Listen to ‘The Battle for Europe,’ a Series From ‘The Daily’ Podcast

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“The Battle for Europe” is a five-part audio series from “The Daily” that asks: As nationalist and populist movements take root across the Continent, can the European Union survive? Listen to the episodes below, or read the transcripts by clicking the icon to the right of the play bar. For more information about the series, visit the show pages for Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4 and Part 5.

Part 1: The Battle for Europe

From the postwar creation of the European Union through the modern-day crises of migration and crippling debt, reporter Katrin Bennhold tells how the E.U. shaped her upbringing in Germany and why she questioned it. Released on June 10, 2019.
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Part 1: The Battle for Europe

From the postwar creation of the European Union through the modern-day crises of migration and crippling debt, reporter Katrin Bennhold tells how the E.U. shaped her upbringing in Germany and why she questioned it. Released on June 10, 2019.

archived recording (nigel farage)

[CHEERING AND APPLAUSE] Funny, isn’t it? Isn’t it funny. You know, when I came here 17 years ago, and I said that I wanted to lead a campaign to get Britain to leave the European Union, you all laughed at me. Well, I have to say, you’re not laughing now, are you?

I’ll make one prediction this morning — the United Kingdom will not be the last member state to leave the European Union.

[music]

michael barbaro

From The New York Times, I’m Michael Barbaro. This week on “The Daily” —

speaker

Us, as European citizens, we are living in a bubble.

michael barbaro

— before the recent rise of nationalism in the United States, in Europe, a decades-long plan to stitch together countries and cultures into a united Europe was ultimately blamed for two crises.

archived recording (speaker 1)

How many people are you on the boat?

archived recording (speaker 2)

500.

archived recording

The U.N. estimates about 5,700 migrants have arrived in Italy from Tunisia since January.

michael barbaro

One of mass migration into Europe.

archived recording

It’s a big problem. There are too much of them.

michael barbaro

The other of crippling debt.

archived recording

We’ve had enough. We don’t want to be governed by you. We want to govern ourselves.

michael barbaro

Together, they set off Europe’s own wave of nationalism.

archived recording 1

[SPEAKING ITALIAN]

archived recording 2

[SPEAKING FRENCH]

michael barbaro

While the U.K. has elected to leave the E.U. altogether, nationalist movements across the rest of Europe want to blow it up from within. My colleague, Berlin bureau chief Katrin Bennhold, tells the story this week. It’s Monday, June 10.

Katrin, where should we start this story?

katrin bennhold

So for me, the story starts when I start to doubt Europe. And there were two moments that really crystallized this for me.

archived recording

The total number of votes cast in favor of Leave —

katrin bennhold

The first was Brexit.

archived recording 1

— was 17,410,742. This means that the U.K. has voted to leave the European Union.

archived recording 2

The British people have spoken, and the answer is we’re out.

katrin bennhold

I was living in London at the time with my family. I was a correspondent there. And you know, the European Union has always been a certainty in my life. It’s sort of this thing that has always been there and I thought would always be there. You know, I’m German. My husband is Welsh. We met at university in London. And it’s kind of incredible, but our grandfathers fought on two different sides of World War II, and now we have three children. And they’re little Europeans who basically speak both of our languages and feel at home in both of our countries. So when I woke up to the news on that morning in June 2016 that Britain was leaving the European Union, it was kind of the first time that Europe felt fragile. It was kind of this moment that put a doubt in my mind about the European Union. And that felt very new.

[music]

katrin bennhold

And then, in 2018, I actually moved back to my own country, to Germany, for the first time in, like, over 20 years. And Germany at the time felt very different from the U.K. It was kind of considered to be this bastion of liberal democracy. But there was a backlash building here, too. And one of the first things I started reporting on when I got back was this rise of the far right.

archived recording 1

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

archived recording 2

This party’s story very much echoes that of the anti-establishment movements seen elsewhere across Europe.

katrin bennhold

And then eight months into my stint in Germany, the second thing happened.

[music]

katrin bennhold

There’s a city in the eastern part of Germany called Chemnitz.

archived recording

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

And every August, they have this festival celebrating the founding of the city.

archived recording

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

So on August 25 last year, they were having this festival once again. And after most people had gone home, at around 3 in the morning, a fight breaks out. These two Germans, locals, are stabbed, and one of them actually dies.

archived recording

A German man was fatally stabbed by, it’s believed, a Syrian and an Iraqi man.

katrin bennhold

So pretty quickly, news spreads that the men who allegedly did this were from Syria and Iraq, and had been claiming asylum in Germany. And remember, this is three years after this big influx of migrants in 2015.

archived recording

[CHANTING]

katrin bennhold

This is sort of political dynamite. Within a few hours, you’ve got protesters on the street. They’re organized on social media, and they outnumbered police 10 to one.

archived recording

[CHANTING]

katrin bennhold

And things go totally nuts.

archived recording

[LOUD BANG]

katrin bennhold

For a few hours that day, it really felt like this mob owned Chemnitz.

I remember talking to this Syrian guy who had actually been watching this from his friend’s apartment. And he’d been seeing this march sort of snaking through the city below, and he’d been seeing these breakout groups pursuing brown-skinned people like him. He described it as a pack of wolves. He said it felt like wolves going after innocent prey.

michael barbaro

So this is starting to look like a riot against migrants.

katrin bennhold

It certainly felt like that, but what was really interesting and sort of shocking to me was that, while fueled by this anti-immigrant hatred, there was this other thing going on. And it felt sort of eerily familiar in this country.

uwe dziuballa

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

Late in the evening, Uwe Dziuballa is at his restaurant.

uwe dziuballa

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

A restaurant that he’s owned in Chemnitz for 18 years. It’s a Jewish restaurant.

uwe dziuballa

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

It’s the only Jewish restaurant in town.

uwe dziuballa

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

The restaurant is closed that evening because Uwe is having this little book party. There’s a journalist there, and a few people from the community. And what they’re talking about is this book about how the Nazis took over Jewish businesses during World War II.

uwe dziuballa

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

So they’re all sitting there talking about this till about 9:30 at night. And then they see on television —

archived recording

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

— that these riots are happening right there in their city outside. And so they’re like, O.K., let’s call it a night, maybe. And then Uwe, sort of without thinking, says, you know, I’ll just check if everything is O.K.

uwe dziuballa

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

But as he opens the door, he hears a sound that he says sounds like a rolling bottle and a horse hoof or something. And he doesn’t know what’s happening. And he looks up, and he sees a group of young men, maybe about a dozen, although he says at the time that it felt closer to 100. And they were covered in dark clothing, standing in front of him, looking pretty threatening.

uwe dziuballa

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

Then they start throwing things, at him and at the restaurant. A crowbar. Bottles. And they break his window, and they hit Uwe himself in the shoulder by a stone. And then they’re shouting, get out of Germany, you Jewish pig.

michael barbaro

So this riot that started out as a protest of this murder by what people think are refugees is now also targeting a Jewish man.

katrin bennhold

Yes. What I come to realize is that some of the protesters out on that street are full-blown neo-Nazis. And what makes it such a moment for me, a kind of a moment that really crystallizes just how fragile the European project has become, is the fact that alongside those far-right extremists are elected German officials, leaders of this far-right party that’s rising in Germany. There they are in the crowd, walking alongside these neo-Nazis. Something shifted that day. You know, I grew up in West Germany in the 1980s. My parents were both born still during World War II. In school, you know, the Hitler years were taught early and often.

archived recording

On the 30th of January, 1933, this man became chancellor of Germany.

katrin bennhold

This was, like, the darkest possible version of nationalism, the darkest possible expression of national identity. And we had to learn about it, and we inhabited that. And it is a sort of constituent part of German national identity. So to experience this rise of ethnic hatred and this resurgence of anti-Semitism up close in Chemnitz was basically really, really scary. I’ve been watching as a correspondent this nationalism and populism build, but to see this in Germany felt more significant.

michael barbaro

Why?

katrin bennhold

Germany is the most important country in Europe. It’s the most important country in the European Union, both because it’s so big and so rich and because of its history. It was that horrible history of World War II and of the Holocaust that led to the foundation of the European Union.

archived recording (winston churchill)

We must recreate the European family in a regional structure called, it may be, the United States of Europe.

katrin bennhold

And it’s this moment where a group of nations get together around this shared understanding that they have to suppress nationalism, this kind of destructive nationalism that fuels ethnic hatred and, ultimately, war, and instead unite around this different idea, this idea of a European community.

archived recording (winston churchill)

Europe can only be united by the heartfelt wish and vehement expression of the great majority of all the people in all the parties in all the freedom-loving countries, no matter where they dwell or how they vote.

katrin bennhold

And in order to do that, they designed this system, a kind of a club that will trade together and get so economically intertwined that war becomes impossible, unthinkable. And at the heart of this system is the idea of liberal democracy. So it’s both a sort of ideal and also a set of practical structures. On the one hand, it’s everything that you think of when you think of a democracy. It’s elections, it’s a variety of political parties, it’s separation of powers, an independent judiciary. It’s basically an open society and free markets. But above all, it’s sort of the protection of human rights and of civil rights, of civil liberties and of political freedoms for all people.

archived recording

The scene now here at the Brandenburg Gate and the Reichstag in Berlin is unbelievable pandemonium. It’s New Year’s Eve, the removal of the wall and unity all in one.

katrin bennhold

And you know, it was interesting because I remember when the Berlin Wall fell.

archived recording 1

It’s happened. It’s official. Germany is now one country of 80 million people, and even the Germans themselves are stunned.

archived recording 2

It’s a fantastic time. It’s very good. We like it.

katrin bennhold

When the wall falls and communism falls in Europe, we see all these previously unfree countries now very eager to join the European Union, as well. You know, this was a tall order. These countries had to sign up to an entirely new set of values, to the values of liberal democracy. That required them to get their proverbial houses in order to gain membership. But they do it because the expected payoffs were so great, not just in terms of prosperity and development, but in terms of rejoining the European family after decades of Soviet rule. So all this had started with Western Europe, but now these Eastern and Central European countries are joining, too, countries like Poland, like the Czech Republic, like the Baltic States. The E.U. is getting bigger, and it feels at that moment like it’s getting stronger, too.

archived recording

We’re welcoming 10 new member states into the European Union. And today marks a new beginning for Europeans.

katrin bennhold

It’s kind of this glorious period.

archived recording

This day is a day of hope and opportunity.

katrin bennhold

It feels like there’s only one system now. There’s only one way forward. And that way forward is liberal democracy.

michael barbaro

And that system is completely at the heart of the E.U.

katrin bennhold

Exactly. You know, in that moment, in 2004, it was kind of inconceivable that these countries that had just joined and had made such an effort to join and got their houses in order would actually roll back. Nobody thought it was possible that these countries would roll back their democracies.

michael barbaro

It felt like it was all just moving forward.

katrin bennhold

It felt like it was all just moving forward.

[music]

michael barbaro

We’ll be right back. So we’re in this post-Cold War moment. The E.U. is big and strong. So what happens?

katrin bennhold

At the heart of this, you’ve got Germany. And Angela Merkel comes to power in 2005. And she embodies all of this.

archived recording (angela merkel)

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

She’s from the East. She has experienced totalitarianism. She grew up in communism.

archived recording (angela merkel)

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

And she becomes the de facto leader of the European Union, really. And she oversees this sort of amazing period in Germany, where, in the early 2000s, a sort of civic patriotism grows. So for the first time, Germans feel able to be proud to be German again.

archived recording

[SINGING GERMAN NATIONAL ANTHEM]

katrin bennhold

In 2006, Germany hosts the soccer World Cup. Suddenly, you see Germany flags being flown across the country. And it’s a moment.

archived recording

[CHANTING]

katrin bennhold

It’s funny, this was new to me. You know, I don’t actually recall, as somebody growing up in West Germany, seeing German flags, like, ever, because it was kind of a taboo. And I remember traveling to the United States for the first time as a teenager and seeing all these flags. And it kind of shocked me because, to me, it just looked like nationalism, and nationalism was bad. But now, the German flag was back. And it’s kind of fascinating, actually. It’s through all these decades of atoning for its history, through this embrace of a united Europe and liberal values, that Germany has actually come to feel more comfortable again with its own national identity.

archived recording

[SINGING GERMAN NATIONAL ANTHEM]

katrin bennhold

But shortly after, just a couple years later, there come these two big tests to these values and to these principles of the European Union that Germany is sort of a symbol of.

archived recording

You know what? Right now, breaking news here, stocks all around the world are tanking because of the crisis on Wall Street.

katrin bennhold

So in 2008, we have the financial crash. And that leads to a serious economic crisis in several European countries, especially in southern Europe.

archived recording

Greece is teetering on the brink of bankruptcy right now. Banks are closed, cash hard to come by. And the ripples are being felt around the world.

katrin bennhold

The idea at the time was that a crisis in Greece could infect the entire European Union. And there was this fear of a kind of contagion. Angela Merkel makes it clear at the time that she wants to keep Greece in the euro area pretty much at all costs.

michael barbaro

Mm-hmm.

katrin bennhold

But it comes at a heavy, heavy cost for those southern European countries, and particularly for Greece, because there’s austerity imposed on them that is mainly directed from Germany. And it causes a lot of social pain in those countries. It’s a point at which Angela Merkel’s star in southern Europe really dims. And then, of course, on top of this devastating economic crisis, you have the refugee crisis that sends hundreds of thousands of Syrians and Afghanis and North Africans to Europe.

