FRENCH FAR RIGHT FAILS
A left-wing alliance in France is set to beat Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally in round two of parliamentary elections, shocking observers and throwing the country further into political uncertainty.
At time of writing, early estimates coming out of France show the New Popular Front — a coalition of leftist parties — projected to win the most seats in the 577-seat lower house, putting it ahead of President Emmanuel Macron’s liberals, with the National Rally and its allies forecast to come in third, Politico reports.
Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, representing Macron’s Renaissance party, will resign, as he acknowledged there would now be a “new era for our nation”.
The New Popular Front “includes environmentalist parties, the French Socialists and Communists and the hard-left France Unbowed party”, and named itself “after a similar coalition formed in the 1930s against the rise of fascism in France”, the Associated Press reports.
Le Pen, who is eyeing a run for president in 2027, said victory for her party had “only [been] delayed”, The Guardian reports.
COALITION AHEAD IN NSW
The federal Coalition is ahead of Labor in NSW, according to a new poll, while the opposition has increased its lead in Queensland, where a “virtual three-way contest emerges between the major parties and the Greens for younger voters”.
The Australian reports Anthony Albanese’s Labor still leads in Victoria, Western Australia and South Australia, and nationally on a two-party-preferred vote of 51-49.
In NSW, those numbers are reversed: “The Coalition now leads Labor on a 51-49% basis, having drawn level in the previous quarterly analysis conducted between January and March,” the story says.
Those who are curious how Peter Dutton pulled that off can read an analysis piece in The Sydney Morning Herald by James Massola, delving into the opposition leader’s inner circle: “Eight of his staff once worked for [Tony] Abbott — and he has, so far, approached the job of opposition leader in a similar way, from regular radio spots with 2GB’s Ray Hadley to a negative campaign against Labor’s climate policy.”
ON A LIGHTER NOTE…
Skyhooks guitarist Red Symons had a contemplative column in The Age at the weekend, recalling a recent chance meeting with an “older man” in Melbourne who said he stole the rocker’s guitar in the late 1970s. Symons “never thought the mystery would be solved”, the headline says, but there it was: the unexpected answer, at last, to a decades-long question.
It reminds the Worm of another recently solved instrument theft: Paul McCartney was earlier this year reunited with a Höfner bass that was stolen from the back of a van in London in 1972. McCartney used it on Beatles recordings like “Love Me Do” and “She Loves You”, and was “incredibly grateful” for its return, the BBC reported in February.
Say What?
Can we really prepare for Trump?
Unnamed European ambassador to Washington
From the European Union to NATO, from Ankara to Washington, officials are scrambling to prepare for a possible second Donald Trump presidency. Ukraine military support is being locked in long-term and Republicans are being courted, as countries and organisations attempt to become “Trump-compatible”, if not “Trump-proof”, Politico reports. But as one European top envoy to Washington pointed out, it may be impossible to fully prepare for what will happen.
CRIKEY RECAP
“No-one remembers Joe Bullock. Amid all the coverage of Fatima Payman, not one political journalist recalled another WA Labor senator who was faced with his party supporting a position he couldn’t in good conscience hold.
He resigned from the Senate in 2016 after Labor reached a compromise position on marriage equality at its 2015 conference: that it would be the subject of a conscience vote for two terms but then support for marriage equality would be required. Bullock, a conservative Baptist, said he couldn’t go to the 2016 election, even though he wasn’t up for election that year, backing marriage equality. Some on the left described it as a ‘hissy fit’.”
“They call him the Boa Constrictor. He sets his sight upon his prey — a TV station, a magazine, a publishing house, a West African port — squeezes the life out of it, and then swallows it whole. He is Vincent Bolloré: a billionaire logistics magnate; a maritime monopolist; a corporate raider par excellence; a scion with his eye on the next inhabitant of the Elysée; Rupert Murdoch in a Breton stripe.
He is also, at least in part, the answer to the question people all over the world are asking as French voters flirt with the prospect of electing their first far-right government of modern times: what on earth has happened to France?”
Murdoch’s Sun backed a winning horse in Labour. Will it pay off?
As a former Sun editor argued, supporting the government of the day carries financial incentives for News Corp.
“Murdoch-owned British tabloid The Sun’s endorsement of Labour and Keir Starmer was unusual but should have come as no surprise. It’s about ‘backing a winning horse’, a media expert told Crikey. And as a former Sun editor argued on the social media platform X, supporting the government of the day carries potential benefits for News Corp.
According to the Financial Times, Lachlan Murdoch, the chair of News Corp, ‘took a personal role in deciding to back Labour [and] was in the Sun’s newsroom on Wednesday with editor Victoria Newton‘.The story said editors at The Sun found it particularly difficult to decide on an endorsement in this election: ‘There are lots of negatives this time to endorsing one party in the way it will alienate people,’ an unnamed editor said.”
READ ALL ABOUT IT
Israel says its operation in Rafah is ‘limited’. Fighting there has left parts of it unrecognizable (CNN)
Argentine President Milei heads to CPAC in Brazil, snubbing Lula and escalating a political feud (Associated Press)
Junta chiefs ‘turn their backs’ on West Africa bloc (BBC)
Critic of Tunisia’s President Saied gets one-year prison sentence for televised comments (France24)
As Democrats Fret About Biden, Murphy Says He Must Address Voters’ Concerns (The New York Times) ($)
Minister rejects Blair’s ID card call two hours after refusing to rule it out (The Independent)
THE COMMENTARIAT
Labor bleeds younger voters to Greens and loses middle Australia — Simon Benson (The Australian) ($): “Labor has a serious primary vote issue. Not that the Coalition doesn’t either. But falling over the line into government in 2022 has not solved a longer-term problem for Labor that is becoming ever more apparent, if not worse.
This leads to one inescapable and obvious conclusion. Its reliance on left-wing preferences to form future governments is becoming ever more profound. The possibility of a Muslim-based party campaigning against it complicates this fact even further. While Labor’s average primary vote is at 33%, its highest level of primary support among any age group is 35%.”
How Keir Starmer can learn from Anthony Albanese’s missteps as he tries to rebuild Britain — Marc Stears (Guardian Australia): “Like Anthony Albanese’s Labor party in 2022, Keir Starmer’s Labour party went into this election as a firm favourite. It had, after all, led the Conservative government by over 20 points in opinion polls ever since Liz Truss’ disastrous 49 days as prime minister in 2022.
But Labour so rarely wins elections in the UK — only three Labour leaders have won parliamentary majorities in its over hundred year history — and bitter defeats have often replaced expected victories before, as in 1992 and 2015. What has made this time different, though, has been the complete and utter collapse of the Conservative party, which went far beyond the collapse of the Liberal party in Australia. Rishi Sunak was no Scott Morrison. Whereas Morrison had a proven track record as an election winner, Rishi Sunak was entirely untried at the beginning of this campaign.”
