“For most Albanians, it has always been our dream to join the European Union,” says Etleva Demollari, director of a new museum, House of Leaves, housed in the building that was the ‘Sigurimi’ (secret police) headquarters during the Communist dictatorship. Her own yearning to be included in the European project began when she was growing up in 1980s Tirana. Her city had become the poorest capital in the world: Communism’s biggest economic failure and a reflection of self-defeating isolationism.

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Demollari used to watch Italian TV stations through a reception ‘inverter’ her family had acquired. She was convinced it was the closest she’d ever come to experiencing another country, another way of life. International travel remained illegal throughout the 1980s, a hallmark of Enver Hoxha’s unique dictatorship. Each mile of the Balkan nation’s borders was enforced with bulbous barbed wire.

“Hoxha,” Demollari tells me, “was paranoid that any Albanian who travelled abroad could be recruited as a foreign agent.” Even the revered missionary Mother Teresa – canonised as a saint in 2016 – was considered a security threat in her home country: the Catholic nun was barred from returning from India to visit sick relatives. Meanwhile, some 6,000 Albanians (from a population averaging just two million) were executed for attempting to emigrate or challenge the state. A further 70,000 were interned as political prisoners.

Free elections failed to arrive when Hoxha died in 1985; six years later, then a university student, Demollari was part of a movement that went on to topple a seven-metre-high bronze statue of Hoxha. “We chanted as one: ‘Ne duam që Shqipëria të jetë si pjesa tjetër e Evropës’ [We want Albania to be like the rest of Europe].”

Demollari’s museum conceals chilling insight into the methods of surveillance, interrogation, torture and faux justice employed in Albania from the 1940s – when some assert that the Nazi party’s Gestapo also had a base here – right up until 1991. “It’s for Albanians,” she says “but it’s for foreigners also; to show how Albania was, so they can understand better this part of our identity. The history of Albania is different to the rest of Europe: more harsh, more power [abuse], more isolated.”

The museum was conceived by Albania’s ministry of culture, part of a published mission to achieve cultural integration with Europe. It represents the ultimate soft power play for a government desperate to finally open concrete EU entry negotiations in July, after 10 years of sustained effort to Westernise through condemning past sins.

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By James Bloodworth

A charm offensive has been building since 2006, when the government first accepted and passed a resolution from the European Council that the crimes of the nation’s Communist regime should be “held equivalent” to those of Nazism. Within three years, Albania had formerly applied for membership to the EU. But it took five years for the nation to be officially recognised as a candidate. Until 2014, EU leaders weren’t persuaded that Albania was committed to tackling a problem that the nation seems unable to shake: corruption.

The election of the current government in 2013 was persuasive. The Socialist Party made stern pledges to enact a zero-tolerance policy toward corruption. And six years on, the European Council has recommended fresh assessment of whether the Balkan outpost now recognises the democratic standards it expects of members. A verdict is due this month and formal accession talks are expected to commence in July.

But has Albania’s progress been significant enough? Last year, the US Department of State identified “rampant corruption” in the nation. And just this weekend, thousands of protestors turned out in Tirana, calling for Rama’s resignation – accusing the man who was supposed to save the country from corruption of perpetuating it. In response, the Albanian president, Ilir Meta, cancelled the local elections due to take place on 30 June. He stated that the current politic chaos did not provide “the necessary conditions for true, democratic, representative and all-inclusive elections.”

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Have we forgotten the Czechs – or are we all relativists now?

By Allan Mallinson

The huge demonstrations that have been taking place in the capital for weeks now were born out of long-standing frustration about endemic corruption and cronyism in day-to-day living. These demonstrations began when grievances about the education system came to a head.

Some students are angry about classmates being able to buy better grades. Others fear missing out on jobs to rivals from richer families, who they say they will bribe their way into employment.

Sara Kureta, a 19-year-old philosophy undergraduate, believes the prospect of joining the European Union could help her country to become a truly meritocratic society.

“I don’t have much money and my parents don’t have rich friends so corruption could be damaging for me,” says Kureta. “My friend’s mother paid to get a job as a nurse, which is really scary because you shouldn’t be able to do a job like that if you aren’t qualified to do it.”