All of these migrants are now showing up at borders across Europe, and many countries are just not allowing them in.

archived recording

Yet another queue for weary refugees.

katrin bennhold

But then?

archived recording

But this is a breakthrough. Hundreds are being allowed to board trains to Germany and Austria. None of these people have visas, yet now they’re crammed inside a train bound for Munich and cleared to leave.

katrin bennhold

Merkel lets them in.

archived recording

[CHEERING]

katrin bennhold

I remember this moment well. I was quite pregnant at the time with my third child, and I came to report on this. I was sent to Munich. At Munich train station, people stood on the platforms, masses of Germans, welcoming these refugees and clapping as they arrived off the trains.

archived recording

[CLAPPING] (SINGING) Say it loud, say it clear! Refugee are welcome here!

katrin bennhold

Germany basically opened its arms to these refugees.

archived recording

(SINGING) Say it loud, say it clear! Refugee are welcome here!

katrin bennhold

It was a moment where a country that, in its past, had created refugees who were fleeing from Germany for their lives was now a safe haven for people fleeing for their lives. We’d become the safe haven. This country had become a safe haven.

michael barbaro

So this is sort of the ultimate affirmation of what the E.U. was created for and what Germany now represents.

katrin bennhold

At that moment, it definitely felt like that. But not all Germans liked this vision of Germany. In some ways, that decision by Angela Merkel in 2015 to embody these liberal values and to act on them, she may have inadvertently set in motion a reaction that is now challenging those very values.

michael barbaro

Mm-hmm.

katrin bennhold

So you now have a situation where the Alternative for Germany, the AfD, this far-right party that we talked about earlier, is the third-largest party in the national Parliament and is the main opposition party, which means that it gets to respond to Angela Merkel whenever she speaks in Parliament first. This has started to normalize far-right language, far-right slogans, certain angry sentiments about immigrants. So you now see stuff that’s being said that has become pretty much mainstream when, only a few years ago, you would not have been able to say it.

michael barbaro

And this is when you started to question the future of Europe.

katrin bennhold

This is when I started to question the future of Europe. I was thinking, if this could happen in Germany, I mean, can the European Union survive this?

[music]

michael barbaro

We’ll be right back.

katrin bennhold

So last month, there was a big test of all of this, a Continent-wide election to the European Parliament, which is the only directly elected body in the European Union, where every five years, each country gets to send a number of lawmakers to represent it in the E.U. And this year, there were a lot of nationalist and populist candidates running for seats inside the E.U. Parliament, running on platforms that directly oppose the E.U. and its values. They’re no longer proposing to leave the E.U. They’ve understood that voters don’t want that, maybe because they’ve seen how messy it gets. You know, they’ve seen Brexit. They’ve seen how messy it is to actually deliver on a promise to leave the E.U. And so instead, they want to change the E.U. from the inside.

michael barbaro

Hm.

katrin bennhold

They want to blow this thing up from within. So a few weeks ahead of these elections, I decided to go on a road trip across Europe with two producers from “The Daily,” Lynsea Garrison and Clare Toeniskoetter. I basically wanted to understand the frustrations and the movements that are behind all of this, that are driving all of this. I wanted to understand what Europe means to Europeans today.

michael barbaro

Katrin, thank you very much.

katrin bennhold

Good talking to you, Michael.

michael barbaro

All this week, we’ll follow Katrin, Clare and Lynsea’s trip across Europe.

clare toeniskoetter

We’re in France!

katrin bennhold

We’re here! We’ve arrived! Except it looks like we’re in the middle of nowhere.

lynsea garrison

Oh, my God.

clare toeniskoetter

That’s a serious train.

lynsea garrison

What was that?

katrin bennhold

That was a TGV, a Train à Grande Vitesse. It’s basically a feat of French engineering and a big source of pride in France. They have these superfast trains that are a product of, like, a lot of state investment. But this is actually something —

[music]

Part 2: The French Rebellion

In France, we meet a group of Yellow Vest protesters who gather every day at a traffic roundabout. Leaderless and mostly elderly and poor, they find solidarity in nationalism. Released on June 11, 2019.
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transcript

Part 2: The French Rebellion

In France, we meet a group of Yellow Vest protesters who gather every day at a traffic roundabout. Leaderless and mostly elderly and poor, they find solidarity in nationalism. Released on June 11, 2019.

katrin bennhold

So we first got on the train to France.

clare toeniskoetter

Can we just take this four-person, right here?

lynsea garrison

Yeah.

katrin bennhold

France is one of the founding members of the European Union. It had been at war with Germany on and off for centuries, so it was also very invested in the idea of a united Europe. But recently, France has seen a lot of social unrest, the Yellow Vests. They’ve been out in the streets, protesting on roundabouts and in the center of Paris against this young, dynamic new president, Emmanuel Macron, who just a couple of years ago, a lot of people in Europe saw as the next leader of a liberal Europe. And now, there is this really angry movement that is rejecting him and everything he stands for as elitist, as undemocratic even, and somehow as not French — not serving the interests of ordinary French people.

train announcement

[SPEAKING FRENCH]

katrin bennhold

So by questioning Macron, this movement is really also questioning Europe.

[guitar playing and whistling]

clare toeniskoetter

That’s pretty good.

[MUSIC]

Maybe we should change our tune.

[guitar playing and whistling]

speaker

Yeah, it’s finished!

[cheering]

clare toeniskoetter

Thank you!

katrin bennhold

From The New York Times, this is “The Daily.” I’m Katrin Bennhold. Today: France. It’s Tuesday, June 11.

katrin bennhold

Reims.

clare toeniskoetter

Reims.

katrin bennhold

Try again. Reims.

clare toeniskoetter

Reims.

lynsea garrison

Reims.

katrin bennhold

Yeah, good.

katrin bennhold

So we get off the train in Reims —

clare toeniskoetter

I can’t do that R.

katrin bennhold

— in this city in northern France, and in the middle of this region that makes champagne.

katrin bennhold

[SPEAKING FRENCH]

speaker

[SPEAKING FRENCH]

katrin bennhold

[SPEAKING FRENCH]

katrin bennhold

We grab a cab. And we’re driving into town, because we’ve heard that there’s a group of Yellow Vest protesters who come every day to this one roundabout. And as we’re driving along, the taxi driver pointed out this shuttered factory. And he said, look.

speaker

[SPEAKING FRENCH]

katrin bennhold

Here’s an example of a factory that has moved to Hungary, because it’s cheaper to produce there. And guess what? Hungary is also part of the European Union. So this is what Europe is all about. It placed the working-class people of one country against the working-class people of another.

clare toeniskoetter

So the first guy we meet is unhappy with the European Union.

katrin bennhold

Yeah.

clare toeniskoetter

And what did he say about the Yellow Vests?

katrin bennhold

[SPEAKING FRENCH]

speaker

[SPEAKING FRENCH]

katrin bennhold

So this guy said he wasn’t a member of the Yellow Vest movement, but he said he supported them. And this is something that the polls show very clearly in France, that more than half of the French people support this grassroots movement against the government and against Europe.

clare toeniskoetter

Oh, here. Here.

katrin bennhold

Oh, yeah. There we go.

katrin bennhold

So we arrive at this roundabout.

It’s basically this massive highway intersection on the outskirts of Reims, in the middle of suburbia. You’ve got these emblematic, big company names around you. You’ve got a big Ikea. You’ve got a K.F.C. And on the other side, a Burger King.

lynsea garrison

It smells like campfire.

katrin bennhold

And on one side, in a sort of grassy corner of this roundabout, is a blazing bonfire and a small wooden shelter, clearly handmade, maybe the size of a one-car garage behind, with a French flag blowing in the wind. And a number of people huddled around the fire with their bright, yellow, reflective vests.

clare toeniskoetter

Bonjour!

katrin bennhold

So when we first walked up to this group of people around the fire, they looked at us with a little bit of suspicion. And we sort of hung back a little, until this woman approached us.

katrin bennhold

[SPEAKING FRENCH]

chlo

[SPEAKING FRENCH]

katrin bennhold

Her name is Chlo, and she was a sort of small woman, but standing very upright, looking very serious.

katrin bennhold

[SPEAKING FRENCH] I’m just going to read the back of Chlo’s yellow vest. There’s actually a slogan in the back. It says, “Stop Mr. Macron.”

katrin bennhold

And she’s written anti-Macron slogans on the back of her yellow vest, which she had decorated with a lot of pins.

katrin bennhold

Macron, you can’t just milk us like cows. Mr. Macron, reduce your own salary.

katrin bennhold

She told me that she had six kids.

katrin bennhold

[SPEAKING FRENCH] Cloe has six children.

katrin bennhold

Something like a dozen grandchildren.

chlo

[SPEAKING FRENCH]

katrin bennhold

But she also tells me she’s kind of the mother of the roundabout.

chlo

[SPEAKING FRENCH]

katrin bennhold

And she says that she’s been here pretty much every single day since the beginning, November 17, 2018. It was clear to us that if we wanted to talk to anybody else, we had to get her permission. So we asked her, do you think these people would mind if we approached them? And she turned around. We faced her back.

chlo

[SPEAKING FRENCH]

katrin bennhold

Do you want to speak to these journalists? Is it O.K. if they take photos and talk to some of you? And everybody nodded and said, O.K., why not?

katrin bennhold

[SPEAKING FRENCH]

chlo

[SPEAKING FRENCH]

clare toeniskoetter

Who else did we meet?

katrin bennhold

So we meet a whole cast of characters there.

micheline

[SPEAKING FRENCH]

katrin bennhold

We meet Frederick and Micheline.

frederick

[SPEAKING FRENCH]

katrin bennhold

This couple of retired vignette workers, who basically spent their entire life making champagne on minimum wage. And now, they’re complaining of back problems after all these years of hard work.

frederick

[SPEAKING FRENCH]

katrin bennhold

They’re sort of in charge of comic relief, here. They make everybody laugh.

rene

[SPEAKING FRENCH]

katrin bennhold

And we meet Rene.

rene

[SPEAKING FRENCH]

katrin bennhold

He’s a retired electrician in a wheelchair. He’s the oldest of 16 children and said that he started working at 14.

rene

[SPEAKING FRENCH]

katrin bennhold

He heard about the Yellow Vest movement on TV, last November. Then he came to see it and has been here ever since.

monique

[SPEAKING FRENCH]

katrin bennhold

We meet Monique, a retired woman.

monique

[SPEAKING FRENCH]

katrin bennhold

Monique has been working for 43 years, she said, and now makes a pension of about 700 euros a month. She tells us that the first time she came to the roundabout, she was just overwhelmed by the kindness here.

clare toeniskoetter

What else did they tell us?

katrin bennhold

So a lot of them were telling us how this movement started.

speaker

[SPEAKING FRENCH]

[MUSIC]

katrin bennhold

It was last fall when President Macron announced an increase in gas taxes.

archived recording

[SPEAKING FRENCH]

katrin bennhold

And this angered a lot of people, and they started posting these videos on Facebook.

archived recording

[SPEAKING FRENCH]

katrin bennhold

And they started calling for protests across France.

archived recording

[SPEAKING FRENCH]

katrin bennhold

And in one video, someone suggested that people take these yellow, reflective vests —

archived recording

[SPEAKING FRENCH]

katrin bennhold

— and use them as a symbol of solidarity. Because in France, everybody is required by law to have these vests in the back of their cars. So very soon, people started gathering across the country for these protests. And they wore these yellow vests.

archived recording

[COMMOTION]

katrin bennhold

This idea that gas prices would now be $6 a gallon, roughly, was a slap in the face to a lot of these people, who worked very hard and, as it was, struggled to make ends meet. And it was emblematic of a president who lived in the Paris bubble, in a city with good public transport, who didn’t really have to worry about money nor getting from A to B in a car. So there was a sense that this president was putting these lofty globalist ideas and these European values ahead of just regular French people, who are often struggling.

For working-class people, it was an insult.

speaker

[SPEAKING FRENCH]

katrin bennhold

And this became a country-wide grassroots movement.

clare toeniskoetter

So all these people gather all across the country in Paris, in cities like Reims. What are their goals?

katrin bennhold

The one goal that unites everybody on that roundabout was that they want to see Macron gone.

speaker

[SPEAKING FRENCH]

katrin bennhold

The hatred of this president was so visceral, I’d never seen anything like it.

speaker

[SPEAKING FRENCH]

katrin bennhold

It was almost like after Macron, people here were kind of done with leaders. They told me they don’t even want a leader for their own movement. They want direct democracy. They want the voice of the people to be heard. They want referendums, they told me. And beyond that, you can’t even really classify this movement as being either on the right or on the left.

katrin bennhold

[SPEAKING FRENCH]

katrin bennhold

This was actually, mostly, an apolitical movement that was just fed up with politics and had become politicized through that.

speaker

[SPEAKING FRENCH]

katrin bennhold

And one man I met said he had actually voted for Macron in the last election. And he had had great hopes in him. He trusted him to change France for the better.

speaker

[SPEAKING FRENCH]

katrin bennhold

But two years in, he said, he felt completely disillusioned and betrayed by this man.

speaker

[SPEAKING FRENCH]

katrin bennhold

He had voted on the left. He had voted for Macron. And now, he said —

speaker

[SPEAKING FRENCH]

katrin bennhold

— he was going to vote for Marine Le Pen, this far right politician who has been trying to sell her euroskeptic, anti-immigrant vision of “France first” to the Yellow Vest movement. But my main impression from those conversations on the roundabout was that people were motivated by a desire to humiliate Macron, first, and to basically tear him down.

speaker

[SPEAKING FRENCH]

clare toeniskoetter

So if they’re not a political movement, what are they actually doing?

katrin bennhold

So one of the things that they’ve been doing regularly, and the thing that probably most people are aware of, because you’ve seen it on television, is these Saturday marches. And these marches, at times, have become quite violent on both sides, between the police and the Yellow Vests. But then beyond that, and in a very decentralized fashion across the country on these little roundabouts, they will just step into traffic in their Yellow Vests, in little groups. And they will slow down traffic, even stop traffic, and they will engage people.

speaker

[SPEAKING FRENCH]

katrin bennhold

And while we were there, this started happening.

lynsea garrison

Crossing the street. Let’s see what they do.

katrin bennhold

About half of them start running out onto the street. And they start disrupting traffic, actively.

