👋 Inuugujoq kutaa!*
Welcome to Monday, where France’s political establishment is reeling with the far right poised to take control of the National Assembly, arrests are made at Istanbul Pride celebrations and the Vatican has confirmed the first Millennial saint. Meanwhile, German correspondent Christian Putsch reports on the historical reckoning taking place in Benin about the role of Africans in the slave trade.
[*Greenlandic]
💡 SPOTLIGHT
Who to blame for the rise of France’s far right: Macron or the far left?
Unless there is a last-minute twist, the only real issue in the second round is whether the far-right party will have an absolute majority or not. The left seems unaware that its ideas are largely in the minority, writes Dominique Seux in French daily Les Echos.
The election this Sunday is obviously historic: It is the first time that the populist right, the far right, of the National Rally party has come out on top in legislative elections in France. In 2022, they received 18% in the election that immediately followed the presidential election. In the European elections on June 9, it was 31.5%. On Sunday, support was even higher. The mere fact that an absolute majority in next week's second round is possible is entirely unprecedented.
Emmanuel Macron's failure is confirmed. Even if the parties claiming (more or less now) to support him performed better than expected, his camp is in third place, by a wide margin. The "clarification" he was waiting for has worked against him, and everyone who has tried for three weeks to understand his decision to dissolve parliament remains unsatisfied.
It was one man's decision, alone in the vertigo of his solitude.
Beyond that, the responsibility of the radical left in what is happening is also evident. They are a minority in the country compared to the center right (Macron supporters and supporters of Edouard Philippe), the classic center right (LR), and the far right of Marine Le Pen and the National Rally.
But by repeatedly saying that Nicolas Sarkozy was almost a fascist, François Hollande a traitor and Emmanuel Macron an free market extremist and authoritarian, they have muddied the waters and blurred the lines. And that has made everything possible. [...]
— Read the full article by Dominique Seux for Les Echos, translated into English by Worldcrunch.
🗞️ FRONT PAGE
French daily Libération devotes its front page to the results of France’s first round of parliamentary elections, which saw the far right party National Rally (RN) come on top with about 33% of the vote, ahead of the left-wing New Popular Front (28%) and President Emmanuel Macron’s Ensemble alliance (21%). This could put France’s government in the hands of a far-right party for the first time since World War II. However, only 76 candidates were elected outright, meaning hundreds of seats are still to play for in the runoff round next Sunday, with a record number of three-way runoff races. Some politicians are now calling for tactical voting as does Libération, to “stand together against” far-right candidates and “avoid the worst.” Yesterday’s vote marked the highest turnout (69.7%) for a parliamentary first round in the country since 1997.
🌎 7 THINGS TO KNOW RIGHT NOW
• Intense negotiations in France to avoid far right second-round majority. France’s far-right National Rally (RN) party has won in the first round of the country’s snap parliamentary elections. Polls showed Marine Le Pen’s RN may come close to an outright majority in next Sunday’s second round. Much could depend on whether President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist Ensemble alliance, which finished third, will throw its support behind the leftist New Popular Front coalition, which finished second. Read more about the impact of the French election on European politics here.
• Campaigning continues for Iran’s next president. The presidential election in Iran is heading into a run-off next week after reformist-backed Masoud Pezeshkian and hardliner Saeed Jalili emerged at the top but failed to secure a majority in a vote with a record-low turnout. Only 40% of more than 61 million eligible Iranians voted — a new low in presidential elections since the country’s 1979 revolution. For more, we offer this Kayhan-London article, translated from Persian by Worldcrunch: Iran Elections: Lessons In How To Disguise A Voter Boycott.
• South Africa’s new cabinet. President Cyril Ramaphosa announced the formation of a new cabinet over a month after elections stripped his African National Congress (ANC) party of its majority. Ramaphosa named 32 ministerial positions of the government of national unity late on Sunday, following weeks of deadlock that delayed the formation of a governing coalition.
• North Korea fires two ballistic missiles. North Korea has fired two ballistic missiles early Monday, a day after Pyongyang promised “offensive and overwhelming” responses to new military drills staged by the United States, South Korea and Japan.
• Chinese rocket crashes after accidental launch. A space rocket owned by a private Chinese company accidentally launched itself during a test on Sunday, before crash landing into a hillside. Footage on social media shows the Tianlong-3 rocket falling back to Earth and exploding on the hill in central China’s Henan province.