“To be in the EU you have to have some common values and for us that will be really positive progress… I see the potential progress in an ethical way, and not in an economic way.”

At the moment, it is not just an alliance of nationalist parties in the European Parliament that is against further expansion of any kind. Broader scepticism remains elsewhere.

Marsida Turku, a medical student who works in ‘BunkArt2’ – another museum commemorating the victims of the Albanian dictatorship – has experienced international hostility. “I’ve been to Italy, Germany and Greece,” she begins. “Many people in these countries think we are still ‘in’ Communism and some that we are in some kind of war.”

“I don’t know why there is this opinion all over the world,” Turku continues. “We are maybe not the most developed country in Europe, but we are trying.”

Plenty of Albanians feel their fate should not rest on validation from the EU. “Some of us think it is unnecessary,” says Turku. I am among them. If we want to do something for our country, we can do so even if we are not part of the Union.”

Which could be just as well. Accession talks are an infamously drawn-out process, and Albania’s image is damaged by every fresh corruption claim. The nation has largely transformed since the grim days of Hoxha. But this month, a decade after Albania’s first bid to join the EU, will it be deemed democratic enough?

It’s election time in East Germany, and I’m talking to my host, Klaus, about those of his friends who had toyed with the idea of voting for the AfD (Alternative for Germany).

“Would you vote AfD?”, I ask him.

“My life is pretty good,” he replies, “Sure, we have problems, but I don’t want to say that it’s all the fault of foreign people. I’m not as angry as my friends really.”

In Leipzig, the faces of polished candidates stare down from the billboards lining the streets. It’s hard to avoid their gaze. It is strange to think that a few generations ago elections here were little more than a sham, an exercise in political legitimisation for the ruling Socialist Unity party and futility for everybody else.

This was once the beating heart of East German industry, and it is here that the far-Right has enjoyed particular success in recent times. Support for the AfD in East Germany is on average more than double that in the West. In this week’s elections to the European Parliament, the AfD was the biggest force in Saxony, winning a quarter (25.3%) of the vote. The party also finished first in Brandenburg.

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As with populist successes elsewhere, the reasons for the AfD’s rise are multifaceted. There is the decline of industry and resultant male resentment. There is the gap between the attitudes of younger city-dwellers and older voters toward multiculturalism and immigration. And there is a tired political establishment – in this case Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union of Germany – that has been in power for nearly a decade and a half.

The AfD has specifically harvested the anger and disenchantment towards foreigners. Its platform is virulently anti-migrant and its leading figures have talked of an “invasion of foreigners”. The AfD even wants to prosecute Chancellor Angela Merkel for her decision to let around 1.3 million refugees into the country, even though migrant numbers have fallen considerably in Germany in the past three years.

The East is receptive territory for such a narrative. Before the emergence of the AfD in 2013 there was the anti-Islam group Pegida. The group would stage weekly marches in the Saxony city of Dresden, attracting up to 20,000 people at their height.

The difference in attitudes to immigration between East and West is significant. According to a recent survey, 66% of respondents in the former East German states are not satisfied that their immigration concerns are being addressed, compared to 46% in the former West German states. There are fewer foreign-born citizens in the East than in the West, yet anger about immigration runs deeper. According to data collected by victim counselling centres, five people in the east fall victim to far-right violence every day. In Saxony, 317 attacks were recorded in 2018, up from 229 in 2017.

The city of Chemnitz was the scene of a particularly violent far-right protest in 2018 after a German man was killed by two immigrants. Protesters clashed with police while some protesters openly saluted Hitler. A 20-year-old migrant in the nearby eastern town of Wismar was beaten with an iron chain by three assailants.

Seemingly, the former communist regime in the East equipped those living within its borders poorly for the multicultural Germany that emerged after reunification. Barriers were put up to prevent its own citizens from escaping so the country remained predominantly German; in West Germany, however, there was a steady flow of migrants into the country from around the world. Discussion of ethnic conflict and cultural differences were suppressed by the Socialist Unity Party and the emphasis laid firmly on class conflict above all else.