[honking]

speaker

[SPEAKING FRENCH]

katrin bennhold

And they do it in a very friendly, polite way. They start engaging with drivers, talking to them, handing flyers through their windows. And they say —

speaker

[SPEAKING FRENCH]

katrin bennhold

— please, would you mind putting your yellow vest on your dashboard? Thank you. Please, put your yellow vest on your dashboard. Thank you.

speaker

[SPEAKING FRENCH]

katrin bennhold

Please, would you mind putting your yellow vest on your dashboard? Thank you. Thank you.

speaker

[SPEAKING FRENCH]

katrin bennhold

An so the point of these actions, mainly, it seemed, was to get solidarity from a larger part of the population, beyond the actual movement — to have these very visible signs of support, like the yellow vest in front of their cars, visible on the dashboard.

speaker

[SPEAKING FRENCH]

katrin bennhold

Eventually, they started very confidently, casually almost, marching across the street, and singing their songs, and chanting, revolution! And it was a very joyous, very powerful moment, where this small group of elderly protesters in their yellow vests, across this roundabout, with a lot of cars honking in support, and they were crossing the street.

[commotion]

katrin bennhold

So then suddenly, the sky breaks open.

[thunder]

katrin bennhold

And it’s like the mother of all thunderstorms that comes down on us on this roundabout. It is the middle of the afternoon. And within two minutes, we’re all drenched. It’s pouring down, and thunder, and lightning. It’s super dramatic.

[shouting]

katrin bennhold

And basically, everybody laughs and sings and keeps chanting, revolution, and then sort of runs through this incredible downpour.

[shouting]

katrin bennhold

And seeks shelter in the tiny wooden hut.

And people huddle together and look outside into the dark sky as this downpour unfolds and comes down on the bonfire.

speaker

[SPEAKING FRENCH]

clare toeniskoetter

And what’s it like in the shelter?

katrin bennhold

It was kind of like a microcosm of the French way of life that these people are trying to protect. You had a little bar on the left with coffee, and pastries, and some potatoes.

speaker

[SPEAKING FRENCH]

katrin bennhold

You had a sofa on the right with a few pétanque balls on the floor.

clare toeniskoetter

What’s pétanque?

katrin bennhold

It’s a bit like croquet. It’s a quintessentially French thing. So on this tiny space, this seven square meters, you have people crowding on the sofa, singing the “Marseillaise,” the national anthem, laughing, chatting and drinking coffee.

[singing]

katrin bennhold

It’s all incredibly civilized, and jovial, and incredibly French.

clare toeniskoetter

I felt so much camaraderie in this room.

katrin bennhold

Yes. Here we were on this really not very pleasant piece of land. It was muddy. It was noisy, surrounded by highways. And yet, they had created this sort of community.

clare toeniskoetter

It really felt like a living room.

katrin bennhold

You sort of wondered whether it was real, that this may be wishful thinking, that there may be a lot of naïveté, that how could this ever get anywhere without leadership, without organization? But there was something so vibrant, and optimistic, and so determined. The simple fact that there was a dozen people who had come to this muddy roundabout every single day since November 17th last year — that, in itself, is an incredible achievement.

speaker

[SPEAKING FRENCH]

katrin bennhold

So a lot of people on that roundabout told me they weren’t there for themselves. They said they were there for their children and for their grandchildren. They basically said they were there for the next generation. Now, France doesn’t have the same levels of inequality as the United States or even Britain. But inequality has been rising here, too. And young people are particularly affected by this. Youth unemployment is high, and poverty among those under the age of 25 has actually been increasing in recent years.

So when I spotted a young girl in the back of the shelter, I wanted to talk to her. And so I went over.

elisa

[SPEAKING FRENCH]

katrin bennhold

Elisa is 12. Her mother, Helene, is one of the Yellow Vesters.

katrin bennhold

[SPEAKING FRENCH]

katrin bennhold

She said she’s really proud of her mom.

elisa

[SPEAKING FRENCH]

katrin bennhold

And she said, she’s creating a better world, a world in which people talk to each other more on the streets and spend less time on their telephones.

katrin bennhold

[SPEAKING FRENCH]

speaker

[SPEAKING FRENCH]

katrin bennhold

So then, just as suddenly as the rain had started, it stopped. And the sky brightened, and we stepped out. And the fire was still going.

[fire crackling]

[singing]

katrin bennhold

We’ll be right back.

speaker

[SPEAKING FRENCH]

katrin bennhold

So by now, it’s 6:30 in the evening, and the girl, Elisa, needs to head home with her parents, Jeremy and Helene. But we want to keep talking, so they invite us over.

speaker

[SPEAKING FRENCH]

[buzzer]

katrin bennhold

So we get to their apartment. It’s on the top floor. And when we come in, we find this very sparsely decorated but very homey space. There are a lot of plants. There’s a lot of fabric. And when we get to the living room, the whole family is sitting around the table — Helene, her husband, Jeremy, an electrician, their three children, Hugo, Luna and Elisa. They’re all high school-aged — 18, 14 and 12. And what’s really obvious is that the children really want to take part in this conversation. They’re all taking extra chairs and huddling around the table with us.

clare toeniskoetter

And their dog.

katrin bennhold

Their dog! How could I forget?

[dog barking]

katrin bennhold

[SPEAKING FRENCH]

katrin bennhold

So Jeremy and Helene were neighbors as children. They grew up next to each other.

clare toeniskoetter

In Reims?

katrin bennhold

In Reims.

jeremy klein

[SPEAKING FRENCH]

katrin bennhold

Both of them are from working-class families. Jeremy’s father worked in a factory. Helene’s father was a policeman. And they spoke of a sort of modest but comfortable upbringing.

jeremy klein

[SPEAKING FRENCH]

katrin bennhold

They both started working as teenagers. Jeremy at 15, Helene at 16.

jeremy klein

[SPEAKING FRENCH]

katrin bennhold

When they first started working, they said things weren’t so bad. Work hours were reasonable. Salaries increased from one year to the next. But at some point, Jeremy, in particular, said that life started getting really tough.

jeremy klein

[SPEAKING FRENCH]

katrin bennhold

The thing that made him mad was the eastward expansion of the European Union. He mentioned companies that would come from other countries, Eastern European countries, that were able to undercut companies like his own in competing for contracts.

jeremy klein

[SPEAKING FRENCH]

helene

[SPEAKING FRENCH]

jeremy klein

[SPEAKING FRENCH]

katrin bennhold

He mentioned people from those countries eventually coming to France and competing directly with people like him for jobs. And so increasingly, there was a sense that their salaries and their job opportunities were stagnating. Their living standards were stagnating. And when his dad was able to buy a house in his 30s with a young family, Jeremy felt that he can barely make ends meet.

jeremy klein

[SPEAKING FRENCH]

katrin bennhold

[SPEAKING FRENCH]

jeremy klein

[SPEAKING FRENCH]

katrin bennhold

He struggles to pay his bills. He has to borrow money from his own parents, and he feels humiliated by this.

helene

[SPEAKING FRENCH]

jeremy klein

[SPEAKING FRENCH]

katrin bennhold

He seemed tired, frustrated, and he had aged beyond his age. He was only 38 and a very handsome man, but he looked older.

jeremy klein

[SPEAKING FRENCH]

katrin bennhold

He said he wishes he could take his children to the cinema. He wants to take them bowling.

jeremy klein

[SPEAKING FRENCH]

katrin bennhold

And he summed it all up by saying —

jeremy klein

[SPEAKING FRENCH]

katrin bennhold

— we don’t live. We just work.

helene

[SPEAKING FRENCH]

katrin bennhold

And his wife, Helene, she said sometimes, she just cries.

helene

[SPEAKING FRENCH]

katrin bennhold

There days, she says, when all she has is two euros to cook for five people, two meals. She says she goes to the shop, buys a pack of pasta, buys a pack of bacon, and makes two meals.

helene

[SPEAKING FRENCH]

clare toeniskoetter

What do they do with all this frustration?

katrin bennhold

[SPEAKING FRENCH]

katrin bennhold

So for most of their lives, they’ve stayed away from politics. Jeremy told me that his parents have always voted. And he said, and look where that got us to. So he said, what’s the point of voting?

jeremy klein

[SPEAKING FRENCH]

katrin bennhold

So at some point, they start hearing about the Yellow Vest movement. And at first, they really think it’s not for them. Jeremy told us he thought, this is for people on the minimum wage. This is for people who are unemployed. This is for really poor people, he said.

jeremy klein

[SPEAKING FRENCH]

katrin bennhold

But then they hear some more about it. And at some point, he decides to check it out, and they go. And it was a revelation for them. They arrived on this roundabout, and they realized they knew a lot of people there. And the ones that they didn’t know, they met. And they discovered that a lot of the people there on that roundabout had very similar experiences to their own. And what I found really striking is how they expressed the sense of relief that they weren’t the only ones.

jeremy klein

[SPEAKING FRENCH]

helene

[SPEAKING FRENCH]

[MUSIC]

katrin bennhold

We’ll be right back.

jeremy klein

[SPEAKING FRENCH]

katrin bennhold

So over the course of the evening, over and over again, I saw this family that was angry not just with Macron, but with Europe.

jeremy klein

[SPEAKING FRENCH]

katrin bennhold

The European Union had caused wage stagnation. The European Union had increased unemployment. The European Union had basically created the sense of a race to the bottom. So Jeremy was pretty clear when I asked him whether he felt European.

jeremy klein

[SPEAKING FRENCH]

katrin bennhold

He said, not at all.

jeremy klein

[SPEAKING FRENCH]

katrin bennhold

He said, I feel French. Only French.

clare toeniskoetter

And what about their kids, Katrin?

katrin bennhold

Luna, who’s 14, sounded completely disillusioned, already.

luna

[SPEAKING FRENCH]

katrin bennhold

She said, Europe? What is Europe?

Europe, to me, is not much. It’s just a group of countries trading together.

clare toeniskoetter

[SPEAKING FRENCH]

What do you want to be?

katrin bennhold

We ask her what she wants to be when she grows up.

luna

[SPEAKING FRENCH]

katrin bennhold

And she told us she would love to work with animals. But then she pauses.

luna

[SPEAKING FRENCH]

katrin bennhold

And she said that’s just a dream, and that she’s probably going to end up following into her father’s footsteps and become an electrician. She didn’t feel like she had a choice.

clare toeniskoetter

And what do you make of all this?

katrin bennhold

I think, despite all the camaraderie that we saw on the roundabout, and despite the optimism around the table at Jeremy and Helene’s house, this movement has been fading. It’s been dwindling in numbers. And for the moment, it doesn’t look like something that is going to last or grow into something that can lead people credibly out of crisis and provide a future avenue for them, with real, substantive solutions to these very real and pressing challenges. [MUSIC] A couple of years ago, we all saw Macron’s rise. And we thought, here’s a man. And this man made a movement. And now, the question is this counter-movement. Can it make a man? Can it make a woman? Can it make a leader? Will there be somebody, some face to this movement that will take it forward in a more strategic way? But that hasn’t happened yet. And if it doesn’t happen, then the question is, where will this go next? Where will these people go next?

clare toeniskoetter

Merci.

katrin bennhold

So ahead of these E.U. elections, I find myself wondering, could the members of this Yellow Vest movement be tempted by the far right? By someone like Marine Le Pen and her party, which stands for these anti-liberal, anti-E.U. values that would address some of their frustrations, but at the same time is so all-consumed with immigration, a subject that really wasn’t something that came up a lot in the conversations with the people we met? So the question, I guess, is at this point, are people in this movement prepared to put someone like Marine Le Pen into power just because they’re so angry with everybody else? And recent polling suggests they might.

[chatter]

That’s it for “The Daily.” I’m Katrin Bennhold. See you tomorrow in Italy.

[MUSIC]

Part 3: ‘Italy First’

Hard-right populists like Matteo Salvini have come to dominate the Italian government. We spend time with a rising star of the far-right League party, whose supporters speak of a national identity crisis. Released on June 12, 2019.
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transcript

Part 3: ‘Italy First’

Hard-right populists like Matteo Salvini have come to dominate the Italian government. We spend time with a rising star of the far-right League party, whose supporters speak of a national identity crisis. Released on June 12, 2019.

katrin bennhold

O.K., so there are the ticket machines. Let’s get some tickets.

andrew testa

Oh, 11:20. No, two minutes. I don’t know if we’re going to make that one.

katrin bennhold

Can we buy the tickets on the train?

andrew testa

Can we buy them on the train?

clare toeniskoetter

Can we ask someone?

katrin bennhold

Why don’t we try that? Where — what is the 10:50? Where is the —

clare toeniskoetter

We’re not going to make it.

katrin bennhold

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, let’s not give up. Oh, come on.

lynsea garrison

Everyone just take a deep breath.

andrew testa

It says our train’s gone. Should we get a coffee?

katrin bennhold

[LAUGHTER] Gone from super-stressed to super-chill in, like, the space of 30 seconds.

katrin bennhold

From The New York Times, I’m Katrin Bennhold. This is “The Daily.” Today: Italy. It’s Wednesday, June 12.

clare toeniskoetter

I don’t think it matters.

[train sounds]

katrin bennhold

I’m in 5, as well.

andrew testa

I’m in 5.

clare toeniskoetter

If us three are in 5, let’s go to 5.

katrin bennhold

Yeah, let’s go to 5.

katrin bennhold

So we wanted to go to Italy because it’s where these hard-right populists have gone from being just a small, regional party to being part of the national government here. And because of that, Italy is now on the front line, really, of this nationalist resurgence in Europe. And we wanted to understand why. We had heard about this one mayor in Tuscany, a rising star of this far-right party, the League, Susanna Ceccardi. And we decided to track her down. So we finally make it on to this train from Rome to Florence — me, Lynsea, Clare and our photographer, Andrew.

speaker

[SPEAKING ITALIAN]

katrin bennhold

And once we settled down and we’ve, like, sort of stored our bags away, we pretty much start talking to people immediately. And one thing that’s on everybody’s mind here —

speaker

I don’t know how to say it in English — people from other countries coming into ours.

katrin bennhold

Migration.

speaker

Yeah, migration.

katrin bennhold

— migration.

speaker

It’s a big problem.

katrin bennhold

So Italy was very much on the front line of this migrant crisis that started building in 2014.

katrin bennhold

You’re on the Mediterranean, so you saw it.

katrin bennhold

People arrived on boats, they settled in towns. There were encampments, and they spread across the country.

speaker

We live it all day.

katrin bennhold

Half a million migrants came to Italy’s shores in the space of just a few years.

speaker 1

Yes, there are too much of them, too much of them.

speaker 2

I’m living in the city center. Sometimes, I go out of home, and I find only them. Only them.

speaker 3

[SPEAKING ITALIAN]

speaker 4

He is becoming racist.

speaker 5

[SPEAKING ITALIAN]

speaker 6

She said that all the immigrant people that come here, they don’t work. They don’t do anything, but they have everything.

lynsea garrison

And that feels unfair?

speaker

Yes.

