Europe's Far Left Is Having Its Moment

“Europe's far right has surged. Now the far left is pushing back.

 

Some voters are moving to the left, boosting parties that appeared moribund a few years ago, polls and recent elections show. The center is now struggling to contain challenges from the right and the left.

 

The shift is most marked among younger voters and in urban areas. Its drivers include anxiety about unaffordable housing and slow economic growth, as well as mounting anti-U.S. sentiment, anger about the U.S.-Israel attack on Iran, Israel's military actions in Gaza, and fading faith in centrist parties to solve the big problems of the day, analysts and pollsters said.

 

In some countries, this trend has translated into higher ratings and election victories. In others, including countries like France and Italy where the radical left is plateauing electorally, far-left violence has surged.

 

To be sure, upstart right-wing and far-right parties remain a more-formidable force, often leading polls across Europe's largest countries. But the pushback from the left has begun to alter the discourse of more-established groups.

 

In Britain, the Green Party has shot up in the polls after reinventing itself as a populist movement. It wants to nationalize utilities, legalize drugs, withdraw from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, welcome asylum seekers, heavily tax private landlords, and is deeply critical of Israel's military actions in Gaza.

 

A fringe party a year ago, it has recently received a boost in the polls, with one even showing it in second place just behind Reform UK, the anti-immigration party led by Nigel Farage. In February, the Greens won a closely watched election in a working-class part of northern England that the governing Labour Party had held for almost a century.

 

In Germany, Die Linke, or the Left, the successor to Communist East Germany's former ruling party, saw its ratings rocket in the run-up to last year's general election. Its support now stands at over 10% in most polls, just behind the center-left SPD and Greens, and above its 2025 electoral result.

 

The group presents itself as a bulwark against the far-right Alternative for Germany, or AfD. But "what's really animating our supporters are economic issues: social injustice, the cost of living, and in particular the level of rents," said Elif Eralp, the party's candidate in Berlin, who stands a good chance of becoming the city's first far-left mayor.

 

The party has called for higher welfare benefits, a wealth tax, lower rents and an earlier retirement age for some workers. Eralp said she is modeling her campaign, with its focus on door-to-door canvassing, on New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani's.

 

Among 18-to-29-year-old voters, the Left was the most-popular party in last year's elections and remains so today, according to a recent Forsa survey. In Berlin, it is neck and neck with the SPD and the Greens ahead of a state election in September.

 

"What we're witnessing is the renaissance of the classical left," said Manfred Gullner, founder of the Forsa polling group. "It's transcended its [East German] origins and has filled a vacuum, and that's why it's proving so attractive to the young."

 

On the margins of parliamentary politics, violent left-wing groups have also made a comeback. In January, Germany unveiled measures to combat far-left terror groups following an arson attack on Berlin's power grid that left about 100,000 people and thousands of businesses without power and heating for days in the middle of a cold snap.

 

The clandestine Volcano Group, which has claimed responsibility for sabotage attacks since 2011, said it had carried out the attack. German security officials said they believed the claim to be authentic and had no evidence Russia was behind the fire.

 

"We are arming ourselves for the fight against left-wing extremism," German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt said after Berlin offered a 1-million-euro reward, equivalent to around $1.16 million, for information leading to the culprits.

 

In France, a loose union of leftist parties won a surprise first-place finish in France's snap legislative elections in 2024. Since then, however, the country's leading far-left party, France Unbowed, has seen its star fall over accusations that the party encourages violence.

 

In February, activists from an antifascist group founded by a France Unbowed lawmaker were preliminarily charged with murder and complicity in murder for the beating death of a 23-year-old right-wing activist.

 

Across the region, the far left is generally too splintered and lacks the support it would need to enter government.” [1]

 

1. World News: Europe's Far Left Is Having Its Moment. Bertrand, Benoit; Colchester, Max.  Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 11 Mar 2026: A8.