Gavin Mortimer

Marine Le Pen has promised to ban women wearing Muslim headscarves if she becomes president next year. The leader of the National Rally declared on X: ‘I will submit to the French people, by referendum, a bill to combat Islamist ideologies with numerous powerful measures, including the banning of the Islamist headscarf in public spaces’. Le Pen may be out of step with the rest of the political class but she is speaking for a majority of the people France has led the way among European countries on the issue of conservative Islamic dress. In 2004, for example, a law was passed prohibiting the wearing of conspicuous religious symbols in schools. It applied to Christians, Jews and Muslims, but France was accused of using the bill to persecute Islam.

The fight for France is underway. The 2027 presidential campaign began last night as the leading candidates clashed in a live debate on the centre court of Roland Garros. Yesterday's confrontation came on the same day a poll confirmed that Marine Le Pen is streets ahead of her rivals in the court of public opinion. The leader of the National Rally boasts an approval rating of 33 per cent, more than twice that of the left’s Jean-Luc Melenchon. He is on 16 per cent with the centrist former prime minister Edouard Philippe 2 per cent behind. Fourth, on 11 per cent, is Raphael Glucksmann, the leader of the centre-left Place Publique.

France’s under-15s can carry on using social media after a parliamentary ban was struck down by the Republic’s constitutional council on Friday. The ruling is a humiliating blow for Emmanuel Macron, who had championed the legislation from the beginning. It had won the backing of both parliament and the Senate last month but the Council had other ideas. In rejecting the Bill, France’s highest constitutional authority judged that it ‘places a disproportionate restriction on freedom of expression and communication’. Macron heard the news as he enjoyed the surf at his seaside retreat on the Riveria, a break that has already provoked the ire of many. Should the president be gallivanting on a jet-ski when so much of the country is ravaged by destructive wildfires?

European Union interior ministers will hold an emergency video conference on Tuesday to discuss last week’s events in Spain's North African enclave of Ceuta. More than 60,000 Moroccans surged across the border, and although the majority have returned the invasion has traumatised many member states. Who authorised him to speak on behalf of the West? And what hypocrisy to now criticise Italy and Denmark Italy and Denmark initiated the meeting and soon had the support of twenty other EU countries.

Europe is burning. From France to Spain, from Portugal to Greece, and even in Britain, the continent has been engulfed by flames this summer. In France, more than 117,000 hectares have been lost to a succession of wildfires and nearly a quarter of a million people have been evacuated. It’s already been dubbed ‘the worst season of fire in history’. In Madrid, Paris and in other European capitals, politicians argue about the fires – or rather the response to them. The lack of fire-fighting aircraft in France, for example, has been seized on by opponents of Emmanuel Macron’s government. Some of the media have focused on the human aspect: the fact that the majority of the fires have been started by people, either inadvertently or deliberately.

France has become the first EU country to ban social media access for under 15s. The National Assembly passed a Bill on Tuesday evening that will prevent children using platforms such as TikTok and snapchat. The Bill also bans the use of mobile phones in high schools. In a message on X, a jubilant President Emmanuel Macron hailed the legislation and expressed his gratitude to MPs, who approved it by 279 votes to 81. ‘It’s up to the Constitutional Council to rule, then on to action to make this measure concrete and protect our children online,’ he said. Macron would like the legislation to take effect from September, the start of the new school year, but first the Bill will be examined by the Constitutional Council, the highest constitutional authority in the Republic.