Yes.

katrin bennhold

So this big influx of migrants actually happened a few years ago by now, but hearing people on the train, it’s like it happened yesterday.

lynsea garrison

O.K.

katrin bennhold

We’re, like, chasing one hour behind this mayor.

katrin bennhold

We get off the train in Tuscany and we rent a car, and we drive towards the hometown of Susanna, Cascina, in Tuscany. We’re supposed to meet her on the outskirts in this cafe. And we get there a few minutes early, and it’s this kind of typical Italian cafe. It’s kind of late afternoon, early evening, people are having their Negronis, you know, Camparis.

[restaurant noises]

katrin bennhold

And then she shows up. And she sort of walks over from her car in a kind of casual, slow way, and smiles —

susanna ceccardi

Susanna — Andrea, Susanna. Nice to meet you.

katrin bennhold

Thank you very much.

katrin bennhold

— and looks quite glamorous in that kind of Italian way, you know. She’s got these sunglasses, these big sunglasses holding back her hair.

susanna ceccardi

— so and so.

katrin bennhold

How many months now?

susanna ceccardi

Five.

katrin bennhold

Five.

katrin bennhold

She’s also five months pregnant, and hovering around her the whole time is her boyfriend, who also turns out to be her campaign manager, Andrea.

So we decide to find a quiet place with our translator and get talking.

katrin bennhold

Do you know a name already, or have you decided, or?

susanna ceccardi

We are deciding between Marina and Kinsika.

katrin bennhold

Kinsika?

susanna ceccardi

[SPEAKING IN ITALIAN]

translator

Kinsika was a woman who was a hero in the medieval times, and she fought against Arab invasion. And she was actually the person who saved the city of Pisa.

katrin bennhold

Wow. Just to — I want to talk a little bit about the childhood, and, you know, go back to sort of the beginnings of it all. You grew up in Cascina. Do you remember if politics was part of your upbringing? Did your parents talk about politics at the dinner table?

susanna ceccardi

[SPEAKING IN ITALIAN]

katrin bennhold

So Cascina, her hometown, and this entire region, Tuscany, actually has a long history of voting on the left. It’s where the Italian Communist Party was founded. Tuscany was called the red belt of Italy. And ever since World War II, it had been firmly planted in the left.

susanna ceccardi

[SPEAKING IN ITALIAN]

katrin bennhold

And during this left-wing era, her town makes a name for itself in furniture making. It was kind of a rite of passage for newlywed Italians to trek to Cascina to pick out furniture for their new homes in this great exhibition hall.

susanna ceccardi

[SPEAKING IN ITALIAN]

katrin bennhold

But in the 1980s and ‘90s, things got tougher. You’ve got these big multinationals, like Ikea, suddenly competing with these local artisans. And people start struggling, and the industry shrinks. And just when things start to recover a little bit, the financial crisis hits and does the rest. This is when Italy goes into a deep economic crisis. There’s a moment when the European Union sort of steps in and demands austerity. And a sort of technocratic government is put in place in Italy for two years to basically raise taxes, cut spending and appease financial markets. And the effect on middle- and lower-class Italians is especially bad — less money, fewer benefits and high unemployment. And this was a story that was playing out all over Italy. It was a crisis, and one that never actually went away.

susanna ceccardi

[SPEAKING IN ITALIAN]

katrin bennhold

And this sort of economic disruption, and that turmoil that unfolds, also begins to shift the politics of the region — but it’s a very gradual shift.

susanna ceccardi

[SPEAKING IN ITALIAN]

katrin bennhold

Susanna’s parents are actually outliers in the 1990s when they start voting for the League, this far-right party.

susanna ceccardi

[SPEAKING IN ITALIAN]

katrin bennhold

And then Susanna becomes the first person in her family to actually go into politics and become a member of the League party.

susanna ceccardi

[SPEAKING IN ITALIAN]

katrin bennhold

By this point, people are kind of growing disillusioned with the left already. And eventually, when Susanna is 29, she decides to run for mayor. This was in 2016, when the migrant boats were still hitting the Italian shores, and when migrants were still arriving in Cascina as well.

katrin bennhold

Do you remember, like, seeing it on the news, or did you hear people in your village react to it?

katrin bennhold

Now, Susanna told us that the migrants would usually arrive by night under the cover of dark.

susanna ceccardi

[SPEAKING IN ITALIAN]

katrin bennhold

The mayor would bring them in the night, and so the next morning, these residents would wake up to find that they had a whole set of new neighbors, but nobody had warned them. Nobody had prepared them, told them anything about it.

susanna ceccardi

[SPEAKING IN ITALIAN]

katrin bennhold

And so during a town assembly, some of the residents in Cascina spoke up against this mayor and voiced their anger at the situation.

susanna ceccardi

[SPEAKING IN ITALIAN]

katrin bennhold

They were furious.

susanna ceccardi

[SPEAKING IN ITALIAN]

katrin bennhold

But he was very unresponsive, she said. He said —

susanna ceccardi

[SPEAKING IN ITALIAN]

katrin bennhold

— if you don’t want me anymore, just vote for her next time.

susanna ceccardi

[SPEAKING IN ITALIAN]

katrin bennhold

And then they did.

susanna ceccardi

[SPEAKING IN ITALIAN] [LAUGHTER]

katrin bennhold

So this is how Susanna becomes the first far-right mayor in Tuscany to be elected in more than 70 years.

And now, she’s this regional powerhouse, this rising star, and she’s even going for a higher office. She’s running for a position in the E.U. parliament. She said the migration issue helped her get elected in 2016, and she’s betting it will help her get elected today. And if it works, it means she’s right.

katrin bennhold

So the migration issue, you think, is a very important issue in your campaign, and in Italy in general, still, today?

susanna ceccardi

Yes, I think so.

katrin bennhold

We’ll be right back.

So we wake up the next morning to hit the campaign trail with Susanna.

[italian conversation]

katrin bennhold

Is it three here? ^[KISSING SOUNDS]^ Oh, it’s two.

andrea

Three. Ah, no — three, it’s normal. Five!

katrin bennhold

Being German, I’m used to shaking hands. But as soon as we work that out, it’s basically time to go.

andrea

We must go to Cortona.

katrin bennhold

Andrea, her partner, points at his watch and kind of ushers us off to the car.

We’re barreling down a highway at, like, 100 miles an hour.

You know, Susanna and Andrea are in the front. They’re kind of making calls, sort of rivaling each other.

susanna ceccardi

Ciao, Nicola.

nicola

Ciao, Susanna.

susanna ceccardi

Ciao. [SPEAKING ITALIAN]

katrin bennhold

And I kind of get lost looking out of the window, you know, at this incredible landscape — rolling hills, and ancient villages, and churches, and abbeys. It’s hard not to think of that deep history of this part of Italy, with the Renaissance, the art, the culture, and that very, very proud past.

I asked Susanna what’s changed in Tuscany.

susanna ceccardi

Now, we have many, many unemployed — many young unemployed in Italy.

katrin bennhold

Youth unemployment in Italy is over 30 percent.

susanna ceccardi

So we can’t give some opportunities to other immigrants, because we can give some opportunities to our youth, to our young people.

katrin bennhold

Susanna told me what Italians tell her sometimes, that young Italians have to go abroad to find work opportunities these days, and unemployment is too high, that parents see their children leave the country to find a job. So when they then see migrants coming here, it’s upsetting. And then she spoke about her own daughter as her hand was resting on her stomach.

susanna ceccardi

I think that I have to give to my daughter the right to not immigrate, the right to remain in Italy and build a future here.

[music]

andrea

Here we are in Cortona.

katrin bennhold

So we finally arrive at our destination, the first campaign stop of the day. Cortona is this hilltop village, sort of very typically, beautifully, slightly disheveled Tuscan village.

katrin bennhold

This is so pretty. This street probably looked exactly the same 200 years ago.

katrin bennhold

Lots of small shops, a very sort of sleepy atmosphere.

lynsea garrison

It’s quiet, huh?

katrin bennhold

But as soon as we turn a corner to the top of the village —

[italian conversation]

speaker

Welcome to Cortona.

clare toeniskoetter

It’s so beautiful, thank you.

lynsea garrison

What’s that?

speaker 1

It’s a warrior.

speaker 2

Alberto da Giussano.

[italian conversation]

katrin bennhold

It was a scene.

And posters of Susanna are everywhere.

katrin bennhold

The rising star, there she is — thumbs up, Ceccardi.

Let’s find our elusive —

lynsea garrison

I just saw her.

katrin bennhold

Oh, there she is. There she is.

lynsea garrison

Oh, she’s going to give a speech.

speaker

[SPEAKING IN ITALIAN]

katrin bennhold

So we see Susanna getting up on this small platform in the middle of the town square.

susanna ceccardi

[SPEAKING IN ITALIAN]

katrin bennhold

And by now, there’s quite a few people gathered on that square, and everybody seems to be eagerly awaiting what she has to say. And she’s up there —

katrin bennhold

She’s talking about the left and how, in just a few decades, it has destroyed so much, so many values.

katrin bennhold

Very quickly, she starts talking about how Europe is not just the European Union. Europe was born in the fifth century, she says, B.C., in Greece with democracy, with the Roman Empire, in the era of communes. She talks about how the European Union actually disavows the values underpinning Europe.

susanna ceccardi

[SPEAKING IN ITALIAN]

katrin bennhold

Vienna was invaded. There was a siege of Vienna. She’s talking about European history and how Europe was besieged by Muslim forces.

katrin bennhold

Our fathers died, they fought to defend these European roots and values.

katrin bennhold

And that European ancestors defended Europe against those Muslim invaders.

katrin bennhold

Today, what does Europe want to do? Allow Turkey into Europe, let in people and values that have nothing to do with our roots and values.

susanna ceccardi

[SPEAKING IN ITALIAN]

katrin bennhold

At this point, as I’m listening, Susanna has kind of transformed.

susanna ceccardi

[SPEAKING IN ITALIAN]

katrin bennhold

I hadn’t heard this kind of rhetoric in an election event like this before.

[applause]

katrin bennhold

And the crowd? They seem to be going for it. As she starts talking about these battles, and as she talks about these invasions, applause is building. And then she sort of culminates in talking about Matteo Salvini.

susanna ceccardi

[SPEAKING IN ITALIAN]

katrin bennhold

The man who sort of can save Italy from all of this, and who can possibly save Europe from all of this.

katrin bennhold

Europe belongs to the people, it doesn’t belong to bureaucrats in Brussels, she says. Salvini stands up to those bureaucrats.

katrin bennhold

So Matteo Salvini is the leader of the League party, Susanna’s party, and he’s the interior minister of the government, which is kind of like the guy in charge of homeland security. And basically, he’s doing on the national level what Susanna is doing at the local level. She’s actually modeled her campaign style after his — she’s considered to be one of his protégés. And he’s resonating with Italians because he’s saying no to migrants. He’s somebody who has talked about Italy needing a deep clean. This is a man who closes Italy’s ports to migrant boats. It’s somebody who’s not afraid to create a real confrontation between Italians and migrants. Salvini is a true populist. He’s fundamentally opposed to liberal values. And his name and his face are everywhere.

katrin bennhold

Oh, there he is. Look, there’s a big picture. There he is. He’s sort of pointing at you, like — it’s almost like that American.

lynsea garrison

We want you.

katrin bennhold

Yeah, exactly, and —

katrin bennhold

And everywhere we looked, there was one main message.

katrin bennhold

“Prima l’Italia” — “Italy first” — is the caption of this election poster. Italy first?

speaker 1

Italy first.

speaker 2

Italy first.

speaker 3

Italia first.

speaker 4

Trump, America. Salvini, Italia.

katrin bennhold

Is Salvini Italy’s Trump?

speaker 1

Yes.

speaker 2

Salvini is our capitano.

speaker 1

Yes, capitano, it means captain.

katrin bennhold

In fact, Salvini has been so successful with his messaging that in the time since he became interior minister, he’s become incredibly popular — so popular that if enough far-right candidates like Susanna win in these European elections, Salvini’s expected to treat it like a kind of referendum by the people and try to force a new election to make him prime minister. This is not far-fetched. So quite literally, a vote for Susanna is a vote for Matteo Salvini.

susanna ceccardi

Ciao.

[italian conversation]

katrin bennhold

So after the rally, we said goodbye to all the League members who had been putting on this event. And then we made our way to the next campaign stop.

[italian conversation]

clare toeniskoetter

Oh, I wish we got to see more of this town.

lynsea garrison

O.K., I’m going to cut it.

katrin bennhold

We’ll be right back.

[church bells ringing]

katrin bennhold

So we get to the next town — Reggello. It’s a cute little place, not far from Florence, lined with cafes, churches, a tiny cinema. And this town, unlike Pisa, Siena, Massa, and many of the other towns we’ve driven through today, doesn’t have a far-right presence yet. It’s still pretty firmly to the left. But it’s this kind of town that Susanna is hoping to conquer. We’re here to go to a debate with other candidates to the E.U. election. So we walk inside, there’s a mockup of a World War I trench on stage — a kind of prop for, clearly, a play, but tonight, the stage is literally set for war.

Susanna gets up on stage, walks across and takes her seat. She’s actually sitting in the middle, in a row with four other candidates. And then all of them make their introductory remarks.

[italian conversation]

katrin bennhold

And then the debate begins. And they’re covering a lot of ground, including immigration. And that’s when Susanna really comes alive.

