After Trump's midterm rout, Europe sees cracks in populist right. It may not stop France’s Le Pen

PARIS (AP) — A decade ago, U.S. President Donald Trump ’s victory sent a populist shock wave across the West. Now, Europe is asking whether the midterm rout of his Republican Party will send one back.

European opponents of right-wing populism see the U.S. vote as the latest sign of its faltering advance. Since April, voters have ousted Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, ended Aleksandar Vučić’s long grip on Serbia and blocked the Bolsonaro family’s return in Brazil.

“When cracks in power become more visible, this can trigger a cascade effect,” said Péter Krekó, director of Budapest’s Political Capital Institute.

Nowhere would such a cascade matter more than in France, where nationalist Marine Le Pen is the front-runner in a presidential election six months away that could put the European Union’s only nuclear arsenal, and a U.N. Security Council veto, in far-right hands.

The populist right’s recent defeats could rattle the woman vying to become France’s first Madame la Présidente. But the anger punishing populists in power from Budapest to Belgrade could carry her to it — precisely because her National Rally party has never governed France.

Le Pen also faces a legal cliffhanger. France’s highest court aims to rule on her appeal against an embezzlement conviction by early April, just weeks before the first round of voting; if it rules against her, she could campaign and face voters wearing an electronic tag.

“She could still be barred from running, and now Americans delivered this sort of rebuke to Trump’s kind of populism,” said Carmen Artaza, 31, a Paris resident educated in the United States. “That’s bound to rattle her — unsettle her campaign.”

But in France, "the far right still has the wind in its sails,” said Sciences Po political scientist Gilles Ivaldi.

Analysts say voters who handed Democrats control of the U.S. House and Senate may have punished Trump’s record, especially on the economy, more than his “America First” ideas.

Populists are still winning some elections, too: Such candidates have taken presidencies in Poland, Chile and Colombia since mid-2025.

“The trend toward the far right has been the defining feature of 21st-century politics,” said Daphne Halikiopoulou, a politics professor at Britain’s University of York.

But lately, defeats for the illiberal populist camp have been piling up.

“The midterms are a very favorable result for the center left, and this could hinder the far right,” she said.

Leaders or parties espousing nationalist, anti-immigration policies have suffered at least eight national election setbacks in roughly 18 months: in Romania, the Netherlands, Portugal, Hungary, Sweden, Serbia, Brazil and now the United States.

And many were emphatic: Portugal elected moderate Socialist António José Seguro over hard-right populist André Ventura by two to one; Hungary ended Orbán’s 16 years in power; Serbia’s Vučić conceded defeat last month to a student-led protest movement; and Romania chose pro-European centrist Nicușor Dan over nationalist George Simion.

Last month, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva narrowly beat Flávio Bolsonaro, son of former President Jair Bolsonaro.

Other votes thinned the ranks of anti-immigration parties. Geert Wilders’ party lost 11 seats in the Netherlands as the centrist party surged. In Sweden, the hard-right Sweden Democrats lost 11 seats as the left-leaning opposition won a narrow majority.

The results “show clearly that far-right politics are not popular,” said Aurélien Mondon, a politics expert at Britain’s University of Bath.

Even some on the populist right see a pattern. The U.S. midterms “join the defeats of Bolsonaro and Orbán,” Markus Frohnmaier, a senior lawmaker with the far-right AfD, wrote on X.

Each defeat can make the next one easier to imagine. Voters need to believe that “an increasingly authoritarian regime with vast resources can be defeated,” Krekó said. “The midterm results helped create that sense.”

The French left seized on the result, while the far right gave it a Gallic shrug.

“There is no inevitability in politics,” said Raphaël Glucksmann, the French center-left presidential candidate, calling it “a message of hope for all.”

The National Rally, which cheered Trump’s return to power last year, is now keeping him at arm’s length.

“What happens in other countries is none of my business,” party president Jordan Bardella told RTL radio.

Sébastien Chenu, who leads the far-right party’s lawmakers in the National Assembly, called the vote “a rejection of Donald Trump’s policies” in a statement to The Associated Press, blaming inflation and fuel prices driven by a war with Iran “that he himself started.”

In Germany, AfD co-leader Alice Weidel blamed “the disastrous consequences of the Iran war.”

The message from Europe’s nationalists: The defeat was Trump’s, not theirs.

After three failed bids, Le Pen has never looked stronger, according to French pollsters.

Yet the race to be her main challenger is wide open, with hard-left leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon, center-right former Prime Minister Édouard Philippe and Glucksmann among the contenders.

