The Factor of Euroscepticism and the Phenomenon of Political Crisis in France and Germany: Current State and Comparative Analysis

Abstract

The European Parliament elections held in June 2024 had the most significant impact on the political landscape within Germany and France, the leading states of the EU. French President Emmanuel Macron, without waiting for the official results, announced early parliamentary elections. Later in the autumn, the ruling coalition in Germany collapsed, and the leaders of the "Alliance 90/The Greens" party, which was part of the coalition, resigned after a series of failures in local elections.

The authors of the article conducted a case study of the political crisis in each country, analyzing the applicability of the established scientific definition of a political crisis to describe these events and thereby providing a comparative analysis between the two nations. Based on the conducted research, it was concluded that although the formal cause of the political crisis differs (external for France, internal for Germany), the underlying reasons for the events are largely similar. In this context, the causes of the decline in popularity of moderate centrist forces and the rise of the far-right and far-left factions of the political spectrum were identified. In the long-term perspective, these trends may negatively impact the European Union.