers and injuring several people, some seriously. The defendant was accused of acting alongside members of a German extreme-left group known as Hammerbande or “Antifa Ost.” The Budapest court found Maja T. guilty of attempting to inflict life-threatening bodily harm and membership in a criminal organization. The prosecution had sought a 24-year prison sentence, arguing the verdict should serve as a deterrent; the defendant has a right to appeal. German politicians on the left condemned the court’s decision. “The Hungarian government has politicized the proceedings against Maja T. from the very beginning,” Helge Limburg, a Greens lawmaker focused on legal policy, wrote on X. “It’s a bad day for the rule of law.” The case sparked political tensions between Hungary and Germany after Maja T. went on a hunger strike in June to protest conditions in jail. Several German lawmakers later visited to express their solidarity, and German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul called on Hungary to improve detention conditions for Maja T. Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s illiberal government is frequently accused of launching a culture war on LGBTQ+ people, including by moving to ban Pride events, raising concerns among German left-wing politicians and activists over the treatment of Maja T. by the country’s legal system. Maja T.’s lawyers criticized the handling of evidence and what they described as the rudimentary hearing of witnesses, according to German media reports.

Want to get a sense of how the next French presidential vote will play out? Then pay attention to the upcoming local elections. They start in 50 days, and voters in more than 35,000 communes will head to the polls to elect city councils and mayors. Those races will give an important insight into French politics running into the all-important 2027 presidential contest that threatens to reshape both France and the European Union.  The elections, which will take place over two rounds on March 15 and March 22, will confirm whether the far-right National Rally can cement its status as the country’s predominant political force. They will also offer signs of whether the left is able to overcome its internal divisions to be a serious challenger. The center has to prove it’s not in a death spiral. POLITICO traveled to four cities for an on-the-ground look at key races that will be fought on policy issues that resonate nationally such as public safety, housing, climate change and social services. These are topics that could very well determine the fortunes of the leading parties next year. FRANCE IN MINIATURE Benoit Payan, Franck Allisio, Martine Vassal and Sébastien Delogu | Source photos via EPA and Getty Images MARSEILLE — France’s second city is a microcosm of the nationwide electoral picture. Marseille’s sprawl is comprised of poorer, multicultural areas, middle-to-upper-class residential zones and bustling, student-filled districts. All make up the city’s unique fabric. Though Marseille has long struggled with crime, a surge in violence tied to drug trafficking in the city and nationwide has seen security rocket up voters’ priority list. In Marseille, as elsewhere, the far right has tied the uptick in violence and crime to immigration. The strategy appears to be working. Recent polling shows National Rally candidate Franck Allisio neck-and-neck with incumbent Benoît Payan, who enjoys the support of most center-left and left-wing parties. Trailing them are the center-right hopeful Martine Vassal — who is backed by French President Emmanuel Macron’s party Renaissance — and the hard-left France Unbowed candidate Sébastien Delogu, a close ally of three-time presidential candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon. Those four candidates are all polling well enough to make the second round. That could set up an unprecedented and unpredictable four-way runoff to lead the Mediterranean port city of more than 850,000 people. A National Rally win here would rank among the biggest victories in the history of the French far right. Party leader Marine Le Pen traveled to Marseille herself on Jan. 17 to stump for Allisio, describing the city as a “a symbol of France’s divisions” and slamming Payan for “denying that there is a connection between immigration and insecurity.” Party leader Marine Le Pen traveled to Marseille herself on Jan. 17 to stump for Allisio. | Miguel Medina/AFP via Getty Images The center-right candidate Vassal told POLITICO said she would increase security by recruiting more local police and installing video surveillance. But she also regretted that Marseille was so often represented by its struggles. “We’re always making headlines on problems like drug trafficking … It puts all the city’s assets and qualities to the side and erases everything else which goes on,” Vassal said. Payan, whose administration took over in 2020 after decades of conservative rule, has tried to tread a line that is uncompromising on policing while also acknowledging the roots of the city’s problems require holistic solutions. He’s offered to double the number of local cops as part of a push for more community policing and pledged free meals for 15,000 students to get them back in school. Marseille’s sprawl is comprised of poorer, multicultural areas, middle-to-upper-class residential zones and bustling, student-filled districts. All make up the city’s unique fabric. | Miguel Medina/AFP via Getty Images Delogu is the only major candidate not offering typical law-and-order investments. Though he acknowledges the city’s crime problems, he proposes any new spending should be on poverty reduction, housing supply and the local public health sector rather than of more security forces and equipment. Crime is sure to dominate the debate in Marseille. This election will test which of these competing approaches resonates most in a country where security is increasingly a top concern. LATEST POLLING: Payan 30 percent – Allisio 30 percent- Vassal 23 percent – Delogu 14 percent CAN A UNITED LEFT BLOCK A FAR-RIGHT TAKEOVER? Julien Sanchez, Franck Proust and Julien Plantier | Source photos via Getty Images NÎMES — Nîmes’ stunningly well-preserved second-century Roman amphitheater