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Le Pen wins first round of French elections

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The first round of the snap National Assembly elections, called by French President Emmanuel Macron following his heavy defeat in the European Parliament elections, took place on 30 June.

According to preliminary results, Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) party came first with around 33% of the vote, while the New Popular Front (NFP) came second with 28%. Macron’s alliance, All Together for the Republic (Ensemble), received 21% of the vote, while the conservative Les Républicains received 10%.

If no candidate in a constituency wins an absolute majority (more than 50% of the votes cast) in the first round, a run-off election is held.

This is the case in most constituencies. According to preliminary results, only 39 candidates from the RN, which has 297 MPs, have won an absolute majority in their constituencies.

The second round will take place on 7 July and will be between the top two candidates from the first round. However, any candidate who received the votes of at least 12.5 per cent of registered voters in the first round can also participate in the second round. The candidate with the most votes in the second round wins the seat, even if there is no absolute majority.

Therefore, even if the RN were to win the first round, it is currently uncertain whether they would have an absolute majority (289 seats) in parliament.

Le Pen wants ‘absolute majority’

Le Pen declared that her party had “practically wiped out” Emmanuel Macron after winning the first round of the election.

Speaking after the results were announced, Le Pen said she would seek an “absolute majority” in the second round of voting next Sunday.

Addressing her supporters after the polls closed, Le Pen said: “Democracy has spoken and the French have almost wiped out the Macron camp and put the RN and its allies in the lead. We need an absolute majority so that [RN leader] Jordan Bardella can be appointed prime minister within a week,” she said.

Le Pen was re-elected as MP for Hénin-Beaumont in the first round after winning more than 50% of the vote.

‘No vote for the RN’ statement by Mélenchon

Jean-Luc Mélenchon, leader of France Without a Front (LFI), the main party of the New Popular Front (NFP), said on Sunday that Macron’s alliance had suffered a “heavy and undeniable” defeat in the snap elections and called on the French people to vote against the far right.

The LFI leader said he would withdraw his candidates in constituencies where his party came third and the RN was leading ahead of the run-off.

“Our instructions are simple, direct and clear. Not one more vote, not one more seat for the RN,” Mélenchon said.

The LFI leader also called on voters to give “an absolute majority to the New Popular Front”.

“The country will have to make a choice,” Mélenchon said in a statement from his party’s campaign headquarters. He argued that the options for Sunday’s second round were “either the New Popular Front or national unity”.

Macron calls for a ‘broad alliance against the right’

For his part, Macron called for a “broad alliance” to prevent the victory of the “extreme right”.

“The time has come for a great, openly democratic and republican rally against the National Rally for a second round,” he said.

Prime Minister Gabriel Attal argued that “not a single vote should go to the National Rally”.

Warning that “the far right is on the verge of power”, Attal said his party would abandon its candidacy in 60 constituencies to support “republican” candidates against the RN.

Demonstration against the RN in Paris

Meanwhile, thousands of people took to the streets of Paris to protest against the RN’s victory.

“I’m really worried about the far right coming to power,” Alban, a 23-year-old student who requested anonymity, told POLITICO. Alban said they still had a week to go and would “keep fighting”.

Reuters later broadcast video of protesters setting off fireworks as they marched through Paris. BFMTV reported that 200 police had been deployed in Lyon to deal with the protests.

The ‘security cordon’ has collapsed and will collapse again

A week of political bargaining will now begin as centre and left parties decide whether to withdraw from individual seats to prevent the RN, long excluded from mainstream French politics, from winning a majority.

In the past, when the RN has made a strong showing in the first round of voting, centre and left parties have joined forces to prevent it from taking office under a principle previously known as ‘cordon sanitaire’.

After Jean-Marie Le Pen, Le Pen’s father and the decades-long leader of the RN’s predecessor, the National Front, unexpectedly defeated Socialist candidate Lionel Jospin in the 2002 presidential election, the Socialists threw their weight behind centre-right candidate Jacques Chirac, giving him a landslide victory in the second round.

Marine Tondelier, leader of the Greens, seen as the more “moderate” part of the NFP, made a personal plea to Macron to withdraw from some seats to prevent the RN from winning a majority.

“We are counting on you: withdraw if you come third in a three-way race, and if you don’t make it to the second round, ask your supporters to vote for a candidate who supports republican values,” Tondelier said.

Bardella hits Popular Front, not Macron

In his speech last night, RN leader Jordan Bardella, who wants to become prime minister if his party wins on 7 July, did not criticise Macron’s camp, but instead attacked the National Front.

Bardella said the New Popular Front was “an existential threat to the French nation” and accused the NFP of wanting to disarm the police and open France’s borders to migrants, and of having “no moral limits”.

“It is time to give power to leaders who understand you, who care about you,” the RN leader told voters.