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Germany's identity crisis

By Henry Olsen

There are other factors at play in the party’s growth. The economy, for example. But often these are connected with immigration as low-skilled workers compete with immigrants for jobs. Though the AfD did well in areas with strong economic growth, support across Germany was typically stronger in areas with low household income. Those living in the former GDR are statistically several percentage points more likely to be living in poverty than those living in the west of Germany.

Traditional industries have been wound down over recent decades in East Germany and the beating heart of the Eastern economy is slowing. As Chancellor Merkel recently put it, everything changed in East Germany almost overnight, and some people have still not gotten over it. “On the day of the monetary union, 13 percent of the people in the East worked in agriculture,” Merkel told the Augsburger Allgemeine newspaper. “The day after that it was 1.5 percent.”

This may explain the significant component of male resentment playing a role in the new party’s success: one-third of male voters in Saxony cast their ballots for the far-Right in 2017. The competition for low-skilled jobs is significant. But just as significant is the competition for sex. Between 1989 and 2001, 1.2 million people emigrated from East to West Germany. A high proportion of those leaving were young, educated women. As a result, today there is a significant imbalance in the male-female population in the former eastern states and much of the resentment directed at new arrivals on far-right online forums emphasises the protection of German women from foreigners. Indeed visit a nightclub in Görlitz or Chemnitz and this disparity is striking, with far more men on the dancefloor than women.

In a park in the suburbs of Leipzig I met a small group of men who insisted that life for them was better under the ancien régime. “You knew where you were, we had a good life,” one of the men said in between puffs on a cigarette.

It was a conversation that reminded me of similar encounters I had had with retired miners in south Wales. It wasn’t so much the GDR that the men I spoke with missed, just as the miners in south Wales had not actually wanted to venture back down into the bowels of nearby mountains to dig coal. Instead, what they yearn for was the security of the old system, and along with it the respect industrial work commanded for men from the working class.

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Why we can't ignore the working-class identity crisis

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The left-behind, anti-establishment narrative is a familiar one to those watching the rise of populism around the globe. And the AfD have been able to capitalise on the mood in Germany because they have a clarity of message that is missing on the Left. They operate in primary colours, stoking dormant fears of foreign invasion and drawing a crude division between white Europeans and outsiders.

In contrast, Die Linke, a party of the far-Left, is struggling to articulate a coherent Left-wing economic vision 30 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Nobody believes in central planning any more. Nobody wants a return of the bureaucracy and officialdom associated with the overbearing East German state. And only a dwindling number of Marxists still believe in the dream of a workers’ paradise. Indeed, according to surveys, fewer than 15% of the former East Germany’s 16 million people say they would want the pre-89 regime back.

Die Linke is thus forced to grudgingly regurgitate fashionable capitalist bromides. Were it to win power, the party would probably run the economy along similar lines to how it is run now – albeit with higher welfare spending. This is hardly the heady stuff required to inspire a political revolution. Consequently, Die Linke won just 5.5% of the vote across Germany in this week’s elections.

The challenge this all presents to the German establishment is similar to the one facing politicians in Britain: how to placate a resentful rump of the population – predominantly living in small towns and former industrial areas – that sees multiculturalism and the global economy as an existential threat.

Some would argue that Germany’s politicians can safely ignore these ‘left behinds’, confined as they are to forgotten towns and the former industrial belt of a vanished state. Indeed, there may be a ceiling on the level of support the AfD can pick up, as demonstrated by the party’s inability to make significant inroads in the west of the country.

Yet ignoring similar resentments has cost the political establishment in other countries – most notably Britain and the United States – dearly in recent times.

Angry, disenfranchised men are now a noisy and influential minority in many post-industrial areas of Europe and the United States. Germany is no exception. The country’s politicians ignore such anger at their peril.

It’s difficult to overstate the importance of shipbuilding to the Croatian economy. Up to 5% of the working population is employed by the industry, which generates up to 1.8% of the nation’s GDP.

The image of a shipyard worker – standing in overalls before a raft of giant, powerful machines, a hint of azure sea in the background – touches every generation of Croats. It’s a triumphant symbol of the Socialist Republic of Croatia, which, though it ended in 1991 during the breakup of Yugoslavia, is still idealised by many.

