I went to bed on Saturday (17 October) glued to my X feed on the French riots and it was impossible not to react emotionally to images of familiar landmarks in Paris in flames.

It was a mistake to have followed things on the far-right propaganda tube of racist US oligarch Elon Musk, which both glorified and reviled its AI-curated clips of violent clashes between mostly white policemen and young black or Arab men.

But in any case, I felt pity for police facing Molotov cocktails and cobble stones and angry about their use of stun grenades that left young people maimed.

I was shocked to see public buildings and luxury shops in Lyon, Marseille, and Paris set on fire and looted in what looked like pure criminality, rather than liberté, égalité, fraternité.

But the anarchist adrenaline in me also said: “Fuck Louis Vuitton! A shop that sells luggage for the price of most families’ monthly incomes is a perfect symbol of the social inequality at the heart of this eruption of public anger”.

I woke up on Sunday thankful to learn from professional media, such as the BBC, that even if Paris looked like a war zone, no one had been killed, and even though police had made over 1,800 arrests, aggressive thugs were a fraction of the hundreds of thousands of people who had peacefully protested for better living conditions and education.

But the political harm of Saturday’s X-streamed violence, which also broke out in Italy and Belgium, was still enormous and it will help the EU and French people’s enemies – the far-right in Europe, Russian president Vladimir Putin, and US president Donald Trump.

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School conditions, unaffordable housing and the cost of living have brought demonstrators on to the streets in several countries

• Europe live – latest updates

Young people have been taking to the streets across Europe, including in Spain, France and Portugal, to protest over their unhappiness at the state of schools and the wider cost of living crisis.

In France, high school pupils have clashed with police in often violent protests over long hours, missing teachers, dilapidated classrooms and an opaque university admissions system. Pupils routinely miss months of teaching due to unfilled staff absences.

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© Photograph: Benoît Tessier/Reuters

© Photograph: Benoît Tessier/Reuters

© Photograph: Benoît Tessier/Reuters

Two people killed and at least 17 injured as Russia and Ukraine continue to trade strikes on power infrastructure

Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Sunday thanked the Trump administration for resuming intelligence sharing between the two countries, but maintained the US had intentionally throttled its Starlink satellite internet access so that Donald Trump could send a “message” in his ongoing feud with the Ukrainian president.

In an interview on NBC, Zelenskyy said the US had “unblocked” intelligence on impending Russian ballistic missile strikes, which have pounded the country’s energy infrastructure as winter draws in.

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© Photograph: Omar Havana/AP

© Photograph: Omar Havana/AP

© Photograph: Omar Havana/AP

Hundreds at Lisbon tent camp demand action, as Giorgia Meloni says march in Italy was exploited by ‘hooligans’

The angry protests that have convulsed Spain and France in recent weeks have spilled over to Italy and Portugal, with rioters clashing with police and setting property on fire in Milan, and a tent encampment springing up in Lisbon over the weekend.

A march in central Milan on Saturday to protest against rising living costs began peacefully but ended with masked rioters throwing stones, paving blocks and other objects at riot police and setting fire to barricades made from bar tables.

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© Photograph: Piero Cruciatti/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Piero Cruciatti/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Piero Cruciatti/AFP/Getty Images

Interior minister says ‘the Republic will not yield’ to France’s worst protests in years

A dispatch here from Sam Jones, our reporter in Madrid, as protests have spread to Italy and Portugal

The angry protests that have convulsed Spain and France in recent weeks have spilled over to Italy and Portugal, with rioters clashing with police and setting property on fire in Milan, and a tent encampment springing up in Lisbon over the weekend.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Jérôme Gilles/NurPhoto/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Jérôme Gilles/NurPhoto/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Jérôme Gilles/NurPhoto/Shutterstock

For more than three decades, Michael Gove has been a leading figure in British Conservatism. As a journalist, government minister and now editor of the Tory bible the Spectator, he has helped shape the right even as it has moved further rightwards. In the latest episode of Radical Thinking, Gove joins Aditya Chakrabortty to discuss the future of the right, his record on Brexit and austerity, and the Spectator’s position on Islam

Watch the full episode with Michael Gove here.

Aditya’s suggested reading:

To read the fruits of Michael Gove’s dalliance with the Marxism Today gang, look up his essay in a 1998 collection called The Moderniser’s Dilemma: Radical Politics in the Age of Blair

For a slalom ride through Michael Gove’s years in power, read The Demented Dalek by the historian Richard J Evans in the London Review of Books

To learn more on what’s become of the British right, there’s a Guardian column by Aditya

Phil Burton-Cartledge analyses in depth why the most successful political party is now failing in his book The Party’s Over: The Rise and Fall of the Conservatives from Thatcher to Sunak

Phil also writes a very good blog on British politics, which keeps a close eye on how each party is trying to marshall a coalition of voters. Here he is on Kemi Badenoch

Geoffrey Wheatcroft does an entertaining short narrative in Bloody Panico!:

or, Whatever Happened to The Tory Party

For more on the economics of the Cameron years, this paper is acute on how the Tories failed to move the UK away from being a country of renters towards a country of makers. Two of its authors will join us for a podcast later in the series.