AfD wants RN to win

The RN also received support from the Alternative for Germany (AfD), from which it had recently distanced itself.

AfD leader Alice Weidel said she hoped for a decisive victory for the RN in the French parliamentary elections, although she acknowledged that there was a rift between the parties that would be difficult to heal.

Weidel told the Financial Times that she was “hopeful” for the RN and optimistic that its leader, Jordan Bardella, would become France’s youngest ever prime minister.

Weidel said he had “full confidence in Bardella and the RN’s ability to shake up their country”, while Bernd Baumann, leader of the AfD in the Bundestag, said the RN’s popularity showed that the entire European right “has the wind in its sails”.

“Giorgia Meloni, Marine Le Pen, the FPÖ in Austria, all this is a confirmation for us and shows that we are on the right side of history,” Baumann said.

But Weidel conceded that the AfD and RN had little chance of overcoming the dispute that led to their expulsion from the Identity and Democracy (ID) group in the European Parliament in May, following a series of scandals involving the German party.

Weidel said the AfD was looking for new partners and was trying to form its own group.

Weidel also insisted that he had “no grudge” against Marine Le Pen, the RN’s parliamentary leader.

EUROPE

Likud deepens ties with European right

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The “International Conference on Combating Antisemitism”, organized by Israeli Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli in Jerusalem on March 26-27, has sparked controversy in Europe.

Chikli, who has previously fostered relationships between Israel and his Likud party with some controversial figures, has invited individuals such as Jordan Bardella, president of the French National Rally (RN) party; Marion Marechal, a French Member of the European Parliament formerly associated with RN and Reconquête!; Charlie Weimers, a Member of the European Parliament from the Sweden Democrats party; Milorad Dodik, president of the Republika Srpska in Bosnia and Herzegovina; and Hermann Tertsch, a Member of the European Parliament from the Spanish right-wing Vox party.

Following the leak of the guest list to the press, several prominent figures expected to attend from Europe announced their withdrawal. These included the Chief Rabbi of Britain, Sir Ephraim Mirvis; British politician and antisemitism advisor Lord John Mann; Goldsmiths University professor David Hirsh; French “philosopher” Bernard-Henri Levy; and the German antisemitism commissioner, Felix Klein.

Mann told The Jewish News, “The quality of some of the dissenting politicians speaking is not high enough to make me drop competing priorities.”

Hirsh made a similar statement, saying, “The UK has nothing to learn about fighting antisemitism from these characters. The agenda includes a number of far-right speakers who associate themselves with anti-democratic and anti-equality movements.”

Hirsh argued that “anti-democratic thought is fertile ground for antisemitism” and that the best way to undermine antisemitism is to “support democratic thought, movements, and states.”

Levy, a staunch defender of Israel, was scheduled to be a keynote speaker at the event. However, the French figure told Le Monde that he had informed Israeli President Isaac Herzog that he would not attend due to the “far-right” guests.

Germany’s antisemitism commissioner, Felix Klein, told Haaretz that he was unaware of the guest list when he confirmed his participation and canceled after seeing who would be speaking at the event.

Volker Beck, a former member of the Federal Assembly, also announced his non-attendance, stating on X, “If we associate ourselves with far-right forces, we discredit our common cause; this also contradicts my personal beliefs and will negatively impact our fight against antisemitism in our societies.”

European Jewish Congress (EJC) President Dr. Ariel Muzicant also sharply criticized Chikli on Tuesday. In a letter sent to The Jerusalem Post, Muzicant said, “For 80 years, we have been fighting antisemitism, Holocaust denial, and the aftermath of the Shoah.”

Muzicant pointed out that far-right parties in Europe are the biggest opponents in this fight, stating, “Many officials and leaders of these parties have supported Holocaust denial, promoted antisemitic codes and expressions, and fought against anti-Nazi laws.”

Muzicant wrote that although some far-right politicians now claim to support Israel, “The motivation of far-right politicians to come to this conference is not love for Israel or protecting Jews, but mainly to get a kosher certificate. And we, Jews or Israelis, should not be used as a kosher certificate.”

The EJC President described the conference organized by Chikli as a major problem for Jewish communities in Europe, arguing that it harms Jewish existence in the diaspora, “as if members of the Israeli government are stabbing them in the back.”

Muzicant emphasized that far-right movements in Europe often oppose liberal democracy, the rule of law, human rights, and freedom of the press.

Knesset Aliyah [the name given to Jewish immigration to Palestine] and Integration Committee Chairman Gilad Kariv (Democrats) called on Monday for the government to abandon the practice of inviting politicians from parties with what he described as “definite antisemitic roots.”

In a letter to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar, Kariv wrote that the invitation “constitutes a deviation from the long-standing policy of Israeli governments and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and directly contradicts the positions and policies of the representative organizations of Jewish communities in these countries and on the international stage.”

