This month's European elections, with just over half of the 373 million eligible voters across 27 countries casting ballots, rocked the continent.
The result reduced the leaders of the bloc’s biggest nations, Germany and France, to lame ducks. And though the center-right will continue to dominate parliament, the surge in support for the extreme right evokes memories of the ugliest moments of the 20th century.
While Russian funding and propaganda were widespread — including claims that Ukraine was plotting to assassinate French President Emmanuel Macron and then blame the killing on Moscow — the right wing surge was mostly homegrown, stoked by inflation, opposition to climate-change policies and the urban-rural divide at the heart of so-called culture wars.
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