“Losing an election is definitely a sign of decline. But it’s not sudden death,” Halikiopoulou said. “In many cases, far-right parties are losing because their competitors are adopting their positions."

In Britain, Labour hardened its stance on immigration, especially under former Prime Minister Keir Starmer, to fend off Nigel Farage’s Reform UK.

In France, the Senate last week approved a bill from President Emmanuel Macron’s government that could make anyone who knowingly joins a violent group pay up to 10,000 euros ($11,200) for what others destroy, and let the state dock family benefits to cover it — long a Le Pen idea.

The real danger, Mondon said, is “the failure of the mainstream elite” to counter the far right. A decade under Macron has brought “the mainstreaming of far-right talking points.”

For Le Pen, the lesson of the midterms may be less that populists lose than that incumbents do.

Anger at incumbents has been building for years. In 2024, for the first time since records began, every governing party that faced a national election in a developed country lost vote share, according to ParlGov, a University of Bremen database.

The far right is rising where it sits in opposition and centrists rule, as in France, Austria and Germany, where the AfD took a record 43.8% in Saxony-Anhalt’s state election in September.

Anger and a hunger for radical change, embodied by both Le Pen and Mélenchon, now dominate French politics, Ivaldi said.

The election will show whether there is “still a barrier against the far-right,” he said. Voters across the political spectrum rallied behind Macron to block her in 2017 and 2022.

For now, he said, France “could well experience its own ‘Trump moment,’ like the U.S. in 2016.”

Voters have shown they can turn populists out of power. France will show whether they can keep one from winning it.

Halikiopoulou put it simply: “Were the midterms a massive blow to Trump? Yes. Were they important? Absolutely. But the fact remains that Trump is still in power.”

Associated Press writer Geir Moulson in Berlin contributed to this report.

FILE - President Donald Trump shakes hands with Prime Minister of Hungary Viktor Orban, left, during a signing ceremony on his Board of Peace initiative at the Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Jan. 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber, File)

People celebrate after Aleksandar Vucic, leader of the right-wing Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) conceded defeat in the parliamentary election in Belgrade, Serbia, Sunday, Oct. 25, 2026. (AP Photo/Marko Drobnjakovic)

Leader of France's far-right National Rally (RN) party, Marine Le Pen, delivers a speech during the party's 19th Congress, in Orleans, France, Sunday, Oct. 25, 2026. (AP Photo/Teresa Suarez)

Jordan Bardella, president of France's far-right National Rally party, center right, and Leader of France's far-right National Rally (RN) party, Marine Le Pen, center, applaud at the end of the party's 19th Congress, in Orleans, France, Sunday, Oct. 25, 2026. (AP Photo/Teresa Suarez)

LONDON (AP) — For Joe Reeve, the midterm afterglow faded fast.

The London startup founder was among the wave around the Trump-weary world awakening to the stunning news that Americans had sharplyrejected President Donald Trump's fist-in-the-eye stewardship of the United States that had started a war with Iran, forged no peace in Ukraine or the Mideast and made gas and food so expensive.

Voters, Reeve saw online, had flipped control of both houses of Congress, handing the power to check the president to his rival Democrats. American democracy, 250 years on, had survived the Trump era.

But a deep and profound distrust of the United States had survived the vote, too. And from national leaders to aspiring American immigrants, no one seemed confident that change was afoot.

“What everybody’s learned,” Reeve, 29, the husband of a Ukrainian, said a day later in an interview, “is that America’s system does allow for these wild swings. We all know, now, that America has an ability to rotate on a dime and spit in our faces.”

Interviews by The Associated Press around the world since the vote revealed a sense that “one election alone does not restore anything,” as Kim So-jung, 49, an office worker in Yongin, South Korea, put it. “We have to see what they actually do, and see that they are doing something different to gain at least a little trust back.”

That 77 million Americans voted to elect Trump to a second term, along with the administration's combative conduct on his tariff war, Israel's conduct in Gaza, immigration and Iran, had already shaken trust in America around the world.

By the time Americans awakened Wednesday, global leaders and regular people from Europe to Australia had moved beyond the “wow” to a reckoning with the reality that Trump still retains enormous powers.

“Quite frankly, Trump has largely governed without Congress for the past two years. Why should that change now?" German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said a few hours after voters flipped control of the House and Senate.

Trump's apparent detachment from the results and his focus on building projects in the days before and after the drubbing did little to calm speculation about how he governs. He could dissociate completely, some observers said. Or he could lean into foreign policy and become even less predictable.

