[Discussion] European Politics Discussion

French President Emmanuel Macron has said that schools in France are being threatened by the "scourge of antisemitism" after a 12-year-old Jewish girl was raped in what police said was a hate crime.

According to French media, the girl told police she had been in a park in Courbevoie, north-west of Paris, with a friend last Saturday when three boys - two aged 13 and one aged 12 - approached her. She knew at least one of them.

The victim said the boys dragged her away to an isolated location before hurling antisemitic abuse at her and raping her.

The boys were arrested on Monday and two of them were charged with gang rape, antisemitic insults and violence, and issuing death threats.

French media also reported that one of the attackers threatened to kill the girl if she went to the police.

In response to the attack, people took to the streets on Wednesday to protest against anti-Semitism, carrying banners including one that read: "It could have been your sister."

Mr Macron talked about the Courbevoie attack during a Council of Ministers meeting on Wednesday, where he meets with the members of his government.

He asked the Minister of Education, Nicole Belloubet, to ensure that over the next few days schools hold a dialogue on the topics of racism and hatred of Jews to prevent "hateful speech with serious consequences" from "infiltrating" classrooms.

Ms Belloubet later wrote on X: "There is no limit to horror... Rape, antisemitism: every part of this crime is revolting."

Prime Minister Gabriel Attal called the attack "absolutely despicable, unbearable and unspeakable".

"Unfortunately, since 7 October, antisemitism has been on the rise again in our country," he told TF1.

Chief Rabbi of France Haim Korsia said he was "horrified".

"Justice must firmly punish the perpetrators of this despicable act. No one can be excused from this unprecedented antisemitic surge," Mr Korsia wrote on X.

A January 2024 report by the Council of Jewish Institutions in France (CRIF) said there had been a 284% increase of antisemitic acts in France between 2022 and 2023.

It also said that nearly 13% of such acts last year took place in schools. A significant spike was reported in the wake of the 7 October Hamas attacks against communities in Israel.

France is in the middle of a heated election campaign after President Macron called a snap parliamentary election two weeks ago, and politicians from all sides were quick to weigh in.

Jean-Luc Mélenchon, leader of the far-left France Unbowed (LFI) party, denounced "antisemitic racism".

Marine Le Pen, the president of the far-right National Rally (RN), urged voters to keep in mind the "stigmatisation of Jews by the far left" when they go to the polls later this month.

Her protegee, Jordan Bardella, said if elected he would "fight the antisemitism that has been plaguing France since 7 October".

Macron condemns antisemitism after Jewish girl is raped

Someone needs to tell young folks everywhere in the developed world that if it isn't for immigration and lots of it they are going to be stuck being the f*ckwits without a chair when the music stops on retirement funding.

Paleocon wrote:

Someone needs to tell young folks everywhere in the developed world that if it isn't for immigration and lots of it they are going to be stuck being the f*ckwits without a chair when the music stops on retirement funding.

Why threaten them with something that is absolutely going to happen to them anyways? Only boomers and (to a lesser degree) gen-x still think retirement is a thing anyone not already wealthy gets to do.

While the 40-hour work week is still officially in place, employers are permitted to require staff to work up to two unpaid hours per day for a limited period in return for more free time.

In theory, this additional work is voluntary. In reality, however, workers in many businesses and workplaces are forced to work longer hours without receiving any form of compensation.

The posters strung across the street in Montreuil, east of Paris, were still fluttering in the breeze days after the stage, the microphones and the politicians at the launch of France’s newest political force had gone.

Here, out of the smouldering ashes of the country’s bickering left, a coalition had risen to take on the far right.

The Nouveau Front Populaire (New Popular Front; NFP) is a tetchy alliance of Socialists (PS), Greens (EELV), Communists (PCF), hard left Insoumises (Unbowed; LFI), and other red-banner candidates that polls suggest is the country’s best – if not only – hope of staving off a Rassemblement National (National Rally; RN) majority government in the final round of legislative voting in two weeks.

For France’s Socialists, allying with LFI after its outspoken leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s insults and attacks on the man who led their European campaign, Raphaël Glucksmann, has been a bitter pill to swallow. But swallow it they must, Glucksmann says, if they are to win what he calls “the mother of all battles”.

“It’s complicated … I’m not going to tell you it’s a marriage of love,” he said of the left’s new coalition.

The coalition has agreed to divvy up constituencies to ensure no leftwing candidate stands in opposition to another. But its launch in Montreuil last Monday evening was tense, coming after the shock announcement that five LFI MPs had been deselected, including the town’s outgoing MP Alexis Corbière, after criticising Mélenchon. Corbière and his partner, Raquel Garrido, LFI MP in the neighbouring Seine-Saint-Denis constituency, who was also dropped, are now standing as independent NFP candidates.

Establishing a programme for the hastily created NFP hydra, most of whose heads loathe each other, has involved even more pill swallowing and compromise.

What it has come up with is a manifesto to increase the minimum wage; freeze the price of essential goods and energy; abolish the pension age rise to 64, reducing it back down to 60; and tax rises on income, property, wealth and inheritance. It has denied opponents’ claims that this will cost between €100-200bn, but has yet to produce its own figure.

Émeric Bréhier, the director of the Observatory of Political Life at the Jean-Jaurès Foundation thinktank, said the left had been forced to rise above considerable political differences by the prospect of an RN majority in the 577-seat Assemblée Nationale.

“Separately they risked losing and letting the RN and Emmanuel Macron’s party through; by joining forces nationally the aim is to get as many [NFP] candidates as possible into the second round,” Bréhier said.

