Europe

Monday

Matthew Lynn

France could pay a heavy price for Macron’s Liz Truss-attack on Le Pen

As Emmanuel Macron heads into a fraught election, France’s president is repeatedly warning voters of the calamitous consequences of electing Marine Le Pen’s National Rally into government. In doing so, he is effectively weaponising the bond market. His allies point to what unfolded under Liz Truss’s government. The message to voters is clear: don’t even think about. The debt crisis is largely of Macron’s own making Throwing a ‘grenade’ at those considering backing National Rally might be smart politics, but it is very dangerous economics – and the consequences may be catastrophic for the country he leads. You can hardly blame Macron for panicking: his decision to call a snap

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

Why the French left hate Macron as much as Le Pen

Over a quarter of a million people marched through France on Saturday and I was among their ranks as an observer. According to much of the media, the march was against Marine Le Pen and her National Rally party, which dominated last week’s European elections. But among the tens of thousands of protestors in Paris I saw and heard as much opposition to Emmanuel Macron. The president’s name was on placards and in chants as the procession left the Place de la Republique for the Place de la Nation. So, too, was Jordan Bardella’s. The 28-year-old president of the National Rally – and the man who Le Pen says will be

Sunday

John Keiger John Keiger

Is France’s left-wing coalition more dangerous than Le Pen?

French and international media cannot break their fixation with the ‘extreme right’. They continue to target the Rassemblement National (RN) as the ultimate menace for the 7 July legislative elections. But as of Friday, a more potent threat to French political and financial stability has raised its head: the radical left-wing ‘New Popular Front’ (NPF). This coalition of greens, communists, socialists and Trotskyists dominated by the radical-left La France Insoumise party (LFI), surprised many by their agreement to field common constituency candidates and a common manifesto.   Following the bitter breakup two years ago of the radical left-wing NUPES coalition, prospects for a new agreement were slim. Something close to civil war had

Monica Porter

Patience is running out with Nato in the Baltic states

You can’t miss the vast banner emblazoned on the high-rise building overlooking central Vilnius. It reads: PUTIN, THE HAGUE IS WAITING FOR YOU. Not one to mince their words, the Lithuanians. And neither are the Latvians or Estonians. In the face of an increasingly menacing Kremlin, the Baltic states – on Nato’s front line against Russian aggression – display an in-your-face bravado, which nevertheless overlays a palpable unease about the future. Many thousands disappeared into its bowels, never to be seen by their families again The threat posed to them by Russia was the issue which dominated much of the debate in the Baltic countries during the lead-up to the

Saturday

Katja Hoyer Katja Hoyer

The Euros couldn’t come at a worse time for Germany

Like many Germans, I remember the summer of 2006 with fondness. We hosted the football World Cup, and for a few glorious weeks the country was transformed. The sun literally didn’t stop shining. Every cafe, bar and park seemed to have the football on TV. The country was in an exceedingly good mood.  When it became public that German police would not be allowed to display German flags, opponents pointed out that rainbow colours were still allowed The ‘summer fairytale’ of nearly two decades ago holds such a cherished place in collective memory that it would be difficult to rival even at the best of times. But Euro 2024 isn’t

Friday

Andrew Tettenborn

Why the EU is cracking down on Hungary’s migrant policy

We are set for another high-profile tussle between Budapest and Brussels. Yesterday the EU Court of Justice chose to impose a whopping €200 million fine on the Hungarian government for failing to apply EU asylum laws, a fine that increases by €1 million for every day the infringement continues.   Politics is never very far from the surface with the EU court The legalities as ever were murky, but essentially Brussels’s complaint was this. EU law requires that asylum seekers be allowed into a member state to seek protection and to stay there until their claim is handled. Originally Hungary had prevented this by corralling applicants in border reception centres, until the Court decided in

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

A left-wing government would spell tragedy for France

It has been the craziest week in French politics for decades but for the Republic’s police it’s business as usual. On Tuesday night, they were called to the Trocadero in the centre of Paris to search for four individuals who had violently mugged three Americans. Four youths of Moroccan origin, the youngest of whom was 11, were taken into custody. A day later in Marseille, a known drug dealer was gunned down in what police believe was a tit-for-tat killing between rival cartels. A few hours later, in the same city, a man was shot dead by police after he had thrown a Molotov cocktail at officers. The left’s philosophy

