Political scientist: Trump could weaken Europe’s far-right

Political scientist Nathalie Tocci says Trump could actually weaken Europe’s far-right rather than strengthen it. #Trump

Transcript

00:00I think the other factor which is actually having a big impact on the rise of the right

00:06or perhaps the fall of the right in Europe is what's happening in the United States.

00:11And let me perhaps just say a couple of words on this.

00:14I assumed, and I was wrong in assuming, that the election of Donald Trump would have actually

00:20strengthened the far right in Europe.

00:23I think that it's actually having the opposite effect, not unlike Brexit had back almost

00:31a decade ago, because it is when far right movements, parties, governments essentially

00:39not only rise to power, but do so in a rather catastrophic way, as was the case in the case

00:45of the Brexit referendum.

00:46Look at the results, as now is the case with the meltdown, basically, of the U.S. economy

00:54under Trump.

00:54I think that this has an effect on Europeans of basically saying, hang on a sec, you know,

01:01maybe we just want to go back to the sort of boring old traditional parties rather than

01:07this very insecure, in a sense, environment that at times the far right can represent.

01:13So I think actually what happens externally, particularly in the United States, can paradoxically

01:19have a weakening effect rather than a strengthening effect on the far right in Europe.