Europe

There is a growing sense of unease in France that a new wave of Islamist terrorism will soon break over Europe. In February, Adel Bakawan, a Franco-Iranian specialist in Islamic extremism, said that the Islamic State is regrouping and is planning a mass casualty attack in ‘Berlin, London or Paris’. This week Thibault de Montbrial, president of the Centre for Reflection on Homeland Security, spoke in similar terms during a radio interview.   While Isis, or the Islamic State, no longer has a caliphate as it did between 2014 and 2019, it still has many fanatical followers scattered in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan. Referencing a report written by the Dutch intelligence

Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), Germany’s far-right populist party, is enjoying a surge in support. A poll by broadcaster ARD this month revealed that 18 per cent of voters backed the AfD – its highest rating since the party was founded in 2013. This level of support – which puts the AfD on level pegging with the SPD – is ringing alarm bells in Berlin. Since the end of the second world war, Germany’s post-war identity has been moulded around coming to terms with its history. Germans even have a word for it: ‘Vergangenheitsbewältigung’. The national mantra for eight decades has been ‘never again’. But is something sinister afoot in German

As the First Ashes Test begins at Edgbaston it is fitting to recall England’s oldest cricket adversary: France. The Marylebone Cricket Club’s (MCC) first ever international tour was scheduled for France in the summer of 1789. Owing to local difficulties the tour did not go ahead. The match was eventually rescheduled for the bicentennial of the French Revolution with France beating the MCC by seven wickets. In the space of a fortnight, we have witnessed Prime Minister Rishi Sunak meeting with president Biden in Washington to announce ambitiously that Britain would lead on setting up international norms on Artificial Intelligence (AI). This was followed a few days later by president

Silvio Berlusconi, whose state funeral will take place today in Milan, was the first modern populist. The media tycoon became a politician to take back control of Italy from the establishment on behalf of the people. The Italians called him Il Cavaliere (The Knight). He created a brand of politics that decades later would become a new driving force in America and Europe and would be called populism. Berlusconi reminds me of Jay Gatsby, the tragic hero of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s great novel Italians voted for him in their droves. Like Donald Trump, he was dead rich but loved by the dirt poor. He spoke their language: he loved beautiful football and beautiful women. He hated tax and red tape and fines and the big bad

As Russia frantically attempts to hold on to its territorial gains in the face of the much-anticipated Ukrainian counteroffensive, there are early signs that it is also failing to retain its diplomatic and foreign policy advances. The anti-Western energy alliances it had constructed around the world with many of the leading oil and gas producers, which had endured despite the invasion, are beginning to fracture. Its attempts to shutdown competitors to Russian oil and gas have proved futile. It all went wrong so quickly for Russia. Back in 2016, the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) expanded to include Russia as part of OPEC+. The deal, painstakingly brokered by Saudi

There’s an irony in the timing of Silvio Berlusconi’s death at the age of 86, coming on the same weekend that saw the (at least temporary) exit from politics of Boris Johnson. For in many respects, the Cavaliere (‘Knight’) as he was universally known in Italy, was an even more flamboyant role model for our former prime minister. Berlusconi, who led four Italian governments, blurred the lines between showbusiness and politics until they became all but invisible – in much the same way Boris Johnson has in Britain. True, Boris may not yet be as wealthy as the billionaire Berlusconi, who was Italy’s third richest man. Boris’s short reign at the

‘Cead Mile Failte’, which means ‘a hundred thousand welcomes’, is a sentiment the Irish have long held dear.  We pride ourselves on our welcoming nature, our music, our famous pub culture and the fact that the average tourist will be almost overwhelmingly love-bombed by locals who are happy to see a new face and will want to regale them with tales of local lore.  But recently it seems that Ireland may have used up its welcomes and is, instead, retreating back into the dark terrain of nativism and suspicion of foreigners.  For a country that liked to boast about its welcoming nature, the last few weeks have seen the rise

What are the politics of your bicycle? An interesting question. I’d like to say that mine is an expression of a basically conservative temperament, with its ability to endow individual liberty, its lack of imposition on established cities and countryside, and its preservation of fine and noble sporting traditions.  On the other hand, the bicycle has a long progressive heritage. The suffragette Sylvia Pankhurst was a keen member of a socialist cycling club, known for its group renditions of ‘England, arise! The long, long night is over’. And as the gauche but committed cyclist Jeremy Corbyn demonstrated, ‘socialism can only arrive by bicycle’, in the famous words of Chilean politician

