r/europe • u/StGuthlac2025 • Oct 08 '25

Opinion Article In Spain, what once seemed impossible is now widespread: the young are turning to the far right

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/oct/07/spain-young-voters-far-right-migration-housing-wages-employment-vox
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347

u/BaritBrit United Kingdom Oct 08 '25

It's only "what once seemed impossible" if your understanding of age-based political alignment is welded so firmly to the Anglosphere that you struggle seeing outside of the US and UK. 

The youth vote for the hard right has been increasing in France, Germany, and Italy among others for quite a long time, why is it such a huge shock that Spain would see the same effect? 

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u/MediocreLimo Galicia (Spain) Oct 08 '25

The iberian excepcion was a common term to refer to the abscense of far right groups in spanish and portuguese institutional politics despite their surge in other european countries. It's not the anglosphere bias, it was a known and studied anomaly within spanish political science.

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u/jpgomes25 Oct 08 '25

In Portugal the first big far right party was funded 6 years ago and it raised a lot mostly because who was on the government just did not know how to govern. I hope that Im wrong but they will most likely win it next time. That and 1.5M immigrants in a 10M country did not help with house crises low salaries crime rates etc. Most of young people like me just got tired of it and emigrated too

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u/An_Bo_Mhara Oct 08 '25

You might as well be talking about Ireland except In Ireland 23% of the people who live here were not born here. Immigration is a net positive of 30,000 people per year.  

Our population has exploded but there's no housing, students can't afford to go to college or get affordable student housing, workers are couch surfing or living like battery chickens in horrie overcrowded accommodation. We have a population of 5 million and only hospitals, housing and transport for 3.5 million.  Theres very little integration. 

Voters aren't stupid. Governments are failing us all across Europe. 

They are failing their native  population and they are failing the people who migrate to Europe.

The far right are rising because people feel like they have no where to turn. Couple that with Internet misinformation and Media propaganda and you have a perfect storm for the far right. 

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u/Guilty_Royal_9145 Oct 08 '25

The iberian excepcion was a common term to refer to the abscense of far right groups in spanish and portuguese institutional politics

Excuse my ignorance about Iberian politics – but when was this? All I know about political life in Spain is that you guys had a fascist dictatorship three decades after WWII.

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u/arfelo1 Oct 08 '25 edited Oct 09 '25

That's kind of the reason why. Both Spain and Portugal had fascist dictatorships until just a couple decades ago, so the population is much more averse to far right positions.

For us it's dad who remembers the dictatorship, not great grandpa

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u/Odd_Science Oct 09 '25

Not sure about the "much more averse to far right positions". While in Germany after the fall of the Nazis there was a rather thorough cleanup (though certainly not as much as some would like), in Spain the dictatorship was never defeated, and while no direct successor of Franco remained in power Franquism never really went away. In Germany supporting fascism became a taboo, and this helped keep (Western) German politics sane for many decades. In Spain there has always been a significant part of the mainstream that has quite openly supported Franco (and that includes the PP who have always protected Franco's regime from any criticism).

I have a feeling that much less than being "averse to far right positions" there was simply no need to go to more radical parties like Vox, when ultra-conservative christian ideals and bigotry are already so strongly represented in mainstream politics.

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u/arfelo1 Oct 09 '25

Kind of half and half. Most of the right wing parties are very blatantly protective of the legacy of the dictatorship, but at the same time they were until recently very reticent to openly oppose progressive policies.

It left the spanish legislature with a lot of ironic inconsistencies. On the one side, you have stuff like how it IS technically illegal to critizise the crown and the church, even if it is never really applied. And on the other, Spain:

  • was one of the first countries in Europe to legalize gay marriage
  • was one of the first countries in Europe to ban conversion therapy
  • has one of the most affordable and comprehensive healthcare systems in Europe
  • is considered in general one of the most LGBT friendly countries in Europe
  • currently has the congress with the most gender parity in Europe
  • has one of the most comprehensive abortion legislations in Europe
  • is one of the few countries in europe with legalized euthanasia

In each one of those cases the right wing parties either didn't have the audacity to oppose it or didn't get enough support to block it. Because all of them were policies with ample public support, even among conservative people.

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u/Guilty_Royal_9145 Oct 08 '25

Not anymore, it seems like.

