Emmanuel Macron returns to an increasingly divided Europe

While Emmanuel Macron has been wowing Washington there’s been something of a mini crisis in France. To put it bluntly, the country was invaded on Sunday, its border in the French Alps breached by a force of around 200 foreigners, who then fought with the police as they advanced on the small town of Briançon.

The incursion was organised by Italians and Swiss, their number swelled by forty migrants, a fraction of the number who in recent years have used the Alps to cross from Italy into France. In 2016, 315 were intercepted on this arduous route, a figure that last year rose to 1,900. The majority come from West Africa – Senegal, Guinea and the Ivory Coast – although there is also a Paris-based network of Pakistanis who smuggle their compatriots across the border.

One of the Italians told France24 he participated in the incursion “to express our shock at the failure of the French police to stop the fascists”.