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Reçu aujourd’hui — 20 octobre 2025

When populists win in Prague, that’s nothing peculiarly ‘east European’. It’s the new normal of the western world | Timothy Garton Ash

20 octobre 2025 à 09:00

The likely new Czech government will add one more state opposed to the EU’s green deal and migration and asylum pact

If you open your window on a quiet street in central Prague, the first sound you hear is the trrrrk-trrrrk-trrrrk of carry-on suitcases trundling across paving stones, as tourists walk to their hotel or Airbnb. (The Czech capital had 8 million visitors last year.) As they trek around Prague Castle and fill the Old Town bars with cheerful chatter, these visitors – many of them probably unaware of the recent election victory of rightwing populist nationalist parties – may think this is just another normal European country. And you know what: they will be right.

Some more extensively informed newspaper commentators, reaching for an attention-grabbing generalisation, tell a different story. This is eastern Europe reverting to type, they say. After Hungary, Poland and Slovakia, now Czechia as well! The truth is more interesting – and more worrying.

Timothy Garton Ash is a historian, political writer and Guardian columnist

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© Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images

© Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images

© Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images

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