On April 8, we hosted a panel discussion on the French far-right, at the offices of the Associated Press in Paris. 

In the three biggest countries in Europe, far-right parties are currently leading the polls. Germany’s AfD, Britain’s Reform UK, and France’s Rassemblement National all share a vision for a radically different future for the continent.

In the critically acclaimed new book Far-Right France: Le Pen, Bardella and the Future of Europe, Victor Mallet, senior editor at the Financial Times, argues that a victory for the RN could be an earthquake for French politics and the future of European unity.

Our panel invited Mallet to discuss this along with Vivienne Walt, who has written major profiles of Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella for Time Magazine, and Alexandre Berg, a political scientist researching authoritarian regimes at Sciences Po. The discussion was moderated by AAPA president Martin Gelin, author of several books on nationalism and the far-right.

We also discussed the increasingly strained relationship between the far-right in Europe and Trump’s MAGA movement.

 “Trump loves the European far-right, but they don’t love him back,” Mallet told us.

He also recently wrote about this for Reporting from Paris.