Merde / Merda / ScheiΓe / Shit
10 June 2024 at 05:00
Last week's EU parliamentary elections have resulted in big wins for right (and far-right) parties across the continent, with inflation- and migration-driven campaigns seeing late surges in support from Giorgia Meloni's Brothers of Italy to Geert Wilder's Party of Freedom to the extremist (and Nazi-curious) Alternative for Germany. Most notable was the unprecedented success of Marine Le Pen's hard-right National Rally in France, whose demolition of the ruling centrist coalition was so complete that President Emmanuel Macron has unexpectedly dissolved the legislature and called for snap elections later this month in a high-stakes bid to disrupt the national-populist wave. Not all is grim for the left -- socialist parties held their own in multiple nations, proudly illiberal Viktor Orban's Fidesz fell short of projections against a rising PΓ©ter Magyar, and France's two-round system has reliably kept the far-right out of power. Still, this week's results have massive and troubling implications for climate change, Ukraine, and a swath of other critical issues.