Europe

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

France’s Gabriel Attal has resigned as prime minister. President Emmanuel Macron even made a ceremony out of it. And yet, here we are: still with Attal as prime minister in a caretaker role. They say this is likely to continue until September, or perhaps even longer. No government proposal has emerged since the elections. The left-wing alliance cannot agree over whom to nominate as prime minister and when. Forget the feverish haste after the elections. The left is now taking its time. Did they miss the moment, and will it be too late for them? The left-wing alliance cannot agree over whom to nominate as prime minister During the ten

It comes as a relief to learn that Keir Starmer doesn’t really believe setting up a new security organisation to ‘smash the gangs’ will stop illegal immigration in small boats. Home Secretary Yvette Cooper goes around parroting the phrase as if saying it and doing it were the very same thing. It also got Labour through the election – mainly thanks to the Tories never having made their Rwanda plan operational. Yet now it has emerged that increasing the quantity of gold braid and epaulettes via the creation of a new ‘Border Security Command’ is not the only game in town for the Prime Minister. That plan involves doing the

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

Ignore most snap verdicts from last night – the big winner in the French parliamentary election was still Marine Le Pen, whose third-place finish was perfectly placed. True, egged on by polls showing it on the verge of an absolute majority, the Rassemblement National (National Rally) over-promised and underdelivered. But, in the topsy-turvy world of French politics in 2024, to lose was to win. Dirty work is about to be done at the Elysée Le Pen fought a competent campaign and her voters aren’t blaming her for failing to take the top of the podium. She’s demonstrated again that she’s highly resilient. Not achieving a majority has done her a

Against a backdrop of considerable tension – barricaded city centre shop-fronts and 30,000 police on standby – a radically divided France has voted in the second round of the legislative elections. To general amazement, the largest party in the National Assembly is the left-wing Nouveau Front Populaire (NFP) – but none of the major political groupings is able to form a majority government.  So what happens in France now? Who will actually govern? France will probably be ungovernable for some time to come First in line to form a government must be the New Popular Front. But unlike Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) or Macron’s Ensemble, no putative prime minister has

This week France has drifted from surprise to confusion and panic as Sunday’s second round vote approaches. The bien-pensant centre-left weekly Nouvel Obs’ cover says it all. Black lettering on a red background menacingly warns: ‘Avoiding the Worst’; ‘The National Rally at the gates of power’. Yet the National Rally is an officially recognised legitimate mainstream party. France is not staring into the abyss. But if we were to indulge in such gloom-ridden musings what would be France’s post-electoral worst case scenarios. Let us begin gently. Marine Le Pen called this ‘an administrative coup d’etat’ In the event the National Rally cannot form a government on Monday, moves are already afoot by Macronist