Thursday

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

Macron has unleashed political chaos on France

It is difficult to see how France will emerge from next month’s election peacefully. Flames are licking at the edges of the Republic and the man who lit the tinder was Emmanuel Macron when he called a snap election for 30 June and 7 July. Macron held a most unpresidential press conference on Wednesday in which he lashed out at his enemies but offered no explanation as to why he reacted the way he did on Sunday evening. There are some in France who believe it was a temper tantrum. Emmanuel Macron has suffered few humiliations in his effortless rise to the top. Sunday’s battering in the European Elections was

Jonathan Miller Jonathan Miller

Can Macron still outplay Le Pen?

Petulance, panic and performance. President Macron’s broadcast following the evisceration of his party in last weekend’s elections for the European parliament had elements of all three. Wearing a black tie as if in mourning, he looked shocked, exhausted and angry. ‘The rise of the nationalists and demagogues,’ he said, ‘is a threat not only to our nation but also to our Europe and to France’s place in Europe and in the world… The extreme right is both the impoverishment of the French people and the downfall of our country. So at the end of this day, I can’t pretend that nothing has happened. I decided to give you the choice.

Wednesday

John Keiger John Keiger

France’s future looks far from certain

The much loved and quintessentially French singer, Françoise Hardy, born in 1944, died last night. French certainties are disappearing. The Fifth Republican regime could be next. President Macron’s stunning decision on Sunday night to dissolve the National Assembly in the wake of the remarkable victory of the Rassemblement National (RN) in the European elections is likely to turn a political crisis into a crisis of regime.  Following Macron’s 2022 re-election, devoid of a working majority, France entered a slow-building crisis. The fall-out continues to contaminate the political life of the country. After the agonising demise of the Socialist party, yesterday saw the implosion of the Republican party, the Gaullists who

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

Can a ragtag coalition stop Marine Le Pen?

The left in France may not be much good at winning elections but they are excellent when it comes to forming coalitions. Within 24 hours of Emmanuel Macron’s shock announcement on Sunday night of a snap election on 30 June, left-wing parties made a declaration of their own. A coalition of Communists, Socialists, Greens and the far-left La France Insoumise (LFI) – similar to the one formed for the 2022 parliamentary elections – would fight the election in a coalition called ‘The Popular Front’. Prime minister Gabriel Attal described his former party’s decision to ally with LFI as ‘revolting’ The first such ‘Popular Front’ in France was created in 1936

Tuesday

Senay Boztas

Why didn’t Geert Wilders do as well as Marine Le Pen?

‘We are really by far the biggest winner this evening,’ said Geert Wilders, leader of the Dutch far-right Party for Freedom (PVV), when the European election exit polls were published last week. But although the Netherlands was first to go to the polls – with strong indications that the far right would be victorious – his ‘win’ fell short of the storming result of Marine Le Pen’s National Rally, which has sparked a political earthquake in France. Wilders, an anti-Islam, anti-immigration politician, surprised everyone in the country, including himself, when his PVV became the largest political party in the Netherlands in November. A man who has lived with 24/7 security for two decades is currently putting together a

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

How France’s shy Le Pen voters caused a political earthquake

Emmanuel Macron visited Oradour-sur-Glane on Monday to mark the 80th anniversary since the village in central France was liquidated by SS troops. Laying a wreath at the site where 643 Frenchmen, women and children were massacred, the president of the Republic declared that: ‘We will remember Oradour, always, so that history never starts again’. That was a veiled reference to the success of Marine Le Pen’s National Rally, which crushed the opposition in Sunday’s European elections. In 96 of France’s 101 Departments, the National Rally – led by Jordan Bardella – came out top, and their triumph in France’s towns and villages was overwhelming. Villages such as the rebuilt Oradour sur

