Gavin Mortimer

The sea lanes of Europe were busy last weekend. On Sunday, more than 700 migrants crossed the Channel from France to England, taking the total number this year to 18,342 – a 13 per cent increase on 2023. On the same day, 421 migrants in twelve boats disembarked on the Italian island of Lampedusa, and more have arrived since, swelling the numbers to over 500. The diversity of the nationalities of arrivals in Lampedusa is a fascinating and alarming snapshot of the crisis confronting Europe. The people stepping ashore hailed from Egypt, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Ghana, Gambia, Malaysia, Nigeria, Liberia and Syria.  There are now too many gangs operating in Asia, the Middle East and Africa Some set out in their boats from Libya and others from Tunisia.

The riots that have erupted across England in the last week have been splashed across Europe’s newspapers and broadcast on the primetime news. There have been editorials in France’s Le Monde, video reports in Spain’s El Pais and podcasts in Sweden’s Aftonbladet. The Italian newspaper, La Stampa, published video footage of disturbances in Plymouth on Monday night, and described the rioters as a mix of ‘extremists and hooligans’. Why did the anti-immigration riots not explode first in France or Germany? Some of the coverage has been superficial.

The good news for France is that their athletes have been winning some medals in the Paris Olympics. The bad news, well, that just keeps coming for the organisers and for Emmanuel Macron, who had wanted to use the Games to showcase his country. The latest debacle is the postponement of the men's triathlon event this morning because the water in the River Seine is too filthy. Organisers can hardly say they weren't warned. Things clearly aren’t quite working out as Macron hoped. First there was the attack on the country’s rail network last Friday; the president had hoped the day would be all about the splendour of the Opening Ceremony, but instead the headlines were about the misery endured by nearly one million passengers as they sat waiting for trains that never arrived.

France's Olympics could not have got off to a worse start. Hundreds of thousands of train passengers have been left stranded after the country's high-speed rail lines were targeted by a series of suspicious fires. Rail company SNCF says it's a 'massive attack aimed at paralysing the network', with security services suggesting this morning that the far left may have been behind the attack. Whoever is to blame, one thing is clear: France's president Emmanuel Macron will be furious. The world's eyes are on Paris tonight as the opening ceremony gets underway. Macron wanted them to see France at its best; instead, they will see a country in chaos. The man behind tonight's opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics is Thomas Jolly.

The mayor of Paris went for a swim in the Seine on Wednesday and emerged invigorated. The water, said Anne Hidalgo, was ‘soft and wonderful’. Hidalgo had initially scheduled a date last month for her dip but the quality of the water didn’t pass muster so she was forced to postpone her PR stunt – until nine days before Paris welcomes the XXXIII Olympiad. Violence has rocked Paris this week There are no reports that Hidalgo is now laid up in bed with a nasty bacterial infection, so one must presume the Seine will be able to host several swimming events in the coming weeks. That was the good news for the mayor. The bad news is the violence that has rocked Paris this week.

Marine Le Pen appeared on television on Wednesday morning in her first major interview since last Sunday’s election. The leader of the National Rally cast a critical eye over the chaos of the last week and described the cross-party squabbling as 'parliamentary cretinism'. Even some within the New Popular Front, which won the most seats in the parliamentary elections, have expressed their despair. France has been afflicted by cretinous leadership for most of this century ‘I'm angry, I'm disgusted, I'm tired, I'm fed up,’ said Marine Tondelier, the head of the Greens. ‘I'm sorry about the performance we're putting on for the French people.

It is bedlam in France. Nine days after the parliamentary elections that plunged the country into chaos, the political class continue to argue among themselves. The left-wing coalition, which won the most seats in the election, can’t agree on who should be prime minister. Meanwhile, Emmanuel Macron’s centrist party, Renaissance, have announced that they won’t work with any MP from Marine Le Pen’s National Rally or Jean-Luc Melenchon’s La France Insoumise.

France play Spain this evening in the semi-final of the European football championship, and there may be a smile on the faces of some of the French players. Several have been social media in the last 24 hours, expressing their satisfaction with the success of the left-wing coalition in the election.  'Congratulations to all the French people who rallied round so that this beautiful country of France does not find itself governed by the extreme right', said Jules Koundé. Aurélien Tchouaméni, who, like Koundé, plays his club football in Spain, called the result a ‘victory for the people’. Sunday night’s result was not, as Tchouaméni claims, a victory for the people That’s not strictly true.

Over a photo of a pensive Emmanuel Macron, the headline on the front of one French tabloid this morning asks: ‘And now, we do what?’ Good question. Prime Minister Gabriel Attal will tender his resignation to the president this morning, although it is by no means certain it will be accepted. Macron could ask him to stay in his post while a government is formed and the Olympics run their course. That may take time given that no party emerged from Sunday’s second round of voting as dominant. In terms of seats won, no single party enjoyed a better night than the National Rally The left-wing coalition of Socialists, Communists, Greens and far-left figures won the most seats in the 577-seat National Assembly.

In a sensational result that not even Jean-Luc Mélenchon himself could have imagined, his New Popular Front looks set to come first in the French elections. Emmanuel Macron’s Ensemble party is forecast to be second forcing Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (RN), which led the first round, into third place. Mass tactical voting to stop the RN seems to have worked far better than anyone expected. Rather than simply deprive the RN of an overall majority, we have a hung parliament with no clear sense of what happens next. Macron must now negotiate with parties to try to form a coalition government. 'The will of the people must be strictly respected,' declared Mélenchon. 'The defeat of the President and his coalition is clearly confirmed.