[applause]

susanna ceccardi

[SPEAKING IN ITALIAN]

katrin bennhold

She starts off by acknowledging that on the stage she may be isolated, but that in the Italian population, the League is gaining momentum — the Italians are with them.

susanna ceccardi

[SPEAKING IN ITALIAN]

katrin bennhold

The people the left has forgotten about, they think like us, she says.

susanna ceccardi

[SPEAKING IN ITALIAN]

katrin bennhold

I’m five months pregnant, she said. And when I hear from people in Italy that Italy has a low birth rate, that we’ve substituted our newborns for people who come from the other side of the world, I get shivers up my spine.

susanna ceccardi

[SPEAKING IN ITALIAN]

[applause]

katrin bennhold

And then she really gets going.

susanna ceccardi

[SPEAKING IN ITALIAN]

katrin bennhold

So as she’s talking, you could see how uneasy everybody on stage was, but also how defensive. The woman on her right is about to blow up. She’s this tall academic who sort of keeps looking up at the ceiling, and sort of seems to barely be able to stop herself from rolling her eyes. And on her left is the Social Democratic candidate, another woman wearing this very stiff smile on her face —

susanna ceccardi

[SPEAKING IN ITALIAN]

katrin bennhold

— only to then lay into her when her time comes to respond.

speaker

[SPEAKING IN ITALIAN]

katrin bennhold

So one after the next —

speaker

[SPEAKING IN ITALIAN]

katrin bennhold

— as these candidates take their turns, they go after Susanna by going after Salvini and the League.

speaker

[SPEAKING IN ITALIAN]

katrin bennhold

These candidates were supposed to discuss issues like climate change, the economy, immigration, but they now all seem to have one single focus.

speaker

[SPEAKING IN ITALIAN]

susanna ceccardi

[SPEAKING IN ITALIAN]

[applause]

katrin bennhold

So after Susanna’s final answer, she gets up to leave. Her supporters kiss her as she goes, and then we scurry after her.

susanna ceccardi

[SPEAKING IN ITALIAN]

translator

Everybody was saying the same thing.

andrea

[SPEAKING IN ITALIAN]

translator

Everybody’s against Salvini. Everybody’s against the Lega. They don’t have their own ideas.

katrin bennhold

The Lega was the reference point of the entire debate — it’s true. Every single other candidate referred to the Lega, and sort of tried to attack and combat the Lega.

lynsea garrison

I couldn’t tell if that was because I didn’t understand anything, but the only words I could hear was Lega, Salvini, Lega, Salvini.

katrin bennhold

Totally.

lynsea garrison

Immigrazione.

katrin bennhold

Yes. This is what this election is about. This is what this election is about.

katrin bennhold

The audience seemed to be divided. There were people walking out when Susanna made particularly controversial statements, and then there were others that applauded. But in some ways, the clues were actually in the reactions of the other people on stage, the other candidates. They didn’t seem to have a narrative that was strong enough to stand on its own. They kept referring back to Salvini and to the League, and that in itself was a victory for Susanna.

katrin bennhold

We’ll see you there? Do you know which address we’re going to?

andrea

Not yet.

katrin bennhold

So we go back to the car to the next and last campaign stop of the day. And this next stop is supposed to be a kind of disco dinner type thing for young League supporters. And I’m looking forward to it, because, you know, all day we’ve been canvassing middle-aged people, older people. And here was a chance now to really check in with the young people. Frustration with youth unemployment has been one of the themes of this journey. And then there was this other story that really stuck with me that I’d heard earlier in the day on one of the stops. We’d met this father of six children who votes on the center-right, so not a League supporter. He said he was watching the television news the other night with his daughter, who’s 16, and there was this report about a migrant boat that had sunk and that 100 migrants were presumed dead. And then his daughter had given the thumbs up and said, good, that’s 100 fewer people coming to Italy. And when she saw the shock in her dad’s face, she said, Dad, don’t look so shocked. Everyone thinks this. And he said, I fear that the young people today really hate the migrants. That story really made me want to talk to more young people.

So we get there. It’s a small parking lot right by the beach.

lynsea garrison

Oh, it smells like the sea.

katrin bennhold

Oh, it really does.

katrin bennhold

There is a small white building — restaurant — that you can sort of book for events. It’s a disco, a nightclub of sorts. We walk in.

^[music]

^:

katrin bennhold

It looked kind of like a wedding reception — there’s a bunch of tables set for dinner, there were balloons.

katrin bennhold

Wow, so we’ve just arrived at this event. It’s a big room, and it’s got “Salvini premier” — first, Salvini first —

plastered all over these posters. There’s a lot of young people here.

lynsea garrison

Not what I was expecting, actually.

katrin bennhold

No, exactly —

katrin bennhold

It’s not exactly Italy’s unemployed youth. People look educated and like young professionals.

susanna ceccardi

[SPEAKING IN ITALIAN] Ciao.

speaker

[SPEAKING IN ITALIAN]

katrin bennhold

And as we enter, they immediately sort of crowd around Susanna and sort of start talking to her. And so we walk around the room and we just kind of ask people, what are you doing here? Why have you come tonight? What’s on your mind?

speaker

We don’t believe in this Europe, we want —

katrin bennhold

There was a lot of talk and slogans of, you know, we want a real Europe.

speaker

We want a Europe of nations.

katrin bennhold

Meaningful Europe.

speaker

We want a Europe where each culture of each nation creates a great culture of the great European Union, where if you speak proudly about your culture, you’re not called a racist or nationalist, but you are called a European who are proud of their roots.

katrin bennhold

Are you proud to be European?

speaker

Yes, but not in the European Union.

katrin bennhold

They were talking about their family history.

speaker 1

The site of my family, it’s in the Tuscany heritage since the 12th century.

speaker 2

It’s noble.

speaker 1

Kind of.

katrin bennhold

And a sense that that identity was at risk. And they really wanted to hold on to that identity.

katrin bennhold

But you know, your relatives, your ancestors wanted to emigrate to find a better life. They went to the United States, or to England, or — it’s like the Nigerians today. They want a better life. It’s the same.

speaker 1

O.K., but my relatives don’t sell drugs. O.K.?

speaker 2

They bring pizza, come on. Please.

No? I’m wrong?

katrin bennhold

They seemed to be embracing this anti-migrant message, but there was also something else going on. You know, here were young people who never in their political life had felt in control of things — that, you know, they had come of age in a time of austerity. That’s all they’d known. But they were now excited by a political option that promised to change everything, and that promised to retake control, and that promised to end any kind of outside meddling from Europe, from a Europe that wants to impose these liberal values — a political option that basically promised to restore Italian pride.

speaker

Now, Europe, it’s empty.

katrin bennhold

And when you look at it this way, this didn’t really seem to be about migrants all that much anymore. The numbers today are minimal anyway. It’s no longer considered a crisis. This felt like a different crisis — a crisis about identity, and control, and loss. And an easy way of thinking about that is to think about an Italy without migrants.

katrin bennhold

So Susanna, you’re all done for the day? You’re done?

katrin bennhold

Susanna decides to go home. It’s been a long day. So we follow her out, and we take her to the car.

katrin bennhold

Tell me — do you think you’re going to win?

susanna ceccardi

I think so. I hope so.

katrin bennhold

And if you do win, does that mean Salvini has won?

susanna ceccardi

Yeah, I think so, because I’m very close to Salvini — so, yes.

katrin bennhold

People know what they get.

susanna ceccardi

Yeah. Ciao, grazie.

andrea

Ciao.

katrin bennhold

So we wave goodbye to Susanna and watch her drive off back towards her hometown of Cascina.

[music]

katrin bennhold

So if Susanna wins in the E.U. elections, and if Salvini sees that as a referendum and forces this vote and is then elected prime minister, that would be significant. Italy would go from a country with nationalists in government to a country run by nationalists. So we wanted to go somewhere where that’s already happening to see what that looks like.

That’s it for “The Daily.” I’m Katrin Bennhold. See you tomorrow in Poland.

Part 4: Poland’s Culture Wars

We look at how Poland’s nationalist governing party has reshaped democratic institutions and driven deep rifts through families. A Polish official introduces a question with startling implications: Does democracy have to be liberal? Released on June 13, 2019.
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0:00/33:11
-33:11

transcript

Part 4: Poland’s Culture Wars

We look at how Poland’s nationalist governing party has reshaped democratic institutions and driven deep rifts through families. A Polish official introduces a question with startling implications: Does democracy have to be liberal? Released on June 13, 2019.

clare toeniskoetter

Am I 14? Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry.

katrin bennhold

No, take your time. No rush, no rush.

katrin bennhold

We started this trip by going to France where we spent time with these people who were in the middle of this loose movement without a leader, a movement that’s dying and that, for the moment, has no hope of really running things in France.

airplane announcement

Well, first of all, apologies for the late departure of this flight —

katrin bennhold

We then went on to Italy, where the frustration of people has been channeled into another movement, but one that has been successful at actually being elected into government. But it’s only part of a government, part of a coalition government. They’re not running things yet.

airplane safety video

Adjust the headband —

katrin bennhold

In Poland, a nationalist government has actually been in power for four years. And we’re here to sort of see what that does to institutions, what that does to democracy. We want to see what that looks like.

[music box playing]

katrin bennhold

From The New York Times, this is “The Daily.” I’m Katrin Bennhold. Today: Poland.

It’s Thursday, June 13.

So we go to Warsaw, Poland’s capital, the biggest city in the country.

clare toeniskoetter

You guys want to go in this cab?

katrin bennhold

We grab a taxi, and we head over to see this newspaper.

katrin bennhold

Gazeta, is it Wyborcza?

speaker

Wyborcza.

katrin bennhold

Wyborcza. Wyborcza.

katrin bennhold

The Gazeta Wyborcza.

katrin bennhold

Thank you.

lynsea garrison

What did you say? We’re here?

katrin bennhold

We’re here.

katrin bennhold

We went inside to ask for Jaroslaw Kurski, the deputy editor.

jaroslaw kurski

Hello.

clare toeniskoetter

I’m Clare.

jaroslaw kurski

Hi.

katrin bennhold

Most people call him Jarek.

katrin bennhold

Jarek, c’est moi. [SPEAKING FRENCH]

jaroslaw kurski

[SPEAKING FRENCH]

katrin bennhold

So I don’t speak Polish. Jarek is not super comfortable in English. So actually this whole meeting had been arranged in French, and we ended up speaking this strange mix of the three.

katrin bennhold

Thank you for making time. Should we go and sit?

jaroslaw kurski

You’re welcome.

katrin bennhold

So Jarek walks us down the hallway. He’s this tall, composed, pretty formal guy in his mid-50s. And we take the elevator up to an office. The newsroom at this point is pretty empty, because it’s late at night. And we sort of all huddle on this couch in the corner of the office. And — and I’m suddenly reminded of this thing that my dad used to tell me when I was growing up in Germany.

katrin bennhold

My father used to say that Polish is the language of freedom.

jaroslaw kurski

Yeah. It was true. During the ‘80s, yes, it was — it was absolutely true.

katrin bennhold

And that launched him into the story of Poland’s history, his paper’s history and his own history, which we realized are all linked.

jaroslaw kurski

We were the witness of many, many events.

[music]

archived recording

Tonight, the politics and the practical problems of feeding Poland.

katrin bennhold

So when Jarek was a kid in the ‘70s and ‘80s, Poland was a Communist country. It was part of the Soviet bloc.

archived recording

One month of martial law has not solved Poland’s acute food crisis, and private Western agencies are rushing to help.

katrin bennhold

And at the time, the Polish economy was struggling. Wages were stagnating. The media was censored. And a lot of people longed for more freedom.

jaroslaw kurski

The police shot people, and there was the victims and the dead.

katrin bennhold

And then this movement started, this movement against Communism. It was called Solidarity.

archived recording

The new Solidarity movement was born last summer.

katrin bennhold

It started with a group of shipyard workers in Gdansk, a city on the Baltic Sea, Jarek’s hometown.

archived recording

When striking workers forced the Communist government to grant many concessions.

katrin bennhold

Jarek was a teenager when all this was going on. And he and his younger brother Jacek saw all of this happening right in front of them as this movement was growing. And they took part in it.

jaroslaw kurski

I take my bicycle and put the cigarettes and sandwich to the people who participated in the strike.

katrin bennhold

They also wrote for this illegal student newspaper, an anti-Communist student newspaper. And later they wrote for another newspaper linked to the Solidarity movement itself. They did everything they could to support the movement. And all across Poland, the support for this movement, for Solidarity, was growing.

archived recording

Good evening. Leading the news this Wednesday, Poland’s Solidarity union was legalized, a move that will end the Communist monopoly of power.

katrin bennhold

And in the end, the movement prevailed. Communism fell, and Poland became a democracy.

jaroslaw kurski

Poland was the most free country in the Soviet blocs.

katrin bennhold

And at that important moment in Poland, the Gazeta Wyborcza was born.

jaroslaw kurski

[SPEAKING POLISH]

katrin bennhold

This was Poland’s first free non-Communist newspaper since World War II.

katrin bennhold

Have you been at the newspaper from the start? When it first started 30 years ago? Have you been here?

jaroslaw kurski

[SPEAKING POLISH]

katrin bennhold

Jarek started working there just a few years after the newspaper started.

katrin bennhold

As a reporter or as an editor?

jaroslaw kurski

As a reporter.

katrin bennhold

And Jarek said the Gazeta Wyborcza had become the voice of a liberal democratic Poland. And as the paper was growing, so was Poland’s economy. And then in 2004, Poland joined the European Union. And this helped develop the country even more.

jaroslaw kurski

For example.

katrin bennhold

You have the European flag in your house?

jaroslaw kurski

Yeah, in my house.

katrin bennhold

And once Poland joined the E.U., the economy improved. Life improved for a lot of people. The country opened up. Wages went up. People could travel.