Historically, the shipyard and the state have mutually supported one another, but Croatia’s entry into the EU in 2013 changed that: one of the terms demanded by Brussels was that the government stop subsidising the nation’s shipbuilding industry. When Uljanik began to tank, the government in Zagreb did spend exorbitant sums of money issuing state guarantees for unbuilt ships on order, as well as on the salaries of those who work – worked – at the shipyard. But ultimately, the couldn’t intervene to save Uljanik without violating the EU’s principle of free competition.

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Uljanik’s bankruptcy will affect more than 1000 workers. Collectively, they hold almost 50% of shares in the shipyard. But Tihomir tells me they never bothered to take an active role in supervising the work of the management board. They’ve assumed that it’s the EU’s responsibility to deal with their problems while, says Tihomir, “I’m breaking my back trying to contribute to the national budget”.

Tihomir is an entrepreneur, and every kuna of profit he’s earned in the last couple of months will be spent paying this year’s taxes. Cynical about Croatia’s huge public sector, Tihomir declares himself a pro-European liberal. In the impending EU elections, his options are few: the only parties that clearly present themselves as pro-European are the ruling, Right-wing HDZ and two minor Left-wing parties. The other 13 are, more or less, flirting with Euroscepticism.

And doubts about Europe have a long history in Croatia. At the beginning of the century, when the nation was negotiating entry into the EU, Croats were briefly enthusiastic about the economic advantages of joining the union. But the tide started to turn when Brussels put a certain condition on Croatia’s membership: full cooperation with the International Criminal Tribunal for War Crimes in The Hague. The Tribunal demanded the extradition of a few Croatian generals – who’d been accused of war crimes, though many Croats perceived them as heroes. After a highly controversial national debate, the generals were handed over.

And meanwhile, of course, Croats were seething at the idea of the EU instructing their government to stop supporting the shipbuilding industry, which was a source of much national pride.

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By Henry Olsen

So, when Croatia was finally to be admitted, in 2013, the electorate was already showing signs of scepticism. Less than half of registered voters turned out for the referendum on EU accession, meaning only 37% of the total population actively voted to join.

The union Croatia finally joined – after this protracted and fraught negotiation process – was not what it had been. The EU was still reeling from the 2008 financial crisis, meaning the economic advantages Croatians were promised were not forthcoming. For instance the shipbuilding industry, in private hands, has been steadily sinking. The closure of Uljanik seems to be the last nail in the coffin. “Croatia no longer has a shipbuilding industry as of today,” commented the President of the Adriatic Union Boris Cerovac on the news. “If Uljanik is gone, so is shipbuilding.”

But Cerovac blames the Croatian government for the collapse, rather than the EU – reflecting the wider mood of the nation. Croats tend not to blame Brussels for their anticlimactic entry to the EU, but they do blame the Croatian political elites dealing with Brussels.

“This is not so much about Euroscepticism, as is about Cro-scepticism”, says Nino Đula, editor of Jutarnji List (the biggest daily in Croatia) on the election:

“People think that political elites have prevented Croatia becoming Europe enough. Tomorrow, when we will be casting ballots in the European elections, it will be less of a plea about organization of Europe, but whether we consider us a part of Europe”.

Many say they will abstain because they don’t like the idea of casting a vote that would enable corrupt and incompetent elites to enjoy astronomical wages and the high life in Brussels. In the latest Eurobarometer polls (held last month), a mere 17% said they’ll cast a ballot, compared to an EU average of 35%. The poll also suggested that, if a referendum on leaving the EU were to be held tomorrow, only 52% of Croats would vote to remain.

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By Helen Thompson

In other European nations – France, Sweden, Italy – the rise of Euroscepticism has gone hand-in-hand with the rise of far-Right parties; in Croatia, the far-Right has been weak and poorly organised. Its agenda focuses on primitive racism aimed at Serbs and nostalgia for the WWII-era, ultranationalist Ustashe state. Unusually, for a country along the northern coast of the Mediterranean, anti-immigrant sentiment isn’t widespread.

