[touisteur]

The Communist Party had 2-digits percentage of votes in France until the 90s. We had coalition governments with communist (and green) ministers last time in 2002 I think? And one of the main newspapers, when people still read them, was l'Humanité, clearly further left than the mainstream left (parti socialiste, then).

Hate of communism was just never as rabid 'round here. In 1993 we had one of the mainstream pop songwriters write a love song to it (Rouge) and it had the Red Army Choir singing there and sold a million discs on this https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rouge_(Fredericks_Goldman_Jo....

We still have 'revolutionary' communist (troskists, and other variations) like Lutte Ouvrière, la Ligue Communiste Révolutionnaire at each presidential election, gathering between 3 and 6% of votes...

Europe is diverse...

[mongol]

It is true that some did not oppose communism, but they were fortunately always a minority. They had a very naive and romantic view, which is easier when you don't get to suffer the oppression personally.