Dalibor Rohac

The EU election spells trouble for Ukraine

If one story dominates the cacophony of results of the European election from across the 27 countries of the Union, it is the defeat of incumbents in the EU’s largest member states: France and Germany. While their underperformance was expected, its aftershocks risk leaving Europe weak and ineffectual in the face of Russian aggression in Ukraine.  It is hard to see how Macron or Scholz will become bolder in their Ukrainian positions in the coming months In France, president Emmanuel Macron responded to the poor performance of his party, Renaissance, by calling a snap election for 30 June – less than two weeks before Nato’s summit in Washington.  The logic

Monday

Mark Nayler

The establishment triumphed in Spain’s elections

Spain’s Conservative Popular party (PP) came first in Sunday’s EU elections, upping its share of seats in the European parliament from 13 to 22 – with 34 per cent of the vote. The Socialists (PSOE), represented by energy minister Teresa Ribera, avoided the drubbing many had predicted, coming second with 20 seats.   Between them, the PP and PSOE have won enough seats to dominate smaller parties for the duration of this EU parliament A large gap separates these two frontrunners from smaller left- and right-wing groups, Catalan separatists and a curious new addition to Spain’s political scene. These parties secured between two and six seats in the new EU legislature. The

John Keiger John Keiger

The EU may struggle to find its way out of this election crisis

It is said that the EU thrives on crises. These are what spurs it on to the ultimate goal of wider and deeper integration. But yesterday’s European election results may be a crisis too far. Unlike its predecessors, this election has returned nine or so large Eurosceptic national parties intent on arresting the march towards ever-closer union. The nationalist and identitarian right, while by no means a majority in the new European parliament, is in a commanding position to seriously influence the EU’s future direction. According to the Bertelsmann Foundation’s European expert, quoted in Le Monde, the EU is entering ‘its most decisive phase in its 70 year history’. In the

Ian O’Doherty

Sinn Fein’s immigration stance has blown up in its face

It’s been three days since Ireland went to the ballot box to decide the local and European elections and, much to consternation of pretty much everyone, we’re still waiting for the final results. The exit polls though show a remarkable collapse in support for Sinn Fein. Mary Lou McDonald’s attempts to become respectable with the overwhelmingly liberal and middle-class Dublin mediocracy quite simply blew up in her face This has been a rancorous and remarkably bad-tempered campaign. The rise in popularity in the polls of supposedly anti-immigrant parties such as Irish Freedom and Ireland First (neither of which even existed when we had the last local, European and general elections)

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

The truth about the rise of the ‘far right’ in Europe

‘The rise of nationalists and demagogues is a danger for our nation but also for Europe,’ said Emmanuel Macron as he announced his general election. Strong talk, as befits his newly-called general election campaign but is that really what has just happened? Look closely and the results are more nuanced – and more interesting.  If anything, we can see the taming of some populist shrews. In France, Le Pen’s National Rally hit 30 per cent only after her long attempt to detoxify, mellowing her agenda and, recently, kicking the AfD out of her European Parliament grouping. The fresh-faced Jordan Bardella, 28, was the face of Le Pen’s Euro campaign. Macron’s snap election is perhaps intended

Matthew Lynn

France can’t afford a Le Pen government

It is possible that President Macon had some clever plan when he called a general election in the wake of catastrophic European election results last night. After all, he has a reputation for always being several moves ahead on the political chessboard. And yet one point is surely clear. France can’t afford a Le Pen government – and its election may well trigger a crisis in the French debt markets.  Le Pen, after all, is a high welfare, big state, economic nationalist It is, perhaps, not quite such a foregone result as Britain’s election a few days earlier. And yet after the second round of voting on 7 July, it looks

Lisa Haseldine Lisa Haseldine

Olaf Scholz’s party suffers worst EU election defeat as AfD surges

The mood in Olaf Scholz’s SPD party headquarters in Berlin is despondent this morning. The German Chancellor’s party won just 13.9 per cent in the European elections – placing them third in the country and a full two percentage points behind the far-right AfD party. The SPD hasn’t done this badly in a national vote since 1949 – and the result comes less than 18 months until Germany holds its federal election. SPD Leader Lars Klingbeil called it a ‘bitter defeat’. ‘There is no way to sugarcoat it,’ he said. ‘I think it is crystal clear that things have to change.’ The SPD hasn’t done this badly in a national