Gavin Mortimer

Last December the European Commission published its ‘priorities’ for the next five years. All the bases were covered, from defence to sustainable prosperity to social fairness. And of course, the most important priority of all, democracy. ‘Europe’s future in a fractured world will depend on having a strong democracy and on defending the values that give Europeans the freedoms and rights that they cherish,’ proclaimed the Commission, which pledged it was committed to ‘putting citizens at the heart of our democracy’. December was the same month that a Romanian court cancelled the presidential election, after the surprise first round victory of the Eurosceptic and anti-progressive Călin Georgescu.

Jordan Bardella flew to America last week on a trip he had long boasted about. The president of the National Rally – and all his party – had been a little put out that the only French politicians invited to Donald Trump’s inauguration were Eric Zemmour and Sarah Knafo of the right-wing Reconquest. It was with relish, then, that Bardella boarded a flight to Washington to attend the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). Here was his party’s chance to announce itself to America, while rubbing shoulders with the representatives of the new zeitgeist: JD Vance, Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico, Giorgia Meloni, Argentine President Javier Milei, Blighty’s own Nigel Farage, and of course, the man himself, Donald J. Trump. Only, Bardella never took to the stage.

Emmanuel Macron will hold talks with Donald Trump on Monday at which the President of France will attempt to ‘make Europe’s voice heard’. Still seething about being excluded from America’s peace negotiations with Russia, Macron wants to reassert the continent’s authority Stateside.  It will be a forlorn exercise. One of the reasons America – not just Trump’s administration but the one that preceded it – no longer attaches much importance to the EU is because they can see how weak it’s become. The world understands that Macron talks the talk but never walks the walk It’s timidity towards Algeria is a prime example. On Saturday, an Algerian man was arrested by police after allegedly running amok with a knife in the French city of Mulhouse.

It’s an established fact that most of Britain’s drug trade is controlled by Albanians. There is some competition from Turks and Pakistanis but Albanians dominate the industry with their ‘business-like’ methods. They may soon have another partner in crime. Nigerian gangs are increasingly making their presence felt in Europe: this week they were among 27 people arrested in coordinated police raids in Italy, Spain and Albania. According to Italy's Carabinieri, the arrests encompassed two drug trafficking gangs, one of which was a Nigerian operation in which they used their young compatriots seeking a new life in Europe to traffic marijuana across the continent.

Giorgia Meloni was nearly an hour late for Monday’s European crisis summit at the Elysee Palace in Paris. According to the French press, Italy’s prime minister made her appearance ‘in the middle of the meeting, 50 minutes later than the agreed time’. Perhaps her Maserati got caught in the Paris traffic, or perhaps Meloni made her late entrance intentionally; a way of underlining to her host, Emmanuel Macron, and the other European leaders present, that she alone has a warm relationship with Donald Trump. Meloni visited Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club for what both parties called an 'informal meeting' at the start of the year. The then President-elect described the Italian as a ‘fantastic woman’ and told reporters that ‘she’s really taken Europe by storm’.

Jean-Luc Melenchon has broken a taboo in French, and Western, politics. The de facto leader of the French left, whose La France Insoumise party is the driving force of the coalition that won most seats in last July’s legislative elections, told students in Toulouse: ‘Yes, Mr (Eric) Zemmour, there is a Great Replacement! This replacement is that of a generation coming after the other and which will never resemble the previous one’. Melenchon was aiming his remarks at Eric Zemmour. The controversial journalist turned incendiary politician has came under relentless attack after he promoted the Great Replacement as a central plank of his election manifesto during his run for the French presidency in 2022.

There is a wind of change blowing through the West. It emanates from Washington DC, where President Donald Trump continues to dash off executive orders; more than fifty by the end of last week, the highest number in a president’s first 100 days in four decades. The liberal mainstream media is rattled. The New York Times magazine ran a piece at the weekend in which it described Trump as "the leading light of a spate of illiberal leaders and parties flourishing in democracies around the world." The paper namechecked some of them: Poland, Holland, India, France, Germany, Italy, Brazil, Hungary and Russia. What unites and motivates these "illiberal" parties is their opposition to what the NYT called "liberal creep," which they regard as a civilizational threat.

Each day in France there are 120 knife attacks. On Saturday, one such incident resulted in the death of 14-year-old Elias as he left his football training in central Paris. He was stabbed after refusing to surrender his mobile phone. A 17-year-old has admitted the killing to police. France’s Interior Minister, Bruno Retailleau, expressed his horror at the death of Elias, and reiterated his determination to make France ‘a country where parents no longer have to fear seeing their child murdered for nothing’. He added that it ‘will be a long and difficult road’ and will require an end to the culture of excuses which ‘has plunged some of our young people into a deep sense of impunity’.

Emmanuel Macron has promised to return the Louvre to its former glory in an ambitious renovation project that is forecast to cost between €700 and €800 million (£586 and £670 million). The French president outlined details of what he called his 'New Renaissance' project on Tuesday as he stood in front of the Mona Lisa. As part of the revamp, Leonardo da Vinci's masterpiece will have its own room and visitors will pay for the privilege of seeing the enigmatic smile. Other initiatives include a second entrance – to ease the current congestion of 30,000 visitors a day – and a new entrance fee from next January that will require non-EU visitors to pay more. There will also be a comprehensive overhaul of the museum’s infrastructure, from galleries to bathrooms.

Last week was surely one of the grimmest in Europe in years. The day after an Afghan migrant allegedly stabbed a two-year-old boy in Germany to death, Axel Rudakubana was sentenced to 52 years in prison for murdering Alice, Bebe and Elsie, three little English girls with a combined age of 22, in Southport. The court heard that Rudakubana told police in the immediate aftermath of the killing: ‘It’s a good thing those children are dead…I’m so glad…so happy’. What we didn’t hear enough about was the exact nature of his extremism.