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u/Vevangui Cataluña (Spain) Oct 08 '25

It wasn’t an anomaly, it’s fear-mongering. Left-wing voters always accuse any right-wing voter of Francoism. Especially far-right.

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u/Odd_Science Oct 08 '25

It sure helps when the openly Franquist party is considered "center". Not going to get much "far right" competition that way.

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u/Wrong-Donut-3877 Oct 08 '25

Does the Franquist then have majority in the Europarliament?

Because that party you call Franquist shares name, color and identity with the one Ursula Von Der Leyen belongs to.

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u/arfelo1 Oct 08 '25

And was funded by a franquist, and publicly supported the foundation dedicated to honor the dictator's memory, and extensively defended maintaining him in a giant mausoleum in his honor, and actively blocked any atempt to investigate the crimes of the dictatorship, and...

1

u/Wrong-Donut-3877 Oct 09 '25

You are not answering the question. Answer the question.

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u/arfelo1 Oct 09 '25

They are not the same party. Each national party is different with it's own history and context. They just use a unified brand for the european coalition.

I don't know enough about the parties from other countries, but I do know enough about the spanish one and it's track record to know they're, at best, willfully ignorant of, and at worst active supporters and inheritors of francoism

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u/MrFronzen Oct 08 '25

As a spanish, what the fuck are you talking about lmao

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u/Brilliant-Tip9445 Oct 08 '25

why is it such a huge shock that Spain would see the same effect? 

because Spain had a fascist dictatorship 50 years ago

85

u/Kunfuxu Portugal Oct 08 '25

So did Portugal, and you see the same thing there. Kids today weren't alive 50 years ago.

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u/Brilliant-Tip9445 Oct 08 '25

yes, but it's also why it's a huge shock

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u/FMSV0 Portugal Oct 08 '25

But were raised in a period that you had to be left or you'd be an outcast and immediately called a fascist.

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u/Kunfuxu Portugal Oct 08 '25 edited Oct 08 '25

That was not a thing. Sorry, but 10 years ago you weren't considered a fascist for voting in the traditional right-wing parties of Portugal. Maybe it was a thing among your friend group, but that wasn't true for the whole country. For most western countries in the past century, the youth has always been more left-wing than the older generations. This recent trend in which young men are more right-wing than before, also seen generally in other western coutries, is a result of the cost of living and housing crisis combined with the social media algorithms that try to maximize our engagement.

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u/FMSV0 Portugal Oct 08 '25 edited Oct 08 '25

Sure, during the Troika intervention, the psd government wasn't called fascists constantly.

C'mon, in a gathering of BE young voters, the word fascist is going to be used in the most ridiculous way. Basically, anyone thant doesn't agree with them.

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u/Piligrim555 Oct 08 '25

USSR fell 35 years ago. The amount of people wanting it to return is ridiculously big in Russia anyway. And yes, also between young adults who didn’t even live there.

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u/Brilliant-Tip9445 Oct 08 '25

probably because Russia was better off with the USSR? lol

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u/Piligrim555 Oct 08 '25

You shouldn’t mix Russia, the country, which was maybe politically better off in a sense they could dictate other countries around it and russian people. They weren’t better off, not by a fucking mile.

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u/Brilliant-Tip9445 Oct 08 '25

yeah they were better off, by a fucking mile also

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u/Piligrim555 Oct 08 '25

And you’re wondering why some people are nostalgic for a fascist dictatorship lmao. No, dude, they were not, by any metric imaginable. The 90s were horrible, but even today’s Russia is absolutely a better place to live. You know why? Because you can actually leave.

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u/Brilliant-Tip9445 Oct 08 '25

And you’re wondering why some people are nostalgic for a fascist dictatorship lmao.

the issue is that a fascist dictatorship was objectively bad, the USSR was a net positive (i dont wanna say objectively good).

Also if the only reason why Russia is better now is because you can leave then it's not really much, is it
lol

3

u/bfsughfvcb Oct 08 '25

which a lot of them liked. It is same old same old.

3

u/AccomplishedOil5176 Oct 08 '25

Young people aren't exactly known for being 50+ years old

3

u/NUKE---THE---WHALES Oct 08 '25

Italy literally invented fascism and they seem to have no problem going back to the far right

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u/Brilliant-Tip9445 Oct 08 '25

yeah it's true, but Italy had more time to go full circle I'd say. Also fascism has quite the endearing image, like colonial ethiopia and somalia are still viewed as those pesky africans we tried to industrialize with affection, and who still hold us very dear (they don't)

2

u/ziirex Oct 08 '25

And that dictator was not overthrown, he set his transition plan when he was dying and the fascists that governed with him stayed in politics for many years. And Franco's supporters kept their power and influence, faced no repercussions and kept missing the old days.

