OPINION - Street protests from left to right: Increasing instability in Europe

The author is an Emeritus Professor of Sociology at Sussex University, UK. His most recent book is Senses of the Future: conflicting ideas of the future in the world today (De Gruyter 2024).

ISTANBUL

A recent phenomenon is widespread protests in European cities by groups that have connections with the extreme right and various forms of right-wing populism. The extreme right has become increasingly active in most countries and right-wing populist parties have gained considerable support in the wider public. Until recently civil disobedience and street protests have been mostly associated with the left than with the right. Right-wing protests are now more visible in the public sphere. Such events, which are often only anti-government protests, are easily exploited or co-opted in some way by the extreme right.

In France, the Yellow Vests (gilets jaunes) began the trend in 2018 as a fuel tax protest that involved drivers, who were not group-specific but broadly defined, blocking streets and staging demonstrations across the country, a well-established tradition in France and which is not necessarily related to the far right. In Germany, recently a farmers' protest blocked highways with long convoys of tractors. As in the French case, it was an anti-government protest. In this instance, the German extreme right, as represented by the Alternative for Germany (AfD), was quick to exploit the protests to advance their cause. Earlier protests in France in 2012-2013 against same-sex marriage could be regarded as protests comprising far-right elements. In Spain, in 2023, there were large protests in Madrid, one with 170,000 people, against the socialist government’s proposal to offer an amnesty to the Catalan separatists in return for their support in forming a new government. The Spanish extreme right Vox, was active in the protests, which also reflected various shades of right-wing public opinion. The Italian government is currently under pressure to ban neofascist salutes after a video circulated on the internet of a protest in which a large number of men were filmed in Rome making the fascist salute. In November 2023, a riot in Dublin followed a knife attack the previous day outside a school carried out by a naturalized man of Algerian background who seriously injured several people. The riots, instigated by the emerging far-right, such as the National Party in Ireland, led to considerable destruction in a country that had no previous experience with extreme right movements. There were subsequent incidents of houses destined for refuges being burnt.

Street protests are sporadic and volatile

How significant are these movements and how should they be sociologically understood? While generalizations are difficult in that some of these protests are organized by the extreme right, in other cases, as with the Yellow Vests protests and farmer protests, the extreme right takes advantage of the opportunities that the management of anger presents. Some features of the protests are that they are sporadic, they are volatile and tend to be catalysts with imitations elsewhere. They are sporadic in that they crop up, as in a flash event, and often disappear or morph into other forms. Many such events involve relatively small numbers, for example, the Yellow Vests appear to be decreasing in number and activity.

They are often amorphous and inchoate, lacking organization other than through social media such as Telegram until they are sized by an organized movement, as in Germany with the farmers' protests being co-opted by the AfD. The contagion factor depends to a large extent on whether the protests are performative successes with media presence and whether the grievances resonate with wider public grievances or whether the protests backfire. This is a logic that is not specific to right-wing protests, but it is also a feature of left-wing protests. The Dublin riots, an example of a failed protest, sparked off protests in France, despite that public opinion in Ireland was highly hostile to the protests.

Such events tap into public anger, especially from older non-university educated white males against the government, often concerning cost-of-living related issues and opposition to immigration, which generally serves as a trope for major social content and grievances on single issues, as in fuel hikes. COVID-19 anti-lockdowns were undoubtedly a breeding ground for many subsequent street protests since these were a mix of right-wing populist, conspiracy theories, and libertarian movements that could easily morph into other forms.

The culprit: Declining fortunes

From a more structural perspective, these events are products of growing instability in Western societies as a result of income disparities, the decline in social status for many workers who have experienced income stagnation and decreasing opportunities. Worsening conditions produce feelings of victimhood and resentment, especially by people who have authoritarian dispositions, which are easily challenged into various issues whether single issues or anti-migration. The support basis is generally not from the worse off in society, but those who perceive that they are experiencing declining fortunes.

Culturally-specific factors also play a role, as in Germany, in a long history of farmer protests. The fascist tradition in Italy with the Blackshirt movement has strong organized roots. The global context is also important. In early the 2010s, the international context was one in which left-included protests were on the rise, but since the former United States President Donald Trump's presidency and political authoritarianism allied to Russia, the ground shifted towards the right, which also benefits from global instability. In times of crisis, people are more likely to embrace authoritarian politics than progressive ones.

As regards the significance of right-wing protests, without underestimating their potential impact, counter-trends are also in evidence. In the Irish case, public opposition to the riots and the far right had a counter-vailing impact, with large-scale counter-protests to reclaim the city from the far right. In the UK, despite the post-Brexit rise of the populist right, such as the English Defense League, one of the largest demonstrations in recent times was the pro-Palestinian peaceful demonstration in London in November 2023. The elections in 2023 in Poland and Spain were a major setback for the extreme right. Paradoxically, as far-right parties enter government, their capacity to present themselves as anti-government is compromised.