But there was another narrative that started to play out across the country, especially in rural areas. In the countryside and in smaller towns, the transition from Communism to capitalism had proved particularly painful. These state-run businesses and farms had closed down with the fall of Communism, and there was often mass unemployment for a period of time. And a lot of people there felt left behind. These people have been watching their country change. They’ve been watching as church attendance rates have been falling, as gender equality and L.G.B.T. rights and other sort of liberal ideas are taking hold. They worry about their familiar old way of life changing. They worry about their values being diluted. They worry about losing what it is to be Polish, and they blame the E.U.

jaroslaw kurski

[SPEAKING POLISH]

katrin bennhold

And out of this frustration, a new political party was born, Law and Justice, or PiS, P-I-S, in Polish. The party promises to represent these people. It’s a message that resonates.

jaroslaw kurski

[SPEAKING POLISH]

katrin bennhold

And Jarek’s own brother is one of these people. So Jarek goes into journalism, but his brother pursues a career in politics. And the two drift apart politically.

jaroslaw kurski

[SPEAKING POLISH]

katrin bennhold

And in 2015, just as this migrant crisis unfolds in the rest of Europe, this conservative nationalist party wins a majority, and it becomes the first single party to control the government in Poland since the end of Communism. And up until this point, the Gazeta Wyborcza is basically Poland’s main daily newspaper. But Jarek says that once this new party is in power, things start to change almost immediately.

jaroslaw kurski

[SPEAKING POLISH]

katrin bennhold

And the first event that he sort of recalled this kind of ominous warning sign was that one day, when he was at work in the newsroom, they were having this office party. There was a singer and a concert. And while this was happening, a priest showed up outside the office, a priest who supported the new government.

jaroslaw kurski

[SPEAKING POLISH]

katrin bennhold

And this priest had come to stage an exorcism, an exorcism of the newspaper.

He was there to exorcise the devilish spirits of liberalism from the building. And what starts as a kind of bizarre, absurd, almost funny scene becomes increasingly threatening, because the crowd is growing. It’s chanting. And it’s becoming more aggressive.

jaroslaw kurski

[SPEAKING POLISH]

katrin bennhold

It’s chanting about the paper promoting Islamic terrorism, promoting L.G.B.T. rights, promoting a transformation of Polish society. The crowd becomes so threatening, Jarek tells us, the police had to secure the building.

speakers

[CHANTING]

katrin bennhold

So very soon after this very public exorcism, Jarek told us that the government started to go directly after the media.

jaroslaw kurski

[SPEAKING POLISH]

katrin bennhold

And the first thing they did is they took over the state broadcasters. So radio and television stations that were owned by the state but had previously had editorial independence, kind of like the BBC, were now basically controlled by this government. They came in, they fired journalists, they put in their own, and they brought in a new chairman, someone who supported the government.

jaroslaw kurski

[SPEAKING POLISH]

katrin bennhold

Jarek’s own brother.

jaroslaw kurski

[SPEAKING POLISH]

katrin bennhold

So as soon as he took over, he started running news and segments that were basically in line with the values of the party, anti-Islam, anti-immigration, anti-L.G.B.T., anti-press and anti-E.U.

jaroslaw kurski

[SPEAKING POLISH]

katrin bennhold

Once the state media were under control, the government went directly after the independent press. And for Gazeta Wyborcza, Jarek’s newspaper, he says this meant that basically all the subscriptions and all the advertising linked to any government-affiliated office or enterprise were cut.

katrin bennhold

When was that? When was that?

jaroslaw kurski

2016, ‘15, ‘16. It was ‘15. ‘15. December ‘15, January ‘16.

katrin bennhold

Gas stations run by the government were instructed to hide the Gazeta Wyborcza to make it more difficult to find if customers wanted to buy it.

katrin bennhold

Can I just ask you in terms of the impact, the financial impact, can you quantify that? Can you sort of give an idea of, I don’t know — you lost — in one day, you lost, I don’t know, half of your subscriptions, or, like, a third, or 10 percent, or whatever it was?

jaroslaw kurski

[SPEAKING POLISH]

katrin bennhold

He said he doesn’t know exact numbers, but he said it was huge. The government is using its power to try to strangle the newspaper.

jaroslaw kurski

[SPEAKING POLISH]

katrin bennhold

And then they’re starting to sue journalists.

jaroslaw kurski

[SPEAKING POLISH]

katrin bennhold

It starts suing the paper. It starts suing individual journalists. Jarek tells us that there have been at least 30 cases against the paper. And that means that journalists are operating in this environment of intimidation on a daily basis.

jaroslaw kurski

[SPEAKING POLISH]

katrin bennhold

So at some point, the newspaper starts referring to itself as the opposition.

katrin bennhold

So we’re back to a historical moment.

jaroslaw kurski

[SPEAKING POLISH]

katrin bennhold

Yeah.

katrin bennhold

The opposition to the government, just like they were the opposition to Communism 30 years ago. That’s not usually the role for a free and independent newspaper in a democracy.

jaroslaw kurski

[SPEAKING POLISH]

katrin bennhold

The paper would say they have no choice in this moment but to fight back, and that they’ll drop opposition from their name as soon as Law and Justice is out of power. But I’m struck that, just by calling itself the opposition, they are actually contributing to this divide in Poland.

[music]

katrin bennhold

And that’s basically where things stand today. The divisions in Poland run really, really deep.

jaroslaw kurski

Me and my brother, we served as example of this cleavage, this split.

katrin bennhold

We were hoping to interview your brother, but he hasn’t really responded.

jaroslaw kurski

I — it’s obvious for me. He — he refused to have the interview with any international broad newspaper and media.

katrin bennhold

He was a supporter —

jaroslaw kurski

Yeah.

katrin bennhold

— of Solidarity then. When did it turn? When did he turn?

jaroslaw kurski

Do you have a night?

katrin bennhold

I mean, this story of Jarek and his brother, it’s kind of an incredible story. They don’t talk to each other. They haven’t talked in years. Jarek can barely talk about his brother. It makes him too upset. And it seems crazy, right? This one brother running a liberal newspaper, and this other brother running the state-controlled broadcaster. But it’s not an uncommon story in Poland. These divisions run right across families. They run through friendships. And people literally stop talking for life.

[music]

katrin bennhold

Jarek thinks this is all incredibly dangerous, because he thinks that the kind of propaganda that is coming out of the state-controlled broadcasters is fueling hatred.

jaroslaw kurski

The atmosphere, atmosphere was created.

And if you are the responsible to this propaganda, you have to take to the consideration the possible consequences.

katrin bennhold

And Jarek tells us about something that happened in his hometown of Gdansk earlier this year, something that he said could be seen as a kind of direct consequence of all this hatred.

jaroslaw kurski

It was the product of the propaganda.

katrin bennhold

And so we went to Gdansk to hear that story.

We’ll be right back.

[church bells ringing]

katrin bennhold

So we get to Gdansk, and we head over to this Catholic church at the center of town —

katrin bennhold

Is this church —

katrin bennhold

— to meet Magdalena Adamowicz.

katrin bennhold

— do you — do you come to this church for Mass?

magdalena adamowicz

Yes, yes, this is the basilica. This is the biggest church in the world built by bricks.

katrin bennhold

Right.

magdalena adamowicz

Or out of bricks. And here my husband is buried. So this is the story. ^[CHOIR SINGING]^

katrin bennhold

Hi, we’re here. We’re just outside. We’re parking outside, O.K.? Outside the gate.

katrin bennhold

So she invites us to her apartment and shows us into the living room, where we sit down with some tea and some cookies.

magdalena adamowicz

I will serve a little one. We call them magdalene, magdalenes.

katrin bennhold

And she starts telling us about her late husband, Pawel Adamowicz, who was mayor of Gdansk for 20 years.

magdalena adamowicz

My husband was before conservative person.

katrin bennhold

He was considered to be a conservative?

magdalena adamowicz

Yeah, he was like conservative person.

katrin bennhold

He stood as a conservative, and he represented conservative values to the point of banning gay pride in Gdansk in the early years. But he was someone, she said, who always challenged his own views, and he was happy to listen to other people’s opinions.

magdalena adamowicz

He observed the people. He observed not only the infrastructure, but what the people are doing, how they interact, what is the culture, and what is the tradition —

katrin bennhold

So she said, for example, he would speak to people in Gdansk and scribble down notes whenever somebody said something that surprised him or challenged him.

magdalena adamowicz

He always have some small papers in his pocket here, and always put some notes —

katrin bennhold

And then he would come home at night and would take all these little scraps of paper out of his pockets. And he would review them with a glass of wine and just make sure that he remembered what people had told him.

magdalena adamowicz

Then after years, he changed.

katrin bennhold

And it took him some years, but when the nationalist government came into power in 2015 and started coming down hard on the L.G.B.T. community, he shifted on that issue.

magdalena adamowicz

He said no, we cannot allow to treat these people as a sick people, because they were considered by our government as sick, as a people who are a danger because of diseases, and so on.

katrin bennhold

And in 2017, he not only allowed gay pride, but he marched.

katrin bennhold

And when he took part in this L.G.B.T. parade, gay pride, was there a backlash?

magdalena adamowicz

Yes, there was — there was some hate on him. For example, national TV. Indeed, over 100 programs showing my husband as a thief, as a liar.

katrin bennhold

He became a target on state television. But even as his views shifted, Pawel was still reelected. And in 2018, he began his sixth term as mayor of Gdansk.

magdalena adamowicz

So I — I went to California at the end of November.

katrin bennhold

Around this time, Magdalena was in California with their two daughters, and Pawel joined them for a family vacation.

magdalena adamowicz

And that has never, ever happened before that we were all together so long without his job, without any, let’s say, friends and duties. So it was a very special time for us, you know?

katrin bennhold

After a couple of weeks, Pawel had to head back home because he had business to attend to as mayor. And Magdalena stayed behind with their daughters. And then he called her early in the morning soon after he got back.

magdalena adamowicz

He had some nightmares.

katrin bennhold

And he said he’d had nightmares that night, and he couldn’t really sleep, and he didn’t know, maybe it was the jet lag.

magdalena adamowicz

And I said to him — he told me goodbye.

katrin bennhold

It was a short conversation, and they say goodbye. And then Magdalena goes to church later in the day and takes her daughters. She turns off her phone during the service. And when she comes back out —

magdalena adamowicz

I turn it on, and I saw my niece was calling three times.

katrin bennhold

She realizes she has a ton of missed calls. So she calls her niece back. And her niece tells her that her husband has been stabbed.

magdalena adamowicz

I thought it’s not true. And I was starting to call all his deputy mayors, you know, one and the other one. And nobody answer, nobody answer. I said, O.K., this is winter. He has a thick jacket, and probably he’s only a little wounded, and nothing happened.

katrin bennhold

It is winter. He would have worn a thick winter jacket. He’s probably in a very good hospital. It’s probably all going to be fine. But then more calls start coming in, and she’s beginning to realize that this actually happened, that her husband was stabbed. In Gdansk, on stage, he was stabbed in the heart.

magdalena adamowicz

I really didn’t know what to do. I called my agent to find tickets.

katrin bennhold

Eventually she finds an indirect flight via London, gets on it.

magdalena adamowicz

So all the way, you know, we were like praying that he would be alive.

katrin bennhold

And then she lands in Gdansk. She’s picked up at the airport, and she’s told that her husband is already dead. So she goes to the hospital and she sits with his body.

magdalena adamowicz

So I have to unzip him, and —

and I was talking to him, telling him goodbye, touching him, kissing him. [CRYING]

clare toeniskoetter

What did you tell him?

magdalena adamowicz

Why — why he — why he left us?

Why he left us? That we need him.

[music]

katrin bennhold

The man who stabbed Pawel Adamowicz was a mentally unstable individual. He’d been in an institution. But in that institution, he’d been exposed to a lot of state television. And this is one thing that leads Magdalena to think pretty much immediately that her husband was killed by an atmosphere of hate. She blames the media. She blames what she called institutionalized hate speech on the public broadcaster.

magdalena adamowicz

I think it is polarization. Without that, I believe my husband would still be alive.

katrin bennhold

Polarization killed him.

magdalena adamowicz

Yes.

And I thought, I have to do something. His death can not be waste, you know?

katrin bennhold

She decides to run for office. She decides to run for a seat in the European Parliament.

katrin bennhold

What is it that you — if you get elected, what is it that you want to change?

magdalena adamowicz

So what I’m afraid, it’s that nationalists and people who are really against the European Union and would like to blow up the European Union from inside, it can happen everywhere, you know?

katrin bennhold

She told us of her grandmother and her great-grandmother, who had both survived Auschwitz.

magdalena adamowicz

If you divide people, if you differ the people between them, if you think that someone is better than the other, you know, then you can have the same story as it was before, you know?

katrin bennhold

We’ll be right back.

So we say goodbye to Magdalena. And we reached out to the Law and Justice party to basically find someone to ask this question to: Is this government and the state-controlled media, are they creating an atmosphere so full of hatred and so full of division that it may have inspired the murder of Magdalena’s husband?

katrin bennhold

Danuta?

danuta bialooka-kostenecka

Yes. Hello, hello. Nice to meet you. Hello, hi.

katrin bennhold

And we meet Danuta, Danuta Bialooka-Kostenecka, a local official from the Law and Justice party.

translator

I prefer to speak through the interpreter.

katrin bennhold

We meet her at our hotel in Gdansk. She’s very conservatively dressed, elegant, and she has this kind of nervous laugh.

danuta bialooka-kostenecka

Interpreter. [LAUGHING]

katrin bennhold

And I asked Danuta —

katrin bennhold

Do you think that your party’s discourse contributes to an environment in which societies become very polarized, and a deranged individual might have the idea to stab a mayor on stage?

danuta bialooka-kostenecka

[SPEAKING POLISH]

katrin bennhold

Now, it was interesting, because Danuta did not dispute that there was a lot of division in Poland.

danuta bialooka-kostenecka

[SPEAKING POLISH]

katrin bennhold

She did not dispute even that the state-controlled media was blatantly biased in favor of the government. But she rejected the idea that the murderer had in any way been inspired by that atmosphere.

danuta bialooka-kostenecka

[SPEAKING POLISH]

katrin bennhold

She claimed that this had simply been the act of a mentally unstable individual and that the division in society, which she also considered a problem, was the fault of all sides involved.

katrin bennhold

And the Law and Justice party is changing Poland. What does the party stand for?

danuta bialooka-kostenecka

[SPEAKING POLISH]

katrin bennhold

And she basically said —

translator

We are Polish, and we want to stay Polish.

katrin bennhold

We want Poland to stay Polish.

katrin bennhold

What does that mean?

danuta bialooka-kostenecka

[SPEAKING POLISH]

translator

It’s a different question. It’s more of a philosophical question. I think there are certain things that all Polish people have in common, and that’s language, culture, tradition and history.

katrin bennhold

And religion, I asked her? And she said yes, religion too. Christianity.

katrin bennhold

Can you be gay and atheist and Polish?

danuta bialooka-kostenecka

Of course you can. [SPEAKING POLISH]

katrin bennhold

She said her party doesn’t tolerate discrimination. But what she said she didn’t like and what her party didn’t want is what she called —

danuta bialooka-kostenecka

[SPEAKING POLISH]

katrin bennhold

Active promotion of those values.

danuta bialooka-kostenecka

[SPEAKING POLISH]

katrin bennhold

Is that what the mayor in Gdansk was doing by marching with gay pride? Is it what allowing an openly gay person to teach in a school would be doing? Is it what letting someone be openly gay on the street would be doing? What does that phrase really mean: active promotion?

