At the Cannes Film Festival, the UN’s special rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories, Francesca Albanese, speaks with EUobserver about the genocide in Gaza, and global complicity.
‘Europe cannot trust the US for protection. We must be sovereign and stick together, especially in military matters.’ Like a broken record, this has been Emmanuel Macron’s message since he took office in 2017. Now, his greatest ‘I told you so’ moment is here. There’s only one problem: he seems incapable of convincing the French.
The Green-Left alliance surprised everyone, including the pollsters, to become the largest bloc in the French parliament while Marine Le Pen’s hard-right National Rally came only third, behind president Emmanuel Macron’s centrist coalition. For many, this is a huge relief. Yet, neither the French, the Europeans nor Macron himself must forget that the French far-right is actually bigger than ever.
The French far right crushed the presidential coalition in the EU election on Sunday. In response, French president Emmanuel Macron did what the far right had told him to do: he dissolved the French parliament and called a snap election, in a high-stakes gamble.
French president Emmanuel Macron had two main goals for his presidency: to curb the rise of the far right, and to make Europe independent from the US and from China – with France as its leader. Now he is losing Europe to the far right.
As an EU citizen, you may choose between casting a vote in your country of residence or, if different, in your country of origin. You must choose only one – or risk jail and a €15,000 fine. But some EU citizens are deliberately flouting a faulty system.
At the risk of confusing or even misleading voters, French public television this week arranged a major TV debate between the far-right top EU candidate Jordan Bardella, and the French prime minister Gabriel Attal – who is not even a contender in June’s elections.
Despite the high risk of dying from war, starvation or disease, Gazans are still not allowed to enter Egypt. Except those who bribe the authorities. And the EU mission EUBAM Rafah cannot be deployed due to security reasons.
At 1.5 children-per-woman, the EU cannot ensure a sufficient population replacement rate — which threatens welfare models and care of an ageing population. So ahead of the European elections, far-right candidates are offering Orbán-style nativist family policies.
In the run-up to the European Parliament elections, French president Emmanuel Macron reshuffled his government with the intent of curbing the far-right’s rise and his own party’s decline. Will it work?
Jérôme Fourquet, director of opinion at Ifop Institute, believes that French society is more divided than ever. “The old, traditional conflict between right and left has for more than a decade been seriously challenged by new circumstances,” he said.
Earlier in December, Iranian activist Narges Mohammadi was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo. As she is imprisoned in Iran, her family accepted the prize in her name. EUobserver talked with her family.
The former Palestinian delegate to the EU Leila Shahid told EUobserver that she left diplomacy behind in order not to betray her people — and she is now furious with the EU’s response to the Israel/Gaza conflict.
Macron’s opponents are now mobilising for June’s legislative polls in the hope of making a lame duck out of the president — and hinder his plans for a stronger EU.
There are just two candidates left to choose from in French elections Sunday: Macron and Le Pen. But a third figure, Russia’s Putin, also hangs in the air.
While Zemmour makes Le Pen look less extreme, the result is that far-left and centre-right voters are divided between her and Macron.
Anne Hidalgo is the socialist candidate to become the next president of France. But, now, Hidalgo may be presiding over the party’s collapse. She’s not used to being such an underdog.
French far-right presidential candidates Marine Le Pen and Éric Zemmour have set their sights on the next French parliament elections and European elections, as much as on winning the Élysée Palace.
Muslim NGOs targeted by the France’s retaliatory response to the brutal murder of a schoolteacher claim the government is labelling “innocent Muslims as ‘Islamists” just to be able to say that they are doing something”.
Some 150 randomly-picked men and women make up Emmanuel Macron’s Citizens’ Climate Convention. This week Macron invited them to the Élysée Palace and promised – nearly – all of their wishes would come true .