And if you want to read how Brexit may have cost the UK 8% of GDP, there’s this paper based on data from the Bank of England

Finally, on the Spectator, read Nesrine Malik’s recent Guardian column

Why has Britain’s oldest political magazine become such a rabid cheerleader for Islamophobia?

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© Photograph: James Tindale/The Guardian

© Photograph: James Tindale/The Guardian

© Photograph: James Tindale/The Guardian

A new play revisits the story of Ireland’s 18th-century German refugees, whose experience of prejudice and exclusion resonates with today’s debates over immigration

In the early 18th century, a few thousand Germans fled religious persecution and near starvation in their homeland and ended up in remote rural Irish villages. The Irish Palatines, as they were known, were poor, conservative homesteaders who couldn’t speak the language and were the object of suspicion and violence – precursors to the displaced Syrians or Afghans of the past decade.

Their story is told in Refuge, a co-production between Staatstheater Mainz and the Irish company Fishamble. Part love story, part social commentary, it is performed by a mixed cast, mainly in English but with some German interludes.

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© Photograph: Andreas Etter

© Photograph: Andreas Etter

© Photograph: Andreas Etter

Six attacks in 10 days by suspected Russian drones mark dramatic escalation in maritime conflict

The first the crew of the Bulgarian ferry Dioscuria knew of an attack on a cargo ship in their country’s exclusive economic zone in the Black Sea in the early hours of 6 October was a distant explosion 70 miles off the coastal town of Byala.

The Turkish-owned Alfa Watan, heading for the Romanian port of Sulina, had been struck by suspected Russian air and naval drones. Arriving on the scene, Dioscuria found an overturned lifeboat and lifejackets in the water. There was no sign, however, of Alfa Watan’s crew of 10.

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© Photograph: ARSVOM/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: ARSVOM/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: ARSVOM/AFP/Getty Images

Lena Schilling of Austrian Greens says images are ‘digital violence against women’ and a threat to democracy

An Austrian MEP has spoken out about her experience of being “stripped naked” online without her consent and has urged the EU to take action, as a report found that one in six female MEPs had been targeted by sexualised AI-generated content.

Lena Schilling of the Green party said she had learned last month about nude deepfakes of herself circulating online. When she opened the links, she found herself staring at images from one of her first ever press conferences – but the images had been digitally altered to remove her clothing.

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© Photograph: APA-Images/Alamy

© Photograph: APA-Images/Alamy

© Photograph: APA-Images/Alamy

Tens of thousands of people have taken to the streets across the country to demonstrate against rising fuel prices and the cost of living

• Police clash with protesters as tens of thousands take to streets across France

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© Photograph: Jeff Pachoud/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Jeff Pachoud/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Jeff Pachoud/AFP/Getty Images

Doctors say pontiff is ‘fit for discharge’ after operation to remove cancerous tumour from his lung

• Pope Leo lung cancer surgery: what kind of operation did he have and what happens next?

Pope Leo has been discharged from hospital in Rome after undergoing an operation to remove a cancerous tumour from his lung.

Leo, 71, was deemed “fit for discharge”, his doctors, Luigi Carbone and Stefano Margaritora, said in a statement published by the Vatican.

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© Photograph: Massimo Percossi/EPA

© Photograph: Massimo Percossi/EPA

© Photograph: Massimo Percossi/EPA

Chilean-American author awarded Premio Planeta for sequel to her 1982 debut novel, The House of the Spirits

The Chilean-American author Isabel Allende has won Spain’s €1m (£843,000) Premio Planeta, one of the world’s most lucrative literary prizes, under a pseudonym, with a sequel to her celebrated debut novel, The House of the Spirits.

Allende, 84, won the 75th edition of the award on Thursday with La hora antes del alba, which returns to the characters of her 1982 novel, a multigenerational family saga set against political upheaval in a country inspired by Chile.

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© Photograph: Pau de la Calle/GTRES/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Pau de la Calle/GTRES/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Pau de la Calle/GTRES/Shutterstock

Police fire teargas in Paris and Limoges town hall ‘largely lost’ to fire – with officials blaming violence on ‘ultra-left’

More than 1,800 people were arrested in France on Saturday after protesters supporting high school students clashed with police, with some demonstrations later spiralling out of control as buildings were set ablaze and shops looted.

Police fired teargas in confrontations with protesters, as demonstrations across France were boosted by other groups angry about high prices and the fraying of a social welfare system. While hundreds of thousands protested peacefully in street marches in scores of cities, violent fringe groups targeted public buildings, luxury boutiques and supermarkets and attacked police vehicles and officers.

