Throw the Bums Out! Right, left, center--whom do Europeans really want to vote for these days? The answer: none of the above.

Byline: Christopher Dickey, With Stefan Theil in Berlin, Barbie Nadeau in Rome, Eric Pape in Madrid and Marie Valla in Paris

Guess which European politician made this speech last week, and where: "The crucial problem of our time is the vertical split in our society between an isolated government living somewhere in an unreal world, and a population that no longer believes anything the government says."

Hmmm. Could it be France? In the first round of regional elections on March 21, discontent with the ruling Gaullists was so strong that the turnout at the polls rose by 4.5 percent. Voters weren't casting their protest ballots for fringe parties, as in the recent past. They were getting serious about getting the Gaullists out. Despite an inept campaign and disarray in its ranks, the Socialist-led coalition surged ahead by six points.

Or was it Greece, where the Socialists stumbled last month in parliamentary elections that brought the conservative Constantine Karamanlis to power? Or was that pessimistic condemnation of government uttered in Italy? National elections are two years away, but the vote for seats in the European Parliament in June could shake the right-wing government of Silvio Berlusconi. Then again, it could be Spain. We know how raw emotions have been there since the terrorist bombings and the toppling of Jose Maria Aznar's ruling right-wing party.

Actually, those bitter remarks were made in Germany. Conservative opposition leader Angela Merkel was rebutting a feeble "state of the nation" speech by the wildly unpopular Socialist Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, who trails his Christian Democrat rival in polls by 26 to 51 percent. Mindful of his infamous flip-flops on everything from pension reform to joblessness, Merkel told him, for good measure, to "admit that you've lied and cheated." Losing followers in droves, Schroeder recently resigned as party chairman in the face of all but open revolt. With a series of local elections coming up, his Social Democrats face defeat after humiliating defeat.

Whether on the left or right, in fact, a winter of discontent has hurt incumbents all over Europe, and Merkel put her finger on the main problem. It's not about ideology. It's not about whether this government or that supported Washington in the unpopular Iraq war. The malaise goes far deeper and involves fears and dissatisfactions that cut across party lines, sometimes causing the parties themselves to fracture. In Germany, all the major players--the Social Democratic Party, the Christian Democrats, the Greens--are split into rival camps. Within each, "reformers," "modernizers" and "realists" vie against "welfare-statists," "anti-globalizers" and "traditionalists." None seem able to find common cause.

With familiar divisions blurred and old allegiances confused, it's harder for voters to orient themselves politically--even if they want to, and it seems they don't. The power of swing voters is growing at the polls, and the European governing class, so long accustomed to comfortable (even smug) consensus, faces a crisis of confidence the likes of which it's rarely encountered before. "Europe is disorganizing," says Erik Jones, professor of European studies at Johns Hopkins University in Bologna. "There is a much more fluid electorate than we've seen previously." Voters are moved by "knee-jerk reactions to current events" that are almost ...