“The RN hasn’t put a foot wrong in this campaign … it has gained credibility and made people think it’s another normal party. It is saying things people want to hear. To fight it, the left has had to cooperate and compromise to form an alternative political force,” he said.

Macron, who called the snap election, has presented his centrist alliance as the only political alternative to Marine Le Pen and the RN’s president, Jordan Bardella. Polls suggest otherwise. A poll for Les Echos by Opinionway on Saturday suggested the RN was still well ahead with 35% of intentions to vote in the first round, followed by 28% for the NFP and 22% for Macron’s coalition. Those questioned said their priorities were the cost of living, immigration and social protections.

Nigel Farage was born to be a TikTok star. He joined the platform in March 2022, announcing “it’s got to be done, it’s where it’s at” in a video that has been watched more than 600,000 times. He is still one of the first politicians to bother taking the platform seriously, and it is paying him vast dividends. The Guardian reported last week that Farage is outperforming all other UK parties and candidates on TikTok in terms of engagement and average views, according to data from 22 May to 17 June.

Farage has been prolific in his output since his election candidacy was announced. He posted several times a day for the first two weeks of his campaign, flooding the algorithm with short, characterful videos that resonate powerfully with his fanbase. The recipe to his success is clear: he’s willing to be opinionated, comical and – most compellingly in British politics – himself.

You don’t need to be silly on TikTok, but it is where buffo politicians can excel. Much of the ire surrounding political campaigns this summer has focused on the humourlessness of Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer. As the PM and the likely PM elect, they can’t really afford to take things lightly, but combined with their robot soundbites it has meant that they come across looking as if they have the emotional spectrums of kitchen cabinets.

t’s in this ecosystem where Farage’s TikToks – particularly his comic ones – are racking up the views. One in 10 British adults use TikTok as a source of news – putting it on par with the Guardian in 2023 – but many, many more will use it as a source of entertainment. Farage has scored hundreds of thousands of views for saying his milkshake brings all the people to the rally, for sharing his Brexit club classics playlist on Spotify and for having fun shooting some clay pigeons. His big 2.6m hitter commenting on some “lovely melons” was reminiscent of Giorgia Meloni’s bizarre melon video, which got 11.3m views at the time.

Europe’s populist right understand the value of comedy but less extreme politicians are completely inarticulate about it. Not only does it humanise them, it games the algorithm to promote content that has absolutely nothing to do with their political agendas. The high view counts of the comedy material ensures that the videos about their political agendas are more likely to appear on users’ For You pages, even if they’re less effective.

And in terms of crafting the videos, Farage is an astute content creator. You can tell if someone benefits from making shock-jock material if they focus on pushing out shorter content – plenty of his videos are barely even six seconds long. But Farage doesn’t need long content. Making longer TikToks normally demands explanations and storytelling craft to maintain attention. He knows that saying something short and shocking is enough to get support and shares from those he targets.

This is a business of unforgiving video retention rates, with a video’s success dictated by how many people not only stick around to watch the first five seconds, but who go on to watch right until the end. TikTok audiences will love to watch him and hate to watch him, and the shorter the video, the more likely it is it will loop, guzzling in rewatch time. His content will use all of this nourishment to prosper, and be boosted on TikTok’s powerful recommendation algorithm.

A look through Farage’s posting history shows he hasn’t been afraid to experiment. There are videos made to look like fan edits, explainer formats and behind-the-scenes footage of the campaign trail, showing an agility and appetite for throwing stuff at the wall and seeing what sticks. He has a 23-year-old rightwing creator now assisting him, and he will also be emboldened by cross-pollination with Reform UK’s active TikTok following, too.

Mainstream media outlets have done some worthy questioning into whether some of Reform UK’s online support may come from bots, or automated fake accounts. This is a question that needs an answer, but even raising it may result in real supporters feeling alienated, and supporting the content even more fervently. Agencies exist to investigate dark PR such as this; if Reform UK doesn’t pay for such an investigation, one of its opponents soon will.

The overwhelming majority of British politicians do not have even 1,000 followers on TikTok. Farage, an anti-mainstream media figure who is constantly protesting about his lack of platforming, always stood the most to gain from an app such as TikTok: it’s a place you can build a platform with nothing other than a personality. When governments were busy toying with TikTok bans and kicking the app around like a geopolitical hot potato, the likes of Farage were already in the dressing room getting prepared.

Now, in the throes of an election campaign in which political parties took their time getting on board with social media, other candidates are hurriedly trying to make TikTok content from square one. I imagine Farage doesn’t care; he is already basking in the spotlight.

Greece has controversially introduced a six-day working week for some businesses in a bid to boost productivity and employment in the southern European country.

The regulation, which came into force on July 1, bucks a global trend of companies exploring a shorter working week.

Under the new legislation, which was passed as part of a broader set of labor laws last year, employees of private businesses that provide round-the-clock services will reportedly have the option of working an additional two hours per day or an extra eight-hour shift.

The change means a traditional 40-hour workweek could be extended to 48 hours per week for some businesses. Food service and tourism workers are not included in the six-day working week initiative.

The pro-business government of Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has said the measure is both "worker-friendly" and "deeply growth-orientated." It is designed to support employees not being sufficiently compensated for overtime work and to help crack down on the problem of undeclared labor.

Labor unions and political observers have sharply criticized the move.

A spokesperson for Greece's embassy in London was not immediately available to comment when contacted by CNBC.

Prederick wrote:

Welp, hope Election Day goes well, UK friends.

...whatever the hell that ends up meaning. :lol:

Well, an end to 14 years of Conservative government. Not that I think Starmer is going to be quite what people are hoping for.

I also suspect that the Conservatives don’t get quite the beating a lot of people are expecting.