Europe

Amsterdam has launched a campaign telling rowdy Brits to stay away. Men between the age of 18 and 35 are being targeted with videos showing what happens to those who overindulge. Brits who search online for terms like ‘stag do’, ‘cheap Amsterdam accommodation’ and ‘pub crawl Amsterdam’ will be served with the warning adverts featuring tourists being locked up or hospitalised. To put it in wrestling terms, we’ve well and truly become the ‘heels’ of Europe. Brexit, it seems, has catalysed the unfair ‘bad boy Brit’ persona of a sometimes sluggish, mostly uncultured and drunken nation which urinates and swears its way across the continent while ordering beige grub in

King Charles III is going down a storm in Berlin. Hundreds of wellwishers have turned out to greet the King during a reception at the Brandenburg Gate – and the monarch, who is on his first trip abroad since taking the throne, seems relaxed. But amidst the selfies and Burger King hats (which many of those who turned out to see the King have opted to wear), there is serious business to be done – and German politicians are optimistic that Charles’s visit can repair some of the damage caused by Brexit. While Charles’s mother Elizabeth was seen as apolitical, the King’s past commitments to social and ecological causes have

Cast your mind back just over a decade, to a charity benefit gig in St. Petersburg in 2010. Sharon Stone, Kevin Costner, Gerard Depardieu, Vincent Cassel, Goldie Hawn and Monica Belluci are in the audience. But the star-turn is performed by a man from another branch of entertainment altogether (‘show-business for ugly people’) who in a warbling voice is giving us his rendition of Fats Domino’s ‘Blueberry Hill.’ The stars clap and beam at this new addition to their ranks – the man then taking time off as president to play Russia’s prime minister and, on special occasions, chanteur to the stars: Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin. In this, you might argue, the celebrities

Yesterday was a day of anarchy in France – and the protests overnight have led to King Charles’s state visit to France, which was due to start this weekend, being cancelled. The King had been due to visit Paris and Bordeaux, two of the cities hit by the most extreme violence. In Bordeaux, a town hall was sacked. In Lorient, a police station was attacked – and in Nantes a court was vandalised. The worst of the violence was in Paris. Hundreds of thugs clad in black fought running battles with police, 149 of whom were injured, and they also smashed and looted shops, banks and restaurants. Gérald Darmanin, the Interior

Is Emmanuel Macron reaching his Liz Truss moment when financial markets finally determine his future? On 20 March Moody’s ratings agency strode into France’s explosive pensions reform turmoil. While keeping France’s rating at Aa2 ‘stable’ it nevertheless warned that President Macron’s constitutional sleight of hand denying the National Assembly a vote on the bill risked undermining future macro-economic reforms for the four remaining years of his mandate.  Two days later, citing political tension and social unrest, Fitch Ratings warned that the government’s ability to reduce high public debt will be constrained. Uncertainty surrounding the debt trajectory is reflected in the negative outlook on France’s ‘AA’ rating. Fitch warned that an increase

Ever since last February’s invasion, Russia has used Crimea – annexed in 2014 – as a base for its military. But that base is now under regular attack. Last night, cruise missiles being transported from Crimea were blown up by drones. The attack was in Dzhankoi, a junction just north of Crimea used by Russia to supply troops in the mainland. The attack exposes not just the vulnerability of Putin’s military (the $6m-a-throw Kalibr missiles should not be vulnerable to drone attack) but the quality of Ukraine’s intelligence. It appears that someone on the inside leaked information about moving the missiles. These missiles – with a 1,500-mile range – have

France is on the brink of another revolution! The proles are swarming to the barricades and it’s only a matter of time before President Macron is dragged from the Élysée palace.  That is the gist of some of the more excitable reporting about what happened yesterday in France. It was certainly a dramatic day after the government forced through its pension reform bill that will increase the age of retirement from 62 to 64. It did so on the orders of Macron, deploying a controversial clause in the constitution – article 49.3 – which legalises a bill without the need for a parliamentary vote.   Where were the opposition MPs in

They say Spring is a magical time to visit Paris but perhaps not this year. It’s not so much love that is in the air of the French capital but the stench from 7,000 tons of uncollected rubbish.  The city’s refuse collectors have been on strike as part of the nationwide protests against the government’s pension reform. Workers at the three incinerators that dispose of Paris’s garbage have also downed tools and the walkout will last until at least Monday 20 March.   It’s not a strike that affects all the capital. In some of the arrondissements, private firms empty the bins and it is business as usual for them. But

America must get tough against the Mexican drug cartels, former US Attorney General, William Barr, declared earlier this month. Likening them to Isis, he backed a joint resolution from two Republican senators, giving the US president authority to deploy the military against the cartels in Mexico. Failure to do so would, he warned, allow the cartels to continue flooding the US with their ‘deadly drugs on an industrial scale’. America’s anti-drug strategy was ineffective because, he said, ‘it leaves the drug supply chain untouched…real progress requires aggressively attacking the drug supply at its source. The head of the snake is in Mexico.’  Europe must apply a similar approach if it’s to solve

‘Message me when you get there.’ This phrase became a rallying cry when hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets across Greece this week, in protests sparked by the country’s deadliest train disaster which killed 57 people earlier this month. Anger against the government was palpable, with protesters shouting ‘murderers’ outside the parliament building in Athens, forcing PM Kyriakos Mitsotakis to postpone his plans to announce the date of the next elections.   To understand why this particular incident threatens to upend the ruling party’s certainties, we must unpack the phrase used by the protestors. It’s hard to understate the emotional resonance of that simple line for Greek

There was more than a whiff of ‘bromance’ between Rishi Sunak and Emmanuel Macron when they met at the Anglo-French summit in the city of love. The weather in Paris was grey and cold, but there was no denying the warmth of the greeting that Macron extended to Sunak as the PM arrived at the Elysee yesterday. This is hardly a surprise: after Boris Johnson and Liz Truss, the president was just pleased to be hosting a PM who knows how to mind his Ps and Qs.   Sunak said he was ‘fortunate’ and ‘excited’ to have the opportunity to work with Macron, whom he described in French as ‘mon ami’. Macron looked

Pandemics kill people in two ways, said Chris Whitty at the start of the Covid outbreak: directly and indirectly, via disruption. He was making the case for caution amidst strong public demand for lockdown, stressing the tradeoffs. While Covid deaths were counted daily, the longer-term effects would take years to come through. The only real way of counting this would be to look at ‘excess deaths’, i.e. how many more people die every month (or year) compared to normal. That data is now coming through.  Using the most common methodology, Sweden is at the bottom – below Australia and New Zealand, which had plenty of lockdowns but very few Covid