Europe

With the most dramatic result in the history of Dutch elections, the liberal democratic D66 appears to have inched ahead of populist Geert Wilders and his Party for Freedom, winning an election for the first time. On Thursday morning, both parties were projected at 26 seats out of the 150-seat chamber, neck-and-neck but with a 2,000-vote lead for D66. Under its dynamic 38-year-old leader – and former junior athlete – Rob Jetten, the progressive party made a last-minute sprint in the final week of the campaign, when a third of Dutch voters make up their minds. It has almost tripled its current nine seats and scored the best result in

As Germany braces for economic hardship and the mounting danger of confrontation with Russia, its leaders appear preoccupied with the wrong battle. The coalition government, the social democratic SPD party, and even Chancellor Friedrich Merz seem more intent on finding ways to muzzle the AfD party than on facing the realities before them. Yet none of them has the slightest notion of how to succeed. Their so-called strategy has descended into farce – a self-inflicted culture war that barely exists. It is clear: the handling of the AfD by Germany’s centre political parties and the media is a disaster of historic proportions. Precisely because it is not an accident, not

‘I will be an inclusive president for all of you,’ Catherine Connolly declared as she was announced the winner of Ireland’s presidential election – a landslide victory over Fine Gael’s Heather Humphreys.  The independent TD received 63 per cent of the vote (with spoiled ballots excluded) to become Ireland’s tenth president. The result was officially confirmed early yesterday evening, but Connolly’s victory was clear from the moment counting began. ‘Catherine will be my president,’ Humphreys conceded, having received just over 29 per cent of the vote. Connolly defeated Humphreys in Ireland’s first head-to-head presidential race since 1973. Jim Gavin had entered the race but withdrew after revelations of a decades-old

‘How could you possibly say the EU is good as it stands?’ the woman says. Brexit, she continues, is a ‘first step [in] exposing the EU’. The speaker is Catherine Connolly. She is the frontrunner to win Ireland’s presidential election tomorrow. The footage stands out for two reasons. One, it’s rare for an Irish politician so close to high office to be seen as critical of the EU. Two, the video has only just resurfaced, despite being nine years old. While support for EU membership in Ireland typically polls between 70 and 90 per cent, opinion is becoming less homogenous, an interest in alternative views about the bloc is growing. The

Something is afoot in Nato’s airspace – but the alliance’s complacent response to the various incursions is rather troubling. In recent weeks, suspicious drones have intruded into the jurisdictions of Belgium, Germany, Denmark and Norway; identifiable Russian drones were tracked over Romania and shot down over Poland. Three Russian Mikoyan MiG-31 fighters violated Estonia’s airspace and loitered for 12 minutes before retreating when Italian F-35 aircraft were scrambled to intercept them. Putin is testing the alliance, pushing it little by little, upping the ante by increments to see what response he finds You might think that these various incidents would shake Nato’s secretary general, Mark Rutte, out of his usual

From the stability of the Fifth Republic’s institutions, France is regressing to the chronic instability of bygone republics. In eight years as president, Emmanuel Macron has expended eight prime ministers. For the moment, one per year compares favourably with the Third and Fourth Republics, whose governments averaged nine and six months respectively. But the pace is accelerating. Since Macron’s re-election in May 2022, his prime ministerial tally is five, with the last government surviving 14 hours. Where to look for a ray of hope in France’s darkening political crisis? New government, dissolution, presidential resignation? None seem likely to unblock France’s political and institutional gridlock General de Gaulle designed the Fifth

Hamburg What would happen if Russia was planning an attack on Estonia, Lithuania or Latvia – and the threat was sufficiently great that Nato felt the need to send troops east across Europe to face off against Moscow? This was the scenario the German Bundeswehr spent several days rehearsing last month, working out how the army would transport its soldiers towards Nato’s eastern flank in the event of conflict in the Baltics. For three days, the port city of Hamburg played host to the exercise Red Storm Bravo: 500 soldiers, along with roughly 300 members of the emergency services and other civilian organisations, took part – the largest military exercise

You have probably heard that something extraordinary is happening in the Catholic Church in France. The French bishops’ conference announced in April that more than 10,000 adults were due to be baptised in 2025 – a 45 per cent increase on the year before. France is seeing what the media call a ‘boom biblique’: a rapid rise in sales of the Bible It’s not just adult baptisms that are booming. A record 19,000 people, many young, attended this year’s Paris to Chartres pilgrimage. An unprecedented 13,500 high school students took part in the 2025 Lourdes FRAT pilgrimage, a major annual youth event. The country is also seeing what French media call a ‘boom biblique’: a rapid rise in