attracts global superstars for blockbuster concerts. But even the glamour of Taylor Swift or Dua Lipa can’t hide the recent scares in this city of more than 150,000 people. Nîmes has in recent years suffered from violence tied to drug trafficking long associated with Marseille, located just a short train ride away. Pissevin, a high-rise neighborhood just a 15-minute streetcar ride from the landmark amphitheater, seized national headlines in 2024 when 10-year-old was killed by a stray bullet in a case that remains under investigation but which prosecutors believe was linked to drug trafficking. “Ten to 15 years ago, a lot of crime came from petty theft and burglaries. But some of the population in underprivileged areas, looking for economic opportunities, turned to the drug trade, which offered a lot more money and the same amount of prison time if they were caught,” said Salim El Jihad, a Nîmes resident who leads the local nongovernmental organization Suburban. The Nimes amphitheatre and Pissevin / Source photos via Getty Images The National Rally is betting on Nîmes as a symbolic pickup. The race is shaping up to be a close three-way contest between Communist Vincent Bouget, the National Rally’s Julien Sanchez and conservative Franck Proust, Nîmes’ deputy mayor from 2016 to 2020. Bouget — who is backed by most other left-wing parties, including moderate forces like the Socialist Party — told POLITICO that while security is shaping up to be a big theme in the contest, it raises “a broader question around social structures.” “What citizens are asking for is more human presence, including public services and social workers,” Bouget said. Whoever wins will take the reins from Jean-Paul Fournier, the 80-year-old conservative mayor who has kept Nîmes on the right without pause for the past quarter century. But Fournier’s decision not to seek another term and infighting within his own party, Les Républicains, have sharply diminished Proust’s chances of victory. Proust may very well end splitting votes with Julien Plantier, another right-leaning former deputy mayor, who has the support of Macron’s Renaissance. Sanchez, meanwhile, is appealing to former Fournier voters with pledges to bolster local police units and with red scare tactics. “Jean-Paul Fournier managed to keep this city on the right for 25 years,” Sanchez said in his candidacy announcement clip. “Because of the stupidity of his heirs, there’s a strong chance the communists and the far left could win.” LATEST POLLING: Bouget 28 percent – Sanchez 27 percent- Proust 22 percent THE LAST GREEN HOPE That was also a clear swipe at Pierre Hurmic’s main opponent — pro-Macron centrist Thomas Cazenave — who spent a year as budget minister from 2023 to 2024. | Source photos via Getty Images BORDEAUX — Everyone loves a Bordeaux red. So can a Green really last in French wine country? Pierre Hurmic rode the green wave to Bordeaux city hall during France’s last nationwide municipal elections in 2020. That year the Greens, which had seldom held power other than as a junior coalition partner, won the race for mayor in three of France’s 10 most populous cities — Strasbourg, Lyon and Bordeaux — along with smaller but noteworthy municipalities including Poitiers and Besançon. Six years later, the most recent polling suggests the Greens are on track to lose all of them. Except Bordeaux. Green mayors have faced intense scrutiny over efforts to make cities less car-centric and more eco-friendly, largely from right-wing opponents who depict those policies as out of touch with working-class citizens who are priced out of expensive city centers and must rely on cars to get to their jobs. The view from Paris is that Hurmic has escaped some of that backlash by being less ideological and, crucially, adopting a tougher stance on crime than some of his peers. Notably, Hurmic decided to arm part of the city’s local police units — departing from some of his party’s base, which argues that firearms should be reserved for national forces rather than less-experienced municipal units. In an interview with POLITICO, Hurmic refused to compare himself to other Green mayors. He defended his decision to double the number of local police, alongside those he armed, saying it had led to a tangible drop in crime. “Everyone does politics based on their own temperament and local circumstances,” he said. Hurmic insists that being tough on crime doesn’t mean going soft on climate change. He argues the Greens’ weak polling wasn’t a backlash against local ecological policies, pointing to recent polling showing 63 percent of voters would be “reluctant to vote for a candidate who questions the ecological transition measures already underway in their municipality.” Pursuing a city’s transition on issues like mobility and energy is all the more necessary because at the national level, “the state is completely lacking,” Hurmic said, pointing to what he described as insufficient investment in recent budgets. That was also a clear swipe at his main opponent — pro-Macron centrist Thomas Cazenave — who spent a year as budget minister from 2023 to 2024. Cazenave has joined forces with other center-right and conservative figures in a bid to reclaim a city that spent 73 years under right-leaning mayors, two of whom served as prime minister — Alain Juppé and Jacques Chaban-Delmas. But according Ludovic Renard, a political scientist at the Bordeaux Institute of Political Science, Hurmic’s ascent speaks to how the city has changed. “The sociology of the city is no longer the same, and Hurmic’s politics are more in tune with its population,” said Renard. LATEST POLLING: Hurmic 32 percent – Cazenave 26 percent – Nordine Raymond (France Unbowed) 15 percent – Julie Rechagneux (National Rally) 13 percent – Philippe Dessertine (independent) 12 percent GENTRIFICATION AND THE FUTURE OF THE LEFT Mayor Karim Bouamrane, a Socialist, has said the arrival of new, wealthier residents and the ensuing gentrification could be a net positive for the city, as long as “excellence is shared.” | Bertrand Guay/AFP via Getty Images SAINT-OUEN-SUR-SEINE — The future of the French left could be decided on the grounds of the former Olympic village. The Parisian suburb of