By the numbers: The MEPs lighting up TikTok

Europe’s far right is smashing it on TikTok. 

The video-sharing application is becoming ever more appealing to European Union politicians. Over 140 million people across the bloc use the video-sharing app for everything from dancing videos to politics — and it’s an audience that those running for EU office in the European Parliament election in June don’t want to miss out on.

Research conducted by POLITICO found that far-right and far-left politicians have mastered TikTok politicking best. Politicians in fringe groups were quicker to get on the platform in droves, gained more followers and gathered more likes on TikTok than their counterparts from mainstream parties.

POLITICO reviewed activity on accounts of members of the European Parliament (MEPs) between February 15 and March 8. It found 186 accounts for MEPs and aggregated the number of followers and videos as well as total number of likes on their videos.

Here are the main takeaways:

1. Fringe groups do it best

MEPs from every political background are moving onto TikTok — but some are better at it than others.

While lawmakers from the European People’s Party outnumber other groups’ lawmakers on TikTok in number of individual accounts, The Left and ID have a far higher share of lawmakers posting TikTok videos.

The disparity only grows when zooming in on EU lawmakers’ popularity on the apps: ID and The Left MEPs’ number of followers is far beyond that of other groups. When it comes to collecting likes, the ID groups’ lawmakers are in their own league.

The success of Europe’s far right contrasts with the United States’ alt-right movement. The U.S. right wing has railed against TikTok, deeming it a national security threat due to its Chinese origins. Instead, far-right activists and leading politicians have organized on more niche platforms including 4chan, microblogging site Gab or even the self-styled “alt-tech” platform Truth Social created by former President (and China hawk turned TikTok defender) Donald Trump.

Many European governments — as well as the European Parliament itself — moved to ban the app from officials' work phones over fears connected to the Chinese ownership of TikTok's mother company, ByteDance. But politicians have adopted it nevertheless, with many saying they're using separate devices or have extra data security measures in place to mitigate risks.

2. TikTok stars boost groups’ numbers

Few MEPs have obtained more than one million TikTok likes. Those that have are mostly from the far right and far left. 

Some of these TikTok stars are big on spreading their political message. Others are simply sharing their love of dogs and other hobbies. 

French far-right wonderkid and digital native Jordan Bardella leads his group on TikTok with the lion’s share of likes, far ahead of other far-right MEPs. Interestingly, Bardella isn’t talking much about politics.

The Left has French firecracker Leila Chaibi and her tongue-in-cheek, behind-the-scenes videos. Chaibi posts about the European Parliament’s unknown spots like the MEPs’ hairdresser, small work cabins where “you can’t even nap except if in a fetus position” and lobbying badges’ colors that she calls “brown like poop.”

“I was immediately hooked,” said Chaibi, adding her TikTok posts are “rather offbeat” when compared to run-of-the-mill political communication.

The Left’s Irish politicians Clare Daly and Mick Wallace share fiery speeches in the Parliament such as “warning about the dangers of a massive EU power grab over public discourse.”

The Social-democrat group (S&D) and liberal Renew group owe much of their popularity respectively to Robert Biedroń, a charismatic politician who’s vocal about LGBTQ rights, and Romania’s Vlad Gheorghe, who posted over 1,000 videos in his three years on TikTok.

The chamber’s largest group, the European People’s Party (EPP), has Polish lawmaker and dog-lover Andrzej Halicki, who posts about his Danes — the canine breed, that is — and rarely talks politics.  

Some MEPs give off a certain air of desperation in trying to makeTiktok’s algorithm work for them. Italian far-right MEP Danilo Oscar Lancini posed with a pizza background with hashtags “#followme” “#viralll” or “#makeitviral.” Non-attached German member Martin Sonneborn tried on strange glasses to promote his satirical party. 

Meanwhile, Austrian center-right politician Lukas Mandl wants to make his way into TikTokers’ (and EU aficionados’) hearts by whistling the EU’s anthem Ode to Joy over and over and over again.

3. France is hot. Lithuania is not

Politicians from some of the bloc’s largest countries are also on TikTok in large numbers. 

About one-third of France’s, Italy’s and Germany’s MEPs are present on TikTok; countries where the app has a significant number of users. In its latest report, TikTok said it had around 20 million users on average each month in these countries. 

But that doesn’t mean that’s where all the TikTok action is at.

Irish MEPs beat their peers in Italy, Spain and Germany in terms of total number of followers and total number of likes on the platform.

On the other end of the scale: Lithuania is the only country not represented on TikTok; Slovenia has one MEP on the app but she has yet to post her first video.

4. Far right was quick, centrists latched on later

While a Renew MEP was the first to take its TikTok leap in 2019, lawmakers from the ID group caught the bug in 2022 en masse. 

When TikTok reached one billion users in September 2021 — and became the go-to app for teens — only 32 MEPs were on it, with S&D and ID politicians leading the pack. 

More MEPs started trickling into TikTok from 2022, including EPP and ECR lawmakers, who until then had been largely absent. By that point, the ID group was already well-represented.

January 2024 was the month with the most new MEP accounts on TikTok — 16 new accounts in total — showing the European Parliament is keen to capitalize on the platform’s popularity ahead of June’s election.

5. The average MEP isn’t Gen Z

Even if they’re posting on TikTok, politicians remain much older than the typical Gen-Z user of the video-sharing site.

Does it matter? On the one hand, far-right MEP and TikTok superstar Jordan Bardella is the youngest MEP on TikTok. On the other, 47-year-old Polish MEP Robert Biedron — at 11 million likes — proves that age ain’t nothing but a number.

POLITICO carried out an analysis between February 15 and March 8 looking at Members of the European Parliament on TikTok. The research between February 15 and 20 found TikTok accounts for 186 Members of the European Parliament. Data on the activity of the lawmakers was gathered between March 1 and 8 and included their number of followers and videos as well as total number of likes on their videos. 

MEP Malte Gallée was removed from our data on March 1 after his resignation. MEP Raphaël Glucksmann was deleted after his team informed POLITICO his inactive account had been deleted. Politico contacted all MEPs with fewer than 30 followers.