Trump-Style Populism in France and UK: Parallel Rise of the Right

Trump-style pop­ulism in France and the UK is gain­ing momen­tum. On 10 Sep­tem­ber 2025, Prospect report­ed that ris­ing right-wing pop­ulists in both coun­tries are cap­i­tal­iz­ing on eco­nom­ic and migra­tion crises, as cen­trist lead­ers lose ground. The arti­cle begins:

France is about to get its fifth prime min­is­ter in two years, a week after Britain’s fourth prime min­is­ter in three years was forced into an emer­gency cab­i­net reshuf­fle only 14 months since tak­ing office. In both cas­es, insur­gent, pop­ulist right-wing lead­ers untaint­ed by any gov­ern­men­tal respon­si­bil­i­ty are ahead in the polls, ral­ly­ing eco­nom­ic and anti-immi­grant dis­con­tent to ever-greater highs. So are Britain and France on a sim­i­lar Trumpite track? Are they about to blow up their post­war eras of lib­er­al democracy—and gov­ern­ments of the cen­tre-left and centre-right—in favour of a new breed of dan­ger­ous extrem­ists ped­dling wild promis­es and con­spir­a­cy the­o­ries? It is no less improb­a­ble than Trump’s first and sec­ond coming.

Read more: https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/politics/the-insider/71021/france-uk-trumpite-track-bayrou-starmer

Key Points

• France and the UK face ris­ing right-wing pop­ulist par­ties exploit­ing anti-immi­grant and eco­nom­ic frustrations.
• Nation­al Rally’s Jor­dan Bardel­la and Reform UK’s Nigel Farage are ben­e­fit­ing from dis­il­lu­sion­ment with main­stream parties.
• Pop­ulist lead­ers may soft­en their image by align­ing with cen­ter-right fac­tions ahead of 2027 and 2029 elections.
• Cen­trist efforts to con­tain migra­tion and sta­bi­lize economies may deter­mine whether pop­ulists ulti­mate­ly prevail.

The Global National Conservative Alliance in France and UK

The con­sol­i­da­tion of the Glob­al Nation­al Con­ser­v­a­tive Alliance in France and the UK has accel­er­at­ed as transat­lantic fig­ures bol­ster local move­ments, fram­ing nation­al­ist agen­das with­in a broad­er ide­o­log­i­cal cam­paign. In France, Don­ald Trump’s overt endorse­ment of Marine Le Pen after her legal con­vic­tion exem­pli­fies the merg­ing of U.S. pop­ulism with French far-right pol­i­tics, while in Britain, lead­ers are increas­ing­ly aligned with events such as CPAC, where Euro­pean politi­cians built ties to the MAGA move­ment.

A GIOR report warns that the echoes of inter­war nation­al­ist pat­terns are resur­fac­ing, as nation­al con­ser­vatism gains trac­tion through shared nar­ra­tives on sov­er­eign­ty, immi­gra­tion, and cul­ture. Though often frag­ment­ed, these move­ments feed into a com­mon strat­e­gy of resist­ing EU inte­gra­tion and pre­sent­ing them­selves as defend­ers of West­ern civilization.

Exter­nal observers note that this align­ment is not iso­lat­ed but part of a coor­di­nat­ed net­work lever­ag­ing Trumpism’s revival to shape Euro­pean politics.

Exter­nal references:

• How Marine Le Pen Could Reshape France’s Role in Europe
• Far-Right Pop­ulism and the Euro­pean Union
• Transna­tion­al Pop­ulist Net­works Link­ing Europe and the US

Dis­claimer

The Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR) employs AI through­out the post­ing process, includ­ing gen­er­at­ing sum­maries of news items, the intro­duc­tion, key points, and often the “con­text” sec­tion. We rec­om­mend ver­i­fy­ing all infor­ma­tion before use. Addi­tion­al­ly, images are AI-gen­er­at­ed and intend­ed sole­ly for illus­tra­tive pur­pos­es. While they rep­re­sent the events or indi­vid­u­als dis­cussed, they should not be inter­pret­ed as real-world photography.