"For the country's allies, the question isn't whether America is back,” Ian Bremmer, president and founder of the Eurasian Group, wrote in Think China. “It's back to what — and for how long?”

The stunning midterm elections were not enough to reverse policies that have strained economies and finances and put dreams of making it in America on hold for many across the globe.

Trump's tariff war has roiled markets and economies. He had canceled humanitarian aid for millions and upended the world's postwar order. Under Trump, American immigration policy turned violent and deadly — and makes the U.S. look to many like a place better avoided.

“I don’t think all is forgiven,” ReadtheLine.ca Editor Jen Gerson said during an online discussion Thursday. “The President’s hold on power over two terms is — and ought to remain — a warning sign to Canada and to all of America’s allies.”

America's political and economic uncertainty can affect businesses like Synetica, an Indonesian tech company, one of its business development managers said.

“For me, regaining trust means seeing America consistently respect democratic institutions, the rule of law and its international partners,” Aditya Surya, 40, of Yogyakarta, Indonesia, told the AP. “The election is a good start, but what happens next matters a lot more."

Many eyes are trained on whether the Democrats can reverse Trump's costly tariff regime as the incoming majority has promised in its 100 days agenda — and whether Trump accepts or vetoes any such changes.

Hamish McIntyre, an Australian beef producer, suspects not. With a Southern Hemisphere spring harvest underway in parts of Australia, farmers are grappling with diesel prices inflated by the Iran war, contributing to what the government forecasts will be a 39% drop in large farm profits.

“The midterm result is unlikely, in itself, to fundamentally change the direction of U.S. tariff policy,” said McIntyre, president of the National Farmers' Federation agricultural advocacy group. The election, he added, does not “prevent the administration from continuing to pursue its broader trade agenda.”

Ivan Slatkine, president of the Federation of Romandie Enterprises in French-speaking Switzerland, said he's heartened that the election showed America's institutions remain robust. That's worth some confidence, he added.

But.

“Let us not be naive,” Slatkine said. "The ‘America First’ concept is not going to be abandoned anytime soon, and I doubt the new majority will reverse all the decisions made by the president.”

Hong Kong businessman Danny Lau gained some hope from the elections. More than 30% of the orders received by his aluminum factory in the southern Chinese city of Dongguan come from American clients. But his business was paying a tariff of nearly 81%.

“Trump started the tariff war,” Lau said. “If he loses his influence, would that help at all on the tariff front? At the very least, hopefully he won't raise them any further.”

Michael Lu, CEO of gift-box producer Brothersbox in southern China, said he believed political tensions remain elevated, particularly after the U.S.‘s earlier trade war against China. But no matter who won the midterms, he didn't expect drastic changes in Washington's overall stance against China. The U.S. accounts for roughly 20% of Lu's company’s business.

The political shear in the U.S. doesn't change the fact that “continuing to strengthen the alliance and economic relations with the U.S. is essential for Japan,” said Yoshinobu Tsutsui, chairman of Keidanren, the Japan Business Federation, a lobby group that represents 1,500 companies. He said he expects Trump to come out even stronger, not weaker, with the Democrats in control of Congress.

Ambika, an Indian citizen who asked to be identified only by her last name, works in IT in America and has long yearned to make America her permanent home. But Trump's immigration crackdown and latest green card restrictions have given her pause.

“Recent visa policy changes have left me worried,” she said this week while visiting family in India. “I don't know if the the midterm results would lead to any policy change that could benefit those of us who want to move to the U.S.”

There's no more accurate look at how America is changing than U.S. elections. And these midterms produced the biggest shift in political power since the post-Watergate election of 1974.

But what now?

“Time and again, we are presented with these chances for change, only for greed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory,” U.K.-based commentator Martin McSweeney wrote on his “Truth Matters” Substack at 5 a.m. the day after the election. “Will this time be different? That's up to the American people, and that makes me very nervous given past experience.”

Associated Press writers across the globe contributed to this report. They include: Kanis Leung and Thomas Chan in Hong Kong, Rod McGuirk in Melbourne, Sheikh Saaliq in New Delhi, Kim Tong-hyung in Seoul, South Korea, Yuri Kageyama in Tokyo, Edna Tarigan in Jakarta, and Jamey Keaten in Geneva.

FILE - President Donald Trump speaks before signing an executive order in the Oval Office of the White House Thursday, Nov. 5, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, file)

FILE - People participate in a "No Kings" protest against U.S. President Donald Trump near the U.S. embassy in Ottawa on Saturday, June 14, 2025. (Justin Tang/The Canadian Press via AP, file)