Ahead of election, tech could unite Europe's populist groups

PARIS -- The web platform was named for a revered French populist philosopher and created by an Italian internet entrepreneur to transform common grievances into proposals and activists into political candidates.

When Italy's deputy prime minister offered the populist 5-Star Movement's Rousseau platform to France's "yellow vest" protesters, he took a step too far for French President Emmanuel Macron. The president recalled France's ambassador to Italy for a week, in the sharpest diplomatic dispute between the two allies since World War II.

The sharing of the Rousseau technology marks the most brazen attempt to date to internationalize Europe's populist movements. It is a harbinger of the upcoming European Parliament elections in May, in which populist Euro-skeptics are poised to win an unprecedented one-third of the seats, under current projections. This could well complete the collapse of the mainstream, which up to now has held the largest voting bloc in Parliament.

However, the elections will also be a test of how far populist parties, which tend to be virulently nationalistic, can unite over countries and across the political spectrum. In Italy alone, the two populist ruling parties, the 5-Star Movement and the League, compete at least as much as they cooperate.

"These parties are against Europe, but they are using Europe and the pan-European space to create a political debate," said Alberto Alemanno, an Italian analyst.

At their most basic level, populists on both the right and the left pit the common people against the elite, the entrenched political class.

Technology has helped them advance. The 5-Star Movement used the Rousseau portal to let activists click their way to choosing candidates and policies, much as Spain's Podemos used Reddit to energize online debate beginning five years ago and still uses online referendums. The populist yellow vests have not come up with a common online space, with proliferating Facebook groups and YouTube channels and no clear demands.

If ideology and organization trump geography, populist parties in Europe could form a bloc capable of weakening or even paralyzing the legislature, if projections released this week by the parliament hold.

"We must reject the financiers who see themselves as demigods, reject the Brussels bureaucrats representing their interests; and reject the fake civil society activists," Hungarian President Viktor Orban said in his state of the nation address this week.

On Friday, 5-Star leader Luigi Di Maio announced a new grouping of populist movements from across Europe, bringing together a far-right Polish party led by a former rock musician and a free-market Finnish party founded by a businessman-turned-reality TV star. Notably absent were nationalists, leaving open the question of how much sway the new alliance could have without expanding further.

Getting the far-left France Unbowed to vote in tandem with Orban's far-right Fidesz party seems a big hurdle. Italy's government, split between the two populist groups, is largely an unhappy marriage of convenience, and the 5-Star Movement and the League diverge at least as much as they ally.

But among the yellow vests, known as "gilets jaunes," ultra-right and ultra-left have marched together in hopes of bringing down the government.

"Here is the beauty of it: They are both the left and the right. It is a populist thing," political strategist Steve Bannon told France's l'Express magazine in an interview published just after Macron recalled the ambassador.

Bannon created a foundation in Brussels to strike at the heart of the European Union. Europe's populist far-right politicians -- France's Marine Le Pen, Hungary's Orban, Italy's Matteo Salvini -- haven't exactly embraced him, but nor have they pushed away the American many credit with propelling Donald Trump to the White House. He's been largely ignored by the populist far-left.

The European Parliament elections are actually a four-day series of national elections held across Europe deciding the makeup of the legislature. Members make Europe-wide law, decide international agreements, and -- crucially -- can censure EU countries for violating core values such as an independent judiciary and upholding the rights of minorities and migrants.