What’s bad for Trump is good for Le Pen

Anger at the rising cost of living spells danger for incumbents everywhere.

By MARION SOLLETTY
in Paris

^{Illustration by Gibson Kochanek for POLITICO}

Beware the angry voter. That’s the message Europeans are taking from the crushing defeat suffered by Donald Trump’s Republicans in the U.S. midterm election. 

The fury over the cost of living that helped propel the U.S. president to power has now turned against him. And with elections looming in heavyweight EU countries like Spain, Italy, France, Greece and Poland, Trump’s fate is a warning for incumbents across the continent.

Growing anger over rising prices and unaffordable houses is likely to spell trouble for Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who has already faced waves of protests over the cost of fuel.

The blowback in the U.S. shows what happens when right-wing populist leaders take charge and then don’t deliver on their promises, said Irene Tinagli, an Italian member of the European Parliament from the opposition Democratic Party. 

“Trump came up with the promise of lowering the cost of living. He was attacking the previous administration for the inflation. He promised to bring back quality jobs,” Tinagli said. “This didn’t happen.” 

Surveys show voters focused on economic concerns, said Mathieu Gallard, research director at polling firm Ipsos. 

In Spain, affordability is already a major issue in the campaign for an election scheduled for Nov. 29. Most polls predict the far-right Vox party, which has been accusing Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez of failing to meet citizens’ basic needs, will gain enough seats to enter into government for the first time as a coalition partner to the conservative People’s Party.

Whatever their political stripes, incumbents are vulnerable, Gallard said. 

“The far-right or radical right [leaders], when they arrive in power, find themselves in the same situation as traditional parties and have the same difficulties,” he added, pointing to this year’s defeat of Hungary’s Viktor Orbán and a sharp drop in support for the far-right Sweden Democrats.

For insurgents like France’s Marine Le Pen and her far-right National Rally party, however, voter discontent offers opportunity. 

The cost of living “will be the major issue in the campaign,” said Alexandre Loubet, a lawmaker for the National Rally and a key architect of Le Pen’s economic platform. “The advantage [for us] is that we are very consistent on this issue. It’s a bit like immigration — we are already in people’s minds on these subjects.” 

Le Pen, who is the frontrunner in next spring’s presidential race, has long made cost-of-living a central issue for her platform and is capitalizing on the government’s current economic and fiscal woes.

She made affordable housing a central theme in her first campaign appearance and has doubled down on her promises to shield pensioners from upcoming budget squeezes. The far-right veteran is also campaigning on lowering taxes on energy, brushing aside criticism that her proposals are unaffordable. 

At her party congress last week, Le Pen pushed a message of change and hope, lifting her rival President Emmanuel Macron’s catchword “Renaissance” for her campaign’s motto. 

The positive tone “was intentional,” said Loubet. “There’s a sense of gloom in the country. We need to offer a little hope, a vision, a direction.”

The recent protest movements that have swept Spain, France, Italy and, to a lesser extent, Germany, have centered around complaints about the cost of living, especially for the young. They echo anger in the U.S., where polls showed young Americans felt their economic situation was deteriorating as the country headed in the wrong direction. 

“The affordability debate in the United States breaks on class lines,” said Penny Naas, a senior vice president at the transatlantic think tank German Marshall Fund. “If you’re an American and you are not well off and energy plays a much bigger part in your household income, you’re feeling much more hurt by the current situation.” 

“There are some similarities with what’s going on in Europe,” she added, pointing at school protests in France that started in the relatively poor outskirts of cities. 

So far, centrist candidates have struggled to find the right messaging on the issue. Le Pen’s top centrist challenger, former Prime Minister Edouard Philippe, has struggled to gain traction with a pitch centered on economic realism. 

In Germany, Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s conservative Christian Democrats are also feeling the squeeze after suffering a series of electoral defeats, losing to the far right in eastern states and the radical left in Berlin.

“What this election shows is that if you want to win the hearts and minds of citizens, you cannot fight populism by trying to be the defender of the status quo,” said Sigrid Friis, a 32-year-old member of the European Parliament from the Danish Social Liberal Party. 

“Those who have won this campaign are the young, the progressives, the forces that really are the forces of change,” she added.