In politics, cordon sanitaire (; ) or Brandmauer () is the refusal of one or more political parties to cooperate with certain other political parties. Often this is because the targeted party has strategies or an ideology perceived as unacceptable or extremist. The term cordon sanitaire has been applied to refusals to cooperate with parties which are considered populist, extremist left or extremist right. The cordon sanitaire can be seen as a social norm or social exclusion, and can result in self-censorship.
Generally a cordon sanitaire is intended to uphold democratic norms and liberal democracy, promote stable governments, and prevent the normalization of extremist, hateful, and/or authoritarian ideology, though the political tactic has been criticized for it being potentially undemocratic, ineffective, and/or for potentially causing more political polarization. In addition, a cordon sanitaire can cause gridlock and can bolster a populist party's "anti-establishment" and/or "outsider" narrative.
Examples by country Australia The right-wing populist One Nation party came to prominence in the late 1990s after its founder, Pauline Hanson, had been dropped from the conservative Liberal Party ticket for her more extreme views on race. A "put One Nation last" policy for recommended vote preferencing was instituted by the Howard government, joining the Labor Party in doing so, after his party suffered during the 1998 Queensland state election, thus starting a period of exclusion in federal politics by the two major parties. However, with a rise of populist sentiment in the 2020s, the Liberals ended this firewall, which signalled to voters that it was acceptable to switch their vote. As of 2026, the two right-leaning parties have been in direct competition for opposition status.
Austria After Jörg Haider became leader of the Freedom Party of Austria in 1986, all other parties refused to cooperate with them until 2000 when the first Schüssel government was formed. This coalition government would last from 2000 to 2005, and a second coalition government would last from 2017 to 2019.
Belgium Beginning in the late 1980s, the term was introduced into the discourse on parliamentary politics by Belgian commentators. At that time, the far-right Flemish nationalist Vlaams Blok party began to make significant electoral gains. Because the Vlaams Blok was considered a racist group by many, the other Belgian political parties committed to exclude the party from any coalition government, even if that forced the formation of grand coalition governments between ideological rivals. Commentators dubbed this agreement Belgium's cordon sanitaire. In 2004, its successor party, Vlaams Belang changed its party platform to allow it to comply with the law. While no formal new agreement has been signed against it, it nevertheless remains uncertain whether any mainstream Belgian party will enter into coalition talks with Vlaams Belang in the near future. Several members of various Flemish parties have questioned the viability of the cordon sanitaire.
In French-speaking Belgium, a policy exists called the cordon sanitaire médiatique, where far-right politicians are banned from live media appearances such as interviews and debates. The ban has also affected more mainstream right-wing parties such as the N-VA.
In Flanders, no media ban exists, though there is still a political cordon sanitaire against the far-right Vlaams Belang.
Canada In Canada, resistance to the formation of coalition governments among left-of-centre parties has been attributed to an unwillingness to be seen as collaborating with the Bloc Québécois, which advocates for Quebecois independence. However, during the 2008–2009 Canadian parliamentary dispute, an agreement was made where the Bloc Québécois would provide supply and confidence to a potential coalition government formed by the Liberal Party and New Democratic Party. That government was never formed, as the Conservative Party minority government ultimately retained the confidence of the House.
Czech Republic The Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia is effectively excluded from any possible coalition because of a strong anti-Communist presence in most political parties, including the Czech Social Democratic Party. This policy on national level remained up until 2018, when the KSČM supported Andrej Babiš' cabinet. In recent years the policy has become moot, as the party has lost support and no longer has any presence in the legislature. On a regional level, the KSČM still remains excluded from coalitions (e.g. after the 2020 regional elections, this policy forced the Czech Pirate Party and the Civic Democratic Party to form coalitions with the ANO 2011 in Ústí nad Labem, Zlín and Moravia-Silesia).
A cordon sanitaire was also placed around Miroslav Sládek's national conservative party Rally for the Republic – Republican Party of Czechoslovakia while it was active in the Czech Parliament between 1992 and 1998. When any of its members was set to speak, other deputies would leave the Chamber of Deputies.
European Union All European Parliament political groups declared cordon sanitaire on far-right Identity and Democracy group in the Ninth European Parliament, elected in 2019.
Some (though not all) of the Non-Inscrits members of the European Parliament are unaffiliated because they are considered to lie too far on the right or left of the political spectrum to be acceptable to any of the party groups.
Following the formation of the Patriots for Europe and Europe of Sovereign Nations groups in 2024, a cordon sanitaire was declared by most political groups in the Tenth European Parliament. However, the cordon sanitaire was broken when the European People's Party sided with the European Conservatives and Reformists, Patriots for Europe and Europe of Sovereign Nations in supporting a resolution recognising Edmundo Gonzalez as legitimate President-elect of Venezuela.