[music]

katrin bennhold

Thank you, I think I’m done now.

katrin bennhold

So I thank her. We wrap up the interview, but she looks pretty exasperated.

katrin bennhold

So now we just take a photo.

danuta bialooka-kostenecka

It was very exhausting. Exhausting.

katrin bennhold

Oh, it is. I’m sorry. But it’s so interesting. Thank you. It’s really interesting, you know? I mean, we need to understand everybody better. Would you mind —

danuta bialooka-kostenecka

I — I — I’m not quite happy because I have a feeling that you don’t understand our point of view.

katrin bennhold

Well, maybe we need to meet again.

danuta bialooka-kostenecka

Yeah, maybe.

katrin bennhold

And talk some more.

clare toeniskoetter

What do you think we don’t understand?

danuta bialooka-kostenecka

I think you still are thinking that our democracy is threat, and we are fighting for democracy, and —

katrin bennhold

I don’t think that Poland is this — do you think Hungary is a democracy? Do you think —

katrin bennhold

I ask her if she thinks Hungary is a democracy. Hungary has had a nationalist government for even longer than Poland, and there the free press is pretty much entirely gone. And the country actually calls itself an illiberal democracy, a democracy that is no longer built on liberal values.

katrin bennhold

Do you think Hungary is still a democracy?

danuta bialooka-kostenecka

Yeah, I think so. I think so, yeah. And do you think Germany?

katrin bennhold

Is a democracy? I do. I think so. Do you think Germany is a democracy?

danuta bialooka-kostenecka

I think it is, but I can see some threat for democracy in Germany.

katrin bennhold

And I’m beginning to realize she wants to take the liberalism out of democracy. She thinks liberal democracy ultimately limits freedom. She says having a system which guarantees freedom for the individual, that’s just fine. But it’s when that system is imposing specific behaviors on people that it’s not right anymore. She says democracy should give people what they want, and that that’s what Poland is doing. Her party was elected by a majority. And it’s keeping its promises to that majority, whereas a liberal democracy has these freedoms that aren’t negotiable. It imposes minority rights on the majority. So we have this sort of moment at the end of this interview, where these two opposing visions of democracy suddenly clash and just kind of sit side by side. And honestly, I think this is the closest we’ve come to understanding what the battle for Europe’s future is over. It’s not about democracy versus something else. It’s about these two opposing views of democracy. We’ve been coming at this like there’s no such thing as democracy without liberalism. And she’s saying, you’ve got it exactly wrong. Liberalism is actually undemocratic. It only allows for one perspective. And in Poland, she’s saying, the majority of voters, not only do they not share that perspective, they voted against it. That’s democracy.

danuta bialooka-kostenecka

You know, I don’t know the German society — I have been to Germany a long time ago, but —

katrin bennhold

Germany, she says, not so much. And that’s where we’re going next, back to Germany, to find out about the results in these E.U. elections, to see how Europe is starting to answer this democracy question.

katrin bennhold

Thank you.

danuta bialooka-kostenecka

Thank you.

[interposing voices]

katrin bennhold

That’s it for “The Daily.” I’m Katrin Bennhold. See you tomorrow in Germany.

[music]

Part 5: Can Liberal Democracy Survive in Europe?

At an election night event in Berlin with the far-right party Alternative for Germany, we examine whether the rejection of liberalism that has gained ground across the continent has also taken hold in the country at the heart of a liberal Europe. Released on June 14, 2019.
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transcript

Part 5: Can Liberal Democracy Survive in Europe?

At an election night event in Berlin with the far-right party Alternative for Germany, we examine whether the rejection of liberalism that has gained ground across the continent has also taken hold in the country at the heart of a liberal Europe. Released on June 14, 2019.

[train station announcement]

katrin bennhold

See, our train —

clare toeniskoetter

I know, but do we know what platform we’re on?

lynsea garrison

So at this point, we’re on the train platform in Warsaw. We’ve been traveling together for a few weeks now.

katrin bennhold

Yeah.

clare toeniskoetter

Does your ticket say, though?

katrin bennhold

And we’ve been going from country to country to sort of check what people are thinking ahead of these European elections, which are now upon us. So we pack up —

clare toeniskoetter

Berlin!

katrin bennhold

Berlin!

katrin bennhold

— and head to the train station in Poland —

clare toeniskoetter

[SPEAKING POLISH]

katrin bennhold

— and get on the train back to Berlin.

katrin bennhold

Is this it?

clare toeniskoetter

Yeah.

[train passes]

[music]

katrin bennhold

You know, we started this trip thinking that these liberal values that are so fundamental to the founding of the European Union coming out of World War II, that they’re now being rejected by all these movements across Europe as no longer relevant to people’s lives, or even as threats to their national identities, as impositions.

Speaking with Danuta, the Polish Law and Justice politician, I think I understood a little bit better what this was about and what kind of Europe the populists wanted. They don’t want to throw away democracy. They want to throw away liberalism. They want a democracy that responds to them, that answers to them, that represents the will of the majority. And this is the battle they’re kind of bringing to the E.U. Parliament. So these elections, the second biggest democratic process in the world, this is about how many of these people with a different vision of Europe get into the Parliament.

katrin bennhold

This is Germany?

clare toeniskoetter

This is Germany.

katrin bennhold

And so we’re crossing the border back into Germany, this country at the heart of a liberal Europe, where the story began, but where nationalism has also gained traction, and where now, there is this far-right party, the AfD.

We wanted to see to what extent this other view of Europe, that rejection of liberalism, had taken hold in Germany, too.

[music]

katrin bennhold

From The New York Times, I’m Katrin Bennhold.

This is “The Daily.”

Today: Back to Germany.

It’s Friday, June 14.

clare toeniskoetter

Oh, my gosh. That was amazing.

lynsea garrison

Hello. Hi.

speaker

Hello.

katrin bennhold

So for the last three days, voters across the European Union have been going to the polls. And on this last day, we drive something like 45 minutes to the outskirts of Berlin to basically spend the election night with the AfD, Germany’s far-right party.

So we get out of the car —

[crowd noise]

katrin bennhold

— and we’ll just hit by this wall of sound.

[chanting]

katrin bennhold

There’s maybe two dozen protesters there. They have banners. They have megaphones. They’re chanting. They’re shouting. There’s police trying to sort of control them. It’s not a big crowd, but it’s a very noisy crowd.

speaker

[SHOUTING]

katrin bennhold

They’re basically equating the AfD to Nazis.

[shouting, whistling]

katrin bennhold

So we’re trying to find the entrance to this party. And we’re making our way around the building. And there’s the sort of security control at the back. We show our IDs, walk past a parking lot —

clare toeniskoetter

And what is this place?

katrin bennhold

So it’s actually a dance school. They’ve rented out a dance school because there was — they were going to have their election party at a restaurant, and the restaurant owner received so many threats from, like, anti-AfD people that they had to move the location. It was all, like, hush, hush. And we only found out yesterday. But on any other day, you can learn how to dance tango here.

katrin bennhold

— and finally get to this dance school, which is tonight’s venue for the AfD’s party.

speaker

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

Danke.

lynsea garrison

Thank you.

katrin bennhold

So this isn’t like a sort of U.S.-style raging election party with balloons and music. This is fairly kind of German.

katrin bennhold

Only men, look at that, or mainly.

katrin bennhold

There’s a lot of men in suits drinking beer, eating pretzels, as people kind of wait for the first real results of the evening at 11:00 p.m.

jörg meuthen

In English?

katrin bennhold

You speak brilliant.

jörg meuthen

Ha ha, O.K., O.K.

katrin bennhold

And then there’s Jörg Meuthen.

jörg meuthen

Well, I’m Jörg Meuthen. I’m the chair of the AfD of Germany. And —

katrin bennhold

So Jörg is the main candidate of the AfD running in these elections. He’s already in the E.U. Parliament. But he’s running for re-election.

jörg meuthen

I’m in European Parliament.

katrin bennhold

He was kind of the star of the evening. And I want to ask him, what does he make of the state of German democracy? And what does he make of this idea that we heard in Poland, that Germany is less democratic because it adheres to these liberal values?

katrin bennhold

Do you think German democracy today is healthy?

katrin bennhold

So I asked him —

jörg meuthen

No, it’s not. It’s not at all.

katrin bennhold

— is democracy working in Germany?

jörg meuthen

For example, there are so many people fighting against us. They say we are Nazis. We are racists. We are anti-Semitic and all these things. It’s completely, really completely wrong.

katrin bennhold

And Jörg said no, democracy is not working.

jörg meuthen

And they do not accept, for example, that we have our election party here today. They tried to get us out from here by using violence.

katrin bennhold

He said, look, look where we’re at. We’re in this dance hall on the outskirts of Berlin because we were threatened in this other place.

jörg meuthen

And they fight against us by burning down our cars, by fighting with a physical kind of violence against persons. And that’s not a healthy kind of democracy. I need bodyguards, a large number of bodyguards.

lynsea garrison

Is that your bodyguard behind you?

jörg meuthen

For example.

clare toeniskoetter

And another one there, no?

jörg meuthen

Some of them are here. And it’s necessary, because if I go out, it’s dangerous for me. Why? Why? I just have an opinion. And I can’t accept that others do not accept my opinion.

katrin bennhold

And he said, look, we can’t even say what we think.

jörg meuthen

You know, I would always fight for the left side to have the right to say what they want to do, because that’s democracy, and that’s freedom. But from the left side, they do not accept us.

katrin bennhold

He says that the tolerance that liberals pride themselves on ends with opinions like his, opinions that they don’t like.

speaker

It’s difficult to have a democracy where free speech is getting more difficult every day.

katrin bennhold

This frustration is voiced a lot here.

speaker

In Germany, you say, I’m from the AfD and you don’t get an — Wohnung?

katrin bennhold

You don’t get an apartment?

speaker 1

Yeah, you can’t rent an apartment if you say this. In Hamburg today, if you want to be a teacher, you must make in signature that I don’t in the AfD.

speaker 2

You’re not a member of the AfD.

speaker 1

That’s not free.

speaker 3

You know, whether or not you agree with the policy of the government or not, or you oppose it completely, in a democracy, it should not be a problem to address those problems in public. And you don’t have to be afraid of losing your job, you know, getting attacked or something.

speaker 1

Especially in Berlin, a lot of people, older people like me, that they came from East Germany, feels today like coming home. It’s the same system. It’s the same pressure. At work, you look over your shoulder what you’re saying. And this is new.

katrin bennhold

So you’re saying this is — this reminds you of Communism?

speaker

Absolutely. It’s the same pressure. It’s smarter, and it’s in color. But it’s the same shit like in the Communism.

katrin bennhold

And this isn’t an entirely wild idea, in the sense that Germany, because of its history, again, has some special circumstances. I mean, in Germany, hate speech laws are extremely strict to the point where, to an American, this may almost seem like censorship. You can’t, for example, show a swastika in public. That’s a crime. So freedom of speech is more curtailed in Germany because of hate speech laws than it is in a lot of other democracies. So they see themselves as unfairly targeted.

lynsea garrison

So what is it that they want to say that they feel like they can’t?

katrin bennhold

And so what is it that you would like to say at work and you feel your colleagues don’t let you say?

speaker

I want to — I want to talk what I feel.

katrin bennhold

We asked this several times. And people sort of talk around it.

speaker

Safety, education, border security.

katrin bennhold

And one thing that came up a lot is their views on Islam.

speaker

If you have a certain opinion about immigrants that come here from all different countries, if you say, well, I believe they do not have the legal status to stay here, you are classified as a right-wing person.

katrin bennhold

There’s this sort of sense that if you express, for example, your dislike of immigration or of Islam, that you run the risk of being called a Nazi. And they’re saying, it’s O.K. for us to be proud to be German. It’s O.K. for us to want to celebrate our culture. It’s O.K. to be opposed to immigration. That doesn’t make us Nazis. They kind of want what Danuta, that Polish Law and Justice politician from the nationalist party in Poland, told us about. They want the majority to basically get the last word.

clare toeniskoetter

Her reason was —

speaker

But it will be more democratic when we have an AfD government, because we want the people to decide certain things. So —

katrin bennhold

They argue that the rise of populism across Europe, far from being a threat to democracy, is actually a sign of a healthy, vibrant one. But when you give all the power to the majority, you also take protections away from minorities. And so I’m wondering, at what point is this a problem?

katrin bennhold

What if the people then vote in favor of the death penalty?

katrin bennhold

One issue that, to me, as a German and as a European, felt like a good pressure test is the death penalty. Across the political spectrum, including the AfD, everybody here in Germany is against the death penalty, which has been illegal in democratic Germany since World War II and the Nazi era.

katrin bennhold

Then you think, well, if the majority of the people say we want the death penalty back, do you think that actually maybe the government needs to bring —

katrin bennhold

When I ask —

katrin bennhold

— the death penalty back?

speaker

That’s not possible in Germany, I think.

