World

Boris Johnson has been accused of shamelessly using the war in Ukraine for his own political ends. The timing of his contacts with president Volodymyr Zelensky suggests there is plenty of evidence to support this claim. At the end of last week, within hours of his ethics adviser’s resignation, Johnson ducked out of a planned meeting with Northern MPs in favour of a day-trip to Kyiv. The timing of Johnson’s conversations with the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, have certainly rung alarm bells. All too often, Downing Street’s announcements about his telephone chats with Zelensky have usefully diverted attention from the particular difficulty Johnson was facing at the time and on to his role as

You can’t blame Boris Johnson for jetting off to Kyiv last week for another meet-and-greet session with Volodymyr Zelensky. He got a warmer reception from the Ukrainian President than he would have in Doncaster, the town he snubbed in order to grandstand on the international stage. Johnson was scheduled to have made an appearance at the conference of northern Conservatives, where organisers had hoped he would woo Red Wall voters by explaining how, two and a half years after they loaned him their vote, he intends to ‘level up’ their town. But to the consternation of many MPs, Johnson decided he had more important issues on the other side of

The EU will formally add Ukraine to its list of candidate countries this Friday. But if you look carefully beneath the pomp, you will see this is much less of a big deal than Brussels would have you believe. For one thing, the gesture is symbolic. The list of official EU candidates is a bit like the waiting list for a smart London club. Being on it may be flattering, but it does not guarantee a quick decision; nor does it rule out the possibility of one or more black balls if and when your name eventually comes up.  Albania, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Turkey are all current candidates on the

The single headline across the front page of the centre-left daily Libération said it all: ‘La Gifle’. But much more than a slap in the face, Emmanuel Macron has taken a heavyweight sock in the jaw. With only 245 seats for his ‘Ensemble!’ grouping, the French president is a country mile from having a parliamentary absolute majority (289). Then there is the drubbing his lieutenants took with the ousting of three ministers, the president of the national assembly and the leader of his parliamentary LREM party. All lost their seats. Sunday’s legislative results are a full-frontal humiliation for Macron personally, ideologically, politically and institutionally. Held in opprobrium, his globalist liberal

‘Stillborn’ is how Le Figaro describes Emmanuel Macron’s presidency after his Renaissance party failed to win an absolute majority in the National Assembly. On a wretched day for Macron, his coalition party won 245 seats in the lower house, dozens short of the number needed to secure the majority that would have allowed him to push through his reforms in his second term. Jean-Luc Melenchon’s left-wing NUPEs took 131 seats. But the biggest surprise of the night was the success of Marine Le Pen’s National Rally. They won 89 seats, a result beyond the wildest dreams of Le Pen, whose party had only eight MPs in the last parliament. ‘We

Emmanuel Macron has lost his absolute majority. The surprise winner was Marine Le Pen and her party, Rassemblement National, while the left alliance, Nupes, confirmed their place as the second-largest group, albeit with a less spectacular showing than the media and polls predicted. The latest results, as published by the interior ministry, counted 245 seats for Ensemble, 131 seats for Nupes, 89 seats for Le Pen’s Rassemblement National and 61 seats for Les Républicains. The results are a disaster for Macron, and raise many questions about how he can govern with two extreme parties on the right and the left as the strongest opponents in the National Assembly. This vote

French president Emmanuel Macron has been humiliated by voters, weeks after being re-elected by an unenthusiastic electorate. The hyper-president with ambitions to lead Europe looks like he will not even be able to lead France. His legislative project, headlined by pension reform and raising the retirement age, appears doomed. France looks more ungovernable than ever. There’s a possibility that parliament might be dissolved within a year and new elections held. It is a ‘nightmare scenario’ for the president, admitted Le Monde this morning. The result of the election is much worse for Macron than almost anyone anticipated. For the first time in the fifth republic the president has failed to