The Green mayor of Annecy, François Astorg, declared a fortnight ago that his town in the south-east of France was ‘a land of resistance against fascism, a land of solidarity, a refugee town for those fleeing war, misery and the unhappiness in the world’.   On Thursday, Astorg, expressed his ‘immense sadness’ and his ‘anger’ hours after a Syrian refugee ran amok in a park in Annecy, stabbing six people including four toddlers. ‘It’s the first time this has happened in Annecy,’ declared Astorg. ‘It’s unacceptable’.   The mayor has said that there will be a rally to bring the town together; the cynic is entitled to ask ‘what is the point?’ No

What kind of man walks into a park on a summer’s day and randomly stabs and slashes at toddlers? That is the question France is asking itself today after the latest in a long line of bloody atrocities. The scene of this morning’s attack was in Annecy in south-eastern France, a popular holiday resort. An eye-witness said that a man ‘started shouting and went straight to the pushchairs and stabbed the children repeatedly.’ At least three children were stabbed, along with a young woman believed to be a mother. The numbers of victims would have been higher had the police not arrived in just four minutes. As they entered the park, recalled another

Hours after the Ukrainian army finally launched its long-awaited counter-offensive, the Nova Kakhovka dam has been blown up – which Zelensky blamed on ‘Russian terrorists’. It belongs to the fifth largest hydroelectric plant in Ukraine, in the occupied part of the Kherson region, which was completely destroyed in the explosion. The flooding has been immediate: more than 80 settlements are in danger (with 16,000 people at risk) including Kherson itself. Kyiv has started the evacuation of the villages and towns located downstream of the Dnipro river. Whether Moscow will do the same for the people it now claims as Russian citizens remains to be seen.  As expected, Russia has denied

Perhaps the most illuminating comment made by Nigel Farage during his discussion with Fraser Nelson on Spectator TV earlier this month was when he reflected on the Brexit campaign. ‘I remember being told, by [Daniel] Hannan and Boris Johnson, “no, no, don’t discuss immigration in the referendum”,’ reminisced the former leader of UKIP. ‘”We’ll lose the referendum. Some of our very posh friends don’t like this sort of thing”.’  It’s not just posh Tories who blanch at the mention of the ‘I’ word; so do posh socialists, which explains why immigration is now out of control in the UK. The vast majority of MPs, if not all strictly ‘posh’, certainly

Sir Keir Starmer and the Labour front bench are increasingly candid about their plans to ‘recalibrate’ Britain’s relationship with the EU within 18 months of entering Downing Street. Trade barriers with the EU would be lowered, regular EU-UK summits would be held at permanent official and ministerial level, a return to the Dublin Agreement on migration would be negotiated. They would also sign a UK-EU security pact. The Labour leader insists he is not promising to return the UK to the single market or the customs union. But the fear is that a novice, naïve and inexperienced Labour government would be putty in the hands of Euro-maximalist leaders of the calibre of

The head of the French Olympic Committee has resigned just over a year out from the Games’ opening in Paris. Brigitte Henriques announced her decision at the Games’ committee’s general assembly, the result according to the French media of ‘a year-and-a-half of internal squabbling.’ There was much fanfare when Henriques was nominated to the role in June 2021, winning 58 per cent of the vote to triumph over her nearest rival, the former Judo Olympic champion Thierry Rey. The then 50-year-old Henriques was lauded as the first female president of the French Olympic committee, the culmination of a career that had included a stint as the vice-president of the French

Paris has a problem. The city currently houses some 5,000 migrants in hotels, much to the chagrin of the capital’s hoteliers. France’s capital is hosting two major tournaments in the next year: the Rugby World Cup in September and the Olympics next summer. An enduring headache for president Macron is where supporters will stay; hotels have been clamouring for permission to free up their rooms for tourists.  The solution Macron has come up with is to move the migrants out to the sticks, thereby freeing up those hotels. Their facilities were commandeered by the government because the numbers of homeless in Paris (the majority of whom are migrants) have overwhelmed

The vicious racist abuse of Vinícius Jr – the Real Madrid and Brazil star – points to something rotten at the very core of Spanish football. La Liga, marketed worldwide as the glamorous pinnacle of club football, is riddled with racism and racist attitudes at every level of the game: from the pitch to the stands. This has been made worse by a culture of denial, complacency and inaction on the part of those charged with overseeing Spanish football. Turning a blind eye to the problem has now come back to bite them in a big way.  The racist taunting of Vinícius began even before kick off in the weekend game

Last week it was President Macron who was rowing back on green measures. In a speech he asserted that Europe has, for now, gone far enough – if it introduces any more regulations without the rest of the world following suit then it will put investment at risk and harm the economy. This week, the European People’s Party – a centre right grouping which includes the German Christian Democrats, the party of Commission President Ursula von der Leyen – seems to be joining in. Germany now seems to be taking over from France as the seedbed of opposition towards zero carbon policies The party is reported to be considering withdrawing