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© Photograph: Yoan Valat/EPA

© Photograph: Yoan Valat/EPA

© Photograph: Yoan Valat/EPA

Amid blackouts, artillery fire and the onslaught of Russian drone attacks, the Richelievsky in Kherson provides a refuge for those with nowhere else to go

There is one important rule in the Richelievsky, Kherson’s last functioning hotel: close the curtains before dusk. Less than a kilometre away lies the Dnipro, the river that has formed the frontline since Ukrainian forces liberated Kherson in November 2022; Moscow’s troops are on the opposite bank.

In a city where Russian drone operators hunt civilians in what is now widely known as the “human safari”, even a sliver of light escaping through a window may be enough to reveal someone’s location after dark.

Hotel manager Yevhen Emtsov, 46, in the building’s former conference room

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© Photograph: Leo Kramer

© Photograph: Leo Kramer

© Photograph: Leo Kramer

For more than three decades, Michael Gove has been a leading figure in British Conservatism. As a journalist, government minister and now editor of the Tory bible, the Spectator, he has helped shape the right even as it has moved further rightwards. In the latest episode of Radical Thinking, Gove joins Aditya Chakrabortty to discuss the future of the right, his record on Brexit and austerity, and the Spectator’s position on Islam

Watch the full episode with Michael Gove here.

Aditya’s suggested reading:

To read the fruits of Michael Gove’s dalliance with the Marxism Today gang, look up his essay in a 1998 collection called The Moderniser’s Dilemma: Radical Politics in the Age of Blair

For slalom ride through Michael Gove’s years in power, read The Demented Dalek by the historian Richard J Evans in the London Review of Books

To learn more on what’s become of the British right, there’s a column by me for the Guardian

Just why the most successful political party is now failing is analysed in-depth by Phil Burton-Cartledge in his book The Party’s Over: The Rise and Fall of the Conservatives from Thatcher to Sunak

Phil also writes a very good blog on British politics, which keeps a close eye on how each party is trying to marshall a coalition of voters. Here he is on Kemi Badenoch

Geoffrey Wheatcroft does an entertaining short narrative in Bloody Panico!:

or, Whatever Happened to The Tory Party

For more on the economics of the Cameron years, this paper is acute on how the Tories failed to move the UK away from being a country of renters towards a country of makers. Two of its authors will join us for a podcast later in the series.

And if you want to read how Brexit may have cost the UK 8% of GDP, there’s this paper based on data from the Bank of England

Finally, on the Spectator read Nesrine Malik’s recent column in The Guardian

Why has Britain’s oldest political magazine become such a rabid cheerleader for Islamophobia?

Continue reading...

© Photograph: James Tindale/The Guardian

© Photograph: James Tindale/The Guardian

© Photograph: James Tindale/The Guardian

Whether it was youngsters proving their skills or state sabotage, Europe’s most hacked country was left with a mountain of waste after food began cooking in freezers

Shortly before midnight last Sunday, the digital thermostats controlling hundreds of supermarket cold aisles across France began to flicker and rise.

In a “bizarre and unprecedented” cyber-attack, hackers had remotely overridden the temperature settings on thousands of freezers, fridges and chiller cabinets pushing them from as low as -27C (-16.6F) to well over 50C (122F).

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© Photograph: Lucien Libert/Reuters

© Photograph: Lucien Libert/Reuters

© Photograph: Lucien Libert/Reuters

Political and Geopolitical Analysis | October 16, 2026 Azerbaijan’s School Hijab Controversy: A Debate That Goes Far Beyond Religious Clothing Azerbaijan has found itself at the center of an increasingly sensitive debate over secular education, religious freedom, national sovereignty, and the authority of the state. New regulations governing clothing in public schools have triggered demonstrations, […]

Beijing warns against ‘discriminatory’ step after France drops opposition to British role in Made in Europe package

No 10 has left the door open to imposing tariffs on Chinese-made electric vehicles as part of the Made in Europe package, prompting a warning from Beijing that such a move would be “discriminatory”.

Downing Street said on Friday that it would “welcome the objective to have the UK included in the Industrial Accelerator Act” after France dropped its opposition to Britain joining the scheme.

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© Photograph: Nick Carey/Reuters

© Photograph: Nick Carey/Reuters

© Photograph: Nick Carey/Reuters

Depuis 1977, la Cour des comptes agit comme un auditeur externe de l’Union européenne, examinant la gestion financière et le budget de l’Union. Ancien député européen, Pierre Moscovici fut ministre des Affaires européennes puis de l'Économie, avant de devenir commissaire européen aux affaires économiques et financières, président de la Cour des comptes française et, finalement, membre de la Cour des comptes européenne à Luxembourg.

En dépit des difficultés que connait l'Europe, l'Union continue d'attirer des candidats à l'adhésion. De l'Ukraine au Canada, en passant par les Balkans, des aspirants se manifestent, qu'ils soient séduits par les valeurs européennes ou veuillent rejoindre les Vingt-Sept pour des raisons économiques et géopolitiques. Le Royaume-Uni, qui a quitté le club européen en 2020, pourrait même faire son retour.