The surge of Europe’s hard-right parties is far from over

Here is a European paradox. Most of the continent’s big countries – Germany, France, Britain – are currently run by politicians belonging to a traditional left-wing or centrist political family. Germany’s Socialist Chancellor Olaf Scholz has been in power for years. Britain has just

installed a centre-left Labour government

. And when a coalition government finally emerges in France after that country’s inconclusive recent general election, it’s bound to be a left-wing one.

Curiously, however, the underlying political trend in all these countries is that of a meteoric rise in the electoral appeal of far-right nationalist political movements, which not merely challenge but plan to smash Europe’s long-established political systems.