The dramatic victory of Germany’s Alternative for Germany (AfD) in the Saxony-Anhalt regional election has reignited a familiar question across Europe: is the far right becoming the new political centre of gravity?
For France, the question is particularly important because the country is moving toward the 2027 presidential election with the National Rally (RN) already occupying a strong position in the political landscape. A recent Euronews analysis uses the AfD victory to highlight divisions within France’s far right, particularly the National Rally’s decision not to publicly celebrate the German party’s success.
But there is another story beneath that framing.
The important issue is not simply whether France’s far right will grow because Germany’s AfD has surged. The deeper question is why European media increasingly interpret every major far-right electoral breakthrough as evidence of an approaching continental wave — and whether that framing itself can influence how voters, political parties and elites understand the 2027 French presidential race.
The AfD Victory Is Significant — But France Is Not Germany
The AfD’s 43.8% result in Saxony-Anhalt is undeniably significant. It finished far ahead of Germany’s Christian Democrats, who won 17.2%, creating one of the strongest regional performances ever recorded by the German far right.
However, translating that result directly into a prediction about France requires caution.
Germany and France have different electoral systems, political histories and party structures. The AfD’s strength in eastern Germany reflects a particular combination of economic dissatisfaction, regional political identity, immigration concerns and distrust of established parties.
France’s National Rally has a different trajectory.
The RN has spent years trying to transform itself from a protest movement into a party capable of winning national power. Marine Le Pen’s strategy has focused heavily on what political analysts describe as “normalisation” — reducing the political cost of voting for the party while retaining its core themes on immigration, national sovereignty, crime and identity. Euronews itself identifies this strategy as central to the party’s current positioning.
That distinction matters.
The French far right does not necessarily need the AfD to grow. It already has its own electoral ecosystem.
Euronews’ Most Important Framing: Silence Becomes Political Evidence
The central narrative in the Euronews report is striking: the National Rally’s silence following the AfD victory is presented as evidence of divisions within France’s far right.
There is some substance behind that interpretation.
The RN previously cooperated with the AfD in the European Parliament but broke with it before the 2024 European elections following controversies surrounding senior AfD figures, including Maximilian Krah’s remarks concerning the Nazi SS. The two parties subsequently ended up in different European parliamentary groups.
Yet interpreting silence as evidence of political weakness or ideological division requires another layer of analysis.
Silence can also be strategy.
The RN understands that openly celebrating the AfD could damage its carefully constructed image among French voters who may support tougher immigration policies without wanting association with Germany’s most controversial nationalist forces.
This is especially important ahead of 2027.
The RN’s objective is no longer simply to mobilise its traditional electorate. It needs to convince voters who may be uncomfortable with the label “far right” that it is capable of governing France.
Therefore, the absence of a public celebration of the AfD may actually demonstrate political discipline rather than political fragmentation.
The Normalisation Strategy Is the Real Story
Euronews correctly highlights Marine Le Pen’s long campaign to normalise the National Rally. But this fact deserves greater attention than the simple “far-right growth” narrative.
The transformation of the RN is not merely ideological. It is electoral engineering.
The party has learned that openly aligning itself with every European nationalist movement would create a ceiling on its support. Consequently, it can share themes with other right-wing populist parties while maintaining distance from movements considered too radical.
A Carnegie analysis published earlier this year similarly argues that the RN remains electorally powerful but internally divided over how aggressively it should challenge European institutions. Marine Le Pen represents a more sovereigntist approach, while Jordan Bardella has pursued a comparatively pragmatic relationship with European politics and business interests.
This creates an important distinction:
The French far right may be becoming more electorally mainstream even while some of its European counterparts remain politically toxic.
That is arguably more consequential than the AfD victory itself.
Why the AfD Can Help the RN Without the RN Supporting the AfD
There is an apparent paradox here.
If the National Rally wants distance from the AfD, why could an AfD victory still benefit the French party?
Because European political developments can change the political debate without creating formal alliances.
The AfD’s success demonstrates that immigration, national identity, economic insecurity and distrust of established parties can generate enormous electoral pressure.
Euronews quotes RN MEP Pierre-Romain Thionnet arguing that the AfD’s result reflects problems mainstream parties have failed to solve, including immigration, national identity and industrial decline.
This is precisely where the political significance lies.
The RN does not need to praise the AfD. It can simply use the same underlying grievances in a French political context.
In other words, the ideological contagion can occur without institutional cooperation.
France’s Mainstream Parties May Be Doing More for the RN Than the AfD
This is the missing angle in much of the European “far-right wave” coverage.
The strongest driver of far-right growth may not be the far right itself.
It may be the weakness of its opponents.
Recent French political analysis points to a fragmented mainstream political field, with established parties struggling to produce a compelling alternative to the RN and the radical left. The RN is leading current polling, while the traditional centre and centre-right remain divided.
That creates a political vacuum.
When mainstream parties spend more energy warning voters about the consequences of a far-right victory than explaining how they would address voters’ concerns about purchasing power, immigration, public services, security and economic stagnation, the warning can lose effectiveness.
It can even have the opposite effect.
Repeatedly presenting the RN as the inevitable future can gradually make an RN victory appear less like a political shock and more like an unavoidable outcome.
That is the normalisation paradox.