Saint-Ouen-sur-Seine, which borders the French capital, is a case study in the waves of gentrification that have transformed the outskirts of major European cities. Think New York’s Williamsburg, London’s Hackney or Berlin’s Neukölln. Saint-Ouen, as it’s usually called, has long been known for its massive flea market, which draws millions of visitors each year. But the city, particularly its areas closest to Paris, was long seen as unsafe and struggled with entrenched poverty. The future of the French left could be decided on the grounds of the former Olympic village. | Mustafa Yalcin/Anadolu via Getty Images That changed over time, as more affluent Parisians began moving into the well-connected suburb in search of cheaper rents or property. A 2023 report from the local court of auditors underlined that “the population of this rapidly growing municipality … has both a high poverty rate (28 percent) and a phenomenon of ‘gentrification’ linked to the rapid increase in the proportion of executives and higher intellectual professions.” Mayor Karim Bouamrane, a Socialist, has said the arrival of new, wealthier residents and the ensuing gentrification could be a net positive for the city, as long as “excellence is shared.” Bouamrane has also said he would continue pushing for the inclusion of social housing when issuing building permits, and for existing residents not to be displaced when urban renewal programs are put in place. His main challenger, France Unbowed’s Manon Monmirel, hopes to build enough social housing to make it 40 percent of the city’s total housing stock. She’s also pledged to crack down on real estate speculation. The race between the two could shed light on whether the future of the French left lies in the center or at the extremes. In Boumrane, the Socialists have a charismatic leader. He is 52 years old, with a beat-the-odds story that lends itself well to a national campaign. His journey from child of Moroccan immigrants growing up in a rough part of Saint-Ouen to city leader certainly caught attention of the foreign press in the run-up to the Olympics. Bouamrane’s moderate politics include a push for his party to stop fighting Macron’s decision to raise the retirement age in 2023 and he supports more cross-partisan work with the current center-right government. That approach stands in sharp contrast to the ideologically rigid France Unbowed. The party’s firebrand leader Mélenchon scored 51.82 percent of the vote in Saint-Ouen during his last presidential run in 2022, and France Unbowed landed over 35 percent — more than three times its national average — there in the European election two years later, a race in which it usually struggles. Mélenchon and France Unbowed’s campaign tactics are laser-focused on specific segments that support him en masse despite his divisive nature: a mix of educated, green-minded young voters and working-class urban populations, often of immigrant descent. In other words: the yuppies moving to Saint-Ouen and the people who were their before gentrification. France Unbowed needs their continued support to become a durable force, or it may crumble like the grassroots movements born in the early 2010s, including Spain’s Podemos or Greece’s Syriza. But if the Socialists can’t win a left-leaning suburb with a popular incumbent on the ballot, where can they win?

BERLIN — The center-left premier of the eastern German state of Brandenburg dissolved his coalition with the populist left Alliance for Social Justice and Economic Reason (BSW) on Tuesday after just over a year in office. Despite the collapse, the Social Democratic premier, Dietmar Woidke, said he intends to stay on as leader of a minority government, illustrating the fragile political conditions in Germany’s eastern states, where the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) is particularly strong. “The governmental chaos in Brandenburg can only have one logical consequence: immediate new elections!” one of the leaders of the AfD, Alice Weidel, said in a post on X. Her party is currently polling at 35 percent in Brandenburg, the state that surrounds Berlin, far ahead of all other parties. The coalition collapse came as two lawmakers and the finance minister left the BSW parliamentary group over policy disagreements. That caused the coalition, which had only a two-vote surplus, to lose its majority in the state parliament.   “This breakdown means that the basis for cooperation in a coalition no longer exists,” Woidke told reporters on Tuesday. The workings within government had become “overshadowed by constant disputes within the BSW,” he added. The BSW was founded in 2024 by Sahra Wagenknecht, a longtime icon of hard-left politics in Germany. The party merges elements of hard-left and hard-right politics — an ideology Wagenknecht has dubbed “left conservatism.” Wagenknecht stepped down as the party’s leader at the end of last year, but remains an influential figure. She had come under increasing criticism for tailoring the party too much to her own persona, which also led to a name change — it was originally called the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance. In line with this criticism, the departure of members of parliament from the BSW in Brandenburg was largely due to individual politicians disagreeing with Wagenknecht on policy issues such as the reform of the state’s public broadcasters, while the party leadership did not allow them to take a different path. Woidke said he planned to hold coalition talks with the center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) in the future, with whom his Social Democrats would now have a majority. But for the time being, Woidke plans to govern Brandenburg in a minority government. Minority governments are relatively uncommon in Germany, but might become more frequent in the coming years as the increasing strength of the far right and far left has fractured the political landscape. In upcoming elections this year in other eastern states, namely Saxony-Anhalt and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, the AfD aims to break through Germany’s so-called firewall that has been in place since the end of World War II to prevent a far-right party from coming to power again.