katrin bennhold

— they would just say, this would never happen.

speaker

Oh, that will never happen.

clare toeniskoetter

But if it did —

katrin bennhold

But I said, what if it did?

katrin bennhold

Should it be? I mean, is that what you’re saying, a referendum should — if the people say something, it should happen?

speaker

I hope the education and [GERMAN] —

katrin bennhold

Memory or the experience.

speaker

— are on a level today that this, like your [GERMAN], this example are not possible.

katrin bennhold

O.K.

speaker 1

I hope.

speaker 2

We are working to avoid.

katrin bennhold

Basically, they were saying, we trust that our people wouldn’t do that. Our people know better. Our people can handle direct democracy. They wouldn’t vote for that kind of thing. And I kept asking, what if they did? And after many, many rounds of this, one agreed.

speaker

Yes, of course. That’s democracy.

katrin bennhold

Yes, then we’d have to do it.

speaker

That’s just a kind of basic democracy.

katrin bennhold

And if the German people vote in a referendum, we don’t want any more Muslims — because I meet people, especially in East Germany and Saxony, who say, we just don’t want any more Muslims. If the people say that they don’t want any more Muslims, is that what democracy dictates, that, actually, it stop?

speaker

Yeah, that’s it.

katrin bennhold

This sort of raises inevitably the question in Germany — this country with our history, right? We once targeted a group, a religious group, in our past.

speaker

Yeah?

katrin bennhold

And the narrative was similar. They’re not compatible. They want to destroy us from the inside, and all of this. So what’s different?

speaker 1

We Germans have learned a lot from the thing with World War II, the Shoah, Holocaust, you know? And the members from this party have learned that no man in history has damaged this country so much like Adolf Hitler. They want conservative rights, views. They want law and order, I think. But nothing with Nazi.

speaker 2

Nothing to do with it.

katrin bennhold

Again and again, as we make our way through this election party, and we talk to people, I kept bringing up the fact that Hitler himself was elected. He’s a product of a democratic process. And this one young guy said something. He said something that we’ve been hearing from young people across Europe on this trip. But it’s especially meaningful to hear it in Germany.

speaker

We do have a certain history. But we are not the same people as at that time.

katrin bennhold

He said that we should be able to leave the past behind.

speaker

We shouldn’t be limited to a history that is more than 80 years old. I mean, take me as an example. I have not been alive at that time. My parents have not been living in that country you are talking of. Why should I be forced to say or to think something people want me to think?

katrin bennhold

Do you think —

speaker

I live — I live in the Germany of now and here.

[crowd noise]

[music]

clare toeniskoetter

Are they firm results? Or they’re still exit polls?

katrin bennhold

And then, after hanging out at this party for a few hours, it’s 11:00 p.m., and the election results are coming in from all across Europe — when we come back.

[crowd noise]

clare toeniskoetter

We’ve just had these TVs in the background all night. And we’ve seen Salvini. We’ve seen the Yellow Vests. We’ve seen — just like our whole trip, it’s just been on TV in the background almost all night.

[tv reporter speaking german]

katrin bennhold

So everyone at this AfD election party is kind of watching this big projector on the wall —

[tv reporter speaking german]

katrin bennhold

— that has live results streaming in.

clare toeniskoetter

This is the results?

katrin bennhold

This is Italy. This is Italy.

katrin bennhold

And so eyes are glued on the screen, and we’re seeing the first results come in. And it’s very clear —

clare toeniskoetter

The Democrats lost 20 points?

katrin bennhold

Yes.

katrin bennhold

— that the nationalists have done well in a number of countries.

katrin bennhold

It sounds like Marine Le Pen has been — just been declared — oh, wow, look, 24 percent.

katrin bennhold

In France, Marine Le Pen’s party overtook Emmanuel Macron’s. In Italy —

clare toeniskoetter

Here comes the League.

katrin bennhold

There’s the — oh, my —

katrin bennhold

The big winner was Salvini’s party.

katrin bennhold

There you go. The AfD, the German populists, are cheering the Italian populists.

katrin bennhold

And in Poland, it was Law and Justice that did the best.

katrin bennhold

This is now Germany.

katrin bennhold

But when we get to Germany, it’s not looking so good for the AfD.

katrin bennhold

AfD, 10.8 — 11 percent, so it hasn’t budged much.

katrin bennhold

They get 11 percent, which is a modest increase from where they were at at the last European election. But it’s less than even what they got in the last national election. And their rival party, the Greens, this center-left, pro-liberal, pro-refugee party that’s essentially an anti-AfD party, the Greens get almost twice the vote that the AfD gets. And the mood in the room is subdued.

katrin bennhold

What do you make of tonight’s results? Are you happy?

jörg meuthen

Well, yes, yes. All in all, I’m happy. You always can have in mind more, more, more. But it’s a fine result.

speaker

11 percent is a good result and is a quite good reason to be happy and to have a good beer. [LAUGHS]

lynsea garrison

And overall, what’s kind of the major headline of the night?

katrin bennhold

So it’s a really mixed picture. One interpretation is to say that this sort of nationalist, populist wave that had been expected by some and predicted in the European Parliament hasn’t materialized. You know, we’ve seen an increase from 20 to about 24 percent of the seats now held by nationalists. That’s enough to make a lot of noise, maybe to disrupt proceedings to a certain degree. But you still have, like, three-quarters of this body that is firmly on the pro-European, pro-liberal democracy side. The other interpretation is to say, if you had told me 10 years ago that there would be a far-right party in the German Parliament, and that this far-right party would get 11 percent in a European election, and if you told me five years ago that Salvini’s League, which got 6 percent at the time, would now be on 34 percent, I’d have been shocked. These parties, these movements, are now firmly entrenched everywhere in the E.U., including in Germany.

clare toeniskoetter

So what are you doing?

katrin bennhold

Just checking the results of our friend Susanna Ceccardi, the mayor.

katrin bennhold

So now we just kind of want to check in with some of the people we’d met along the way to see what those results mean for them and for their countries.

[phone ringing]

susanna ceccardi

Hello.

katrin bennhold

Ciao, Susanna. It’s Katrin from The New York Times.

susanna ceccardi

Ciao.

katrin bennhold

So Susanna, whom we’d met in Italy, the candidate for Salvini’s Lega party —

katrin bennhold

So what happened? Did you win?

susanna ceccardi

Yes, I won.

katrin bennhold

Wow.

katrin bennhold

— she won her seat.

katrin bennhold

So you’re going to the European Parliament.

susanna ceccardi

Yes, I am ready to go.

katrin bennhold

So what’s next? Salvini for prime minister?

katrin bennhold

So this means that Matteo Salvini, who currently is interior minister, could conceivably force a new election, in which case, looking at these results, his party, the League party, would probably win. And then Salvini —

susanna ceccardi

Salvini, yes.

katrin bennhold

— would become the prime minister.

susanna ceccardi

[LAUGHS] I hope.

katrin bennhold

You hope so. Well, do you think Salvini’s vision for Europe is winning?

susanna ceccardi

Yes.

[phone ringing]

katrin bennhold

Then finally, we call Magdalena —

magdalena adamowicz

Hello. Hello.

katrin bennhold

— the candidate who we met in Poland and who has been running against the nationalist government there.

katrin bennhold

Of course. So did you win?

magdalena adamowicz

Yes, yes, I win.

katrin bennhold

Congratulations.

magdalena adamowicz

And I have the best — the best result in our region.

katrin bennhold

That is a huge vote of confidence. Wow.

magdalena adamowicz

Actually, I am very sad after this election, you know? Because —

katrin bennhold

But she was very sad about the fact that the opposition overall had done poorly and that the government had done very, very well.

magdalena adamowicz

Before, we really believed that we win this election. Then it would be this anniversary —

katrin bennhold

And she said that she was worried that liberal democracy was losing.

magdalena adamowicz

But liberal democracy is losing with the populist movement now. I see now people are losing their hope.

[music]

katrin bennhold

Well, good luck, Magdalena. Good luck. And thank you for giving us so much time.

katrin bennhold

So by the time, we get off the phone, the party is totally over.

clare toeniskoetter

Should we take a cab with you, and then we’ll take a cab the rest of the way?

katrin bennhold

You just keep going.

katrin bennhold

And the trip and the elections are over.

katrin bennhold

Get some sleep.

clare toeniskoetter

Good night.

lynsea garrison

You too.

katrin bennhold

Good night. Bye.

clare toeniskoetter

Tschüss!

[car door shuts]

katrin bennhold

We’ll be right back.

lynsea garrison

So when we set out on this journey, we had all these questions about what would be the future of Europe. Would the European Union survive? And now that we’ve come back from our journey and seen these election results, do you feel like you have the answers to those questions now?

katrin bennhold

I guess one of my biggest takeaways is that I don’t think we have a Europe problem, I think we have a democracy problem. For a lot of people we met, liberal democracy is just not delivering anymore. These values that the E.U. was founded on, they’re just not making sense anymore in a lot of people’s lives. You know, the electrician in France who has seen his salary stagnate and who’s kind of humiliated to tell his own children in the middle of the month that there won’t be enough money, or the Italian who doesn’t feel at home anymore in their own small town after migrants moved in, or the Polish person who feels that their Catholic values are being sort of fundamentally threatened, each of these people is rejecting the tenets of liberal democracy — capitalism, globalization, the protection of minorities — because in a way, each of these tenets feels like a rejection of them. And I see that in my own country, here in Germany. You know, the AfD is much more popular in the former Communist East than it is in the West. And there’s a reason for that. East Germany had a very different experience of liberal democracy. I grew up in western Germany. We got liberal democracy after World War II. My story of liberal democracy is the post-war economic miracle. It’s a good time. It’s a happy time. Things get better. In the East, they got liberal democracy after Communism fell and Germany was reunited. This is the 1990s. And it was followed by this very traumatic decade. You know, factories closed. There was mass unemployment. Young people left in droves and Westerners came in to run everything — political parties, universities, businesses. So East Germans who had just beaten Communism in this incredible, peaceful revolution, they ended up basically being told what to do by the West. And so when the AfD says liberalism has failed, you can sort of understand why East Germans agree with them. This is kind of what I’ve learned, that the rejection of liberalism often feels like a story that is born in disappointment, and in humiliation, and a feeling of being left behind, and of being ignored.

So in a way, we have this microcosm in Germany of what Europe looks like overall. The defenders of liberal democracy are going to have to really find ways to respond to these conservative needs. They’re going to have to find a way to paint a vision of the future that speaks to people and that pays attention to people.

lynsea garrison

Mm-hmm.

katrin bennhold

You know, and we’re seeing movement. I mean, look at the success of the Greens in Germany and in some other countries. I mean, something is definitely stirring. But the mainstream centrist parties, they haven’t found that language of the future yet. So right now, I feel like there’s this large political space that’s up for grabs in Europe. And there’s this battle going on on who’s going to take that space?

lynsea garrison

Mm-hmm.

katrin bennhold

Liberal democracy is not going to win that battle if it doesn’t change, if liberals don’t take a very hard look at themselves. Because look, if the system were working for ordinary people, would we see populists rising all over the place?

And if liberal democracy is not working as it is right now, can you have the European Union without it? And what would take its place? And that’s kind of — that’s kind of the moment Europe is in.

lynsea garrison

In that case, should we ask the questions?

uwe dziuballa

Should we sit here?

lynsea garrison

O.K., yeah, perfect.

katrin bennhold

I keep thinking of the story that this Jewish restaurant owner in Chemnitz told us, the man whose restaurant was vandalized during the far-right protests that we discussed.

uwe dziuballa

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

And I keep thinking about this thing he said.

uwe dziuballa

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

He said, democracy isn’t permanent.

uwe dziuballa

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

Nobody ever said it was. He was born in the G.D.R., in eastern Germany.

uwe dziuballa

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

Communist Germany.

uwe dziuballa

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

He lived in Yugoslavia. And then he got this degree in the Soviet Union.

uwe dziuballa

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

And now, none of those countries or those systems exist anymore. They aren’t on any map. They failed. He said, how can we be so sure that democracy will survive?

uwe dziuballa

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

How can we be so sure that democracy won’t fail too?

uwe dziuballa

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

lynsea garrison

Thank you.

clare toeniskoetter

Thank you so much.

uwe dziuballa

Bye, bye.

lynsea garrison

Bye.

lynsea garrison

Thank you, Katrin.

katrin bennhold

Thank you, guys. O.K., guys.

clare toeniskoetter

That’s a wrap.

lynsea garrison

That’s a wrap.

katrin bennhold

Time to get a drink.

clare toeniskoetter

And some sleep.

katrin bennhold

And some sleep. O.K., when do we do the next one?

[music]

clare toeniskoetter

“The Daily” is made by Theo Balcomb, Andy Mills, Lisa Tobin, Rachel Quester, Annie Brown, Paige Cowett, Michael Simon Johnson, Brad Fisher, Larissa Anderson, Wendy Dorr, Chris Wood, Jessica Cheung, Alexandra Leigh Young, Jonathan Wolfe, Lisa Chow, Eric Krupke, Marc Georges, Luke Vander Plueg, Adizah Eghan, Kelly Prime, Julia Longoria, Sindhu Gnanasambandan, Jazmín Aguilera, Lynsea Garrison —

lynsea garrison

And Clare Toeniskoetter. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsverk of Wonderly. Special thanks goes to Sam Dolnick, Mikayla Bouchard, Stella Tan, Julia Simon, and, this week, to Jim Yardley, Kirk Kraeutler, Chris Schuetze, Andrew Testa, Jason Horowitz, Gaia Pianigiani, Elisabetta Povoledo, Hannah Testa, Tessa Wiechmann, Marc Santora, Joanna Berendt, Grazyna Jaskiewicz, Constant Meheut and Anna Bialis.

katrin bennhold

That’s it for “The Daily.” I’m Katrin Bennhold.

lynsea garrison

I’m Lynsea Garrison.

clare toeniskoetter

I’m Clare Toeniskoetter.

katrin bennhold

Michael Barbaro will be back on Monday.

clare toeniskoetter

See you back in New York.

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