The “Far-Right Wave” Narrative Can Become Self-Fulfilling
This is where the framing deserves particularly careful examination.
The language of a “wave”, “surge” or inevitable far-right advance is attractive because it creates a simple European narrative.
Germany moves right.
France moves right.
Italy already has a right-wing government.
Other European populist parties gain ground.
Therefore, Europe must be experiencing a far-right transformation.
There is evidence for parts of that argument. But electoral politics is rarely that linear.
A voter can oppose immigration without supporting the RN.
A voter can distrust Brussels without wanting France to leave the EU.
A voter can oppose Macron without supporting Marine Le Pen.
A voter can be economically conservative while rejecting cultural radicalism.
Reducing these different motivations into one expanding “far-right electorate” risks overlooking the more complicated process taking place in France.
The RN and Reconquête Are Not the Same — and That Matters
One of the strongest elements in the Euronews report is its comparison between the National Rally and Éric Zemmour’s Reconquête.
Reconquête openly welcomed the AfD victory, while the RN maintained distance. Euronews also notes that Reconquête is politically closer to the AfD on certain issues, including the controversial concept of “remigration.”
This distinction is crucial.
If France’s rightward shift were simply ideological radicalisation, the most extreme party would necessarily be the biggest beneficiary.
But that is not what the political evidence currently suggests.
The RN has been more successful precisely because it has moderated its presentation while retaining much of its core political agenda.
That suggests that the potential growth of the French far right is less about France suddenly becoming more extreme and more about the mainstream political system becoming less capable of containing an already established nationalist electorate.
Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella Represent Another Divide
Another underappreciated factor is the internal evolution of the RN.
Marine Le Pen has built the party’s modern electoral identity around sovereignty, immigration and national preference, while Bardella has cultivated a younger, more media-friendly and comparatively pragmatic political image.
Carnegie’s analysis identifies this as an important distinction: Le Pen remains more confrontational toward European integration, whereas Bardella has demonstrated greater willingness to operate within European political structures.
This could become critical in 2027.
If the RN wants to win the presidency, its leadership will have to balance two competing objectives:
mobilise the nationalist electorate without frightening moderate voters.
The AfD presents precisely the danger the RN wants to avoid.
Its spectacular result demonstrates the electoral potential of radical politics, but its controversial reputation also demonstrates the political price of being perceived as too extreme.
France’s 2027 Election Will Not Be Decided in Germany
The AfD’s victory will influence the European political conversation, but French voters will ultimately vote according to French conditions.
Economic performance, inflation, purchasing power, immigration, public security, government credibility, unemployment, housing and the performance of France’s political institutions are likely to matter far more than what happens in a German regional parliament.
That is why the most important question is not:
“Will France copy Germany?”
It is:
“Why are French voters increasingly willing to consider the political alternative once considered impossible?”
That question shifts the analysis away from electoral spectacle and toward structural political change.
The Bigger Risk for Europe’s Centre
The greatest strategic mistake for Europe’s mainstream parties would be to interpret the AfD victory solely as a warning about the far right.
It is also a warning about the centre.
When established parties fail to respond convincingly to economic anxiety, migration pressures, regional inequality and declining trust, political space becomes available for challengers.
French government ministers have already described the German result as a serious warning for Europe while simultaneously arguing that legitimate public concerns must be addressed without nationalism or xenophobia.
That is the central political challenge.
Democratic parties cannot defeat the far right simply by describing it as dangerous.
They have to outperform it politically.
So, Is Euronews Right to Expect Far-Right Growth in France?
There is a credible basis for expecting continued strength from the French far right, particularly because the RN currently occupies a strong position ahead of the 2027 presidential election. Euronews cites polling showing roughly 34–36% first-round support for Le Pen in the referenced survey.
But the stronger claim — that the AfD’s victory itself demonstrates an inevitable French far-right advance — would be too simplistic.
The evidence points toward something more complicated.
France is not simply following Germany.
The RN is not simply copying the AfD.
And the European far right is not one unified political movement.
Instead, Europe is experiencing a fragmentation of the old political centre, with different nationalist parties adapting themselves to national political systems.
The RN’s silence over the AfD may therefore be more revealing than an enthusiastic endorsement would have been.
It shows that France’s far right has learned a crucial political lesson: to win power, it may need to separate electoral nationalism from the most controversial elements of Europe’s wider far-right movement.
The Real French Far-Right Story Is About Normalisation
The most important takeaway from the AfD victory is not that Germany has suddenly turned far right or that France will inevitably follow.
It is that the political boundaries surrounding nationalist parties are changing.
The RN’s strategy suggests that the road to power may no longer run through ideological radicalisation. It may run through moderation of presentation, selective distancing from controversial allies and the gradual acceptance of once-fringe political arguments within mainstream debate.
That makes the French case more complicated — and potentially more consequential — than the simple “far-right wave” narrative suggests.
The AfD may have won the headlines in Germany.
But in France, the more important battle is taking place inside the political centre.
If mainstream parties cannot convince voters that they have credible answers to France’s economic, social and security concerns, the RN may not need to become more radical to grow.
It may only need to continue looking more governable than its opponents.
That is the real reason Europe’s far-right debate deserves scrutiny ahead of France’s 2027 presidential election.