PARIS — Two polar opposite personalities from France’s fractured left are fighting to emerge as the candidate to stop the dominant far right under Marine Le Pen or Jordan Bardella from winning the presidency in 2027. It’s still about 17 months until an election that threatens to upend the European Union, but a very public battle is already raging between the old-school radical Jean-Luc Mélenchon and the polished pro-NATO more center-leaning Raphaël Glucksmann. It’s a bruising clash, and several observers tracking the presidential race predict the depth of animosity between the two men could further split the left — sapping the possibility of victory in 2027 — rather than establishing a consensus candidate for the crucial second round of the race for the Elysée. Unless one manages to completely overshadow the other, the left will be locked in a civil war for the coming year. “Past presidential elections have shown that two candidates can’t coexist on the left without causing trouble for each other,” said Erwan Lestrohan, research director at French polling institute Odoxa. The two men could hardly be more different. Mélenchon is a 74-year-old hardliner who has run for president three times, nearly making the runoff in 2022 with a campaign calling for hiking the minimum wage, lowering the retirement age to 60 and pulling out of NATO. Glucksmann, 46, is an MEP and staunch supporter of bolstering Europe’s military power. He is also open to billions of euros worth of spending cuts to bring France’s messy public finances into line and believes the country’s contentious pension system should be rebuilt. Given those ideological fault lines, the tone of the contest has unsurprisingly descended into mudslinging. On his preferred communication outlet — his blog — Mélenchon has described Glucksmann as a “fanatic warmonger” and “the darling child of media vacuity.” Punching back on social media and in interviews, Glucksmann has called Mélenchon “a phony patriot who prefers the Kremlin’s spin” and has framed their showdown as a struggle for “a vision of democracy,” accusing the leader of the hard-left France Unbowed party of rose-tinted views of authoritarian regimes in Moscow and Beijing. PERIL IN THE POLLS Over recent weeks, poll after poll has suggested the far right could well have to face a leftist in a run-off in the spring of 2027. “There’s a solid prospect of having a left-wing candidate make the second round,” Lestrohan said. For Mélenchon or Glucksmann, reaching the run-off would be a huge moment. They would have a shot not only at taking the Elysée, but also at shaping the future of the French left — joining the likes of Jean Jaurès and François Mitterrand in the country’s pantheon of progressive icons. More likely for now, however, is the prospect of becoming the first presidential candidate in modern French history to lose to the far right. Neither looks on course to win a second round against the National Rally’s Bardella — seen as a probable runner because of a ban on Le Pen. . Mélenchon is a 74-year-old hardliner who has run for president three times, nearly making the runoff in 2022. | Jerome Gilles/Getty Images A year and a half ahead of the vote, Glucksmann appears to be a stronger second-round candidate. According to an Odoxa poll released last week he is seen as losing by a margin of 42 percent to 58 percent to Bardella, while Mélenchon is seen as losing in a 26 percent to 74 percent landslide. All prospective candidates from the center-right coalition currently in power look set to be wiped out in the first round, except for Édouard Philippe — President Emmanuel Macron’s first prime minister after his 2017 election — though his polling numbers have steadily declined over the past year. SUBSTANCE AND STRATEGY With radically different views come radically different strategies. Glucksmann is convinced the left can win by luring back moderates and former Socialists who ditched the party for Macron’s centrist movement in 2017. An Ipsos survey showed that Glucksmann managed to attract 17 percent of voters who had previously voted for Macron when he led a joint list with the center-left Socialist Party and finished a convincing third in the last European election in 2024. Mélenchon, meanwhile, believes the decisive votes lie in working-class urban areas where turnout is low, but where those who do cast ballots have rallied behind him en masse over the last several electoral cycles. True to his slow-and-steady philosophy — Mélenchon likes to call himself an “electoral turtle” and keeps figurines of the hard-shelled reptile in his office — he has increased his vote share in each Elysée run despite a cantankerous temper. Both approaches have their merits and shortcomings.  Mélenchon could be dragged down by his image as a divisive firebrand, Lestrohan said. “As for Raphaël Glucksmann, his vulnerability stems more from the fact that he is still relatively unknown, and that we do not yet know how capable he is of campaigning, promoting ideas, and, above all, asserting himself in the face of opposition,” said Lestrohan. That concern about Glucksmann has already begun to spread within the Socialist Party’s ranks. While the party backed the MEP in the last two European races, the idea of promoting a candidate from outside their party — Glucksmann leads his own political platform, Place Publique — has drawn skepticism from some Socialists. After a weeks-long media absence, Glucksmann reemerged into the public eye last month when he faced off in a debate with far-right former presidential candidate Éric Zemmour. Glucksmann’s performance was widely viewed as a disappointment — including by Glucksmann himself, who acknowledged he “could have done better.” Raphael Glucksmann, 46, is an MEP and staunch supporter of bolstering Europe’s military power. | Laurent Coust/Getty Images “There’s a scenario in which this all turns into a nightmare,” a Socialist adviser opposed to Glucksmann’s candidacy, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly, told POLITICO. “Glucksmann will get