It’s worth noting, however, that the HDZ encompasses a wide range of factions. The party is represented by the moderate Prime Minister Plenković and his team – the so-called “civilized Right”. But the far-Right end of their party harbours nationalists, opportunists and chauvinists– whose voices could potentially get louder.

Meanwhile, the populist Human Blockade, which is the third strongest party in Croatia, is trying to capitalise on the rise of Euroscepticism by making it a more central part of their agenda. Human Blockade’s leader, Ivan Pernar, is known for sporting a t-shirt with the inscription ‘I heart Putin’ (indeed, many suspect that he is, at least partly, funded by Moscow.) If the party wins seats, their MEP (or MEPs) would be in the same group as the Italian Five Star Movement – and they don’t disguise their sympathy for the German far-Right AfD. Denis Kuljiš, a well-known journalist and political analyst, characterises them:

“They are the voice of the desperate, the losers of the transition. They are against Europe, against capitalism, against modernism. They are not entirely insignificant, media like them because they provide a constant stream of ludicrosities, but I don’t consider them a key player”.

Kuljiš is as unconvinced by the pessimistic statistics of Eurobarometer polls as he is by the potential of Croatia’s far-Right:

“People walk around, gibbering, but I haven’t noticed such sentiment in my vicinity. Europe is not particularly trusted, that’s true, as it’s true that tourists would come here anyway and it’s true that people don’t quite understand what’s the use of such a Europe. However, people realize that there is nothing but Europe.

Take Serbia, for example: they think they can choose between Europe and Russia. They are so wrong. Russia is indifferent towards them – yet they don’t know it. In Croatia they know that European Union is the only show in town. Also, everyone is still awaiting some benefit from the EU, money from European funds. Some, on the other hand, love Europe because it provides an opportunity to flee Croatia. Not many here are against Europe.”

But many experts might have said the same thing about the UK, immediately before a majority voted for Brexit – a result that has inspired citizens across the continent to question the received wisdom that the EU ‘is the only show in town’.

And the UK was – is – a key player in the EU, whereas Croatia is the most recent country to become a member. Located on the fringe of the Union, and hometo few citizens who understand what it is or does, Croatia could easily be submerged by the rising tide of Euroscepticism. And this week’s election will tell us whether this rising tide could usher in a stronger, smarter far-Right.

“It’s the most important because of the globalist positioning of Macron,” said Bannon, the globe-trotting anti-globalist, in Paris last weekend. “It’s a referendum on Macron and his vision for Europe. There will be an earthquake when Marine wins on Sunday.”

Macron agrees about the importance of the event, but not Bannon’s seismological forecast. For six months the French president has been bigging up the 2019 European elections as a Good versus Evil choice between his vision of a reformed, “protective”, multi-layered European Union and the menace of resurgent nationalism.

He needs his list to win on Sunday – and opinion polls suggest it will be a close-run thing – to remain the Great Young Hope of pro-European politics. If Macron comes second to Le Pen, while his populist alter ego Matteo Salvini triumphs in Italy, the French president will appear diminished, even ridiculous.

President Macron’s supporters put the argument in a different, more practical way. A victory in Macron’s second face-off with Le Pen – this time a face-off at one remove – would reboot his presidency. It would, in effect, close the troublesome six months chapter of the waning Gilets Jaunes rebellion. It would give him new legitimacy to pursue the remainder of his reform programme, both in France and in Brussels.

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What's driving this French revolution?

By John Lichfield

Defeat for Macron’s party would change nothing in theory; in reality, though, it would mess up the remaining three years of his presidential term. It could revive a flagging Gilets Jaunes movement. It would rebuild Marine Le Pen’s damaged credibility as his principal challenger in 2022. It would cripple his hopes of emerging as the de facto leader of the European Union when Chancellor Angela Merkel retires.

Victory for Marine Le Pen on Sunday would merely repeat her party’s performance in the 2014 Euro-elections It would not make her favourite to win the next Presidential election in 2022. To “win”, or top the poll, on Sunday, she needs 24-25 % of a reduced nationwide vote – the turnout in France this week will not top 45%, compared to the 74% who voted in the second round of the last presidential election. To triumph in the second round in 2022, she needs over 50% of that higher turnout.

