Exclusive: Former Labour leader calls on party to ratchet up scrutiny of Reform in final week of campaign

Neil Kinnock has warned his party not to ignore the nationalist threat posed by Nigel Farage, as concern grows in Labour ranks that Reform UK could pose a long-term threat for them as well as for the Conservatives.

The former Labour leader told the Guardian he wanted Labour to turn its guns on Farage’s party in the final week of the election campaign, saying the populist right could gain a stronghold in the UK as it has across much of Europe.

Readers respond to Barney Ronay’s account of touring Germany for Euro 2024 football games

Barney Ronay’s article resonated very strongly with me (‘On a journey through Germany, the horror of the past lurks close to the surface’, Sport, 22 June). He spoke with clarity on how past horror echoed in his encounters with places and spaces in everyday Germany, from mundane buildings to the seemingly innocent woodland clearing. I too am from a “Jewish enough” family displaced from Nazi Germany. Our family has those seemingly improbable stories of survival, and I sometimes wonder if I should have existed at all.

That Gestapo knock on the door has cast a long shadow and, throughout my “improbable” life, has caused me to ask how this terror arose. I wonder what its harbingers are, so we might not make such terror again. But right now we are witness to it. We can all see it raising its grotesquely mundane yet human head, with larger-than–life characters encouraging us to devalue and demean those who are different.

Marine Le Pen’s party has pledged to boost spending power, slash immigration and restore law and order

The far-right National Rally (RN) has strengthened in final polls, including one suggesting it could be on course for a historic parliamentary majority, as candidates fought for votes on the last day of campaigning before the first-round ballot in France’s most momentous election for decades.

Two days before Sunday’s ballot, two polls on Friday showed Marine Le Pen’s anti-immigration, France-first party pulling steadily further ahead in a race it has led since President Emmanuel Macron called the shock ballot almost three weeks ago after the defeat of his centrists in the European parliamentary election.

With the first round of France’s snap election on Sunday, the president’s allies are desperate to shore up support

Standing in a courtyard framed by the white walls of one of Marseille’s Armenian churches, Sabrina Agresti-Roubache, France’s secretary of state tasked with citizenship, took a deep breath, choosing her words carefully as she addressed a voter who had admitted she was considering switching allegiances to the far right.

Agresti-Roubache, born to a family with Algerian roots, led with the heart, describing how concerns over the snap parliamentary election results had left her elderly mother “in tears” daily. When the tactic proved futile, she changed tack. “When you don’t have power, you can say whatever people want to hear,” said Agresti-Roubache.

Since the attempted assassination of the prime minister, the far right has wasted no time in silencing its critics

Last Friday, I was sitting on the terrace of the cafe of the Slovakian parliament talking to an opposition MP about the government’s assault on independent media. The previous afternoon a law had been passed that puts the public broadcaster, RTVS, under the direct control of the Ministry of Culture.

“It’s part of a cycle. That’s what’s so scary,” Dana Kleinert of Progressive Slovakia told me, pointing also to the abolition of a special prosecutor’s office looking at political corruption and plans to curb public protests. “How far can they go? The answer is as far as they want.” She also noted the withdrawal of funding for LGBTQ+ groups, and the closure of a museum considered to be “putting the future of children in Slovakia in jeopardy”.

John Kampfner is the author of In Search of Berlin, Blair’s Wars and Why the Germans Do It Better

Company accused staff member of ‘aggressive behaviour’ after she raised concerns about far-right group gathering

BrewDog has been accused of sacking an Asian woman after she voiced her distress when members of the far-right English Defence League met in the London bar where she worked.

The former staff member said members of the EDL had gathered unchallenged at the “punk” brewer’s flagship bar in Waterloo, ahead of a rally to mark St George’s Day on 23 April.

National Rally leader says Macron ‘won’t have choice’ but to appoint her protege as PM and he would make decisions on Ukraine support

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Marine Le Pen has said she expects her far-right National Rally (RN) party to win an absolute majority in France’s general election, form a government and take over at least some defence and armed forces decision-making – including on Ukraine.

France’s constitution states that the president is head of the armed forces and chairs France’s national defence committees, but also that the prime minister is “responsible for national defence”, leaving the precise role of the premier open to interpretation.

Scores of highly qualified French citizens from Muslim backgrounds have left the country in recent years

Even as she climbed up the corporate ladder in France, Ophélie Rizki’s after-work routine remained unchanged. Each evening as she got into her car to drive home, she would make a beeline for her headscarf, feeling herself slowly becoming whole again as she covered her hair.

She had never been explicitly told that she couldn’t wear her hijab at work, nor had she asked. But as politicians in France continued to spar over headscarves, two decades after parliament voted to ban them in school, she worried about the impact that choosing to keep her hair covered would have on her career. “You don’t ask the question, you know it’s not something you can do,” she said.

Meloni has not yet commented on revelation of Nazi salutes and antisemitic rants by members of National Youth

Italian opposition parties have rounded on the prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, after an investigative outlet published video clips and messages showing members of her far-right party’s youth wing engaging in fascist chants, Nazi salutes and antisemitic rants.

Undercover reporters from the investigative website Fanpage infiltrated groups and chat forums used by members of National Youth, the youth wing of Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party.

I’ve watched the rise of Trumpism and the National Rally – and the fake narratives about nationhood they peddle to voters

I was waiting for a friend in a bar when Donald Trump was convicted on all counts by a jury of his peers. Naturally, I bought the bartender a shot to celebrate – and, of course, I mentioned it on social media.

That didn’t make someone I know happy. “It’s a shame that people rejoice when a former president gets convicted. The world is laughing at us, Biden is a clown!” they wrote. “Why do you care what happens here. You live in France. You have no idea what we are going through. Gas prices, food prices, crime, 100,000 people a year dying from fentanyl, inflation. If you dislike our country, renounce your citizenship.”

Alexander Hurst is a Guardian Europe columnist

Emmanuel Macron stunned politicians and the public by announcing a snap general election after the far-right National Rally party won about 32% of the French vote. But it wasn’t just in France that the far right was celebrating. In Germany and Austria, parties on the populist right made stunning gains. Despite that, the pro-European centre appeared to have held in a set of results likely to complicate EU lawmaking

• EU elections: populist right makes gains but pro-European centre holds

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