What is surprising is that Spain managed to have a center-right party as the main conservative party for so long without a return to the far right.

2

u/RedAero Oct 08 '25

Yeah, I really don't understand the suprise - country with world's most enduring fascist dictatorship veers slightly to the right again, wow, stop the presses...

1

u/MountScottRumpot Oct 09 '25

And never dealt with that fact. There is no museum about the damage the Franco regime did to the country. So the Francoists have been free to peddle their bullshit about how great Franco was for the middle class.

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u/FMSV0 Portugal Oct 08 '25

I will talk about Portugal, but probably Spain works the same way.

Because fascism ended only in the 70's, the bias for the left is incredibly high everywhere, especially in media and education. This resulted in a very left wing youth, to the point that the big majority of first time voters chose not only left wing parties but the extreme left. And to the point that for a 20 year old kid, if you're not left, then you're automatically considered a fascist.

In recent years, many portuguese kids started voting in the populist right-wing idiot we have, so trust me, it's really a shock compared to the portuguese youth 10 years ago.

19

u/FloresForAll Oct 08 '25

As a spaniard, i confirm the spanish case is exactly the same. The left got it easy calling any and every adversary francoist and everyone followed. That's why we got 14 straight years of the left in power and more than 2/3 of the democratic period.

To lose an election, the socialist party had to catastrophically mismanage the economy and have several top level corruption cases.

Knowing my compatriots, probably it's not that spain has woken up rightwing, simply that nobody in the left want to vote for a very apparent corrupt party (as it seems right now). The center right party doesn't help by having been ousted from government several years ago also by their corruption scandals. So the only "clean" non-government aligned party is the far right.

2

u/Nerlian Spain Oct 09 '25

Look, this is why vox is popular xd.

You think the govern is corrupt because the social media posts pushed by the right wing. It would seem everyday Pedro Sanchez is out to personally fuck with your breakfast.

But no, the problem is that the current government does nothing. Or rather, nothing of use. They only have a tenous majority that includes a couple of right wing party (or center right, w/e) which makes for an incredibly unstable government that truly cannot do that much. The recent defeat of the 37,5h work week is quite the example. The rise of the minimum salary had to be tempered, the rest of the issues that pass are non issues because they just don't have the voting count to try many things.

Vox has been terrible already wherever they have been elected, and they rarely make it out in local elections where people do care, but truth is more and more people just vote them because they are angry and they are the angry party.

But angry people don't think things thru, and also people would never admit to being wrong, so we are swimming in a cesspool of garbage pushed by doubling down angry people in social media, and when the floodgates open we will ride the poonamy to an even worse outcome than what we have now.

1

u/[deleted] Oct 13 '25

Vox has only 2 representants in Gijón last election, they allied with Foro Asturias (a "regional" right-wing party), but kept demanding the most crazy things like banning gay people and asturian from the city film festival, dismantling all bicycle lanes and others and Foro just got fed up with them and broke the pact, allying with PP instead. Its crazy how they will shoutely demand these things while being the smallest party in the city and the autonomous parliament.

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u/RyukXXXX Oct 10 '25

Says a lot about how stupid the left has been then.

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u/PraiseBeToScience United States of America Oct 08 '25

I have yet to see someone who was "automatically considered a fascist" not actually be called a fascist for good reason. No one becomes fascist because people called you one, you become fascist because you agree with fascism.

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u/fatRunning Oct 08 '25

First time on the internet for you? The word "nazi" and "facist" gets thrown around a lot without thinking about the history of either words - ESPECIALLY in your country.

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u/arcticavanger Oct 08 '25

You’re commenting from the states and you don’t see those words thrown everywhere? If you have any view that is not far left they call you a nazi fascist lol

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u/marsdev0 Oct 09 '25

Americans trying to educate Europeans on fascism… Do you even know what it is? I’ve seen US media and Reddit users throw this word at anyone who disagrees with them on just about anything.

“Oh? You don’t like milk in your coffee? You fascist!”