crushed by a political beast like Mélenchon. But there’s no chance Mélenchon can come out ahead against Bardella.” US VS. THEM Indeed, although Mélenchon enjoys the support of a loyal core, he garners the highest share of negative opinions of any French politician — even more than Macron — and is vilified by opponents, who accuse him of pushing antisemitic tropes in the context of his pro-Palestinian rhetoric and of defending extremist views. High-ranking members of Mélenchon’s France Unbowed have brushed off his weakness in recent polls, insisting their electorate only tends to mobilize later in campaigns and that the National Rally tends to lose support when the prospect of a far-right victory becomes concrete. “It is impossible to predict what will happen in the second round. Voters never want to decide on scenarios that do not suit them,” said France Unbowed lawmaker and national coordinator Manuel Bompard. “Only when the choice becomes mandatory” do actual voting intentions emerge, he added. Bompard and other party leaders point to last summer’s snap general election in France, which the National Rally was expected to win before finishing an underwhelming third as voters mobilized across party lines to block its path. Back in January 2012, when he launched his first presidential bid, Mélenchon predicted that “in the end, it’ll be between us and them,” with “them” being the far right. Danièle Obono, a prominent France Unbowed lawmaker, said that prophecy still looked likely to come true. “There’s an opposition between our left and the far right … it’s class warfare expressed through the ballot box. This is a moment when the people want a major shake-up that leaves space for either us [the hard left] or them [the far right],” Obono said. Glucksmann’s troops beg to differ. After the release of last week’s poll showing Bardella winning the presidential election, Aurélien Rousseau, a Place Publique lawmaker, took to X. “We knew it, but now it’s clear politically: the RN can win the presidential election,” he said. “On the left, the line held by [Glucksmann] is currently the only one capable of leading the fight.”

ATHENS — Left-wing former Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras released his memoir Monday, revisiting Athens’ time on the eurozone’s cliff edge and blasting his ex-Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis. In the book, titled “Ithaki” (Ithaca) and spanning 762 pages, Tsipras chronicles his political journey, defends his political choices and attempts some self-reflection. He is also critical of several former allies, particularly firebrand Varoufakis, whom he fell out with during the peak of the 2015 eurozone crisis. Tsipras admitted that he “underestimated the human factor” when choosing him and argues that Varoufakis was “more celebrity than economist.” Tsipras was 34 years old when he became the Syriza party’s leader and oversaw its electoral leap from 4.6 percent in 2009 to 36.3 percent in 2015. The radical left-wing party gained Europe-wide notoriety at the zenith of the financial crisis in 2015, when it looked as though Tsipras and Varoufakis were about to lead Athens out of the eurozone in high-stakes negotiations with German-led debt hawks in the EU. In July 2015, after winning a referendum in which Greeks rejected the EU’s proposed bailout terms — a symbolic victory that ultimately changed little — Tsipras reversed course, accepted a new bailout to keep Greece in the euro and was reelected that September. The former PM, who left office in 2019, repeatedly says in the book that he never truly considered the idea of a so-called Grexit from the eurozone, but confirms the risk was real and part of former German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble’s plan as Athens’ fiscal woes rattled the common currency. Tsipras wrote that Varoufakis facilitated this with his confrontational approach and strategic brinkmanship until he was “ousted” from the Finance Ministry. “Varoufakis went from being an asset to a negative protagonist. Not only could our potential allies not stand him, but neither could his own colleagues,” he said. Tsipras ultimately soured on his finance minister when Varoufakis presented him with his “Plan B,” which involved introducing a parallel currency using vouchers. “‘Instead of giving money to pensioners and employees, we would print vouchers that they could use to buy goods and services,'” Varoufakis said. When I heard this, I didn’t know whether to cry or laugh. I reacted, ‘Are you serious?’” Tsipras recalled. Tsipras also described his government’s attempts to turn to the Kremlin for financial aid. On June 19, 2015, during a meeting in St. Petersburg, Tsipras suggested to Russian President Vladimir Putin that he make a symbolic investment of €200-300 million in Greek government bonds.  “His answer was honest and blunt,” Tsipras said. “Putin said he would rather give the money to an orphanage because, he said, giving it to Greece would be like throwing it in the trash.” He suggested Greece reach an agreement with the Europeans, particularly German Chancellor Angela Merkel. In October, Tsipras stepped down from his parliamentary seat and left Syriza, as speculation mounts that he will form a new party.

Listen on * Spotify * Apple Music * Amazon Music When Europe’s biggest political family crosses the aisle to vote with the far right, something fundamental shifts in Brussels. In this episode, host Sarah Wheaton unpacks the vote that cracked the European Parliament’s cordon sanitaire — and what a newly disciplined, image-polished far right means for Ursula von der Leyen’s shaky centrist alliance. POLITICO’s Marianne Gros and Max Griera take us inside the omnibus showdown; Tim Ross demonstrates how the same forces are reshaping politics across Europe — from the English seaside town of Jaywick to Paris, Berlin and beyond. Plus — Aitor Hernández-Morales brings us a surprising counterpoint from Denmark, where voters pushed back against a left-wing government they felt had leaned too far toward the right.

