Europe

Emmanuel Macron is thinking and saying the unthinkable for a French President of the Republic. This weekend he suggested that French nuclear weapons – the holy grail of French security, intended to ensure that France never relives 1940 – could be put at the disposal of the European Union’s defence. For Macron this is a make or break moment for the EU to remain a world power or face oblivion His comments drew strident criticism from across the political spectrum. ‘Macron is becoming a national danger’, claimed the Rassemblement National’s Thierry Mariani. ‘And after France’s nuclear weapon’, he added, ‘it will be France’s permanent seat on the UN Security Council

Pedro Sanchez has decided to stay on as Spain’s Socialist prime minister, despite announcing last week that he was considering resigning. Sanchez suspended his official duties for a few days to make the decision, following the launch of a judicial investigation into his wife, Begoña Gomez, for corruption and influence-peddling. (Sanchez has said the allegations are ‘as scandalous in appearance as they are non-existent.’) Accusations of corruption against political opponents and their relatives (the more, the better) has become a standard method of warfare in the Spanish political arena The case against Gomez was brought to a judge by an anti-corruption organisation called Manos Limpias (‘Clean Hands’), which Sanchez has accused of leading

Since 2012, the French actor Omar Sy has lived in Los Angeles. One of his houses has included a sprawling villa with five bedrooms, six bathrooms, an outdoor pool and a jacuzzi. With luxury like that perhaps it’s not surprising that Sy – known to British audiences for his role in X-Men, Jurassic World and Lupin – rarely returns to the Republic. But he’s in town this week to promote a book, and has been using his time in television studios to warn the good folk of France about the danger of voting for the ‘extreme right’. First, however, as befits a millionaire actor who lives in a very big

As the German AfD’s European election campaign kicks off tomorrow, the far-right party’s leadership could be forgiven for counting down to polling day in June with dread. This campaign launch marks the end of a torrid fortnight for the party that is threatening to jeopardise the AfD’s future in Brussels. Two of the party’s top politicians have been embroiled in foreign influence scandals that have plunged the party into crisis. On 19 April, Der Spiegel reported that Petr Bystron, the AfD’s second-choice party list candidate at the European elections, was caught in a sting operation receiving ‘small packages’ of money from a Russian businessman who managed a now-sanctioned Kremlin-backed propaganda

Few would disagree with Ben Wallace’s description of Iran as a ‘bully’. The former defence secretary made his comments earlier this week after Iran’s missile attack on Israel. ‘The only option when Iran and Russia hit, I have concluded, is to hit back twice as hard and not stop until they get the message,’ wrote Wallace in the Daily Telegraph. The UK, along with the US, have since extended sanctions against Iran, as has the EU. ‘We feel it’s very important to do everything to isolate Iran,’ said EU summit chairman Charles Michel. Even before the missile attack against Israel, there had been another call to ban Iran from the

‘How do you think this looks to the rest of the world?’ asked Nigel Farage as police attempted to shut down the National Conservatism conference in Brussels on Tuesday. Belgian politicians won’t care what it looks like. This is the most undemocratic country in western Europe. And while the mayor who tried to ban the conference obsesses about what he calls ‘the far-right’, Islamism continues to thrive in Belgium’s left-wing eco-system. For a decade, France has regarded its neighbour as the ‘home of radical Islamists’, and nowhere more so than in Brussels, from where sprang the Islamist terror cell that murdered 130 Parisians in November 2015. ‘Molenbeekistan’ was how the

French spies are impossible to blackmail in honeytraps because their wives already know they’re having affairs. And if you believe this, I have a tower in Paris to sell you. The source for this story is wafer thin yet nevertheless it has attracted prurient attention worldwide. It was ‘revealed’ on Tuesday night in a documentary screened on France 2 and has subsequently been repeated on news platforms worldwide. ‘Ooh la la! Those saucy Frenchies!’ That’s the general line, improbable as it may seem. An agent, ‘Nicolas’, who appeared anonymously on the show, said that Soviet defectors talked of the ‘French paradox’ – that if you tell a Frenchman with a mistress ‘“we’ve

Could compulsory military service soon be reintroduced in Germany? Since becoming defence minister at the beginning of last year, Boris Pistorius has grappled with the challenge of how to rejuvenate Germany’s dwindling armed forces. He increasingly appears convinced that conscription is the answer to his problems. Last week, Pistorius dropped the latest hint that a plan for the reintroduction of conscription was around the corner. Compulsory military service ‘of some kind’ was currently being ‘considered’ by the ministry of defence, he said. While Pistorius stressed a decision would not be taken immediately, and would require the support of parliament, reports suggest he has given the ministry until the end of

One thing the French seem to be learning (or, given their history, re-learning) is that the Russians are always up for a scrap. A ministerial phone call between the two countries has led to a diplomatic spat such that a stung Emmanuel Macron is now claiming that Moscow plans to target this summer’s Paris Olympics – and he’s probably right. On Wednesday, French defence minister Sébastien Lecornu had a rare phone conversation – the first since 2022 – with his Russian counterpart Sergei Shoigu. Paris claims that, following the Crocus City terrorist attack in Moscow last month, the call was wholly about the scope for anti-terrorist cooperation, and their willingness

At first, French elites haughtily dismissed the Rassemblement National (RN) and its voters. Then they were in denial about its rise. Now they are scrambling to block its path to victory in 2027 by all manner of subterfuge. Marine Le Pen, the leader of the RN and front-runner in the 2027 presidential election, will go on trial this October, with other RN party members, for the misuse of European parliamentary funds. Whereas members of Macron’s coalition were recently found guilty of similar misdemeanours, in the case of Le Pen the stakes are particularly high: a likely guilty verdict will see her declared ineligible for political office and thus eliminated from

Stockholm There were 149 bomb attacks in Sweden last year. Though warring gangs are for the most part responsible, ordinary people are increasingly caught in the crossfire. The violence is brutal and ruthless, something I’ve witnessed up close as a police officer in Stockholm and have also analysed as a criminologist. Last year, 28 innocent citizens died or were seriously injured in bombings and shootings. Our country has gone from the bottom of Europe’s gun-crime league tables to the top and it prompts an obvious question: why has this happened in Sweden and why now? One of the most dismal elements of the epidemic of violence is how often it

What should we make of the recent hardening of Emmanuel Macron’s position on the war in Ukraine? At the beginning of the conflict, France’s president spent countless hours talking with Vladimir Putin; now, he spends his time entertaining scenarios in which French troops could be sent to Ukraine, and calling on other European leaders to stop being ‘cowards’. The Wall Street Journal reports today that Macron used secret conversations with US president Joe Biden and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz to get them to change the way they deal with Ukraine. What explains Macron’s new approach? Macron is a master of pursuing contradictory policies at the same time It is possible that the