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Civitas Outlook
Topic
Politics
Published on
Jun 11, 2026
Contributors
Joel Kotkin

The Myth of Europe’s ‘Fascist’ Revival

Contributors
Joel Kotkin
Joel Kotkin
Senior Research Fellow
Joel Kotkin
Summary
From Giorgia Meloni to Nigel Farage, Europe’s populist right is democratic, dovish and conservative not revolutionary.

Summary
From Giorgia Meloni to Nigel Farage, Europe’s populist right is democratic, dovish and conservative not revolutionary.

Listen to this article

There’s a spectre haunting Europe – the spectre of fascism. Or at least that is what the Brussels establishment and its media allies seem to think. They never cease to liken the rise of national-populism to the movement that devastated the continent from the early 1920s until the end of the Second World War.

Yet is the right-wing, populist rebellion really a copy of 20th-century fascism? The Guardian, unsurprisingly, thinks so, raising the idea that Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni, the one right-wing leader currently in office in a major country, represents a new version of Mussolini’s fascist movement. Much the same charge has been levelled at other Europeans labelled ‘far right’.

To be sure, many of the ascendant parties – the National Rally in France, Meloni’s Fratelli d’Italia, Germany’s AfD and even Nigel Farage’s Reform UK – have attracted some unpleasant figures, and even some genuine admirers of Mussolini. But are these parties and their supporters fascist in intent and tactics?

Read the full article on Sp!ked.

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