In the context of the European debt crisis，the populist forces have been gaining strength across Europe and the populist parties embracing ideas of anti-elite，anti-establishment and anti-bureaucracy have had a great impact on the political pattern of the European countries. The direct driving force of the rise of populism is the fact that a large number of Europeans have lost confidence and trust in those mainstream political parties，which can be traced back to the return of “free capitalism” to Europe in the 1980s. In the framework of western electoral politics，the European populist parties generally tend to be “mainstreamlized” after they took power. However，the mainstream political parties are prone to absorbing a lot of policy ideas from the populist forces. At the international level，the rise of European populism may have a negative impact on economic globalization and European integration，which is worth of China’s attention.