If ever enacted, proposals by Marine Le Pen and the AfD leader, Alice Weidel, to hollow out EU institutions would be a continental act of self-harm

Following the Brexit referendum in 2016, Marine Le Pen was in a predictably celebratory mood. Britain’s vote to leave the European Union, she told one interviewer, was the first breach in the “Brussels Wall”. Ms Le Pen’s Front National party was at that point committed to taking France down the same path, given the chance. But as the UK’s self-inflicted economic wounds became a cautionary tale for the rest of Europe, the notion of Frexit was put on ice.

Instead, Ms Le Pen now hopes to lead far-right allies in hollowing out the EU from within. This month, both she and the leader of Alternative für Deutschland, Alice Weidel, outlined their visions of a “Europe of nations” in which EU institutions would be stripped of both cash and power. Ms Weidel’s “new deal for Europe” would abolish elections to the European parliament, and seek German opt-outs in areas such as migration, defence and common borrowing. Ms Le Pen’s party, now called National Rally, proposes slashing French contributions to the EU budget by 60% over a five-year presidential term, and ending the role of Brussels in proposing common policies for the 27 member states.

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Editorial: As Donald Trump turns his back on the Ukrainian people and his envoy praises Vladimir Putin as a ‘humanitarian’, the rest of Nato must make a stand

Editorial: The slow abandonment of Kyiv by the world’s richest man and its most powerful will go down as one of the most shameful episodes in America’s post-war foreign policy

An electoral supercycle over the next year may redefine the continent’s future. But what’s happening on the streets is shaping it, too

France sneezed, and Europe has again caught the cold. The wave of unrest which began with teenagers at a high school soon drew in hundreds of thousands of people nationwide and then spread across the continent. Protests have filled the streets in Lisbon and Madrid, and have ignited into violence in Milan, Brussels and Tirana as well as in French cities.

French authorities say they are deploying 70,000 officers on Saturday and are allowing only marches organised by unions. They blame hard-left militants as well as opportunistic young perpetrators for last weekend’s destruction and looting, when a minority hijacked largely peaceful protests. But with fuel prices set to rise further over the winter, the demands and participants broadening, and President Macron utterly failing to meet the moment, there is no sign of an end to the wider discontent and no speedy resolution in sight.

As prices keep rising, more of the president’s supporters are asking what happened to the economic good times he promised

It is no great revelation that Donald Trump is enriching himself as president. He raked in $2.2bn in 2025, with his position and his personal interests frequently overlapping. Yet this week’s poll finding that 34% of Republicans (and 66% of all American voters) think that he is using his position to make himself rich merits attention. Separately, voters in a Fox News poll last week put government corruption at the top of their list of concerns – just ahead of inflation and high prices.

Mr Trump pledged that people would be better off if they voted for him. Billionaires are; not the rest. He promised to lower grocery costs (they have risen) and to cut the price of gasoline to below $2 a gallon. It’s more than double that, thanks to his illegal war on Iran. Tariffs haven’t helped. Incumbents struggle when life feels unaffordable, and polling for the Guardian has shown the disenchantment of key voting groups. The gulf between his own prosperity and the lives of his base now looks less like an inspiration and more like an insult. Cash offers seem unlikely to help much.

Voters’ emphatic rejection of separation strengthens Mark Carney’s energy strategy in the face of a US trade war and threats

Canadians are proving to be a voice of sanity. In roundly rejecting the idea of separating from Canada, voters in the oil- and gas-rich province of Alberta sensibly backed the nation-building strategy of the prime minister, Mark Carney. He has put Alberta at the centre of his plan to make Canada an energy superpower that is “much less dependent on the United States”.

Donald Trump’s trade war and threats last week to make Canada the 51st US state were a fillip for Mr Carney in Alberta, a landlocked western province where Liberal prime ministers have historically been unpopular. The stakes were high: a successful separatist campaign would have handed Mr Trump leverage over Canada’s resource belt. The result instead lets Mr Carney cast Alberta’s mineral wealth as a national asset, rather than allow separatists to define it as a regional grievance.

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Russia wants America and China to decide Ukraine’s future without Kyiv. Europe must challenge this dangerous return to diplomacy of the strong for the strong

Does Vladimir Putin know exactly how to play Donald Trump? The history of chummy phone calls, high-profile meetings and attempts to bring Russia in from the cold certainly suggests that Moscow’s thuggish ruler has a hold on this American president. If Mr Trump agrees to negotiate Ukraine’s future with Mr Putin and China’s Xi Jinping without Ukraine at the table, he will have handed the Russian leader a victory before talks begin. The message will be that strongmen are ruling the world and determining the fate of weaker nations.

Ukraine has the right to determine its future. That right cannot be waved away by a self-serving Russian proposal, however much it indulges Mr Trump’s belief that world affairs should be settled by powerful men. The scales are falling from European eyes. Trumpian America is raising doubts about whether it will help deter aggression or even honour its Nato commitments. If Washington now rewards Moscow and pressures Ukraine to accept a raw deal, it would be a betrayal. European governments would wonder where America might be in the future when their own security is threatened.

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Editorial: The easing of US sanctions on Russian oil risks strengthening Putin’s war effort. European leaders must resist a return to appeasement, while a weary Zelensky must go all out to win America back

Editorial: Battered by President Putin’s war of terror and apparently losing crucial support from US intelligence and Elon Musk’s Starlink, Kyiv’s brave citizens are closer to cracking than they have been since the start of the war

Editorial: The agreement to buy diesel from Russia will make the American president look weak and fail to cut the price at the pumps

Editorial: European allies must stay the course and support Kyiv through the winter in the face of threats about Moscow’s capacity to deploy military hardware across the continent