Bannon’s “earthquake” claim, though, is overblown. He may be a political genius in the United States. But his knowledge of European politics is sketchy, as he demonstrated in a series of grandiloquent interviews, and rapid retractions, with the French media this week.

The scourge of the international elite was speaking from an 2,500 euros a night suite in the Bristol Hotel near the Elysée Palace (a favoured resort of Hollywood stars and Arab princes). Bannon described himself as an “unofficial adviser” to Marine Le Pen and a source of “information” on her fund-raising.

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By John Lichfield

Macron pounced. He accused Le Pen of being a fake nationalist in hock to foreigners. “I see for the first time,” the President said. “A connivance between the nationalists and foreign interests whose aim is to dismantle the European Union.”

Le Pen denied that she even knew that Bannon was in town. Unfortunately, this proved to be a lie. Two very senior figures in her Rassemblement National party had been spotted leaving the American’s suite.

If Le Pen does fall short on Sunday, Bannon can shoulder some of the blame. But Bannon is also right. The 2019 European elections (and the French section in particular) are more significant than usual.

Macron declared them to be so last November and once again this week – an “existential” battle between rising nationalism and his post-Brexit hopes of a European “renaissance”. His wager was doubled by the rise of the Gilet Jaunes movement in November. The stakes were raised again two weeks ago when Macron declared that he would commit all his “energy” to try to prevent Marine Le Pen’s party from topping the poll on 26 May.

In another country this would have been considered to be a statement of the obvious: political leader says he will try to win an election. In France, though, it was as a risky gambit – or a symptom of panic. Presidents of the Republic, by convention rather than Constitution, are not supposed to lower themselves to “mid-term” electoral politics.

Further reading

Understanding the 'gilets jaunes'

By John Lichfield

Macron had little choice, though. Nathalie Loiseau, the former Europe Minister and career diplomat chosen to head the Macron party list, proved to be an inept and accident-prone campaigner. His centrist, pro-European electorate was showing little interest in the European campaign. So he, in effect, declared the European election to be a referendum on his presidency.

But, as he pointed out in an interview with the French regional press, what else was he to do? “I could not be a spectator,” he said. “I had to be an actor in the most important European election since (the first) in 1979.”

Macron also risks accusations of hypocrisy. He declared the European elections to be all about Europe. Only to then turn them into a personal and domestic duel with Ms Le Pen (even though neither are standing).

Since showing his hand, Macron has done little. He allowed his face to appear on election posters. He made a couple of statements at press briefings on other subjects. He gave an interview to the French regional press. He has yet to appear at a campaign meeting or speak on TV.

For many weeks, the opinion polls gave a slight lead over Le Pen to Macron’s party and its allies. The polls turned against him in early May, narrowed when he entered the campaign, lurched in Le Pen’s favour and have narrowed again in the final days.

Two recent tracking polls give the Rassemblement National 23.5% and Macron’s Renaissance list (La République en Marche and allies) 23%. Of 32 other lists in the fight (including various hues of socialists and nationalists, as well as greens, Communists, royalists, trotskyists, Gilets Jaunes, animalists and “active neutrals”) only the main centre-right list stretches its support as far as the mid-teens.

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The brutal truth about forgotten France

By Douglas Murray

Le Pen’s predicted score is, in all honesty, rather poor. It is slightly below the 24.8% that she secured in the euro elections in 2014. She has gained little from Macron’s unpopularity and the continuing lamentable performance of the traditional centre-Right and centre-Left “parties of government”.

Macron, meanwhile, is struggling to match the 24% that allowed him to top the first round poll in the presidential elections two years ago. But in the final days of the campaign, the news has gone Macron’s way. Does this mean his celebrated luck will save him again?

A series of official figures on jobs and growth suggests that, whatever the Gilets Jaunes may say or do, the French economy is responding positively to Macron’s labour market and other reforms. Unemployment in metropolitan France has fallen to 8.4%, the lowest figure for 10 years. Permanent contract jobs are being created in their tens of thousands. International investment is surging. The French economy is growing more rapidly than Germany’s.