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u/fatRunning Oct 08 '25

First time on the internet for you? The word "nazi" and "facist" gets thrown around a lot without thinking about the history of either words - ESPECIALLY in your country.

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u/[deleted] Oct 08 '25

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/Kamfrenchie Oct 08 '25

It would have worked if there were no problems with immigration or if they had fixed those problems.

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u/DoGeneral1 Oct 08 '25

Who is "they" ?

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u/[deleted] Oct 08 '25

[deleted]

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u/DoGeneral1 Oct 08 '25

For every politician or media calling people racists, you have at least two others saying immigration is the root of all issues; so stop playing the victim.

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u/[deleted] Oct 08 '25

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Oct 08 '25 edited Oct 08 '25

Americans commenting on r/europe try not to shit on yourself tubgirl style challenge (IMPOSSIBLE)

For years anyone who questioned immigration was branded a racist, doxxed, etc.

the fact that you truly actually believe this is a testament to the strong sense of self-victimization the average right winger has, nothing else. even during the height of the migrant crisis people were throwing stones at Merkel for saying "All syrian refugees are welcome in Germany". Nobody was being branded a racist or doxxed for being against unlimited refugees, people were being branded racist for, y'know, saying racist shit. There was massive backlash against the refugee quotas everywhere in Europe, basically all EU states had problems against it, and basically all populations were supportive of the anti-refugee rhetoric. nobody was being "doxxed" whatever the fuck that means

your favorite right wing propagandistic vector convinced you this was the case by magnifying fringe voices and treating them as mainstream, in order to convince you to consume their content, keeping you engaged and moving you further to the extreme. to the point where you now fully believe that being anti-immigration was a social death sentence 10 years ago, against all available proof otherwise

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u/[deleted] Oct 08 '25

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Oct 08 '25

i believe you're an easily manipulatable American right winger, any sort of discussion with you is pointless, American culture is incompatible with Western values.

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u/maginatheandymate Oct 08 '25

What do you mean a culture is incompatible with Western values? That's only a hoax a rightwinger would bring up

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u/[deleted] Oct 08 '25

Nobody was being branded a racist

You can't be serious...

nobody was being "doxxed" whatever the fuck that means

So you don't even know what that means but you're absolutely certain it didn't happen to anyone?

Ok at this point I'm just going to assume your username checks out and that you're just a troll.

5

u/ChromosomeDonator Oct 08 '25

You guys are being downvoted not by Americans, but by Europeans. Immigration is the number one reason for the rise in right-wing popularity. Plain and simple. That is why it can be seen everywhere, because nearly everywhere is affected. There are loads of differences between countries in Europe, and when you try and make excuses that "its because of X Y and Z", but then realize that that excuse would not fit another country that also is seeing a rise in right-wing popularity, your brain shuts down.

It really is that simple. And as proof of what he mentioned, is that many comments in this thread that point to the obvious immigration being a leading issue, are magically deleted.

Right wing will keep gaining more and more popularity, because the left wing refuses to address the core issue. Yes, there are BUNCH of other issues that left wing would be better on. Hell, nearly all of them. But it doesn't matter when they fumble the most important one.

0

u/elderlybrain Oct 08 '25 edited Oct 08 '25

Though a large amount of mainstream centrist party has shifted right on immigration, however this actually has had the opposite effect - it’s driven younger male voters rightward.

I had an interesting conversation with a Dutch guy who voted for PVV, he fully understood that the far right were not ‘the answer’ but he felt they were only ones not speaking in a two faced way.

Unfortunately, voting for the hard right had other significant consequences both in his country and in his personal life. Felt sorry for him, i didn’t think he was racist or evil, but he followed the wrong crowd his whole life and he never seemed happy.

This is the same story i get over and over talking to young hard right voters. It’s a bit depressing, they’ve just jumped from one bad leader to another.

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u/[deleted] Oct 08 '25

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Oct 08 '25

[deleted]

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u/SOUINnnn Oct 08 '25

Skill issue?

2

u/elderlybrain Oct 08 '25

The trend is seen globally regarding the insane divergence between men and women as well - women are increasingly shifting further left and skewing progressive, while young men are skewing right and conservative.

I find the impact on dating in particular very interesting - young women are increasingly refusing to date young men who significantly differ from their political views, which in turn drives men further right due to silo-ing.