BRUSSELS — The far right last week broke through the firewall in the European Parliament and is now looking to flex its muscles again to secure a wider set of goals.   Next on the target list: Deporting more migrants, reversing a ban on the combustion engine, new rules on gene-edited crops, and even more red tape reductions for businesses. After decades of being sidelined by mainstream political parties, the far right scored a major victory last week when the center-right European People’s Party (EPP) ditched its traditional centrist allies and pressed ahead with plans to cut green rules for businesses that received the backing of lawmakers on the right. Now that the cordon sanitaire against the far right “has fallen,” there will be space for a right-wing majority to pass legislation “when it comes to competitiveness, in some areas of the Green Deal where they want to scale down the targets or the burdens for the businesses,” Anders Vistisen, chief whip for the far-right Patriots group, told POLITICO.   There’s dispute over how much cooperation actually took place last week, however. The EPP says it did not — and never will — negotiate directly with far-right groups. Instead, the EPP insists it merely puts forward its position, which may or may not be supported by others. “It is a lie that we negotiated with them,” EPP spokesperson Daniel Köster said following the green rules vote, after MEPs from the Patriots claimed there were formal compromises and negotiations between both parties. Yet the Patriots argue that EPP lawmakers, behind the scenes and at committee level, discreetly consult with their right-wing counterparts on areas where they have overlapping priorities. “They coordinate with us quite often on these files,” Vistisen said, “but it is becoming a little bit ridiculous and silly that they don’t just want to own up to it.” The extent of cooperation largely depends on which nationality the center-right lawmakers are from, according to the Patriots. “On a technical level we work constructively with almost all delegations, except with the German EPP,” Roman Haider, top Patriots MEP in the transport committee, told POLITICO, echoing comments from his colleague Paolo Borchia, a member of the industry and energy committee, who said only some national EPP delegations are open to talking. “Cooperation with the German EPP is practically impossible. They refuse any professional interaction with us,” said Haider. For many years, the German center-right has opposed co-operation with the far-right because of the country’s Nazi past. IT’S NOT OVER FOR THE CENTER Any further collaboration has clear boundaries — after all, many far-right lawmakers want to tear the EU down. The EPP also still needs the centre to pass a majority of files, such as the long-term EU budget. However, Italy’s Nicola Procaccini, chair of the right-wing European Conservatives and Reformists (which ideologically sits between the EPP and the Patriots), told POLITICO that the right can easily team up on deregulation, migration, farming, and family issues. However, Italy’s Nicola Procaccini, chair of the right-wing European Conservatives and Reformists (which ideologically sits between the EPP and the Patriots), told POLITICO that the right can easily team up on deregulation, migration, farming, and family issues. | Emmanuel Dunand/AFP via Getty Images “In these issues for sure we are closer” on the right side of the Parliament, Procaccini said. He believes the cordon sanitaire, which kept the far right from power, is not dead, but that the first steps in tearing it down have been taken, and parts of the EPP are ready to openly work with the right-wing side of the hemicycle. Liberal and Socialist lawmakers point out the Patriots often coordinate closely with the ECR, which then presents their position to the EPP. According to a parliamentary official, granted anonymity to speak freely, the ECR acts as a “Trojan horse” for the Patriots to circumvent the cordon sanitaire. Asked about future deals with the far right, EPP spokesperson Pedro López de Pablo said: “We are fully committed to working with all our platform partners [Socialists and Democrats, the liberals of Renew] and they know our guiding principle is content, content, content.” Vistisen also acknowledged that, while lawmakers from the Patriots are ready to sit at the table and negotiate on all things related to deregulation and migration, the EPP continues to try to find compromises with the center. “It’s also a question of how many times the EPP wants to look ridiculous in this attempt to pretend that the central majority is the one that can be used to deregulate,” said Vistisen. He added that the EPP, as the Parliament’s biggest force, has the leverage to do whatever it wants and that “the only real negotiating strength that the Socialists have left” is calling a motion of no confidence in Ursula von der Leyen. The Commission president has faced — and comfortably survived — three such motions this year, brought by the far right and the far left. TOUGHER ON MIGRATION One major area where the far-right is hoping to lure the EPP into its arms is migration. In December, the Parliament is expected to vote on a new bill on “safe” non-EU countries to which member states could deport migrants, even if they are not originally from there, which the Patriots hope will be passed with a right-wing majority. They are already claiming that the price of securing their votes a second time will be higher. “We know that the EPP are struggling very much to get liberals and social democrats to play ball,” said Vistisen. “If they want to strike a deal with us, it has to be compromise amendments signed by ECR, EPP and Patriots. That is going to be a testing ground for whether the EPP publicly will make policy with us.” The right-wing majority could find common ground on a new deportations regulation proposed by the Commission in March, a key bill for von der Leyen as she seeks to appease calls from across the bloc for tougher migration policies. The lead negotiators on the file from ECR, Patriots, and the far-right Europe of Sovereign Nations group want to pull the EPP away from the center and pass a tougher version of the bill. “In terms of cooperation on the right, what I’ve heard thus far is that both the Patriots and ECR and ESN, but also EPP, are very much on the same line on a great number of issues,” Patriots’ lead negotiator Marieke Ehlers told POLITICO. Ehlers said she is in touch with her EPP counterpart, François-Xavier Bellamy, whose national party, Les Républicains, is advocating tougher migration policies in France.   