• Hurricane Beryl closes in on southeast Caribbean. The Category 4 storm Hurricane Beryl barrelled across the Atlantic Ocean early Monday toward the Caribbean's Windward Islands, where it is expected to bring life-threatening winds and flash flooding. The first hurricane of the 2024 season was located about 150 miles (240 km) southeast of Barbados on Sunday night, with maximum sustained winds of 130 mph (210 km/h). More about devastating hurricanes and ensuing reconstruction efforts in this recent article from Agência Pública.
• “God’s influencer” becomes first millennial saint. A video-gaming Italian teenager will become the Catholic Church’s first millennial saint after his cause for canonization was approved by church authorities. Carlo Acutis, who died from leukemia in 2006 at the age of 15, was known for using his computing skills to spread awareness of the Catholic faith and earned the nickname “God’s influencer.”
#️⃣ BY THE NUMBERS
$1,600
As part of efforts to rein in record migration, the Australian government has doubled the international student visa fee from A$710 ($474) to A$1,600 ($1,068), starting from July 1. The fee increase makes applying for a student visa for Australia far more expensive than in competing countries such as the UK, which charges £710 ($900). The move has sparked outrage from student representatives who say that the price hike will drive potential students away from the country.
📰 STORY OF THE DAY
Benin reckoning: coming to terms with Africans' role in the slave trade
For centuries, European colonial powers and Arab traders kidnapped millions of Africans as slaves. Local tribes in Benin and other West African countries often helped and became rich themselves. Now the descendants of the slave traders are coming to terms with this troubling history, reports freelance German correspondent Christian Putsch.
🇧🇯 The reckoning with slavery has been part of Benin's coastal town of Ouidah for well over 100 years, understandably focusing long on the disgraceful role of Europeans, who bought at least 12 million African slaves for labor on plantations in the colonies of North and South America. Around two million were shipped from the town’s port. The historical guilt of the Europeans also dominates the debate in the West, where it has been reignited by the Black Lives Matter movement, the toppling of colonial monuments and demands for reparations.
🤝 Less is known about the intra-African slave trade or the involvement of African kingdoms like Dahomey. The kingdom's economy was significantly based on slaves who cultivated the fields even before the arrival of European traders. The highly militarized Dahomey warriors were accomplices to the Europeans, who had them bring the slaves to the coast. European traders considered it too dangerous to conduct their own raids. Dahomey warriors came by ship, brought hundreds of slaves on board — and disappeared.
💬 In recent decades, Benin has also intensively dealt with this chapter of its national trauma. It was first addressed on a larger scale in 1992, during an international conference. A few years later, then Benin President Matthieu Kérékou caused a stir when he knelt before African American religious leaders in the United States to apologize for his country’s historical guilt. This stands out in the region; only Ghana made similar admissions.
➡️ Read more on Worldcrunch.com
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📹 THIS HAPPENED VIDEO — TODAY IN HISTORY, IN ONE ICONIC PHOTO
➡️ Watch the video: THIS HAPPENED
📣 VERBATIM
“This is just a reworking of letting Boeing off the hook.”
— Family members of the victims of the two deadly plane crashes involving Boeing’s 737 Max jetliners reacted angrily to an offer from U.S. prosecutors to the company to plead guilty to criminal fraud in connection to the 2018-2019 incidents. “We are upset. They should just prosecute,” said Massachusetts resident Nadia Milleron, whose 24-year-old daughter died in one of the crashes. The plane manufacturer has until the end of the coming week to accept or reject the offer.
📸 PHOTO DU JOUR
At least 15 people were detained for taking part in a banned LGBTQ+ rally in Istanbul on Sunday. A group of more than 100 people waving rainbow flags and chanting slogans marched for about 10 minutes along Baghdad Avenue before the Turkish police raided the impromptu Pride Parade. The annual event has been banned in Istanbul since 2015. — Photo: Istanbul Pride/IG
👉 MORE FROM WORLDCRUNCH
• Egypt's Racist Targeting Of Sudanese Refugees Can Count On European Support — AL-MANASSA
• Putin's Kharkiv Escalation Was Another Bluff — What Happens Now? — LIVY BEREG
• For Chiquita, Time Is Ripe To Pay For A Long History Of Corruption And Intimidation — EL ESPECTADOR
✍️ Newsletter by Emma Albright and Anne-Sophie Goninet
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