Kariv claimed, “The invitation of these representatives is particularly shocking, considering that it concerns an international conference on combating antisemitism, which is supposed to be held under the auspices of the president and the prime minister.”

Kariv argued that “inviting representatives of extremist parties with antisemitic roots undermines the foundations of Israel, the Jewish people, and the international fight against antisemitism,” adding, “It damages the fabric of relations between the State of Israel and Jewish communities in the diaspora and may harm Israel’s strategic relations with Western allies and leading political parties.”

Kariv added, “This step weakens Israel’s leading role in the global fight against antisemitism and represents a disturbing and dangerous regression to the current and future challenges of the Jewish people, as well as many Jewish communities around the world.”

Kariv argued that even though these parties express support for Israel, they should still not be given “an international stamp of approval.”

Chikli’s open support for the European “far-right” is receiving condemnation from European countries.

In December, Romania’s Ambassador to Israel condemned Chikli for holding a phone call with presidential candidate Calin Georgescu, who praised Romanian leaders who condoned the deaths of 280,000 Jews during the Holocaust.

French President Emmanuel Macron also complained to Prime Minister Netanyahu about Chikli after he openly supported Marine Le Pen’s presidential candidacy from the National Rally in the recent elections.

In recent weeks, Chikli also attended the “Make Europe Great Again” conference in Madrid, led by the Spanish Vox party.

Chikli’s party, Likud, also joined the Conservative Political Action Committee’s (CPAC) recent meeting as an “observer member,” one of the most important platforms of the national conservative movement in the West.

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Germany to cut budget amid armament preparations

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Germany’s likely next conservative chancellor, Friedrich Merz, said budget cuts should be discussed during coalition talks with the Social Democrats. This statement came after the announcement of a historic armament and infrastructure spending package.

Merz, of the CDU, said the next German government would have to cut costs despite the proposed 500-billion-euro debt-financed fiscal package.

“We will have to reduce costs at the federal level, at the state level, and in local communities. The margins have not become larger,” Merz told German public broadcaster ARD.

The landmark fiscal package also includes easing Germany’s constitutional debt brake on borrowing.

The spending plan is also supported by the Social Democratic Party (SPD), which is continuing coalition government talks with the CDU/CSU after last month’s early election.

The package includes investments in defense and infrastructure. The package requires a two-thirds majority in Germany’s lower house, the Bundestag, and upper house, the Bundesrat, to pass. The package has already been approved by the Federal Assembly Budget Committee.

The Greens, who initially opposed the package, are expected to vote in favor of it because 100 billion euros have been allocated to combat climate change. Merz hopes the constitutional amendments will be adopted before the new Federal Assembly takes office on March 25.

Some members of the Federal Assembly are planning to apply to the Federal Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe to block the vote on the multi-billion-euro fiscal package scheduled for Tuesday.

Independent member Joana Cotar has filed a lawsuit with the Karlsruhe court for the second time, demanding that the vote be postponed. The Constitutional Court confirmed on Sunday that the case had been accepted.

Three members of the Federal Assembly from the business-oriented Free Democratic Party (FDP) also said they would file an emergency application with the court, arguing that there was not enough time to publicly discuss the package’s impact on society.

According to FDP financial expert Florian Toncar, the current German government, consisting of the SPD and the Greens, has failed to answer “very simple and basic questions” regarding the package.

On the other hand, Merz also said that coalition negotiations with the SPD would involve “very difficult conversations” about much-needed reforms and what he described as “possible savings in the federal budget.” Merz argued that they would have to save money.

Referring to when Germany’s new coalition should be formed, Merz said it was too early to say and added, “We have not reached the end of the discussion. We have not yet reached the point of setting a date [for the new government].”

Merz wants to be chancellor before Easter in mid-April, about 50 days after the early election.

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UK and EU discuss confiscating Russia’s frozen assets

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According to Bloomberg, officials from the UK and the European Union (EU) are exploring legal and financial avenues to confiscate Russia’s frozen assets, following its military intervention in Ukraine.

This topic is on the agenda for today’s meeting in London between UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy and EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Kaja Kallas.

Sources speaking to Bloomberg noted that preparations for the potential confiscation of Russian assets are ongoing, despite opposition from some European countries, including Germany and Belgium.

These countries believe that seizing Russian assets could violate international law norms and affect the euro exchange rate.

The assets of the Central Bank of Russia held abroad were frozen after the start of the war, totaling over 260 billion euros.

A significant portion of the frozen assets is held in the Euroclear depository in Belgium.

The confiscation of Russia’s frozen assets has been discussed repeatedly for over three years since the start of the war.

However, so far, only the use of income from interest on these assets has been decided, and this income is being directed to support Ukraine.

EU officials have stated that there is no legal basis for the direct confiscation of the assets.

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