Fabrice Leggeri, a Patriots MEP, also said that “there are talks or exchanges of views between Patriots for Europe and the EPP”. Bellamy did not respond to a request for comment. CUT, CUT, CUT The European Commission may have found a new ally in its simplification agenda, with right-wing and far-right groups in Parliament eager to tear down policy in the name of cutting bureaucracy and giving power back from Brussels to national capitals. Two of the most explosive files where the right-wing majority could team up are in the automotive sector, as the EPP, pushed by Germany, seeks to slash regulations it says are strangling the car industry. The Commission is set to put forward in December a revision of what is a de facto ban on the combustion engine by 2035, alongside a measure that could set an electric vehicle target for company cars and leasing companies. In Parliament, the EPP could kill both files with the help of the far right. Straight after winning the most seats in the 2024 election, EPP chief Manfred Weber told POLITICO that his group would overturn the 2035 combustion engine ban. The far-right has also made this a major campaign talking point, with the Czech Republic’s Motorist Party basing its entire platform on the issue. The Greens, the Socialists & Democrats and Renew don’t have a unified position on the ban, making things even easier for the EPP and far right to team up. “If the German EPP wants to stand by one of its core pre-election promises, namely ending the phase-out of the combustion engine, then they will have no choice but to work with us,” said Patriots MEP Haider. The digital omnibus, presented by the Commission on Wednesday, is also a potential area where the EPP and Socialists could fail to agree on a way forward, opening the door for a right-wing majority. The bill is being pitched by the Commission as a way to simplify the EU’s digital laws to make life easier for European companies. But the proposal put forward by the Commission on Wednesday seeks extensive changes to the EU’s data protection regulation (GDPR), many to the benefit of AI developers, which the socialists and liberals have said they will block. FARMING TARGETS The right-wing dynamic is also playing out in the talks on Europe’s new rules on gene-edited crops, where exhausted EPP negotiators are quietly weighing far-right votes as a fallback option to break a months-long Parliament deadlock. Italian right-wing lawmakers from the ECR and Patriots could end up delivering the majority needed to push a compromise through — a prospect left-wing MEPs say would result in a deal far too weak to protect the interests of small producers, consumers and the environment. And the next Common Agricultural Policy, the EU’s vast farm-subsidy program, could shift even more dramatically if pushed through with far-right backing. Instead of the slow trend toward stricter environmental and climate obligations, the new coalition arithmetic could deliver a CAP with fewer strings attached, looser oversight and even weaker green conditions, which have been long-standing wishes for both the EPP and far-right groups.

The U.S. on Thursday designated a German far-left group as a “foreign terrorist organization.” “Antifa Ost conducted numerous attacks against individuals it perceives as ‘fascists’ or part of the ‘right-wing scene’ in Germany between 2018 and 2023 and is accused of having conducted a series of attacks in Budapest in mid-February 2023,” according to the U.S. State Department. Commonly known as the Hammerbande (hammer gang), the German far-left group is accused of attacking and severely injuring several people in the Hungarian capital in February 2023. Some of the victims were linked to the far right. The attacks took place around the time of a neo-Nazi gathering, and the perpetrators were reported to have used metal bars and hammers. Legal proceedings are ongoing in both Germany and Hungary. The State Department’s move comes just days after populist-nationalist Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán visited his close ally, U.S. President Donald Trump, in Washington. The designation also follows Trump’s September executive order labeling Antifa a domestic terrorist organization in the U.S. Orbán later said he would follow “the American example” and classify Antifa as a terrorist organization in Hungary.

Left-wing European politicians are celebrating Wednesday morning after democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani won New York City’s mayoral election. British Labour Party politician and London Mayor Sadiq Khan was among the first to congratulate Mamdani, saying: “New Yorkers faced a clear choice — between hope and fear — and just like we’ve seen in London — hope won.” The co-chair of The Left group in the European Parliament, French MEP Manon Aubry, also reacted with jubilation. “Faced with the media, economic and political establishment that spent tens of millions of dollars to block his path, he managed to turn the tables with radically concrete proposals […] and without ever turning a blind eye to racism and Gaza,” she said. Aubry and other European left-wing representatives, including a delegation from Germany’s The Left party, traveled to New York to learn lesson from the socialist wunderkind, who collected more than 50 percent of the vote Tuesday. Aubry added: “I saw the power of his campaign in action, led by our allies in the Democratic Socialists of America, which created a real popular momentum and doubled the voter turnout.” Mamdani will be the first Muslim mayor of New York City, and — like London’s Khan — he has been verbally attacked by U.S. President Donald Trump, who suffered a bad night Tuesday with a string of Democratic election victories around the country. Green Budapest Mayor Gergely Karácsony, a frequent foe of Hungary’s populist-nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, also congratulated Mamdani. “How familiar it feels when the central government threatens a candidate it dislikes by saying they won’t receive central support, and instead backs another so-called ‘opposition’ candidate,” he wrote in an Instagram post, in reference to Trump’s late endorsement of independent challenger Andrew Cuomo, the former governor of New York state. The leader of Germany’s The Left, Heidi Reichinnek, expressed her delight by reposting Mamdani’s winning announcement reel in an Instagram story, adding “Good morning” and a heart emoji. 

