Conventional wisdom says far-right parties must detoxify to win. Only if they distance themselves from the fascist past, as Italy’s Giorgia Meloni and France’s Marine Le Pen have tried to do, can they escape the electoral fringes.
Alternative for Germany has challenged that analysis. It has become steadily more extreme – and at the same time Germany’s most successful far-right party since the World War II. It was one of the big winners in the European parliament elections, as the continent swings to the right.