Marine Le Pen, on the other hand, has suffered a series of embarrassments. She was pictured giving an alleged white supremacy hand signal with an Estonian far-right politician and then made the lame assertion that she though that the gesture was an “OK” signal used by underwater divers

The sting operation which brought down her close ally, the Austrian far right leader Heinz-Christian Strache, mirrored allegations that Le Pen’s “France first” party relies on Russian and now American Alt Right funding. Ms Le Pen loyally but foolishly refused to criticise Mr Strache.

But the effect in the opinion polls has been, so far, minimal.

Macron’s problem is that the mildly rising vote for Le Pen in recent weeks has been mostly a vote against him. She is deemed to be the “only woman who can defeat Macron”. And although the Gilets Jaunes movement has subsided, the resentment and anger of a “left behind” Peripheral France remains. Some hard-left and centre-right voters are still resentful at the young upstart’s centrist triumph in 2017. They are tempted to trip up Macron by “lending” their vote to the far Right.

Further reading

The brutal apartheid of the French banlieues

By Peter Franklin

Macron’s own chances of sneaking a victory depend on galvanising his passive, even supine centrist and pro-European vote. Pierre Person, the deputy head of Macron’s LREM party, complained last week that half of the people who voted for Macron in the first round of the presidential election in 2017 showed no inclination to turn out on Sunday.

“We’re chasing 4,000,000 people in our base who appear to be unwilling to vote,” he said.

To try to prize these non-voters from whatever young Metropolitan liberals do on a Sunday, the Macron campaign has resorted to “We Must Block the Far Right” rhetoric rather than a positive appeal to European ideals. A series of senior pro-Macron figures, including the 1968 student leader Dany Cohn-Bendit, have made party political videos warning that Marine Le Pen is part of a concerted, Europe-wide movement to dismantle the EU and return to the nationalist “nightmares” of the past. It’s a French project fear.

If Le Pen’s party does pip Macron’s party to the post on Sunday – and the latest polls suggest that it might – it will be a serious reverse for the President. Even a defeat by a few thousand votes, meaningless in practical terms, would be a humiliation. Not a death blow; but not a good look.

Further reading

Macron's cunning plan for Europe

By John Lichfield

For Marine Le Pen, on the other hand, a victory would be a great triumph – albeit an ephemeral one. As things stand, with the Left scattered and no clear alternative to Macron yet emerging on the centre-right, there will be a “Round Three” between the pair in 2022. This would be fought on terms much less favourable to the far-Right leader.

All the polling evidence suggests that a quarter of French voters are happy to kick the establishment, and especially to kick Macron, in an election with no domestic implications. But they would be unwilling to vote in large numbers for the jumbled, contradictory and unformed policies of the Rassemblement National at a national election which demands a clear majority in the second round.

Whatever the result on Sunday, and regardless of what Bannon says, France is still far from ready to contemplate a President Le Pen.

It’s the Eurovision Song Contest of course. And nowhere is it causing more upset than in Italy.

Soldi [Money], Italy’s entry song, is among the favourites to win this year’s festival of camp. It’s an irresistibly catchy tune by singer-songwriter Mahmood; it was number one in Italy for six weeks. Even now, it’s in the top 10 of the singles charts. The official Italian YouTube upload of the video has passed 80 million views, with remixes featuring well-known DJs; it’s been streamed more on Spotify than any other Italian debut.

But not everyone’s singing along. In fact, Mahmood has been the subject of much political controversy. In Italy, His selection has highlighted the political divisions between a perceived out-of-touch elite and the majority who voted to oust traditional parties at elections last year, ushering in a populist coalition of the far-Right League and anti-establishment Five Star Movement. In its inimitable way, Eurovision is foreshadowing real life and setting the stage for the other European electoral competition happening next week – between those who support the strengthening of the EU project and those who prioritise nationalism.

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The fall of Five Star is bad news for democracy

By Peter Franklin

Though he was born in Italy to an Egyptian immigrant father and Italian mother, Mahmood’s identity as an Italian is being called into question. His entry has also been criticised for not being “Italian” enough. Indeed, it is influenced by traditional Middle Eastern music, using hand clapping and Arabic dialect, and draws on the cultures he grew up with, describing a father who “drinks champagne during Ramadan” and ultimately abandons the family.