PARIS — Zohran Mamdani’s rise from little-known New York state assemblyman to front-runner in the New York mayoral election has sparked a newfound sense of optimism among left-wing politicians in Europe ahead of their own local elections next year. Party strategists from across Europe are making the trek across the Atlantic to learn from the millennial who skyrocketed from anonymity to the precipice of the most important city in the United States (or the world, if you ask a New Yorker). They want to see if Mamdani’s grassroots campaign, which has been laser-focused on affordability issues, will work in their cities and regions as well as it did for him in New York’s Democratic Party primary — and potentially in Tuesday’s general election. Manon Aubry, the French co-chair of The Left group in the European Parliament — which gathers Europe’s democratic socialist, left-wing populist and some communist lawmakers — traveled to New York last week where she took part alongside Mamdani canvassers in the campaign’s final stretch. Aubry and her party, France Unbowed, see Mamdani as an example of how to bring about “radical change” as they look to make a splash in the municipal elections that will take place across France in 2026. Germany’s anti-capitalist party, The Left, sent four officials to the Big Apple to meet with officials including the Mamdani campaign’s chief of strategy, Morris Katz. Party Co-Chair Ines Schwerdtner and Maximilian Schirmer, co-chair of The Left’s Berlin branch, also paid a visit. Liza Pflaum, parliamentary office manager for The Left’s other co-chair, Jan van Aken, said she believed her party had exceeded expectations in Germany’s February federal election by using the same playbook as Mamdani: focusing on cost-of-living issues, courting small donors, and investing heavily in door-to-door volunteer operations. Pflaum expects The Left to use Mamdani’s current campaign as a model for her party’s approach to Berlin’s state legislative election next September. “[He] offers a concrete vision of how people’s lives can actually be improved,” she said. “You can feel it right away here in New York: People have begun to feel hope again.” PUNCHY BEATS BORING French and British politicians say they are particularly impressed with how Mamdani’s team has employed a media strategy leveraging their candidate’s charisma — especially the use of short social media clips to hammer home the affordability message while making him seem relatable. “[Mamdani] winning the Democratic primary is already a major political event, both because of what he ran on and how he ran it: His comms strategy, his use of social media. There’s a lot of things we’ve found inspiring,” said Danièle Obono, a France Unbowed lawmaker who will be hosting a livestream watch party for the election results along with other party leaders on Tuesday. Mothin Ali, deputy leader of the United Kingdom’s Greens, said British politicians tend to make “boring and simple” videos and that the left needed to perfect delivering sound bites in a “punchy” way like Mamdani. Manon Aubry and her party, France Unbowed, see Zohran Mamdani as an example of how to bring about “radical change” as they look to make a splash in the municipal elections that will take place across France in 2026. | Frederick Florin/Getty Images Mamdani’s likely triumph over the experienced but scandal-plagued Andrew Cuomo — the former New York governor who is running as an independent after being defeated by Mamdani in the Democratic primary — is also the latest example of more moderate parties being outflanked by more radical forces at both ends of the political spectrum. France Unbowed has established itself as a dominant force on the left in the decade after former Socialist President François Hollande’s single term ended in disappointment. But while France Unbowed leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon has had strong showings in presidential races, the party has struggled to take control of local administrations and to prove it can govern on a radical platform — a gap it hopes to close in next year’s municipal elections. POLITICO’s Poll of Polls for the U.K. shows the Greens have climbed to 14 percent, just 4 percentage points behind Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labour Party. The latest Find Out Now poll, released last week, showed the Greens — boosted by new leader Zack Polanski’s brand of “eco-populism” — overtaking Labour for the first time. Germany’s The Left’s has continued to rise gradually since its surprise showing in February and the party is now in a stronger position, polling shows, to challenge its moderate rivals, the Greens and the Social Democrats. The Greens candidate for Paris mayor, David Belliard, said Mamdani’s success in appealing to voters worried about the cost of living, an issue plaguing Parisians as well as New Yorkers, had confirmed his suspicion that his party needed to run a more progressive campaign after spending more than two decades as a junior coalition partner to center-left mayors in the French capital who have done more to make the city greener than cheaper. “We’ve spent a lot of time fighting against the end of the world, but maybe not enough helping people make it to the end of the month,” Belliard said. Victor Goury-Laffont reported from Paris, Nette Nöstlinger from Berlin and Martin Alfonsin Larsen from London.