Estonia
In Estonia, the Constitution Party and Centre Party have been excluded from participation in ruling coalitions at a national level until leadership change. Differing interpretations of the Soviet occupation between 1940 and 1990 and attitudes towards Vladimir Putin's current United Russia government in the Russian Federation are often cited as reasons to conclude coalition talks with other parties, even if said parties are perceived to be on the radical right. The cordon is not absolute; the Centre Party of Estonia has briefly participated in three coalition governments in 1995, 2002–2003 and 2005–2007. The cordon was renewed in 2007, due to Edgar Savisaar's attitudes toward the Bronze Night. In 2016 Jüri Ratas of Centre became Prime Minister of Estonia, effectively ending any cordon around the party.
In Estonia, the cordon also was set up against the Conservative People's Party of Estonia between 2015 and 2019.
France
The policy of non-cooperation with National Rally, together with the majoritarian two-round electoral system, leads to the permanent underrepresentation of the FN in the National Assembly. For instance, the FN won no seats out of 577 in the 2002 elections, despite receiving 11.3% of votes in the first round, as no FN candidates won a first-round majority and few even qualified (either by winning at least 12.5% of the local vote with 25% turnout or by being one of the top two finishers with less) to go on to the second round. In the 2002 presidential election, after the Front National candidate Jean-Marie Le Pen unexpectedly defeated Lionel Jospin in the first round, the traditionally ideologically opposed Socialist Party encouraged its voters to vote for Jacques Chirac in the second round, preferring any other candidate to Le Pen. In 2017 election, and 2022 election his daughter and party successor Marine Le Pen reached the second round of the presidential election; both the Socialist Party and the Republicans encouraged votes for her opponent Emmanuel Macron.
Nonetheless, the policy of cordon sanitaire applied against the National Rally (RN) has faded since 2011 when Marine Le Pen became party leader: her "detoxification" efforts that have led to a greatly improved image of the party, as repeatedly confirmed by polling numbers, and the fall of the left-right cleavage since Macron's election in 2017 are considered to be key components of the French cordon sanitaire's dwindling.
In 2022, the cordon sanitaire strategy symbolically broke twice, first in the parliamentary elections when Macron's coalition refused to openly endorse left-wing candidates facing RN candidates in the second round, in part helping the party to achieve a record number of elected MPs (89 out of 577, winning 55% of runoffs against left-wing candidates), and second, when 2 RN members of the National Assembly were elected as vice presidents of the Chamber. Additionally, due to RN being the largest opposition party in the Assembly, members from the party were designated or elected in key parliamentary roles (such as Caroline Colombier, an RN MP, who was designated by the centrist President of the lower house Yaël Braun-Pivet as the only opposition member of the National Assembly to sit in the parliamentary Intelligence Committee).
Furthermore, since the formation of the left-wing NUPES coalition in May 2022, the notion of cordon sanitaire has moved away from the notion of a cross-party policy designed to beat far-right parties and candidates (the "republican front") to a notion of an electoral strategy applied, alternatively or jointly, to both political "extremes" on the left (namely, Mélenchon's La France Insoumise) and the right (Le Pen's RN or Zemmour's Reconquête party). In the same way, talks about a "republican arch" (Macron's centrist coalition, LR, PS, Greens and Communists), as opposed to the "extremes" (RN on the right and LFI on the left), have emerged following the 2022 French legislative elections, especially coming from Macron's political side.
Such a strategy being applied to left-wing parties as well as right-wing parties reminds of the policy of cordon sanitaire applied to the French Communist Party and to the gaullist Rally of the French People between 1947 and 1958 under the Fourth French Republic.
Germany
The Social Democratic Party of Germany was excluded until the beginning of World War I (Burgfriedenspolitik). The SPD was even banned by the Anti-Socialist Laws in the end of the 19th century.
After German reunification, East Germany's former ruling party, the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands, or SED), reinvented itself first (in 1990) as the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS) and then (in 2005 before the elections) as The Left, in order to merge with the new group Labour and Social Justice – The Electoral Alternative that had emerged in the West. In the years following 1990, the other German political parties have consistently refused to consider forming a coalition with the PDS/Left on a federal level (which was possible in 2005 and 2013), while on state levels, so-called red-red coalitions with the SPD were formed (or red-red-green). The term cordon sanitaire, though, is quite uncommon in Germany for coalition considerations.
A strict political non-cooperation is only exercised against right-wing parties, such as the Republicans, and even the Republicans have exercised a cordon against the neo-Nazi The Homeland. Since 2013, the established major parties have refused to form state-level coalitions with the new right-wing populist party Alternative for Germany (AfD). (firewall) is the term most often used in Germany to refer to this non-cooperation policy against the AfD.