Mahmood, according to one critic “is the symbol of total integration … He represents the younger generation that is outward looking”. But according to many other Italians, he should never have been picked in the first place. The choice of such a politically correct multi-cultural candidate was an obvious fix.

The fireworks began back in February, when he was selected as Italy’s entry for Eurovision. This momentous decision takes place at the Festival of Italian Song, commonly known as the San Remo contest. It is a national institution, dating back to 1951, and gets audiences of over 10 million, eclipsing talent shows such as X-Factor. It is beloved of those generations who are most likely to still be watching live television.

Perhaps reflecting the tastes of those viewers, the popular vote on the night went to the young artist Ultimo, who sang a more traditional Italian ballad. It came as some surprise, then, when Mahmood was chosen as the ultimate winner by a panel of judges. There was immediate outrage from the viewers. And then the politicians spotted an opportunity and weighed right in.

Deputy prime minister and leader of the Right-wing League Matteo Salvini was first with a tweet: “#Mahmood…………… meh………… The most beautiful Italian song?!?”

The singer, according to Salvini, had been “used” by the Left, who had exalted him “as the singer of the boat landings… This is a mirror of the country and the opposition between the people and the elite.”

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Luigi Di Maio – leader of anti-establishment Five Star Movement and the other deputy prime minister – joined in, calling for the judges’ vote to be scrapped in favour of a public vote “that counts”. Echoing Salvini, he said that the case “made millions of Italians aware of the abysmal distance between the people and the elite”.

While in other countries, such interest from political heavyweights in a song contest might be cause for head-scratching, the selection came at a critical political moment. The coalition was at risk of collapsing, as Five Star was polling its supporters over a decision to grant Salvini political immunity from prosecution over his detention of a migrant vessel Diciotti.

Five Star did ultimately support Salvini over the abuse of power charges, which allowed the government to endure. But in the run-up to the other European elections, the differences between the two governing parties are being stoked up. Five Star have sought to distance themselves from Salvini’s nationalist rhetoric and have forced the resignation of a senior League MP for alleged corruption.

Since the “government of change” was formed between the two populist parties last year, Salvini, who is in theory the junior partner, has become the most important politician in the country – and, arguably, in Europe. With his strong social media presence and knack for sound-bites, he has consistently set the political agenda; his popularity has been strengthened by his tough anti-immigration stance, blocking the ports and closing refugee shelters.

The vote next week will provide the first major European test for populist parties and immigration remains a top issue for Italian voters. “Immigration was not invented by Salvini, but it affects deep sections in Italian society and, in a time of economic crisis, immigrants are seen as a target,” says Alberto Castelvecchi, professor of political communications at Luiss University in Rome.

The League is projected to win more than 30% of the Europe vote, superseding Five Star, which won the larger vote share in last year’s general election. But Salvini’s party has slipped in the polls over the last few weeks, probably because of infighting, notes Antonio Noto of Noto Polls:

“Italians do not like political conflict, especially between the two governing forces. The voters expect to be reassured by the government, not worried by constant quarrels.”

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Much is riding on next week’s elections, though. If the League takes more of Italy’s 73 European Parliament seats than its rivals next week, it will be a turning point. It could tempt Salvini to force snap elections with the aim of forming a Right-wing coalition with the hard-Right Brothers of Italy and remainder of Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia party.

The ones listening to Mahmood –  the open, European-facing, pro-international cohort – the ones who could swing things in the other direction, are unlikely to turn out to vote. In any use, even if he wins tonight, it’s unlikely his victory would make a dent in the anti-European sentiment pervading Italy.

After all, as Mahmood is belting his tune out to the Eurovision audience in Tel Aviv, Salvini will be at home in Milan, playing a key part in a massive rally of Eurosceptics. Campaigning alongside Marine Le Pen and representatives of Germany’s far-Right AfD, he’ll aim to show that there is unity left in Europe – between those who put their own nations first.

As ever, Eurovision holds the mirror up to real life: during its 50 years of history, it’s always descended into strategic alliances in the national interest. And that’s what we can surely expect from Italy next week.