In a sensational development, Sébastien Lecornu has resigned as prime minister of France. His departure, after 27 days in office, makes the 39-year-old the shortest reigning premier of the Fifth Republic. Lecornu’s resignation is a humiliation for him, for France and for Emmanuel Macron. The president has now worked his way through seven prime ministers in eight years, a Fifth Republic record he shares with Francois Mitterrand. He, however, presided over France for fourteen years. The catalyst for Lecornu’s departure was the new government he unveiled on Sunday evening The catalyst for Lecornu’s departure was the new government he unveiled on Sunday evening. He has promised a ‘break’ with Macron’s

Shortly after Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the West prohibited transactions with the Bank of Russia and the Russian Federation’s Ministry of Finance. This effectively froze around $300 billion (£223 billion) of sovereign assets in foreign currency and gold reserves, mostly held in Euroclear, the central securities depository in Brussels. Since then there have been ongoing discussions in Europe and the United States about the possibility of somehow accessing this enormous pool of money to help fund Ukraine’s defence and perhaps to use some of the assets for reconstruction and development once the conflict comes to an end. Western leaders would not be human if they

‘The European path of Moldova must go on,’ a young Moldovan politician texted me as their parliamentary election results began to roll in yesterday. His party PAS, the pro-European Party of Action and Solidarity, won. The race was not as close as some supporters feared, with PAS receiving about 50 per cent of the vote. The main opposition, Patriotic Electoral Bloc – an alliance of pro-Russian socialist and communist parties – received around 25 per cent. This is a remarkable moment for Moldova. Just three weeks ago President Maia Sandu, the founder of PAS, addressed the European parliament in Strasbourg, warning of Russian interference. Calling the election a ‘battlefield’, Sandu

On 4 October, voters in Georgia will be called to the polls to vote in the country’s municipal elections and choose a new cohort of local councillors and city mayors. How many citizens will actually turn out, though, remains to be seen: for many, after a steady erosion of democratic freedoms in Georgia, this vote carries little meaning. Georgia’s elections in October last year cemented the dominance of the populist Georgian Dream party in parliament, but the vote’s outcome remains contested by the opposition. Tuesday marked the 300th consecutive day that citizens from across the country have gathered in major cities – every evening in Tbilisi, for example – demanding

France will today officially recognise the state of Palestine at the United Nations General Assembly in New York. In justifying his decision, Emmanuel Macron said that recognition ‘is the best way to isolate Hamas’, adding: ‘Now is the time to act – not tomorrow, not in ten years. If we don’t move, the conflict will only deepen, and the hope of peace will vanish.’ Some are cynical about the timing of the President’s decision. ‘Emmanuel Macron is into performative politics,’ says Pierre Lellouche, who was a (Jewish) minister in Nicolas Sarkozy’s government. ‘He’s going to New York to make people forget the chaos reigning in France’. Macron’s declaration flies in

One million people protested in France yesterday. That was according to the trade unions, who organised the day of industrial action. The police estimated the number of demonstrators at half a million, 309 of whom were arrested for various misdemeanours. There were skirmishes between police and protestors in numerous cities across France, but the most significant incident was in Paris when a group of demonstrators gained entry into the Ministry of Economy and Finance. Among those protesting were nurses, pharmacists, air traffic controllers, transport workers and teachers. Next Friday it is the turn of farmers to take to the streets. The upshot of Macron’s massive miscalculation is a very angry

‘Today Spain shines as an example and as a source of pride. It’s [giving] an example to the international community by taking a step forward in defence of human rights.’ So said Spain’s Socialist prime minister Pedro Sánchez on Sunday, in praise of the pro-Palestine mob that brought the Vuelta a España cycle race to a premature end in Madrid. Sanchez’s support for these disruptive protests came a week after his promise to ‘consolidate in law’ a ban on Spain purchasing Israeli military equipment, in reaction to what he calls Israel’s ‘genocide’ in Gaza.  Cyclists on the Vuelta still had several circuits of the Spanish capital to complete that afternoon,

The Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party continued its westward march in popularity across Germany yesterday, securing third place in the local elections in the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia. Preliminary results show that, alongside the outcomes of mayoralty and district administrator elections which took place in the state, the far-right party won 14.5 per cent of the vote across the 396 municipalities which went to the polls. The liberal SPD party came in second with 22.1 per cent, while the CDU – the governing party in Berlin – secured a third of the vote, with 33.3 per cent. The German Chancellor, Friedrich Merz, will be breathing a small sigh of

This evening Emmanuel Macron will almost certainly be searching for his fifth prime minister since January last year. Francois Bayrou’s decision to call a vote of confidence in his government looks like a calamitous misjudgement, one that will plunge France into another period of grave instability. Comparisons are being drawn with the tumult of the Fourth Republic when, between 1946 and 1958, France went through more than twenty governments. The French are fed up with their political class Bayrou’s coalition government has limped along this year, achieving little other than creating more disenchantment and contempt among the long-suffering electorate. The French are fed up with their political class. Above all, they’re