This article is part of CEP’s series on the violent extreme left in Europe. It focuses on antisemitism and eliminationist anti-Zionism within violence-oriented left-wing milieus. The article provides examples and analysis from France, Germany, Greece, Italy, and Spain and asks how antisemitic and anti-Zionist narratives can justify violence, connect extremist actors, or contribute to target selection. It concludes with policy recommendations for EU and national authorities on identifying, assessing, and responding to violence-oriented antisemitic extremism.

This article is part three of a series on left-wing political violence in Europe and provides an illustrative overview of how violent left-wing extremists operate across borders. A transnational connection involves the movement of people, skills, resources, communications, or campaigns across national borders. It can take the form of a joint operation, international recruitment, foreign training, shared infrastructure, coordinated solidarity activity, or the transfer of tactics between countries. These connections vary considerably in significance: some directly enable violence, while others expand networks, preserve relationships, or create opportunities for future cooperation. The transnational dimension matters because it can allow domestic actors to draw on a wider pool of people, experience, infrastructure, and operational knowledge without requiring a formal European command structure.

This article is part 2 in a series examining the contemporary state of left-wing political violence in Europe. Part 1 discussed the 42.7% increase in police-recorded violent left-wing offenses in Germany in 2025. This article uses a different lens. It looks at how the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), Germany’s domestic intelligence service, defines the threat landscape and how it could develop through 2026.

This article opens a series examining the contemporary state of left-wing political violence in Europe. The series uses “left-wing political violence” as a conduct-based comparative category. National authorities classify such conduct differently: as politically motivated crime, public-order violence, anarchist or subversive activity, violent extremism, or terrorism. Country-specific statistics are therefore presented under their original official categories and are not treated as directly interchangeable. 

This first article establishes the German baseline and draws primarily on court proceedings and police statistics on violent offenses attributed to a left-wing political motivation. 

Dr Hans-Jakob Schindler and Alexander Ritzmann are joined by journalist and author Nicholas Potter—who has faced death threats and intimidation because of his work—to discuss the rise in left-wing extremism and antisemitism. They talk about groups on the left that put aside ideological differences to create larger networks united in anti-democratic, illiberal and antisemitic causes. 

This blog is the fourth in a short series in which CEP aims to highlight the distinguishing characteristics of this extremist and terrorist movement and address individual case studies. Previous blog entries in this series can be found here, here, and here. 

The Autonome (Autonomous) movement, sometimes categorized as a subculture, ideology, or network of groups, exemplifies the fluidity of the left-wing extremist milieu in Europe. Despite being officially recognized as a threat by German and Austrian domestic intelligence agencies, this extremist phenomenon is little known outside of this context. The autonomous scene is internally highly diverse and has inspired offshoot groups with similar ideologies, as well as ideologically opposing groups that co-opt autonomous tactics and visuals.