Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez appeared this Wednesday, May 7th, before the Congress of Deputies to explain the April 28th power outage, which left all of Spain without electricity for 12 hours and also affected Portugal and other countries.
However, far from offering clear answers, the leader opted for a self-congratulatory speech, full of self-praise and empty of substance, which has generated more indignation than reassurance among citizens and the opposition.
Ten days after the incident, the causes of the power cut remain unclear. Red Eléctrica has ruled out the cyberattack hypothesis for days, a conclusion supported by the CNI, INCIBE, and European institutions, but Sánchez’s government keeps working groups open to investigate both technical errors and possible digital threats.
Meanwhile, the affected companies and harmed households are still waiting for an official report, which could take three to six months. This could complicate any claims for damages, estimated at over 4.5 billion euros. The left is clearly a master of political timing.
The blackout has not only raised alarms about the vulnerability of Spain’s electricity system but also reopened an uncomfortable debate for the government: Is the current energy model sustainable? The Partido Popular (PP) and VOX have harshly criticized the government’s stubbornness in refusing to reconsider the planned nuclear shutdown scheduled for 2027–2030. For the center and the right, depending on interconnections with France and Morocco, as happened during the crisis, is a sign of strategic weakness that endangers Spain’s energy sovereignty.
Meanwhile, Sánchez boasts about the country’s leadership in renewable energies, ignoring the fact that, in critical moments, the combined cycle (gas) plants took on nearly half of the electricity generation needed to restore supply.
In his speech in the Spanish parliament Sánchez solemnly proclaimed that “Spain will not deviate even a millimeter from its green model.” Not even his own Socialist bench seemed convinced: the applause was scarce, and the opposition wasted no time in reacting.
Alberto Núñez Feijóo, leader of the PP, reminded the PM that “the fourth-largest economy in the euro zone will not tolerate what happened without resignations” and called for direct accountability in the Ministry of Ecological Transition and Red Eléctrica. Santiago Abascal, leader of VOX, was even more forceful: he demanded Sánchez’s resignation—sarcastically renaming him “Pedro Chávez”—and accused the government of ignoring warnings about the risk of a blackout.
Far from assuming responsibility or considering a shift in energy policy, Sánchez squandered a crucial opportunity to regain the citizens’ trust. He preferred to lock himself into an ideological narrative, refusing to acknowledge that a balanced energy mix, with renewables, yes, but also with nuclear and gas, is indispensable for a modern country that cannot afford to depend solely on the sun and wind.
[L] Laura Holstein, [R] Doris Lange of Ladies First.
A 29-year-old trans-identified male is suing a women-only gym in Erlangen, Germany, after being denied membership. Laura Holstein, formerly known as Nicolas, has filed a discrimination lawsuit against Doris Lange, the owner of Lady’s First Fitness Studio, after repeated rejections of his membership. A court hearing is expected to take place in the near future.
In addition to the fitness studio lawsuit, Holstein is also taking legal action against several German media outlets. With support from the publicly funded nonprofit organization HateAid, he is seeking to prohibit the publication of his former name, any photographs of him, and what he describes as “misgendering” in press coverage.
As previously reported by Reduxx, Holstein made headlines last year as the first trans-identified male athlete to compete in Bavarian women’s football. He was granted approval by the Bavarian Football Association (BFA) to play in the women’s district league for SG Effeltrich/Hetzles. Grit Labahn, head of policy at the BFA, defended the decision, stating that Holstein’s hormone therapy had sufficiently reduced his muscle mass, eliminating any presumed physical advantage.
A balding trans-identified will be allowed to play in a women's football league in Germany, months before he is set to change his legal sex to "female."
Players have been warned that they may be punished for "transphobic" remarks about Laura Holstein.https://t.co/eReYRlKBJA
Concerns arose among female football players, some of whom were minors, over Holstein’s use of the women’s locker room while playing for SG Effeltrich/Hetzles, according to a report by the Y-Kollektiv podcast. In an effort to defuse tensions, the team implemented a shower schedule for the women’s facilities, giving Holstein special times to use the showers separate from the women and girls. Holstein reportedly failed to adhere to this schedule. Team coach Christian Wagner defended Holstein, warning players that any comments deemed discriminatory toward his “trans identity” could lead to suspension.
In March of 2024, Holstein applied for membership at “Lady’s First,” a women-only fitness studio in Erlangen. To address concerns about his membership, he reportedly offered to wear swim trunks in the communal shower area. However, the proposal drew sharp criticism from some members.
“Imagine the scene,” one client told the news outlet NiUS. “He’s standing there in swim trunks while women come out of the shower naked. How does he think this is going to work? It’s unimaginable to me.”
The studio’s owner, Doris Lange, ultimately rejected Holstein’s membership request, citing the need to protect her clients. She noted that 20 percent of her customers are Muslim women who rely on the space remaining female-only. Holstein responded by posting a negative review online, accusing the gym of disrespecting him. He then contacted the Federal Anti-Discrimination Agency.
Following the complaint, Ferda Ataman, Germany’s Federal Commissioner for Anti-Discrimination, demanded €1,000 in compensation on Holstein’s behalf, arguing the rejection violated the country’s General Equal Treatment Act (AGG).
A women's gym in Bavaria has been ordered to pay a balding trans-identified male €1000 in compensation after refusing to allow him in the showers.
The Federal Commissioner for Anti-Discrimination ruled that Laura Holstein had suffered "personal injury."https://t.co/2XRmMRGjTC
Supported by her lawyer, Dr. Christoph Franke, Lange refused the payment, asserting that her decision was justified to protect her clients.
But Holstein quickly escalated his complaint. His lawyers, Friederike Boll and Katrin Giere, demanded €2,500 in damages and threatened a €5,000 penalty if Lange continued to deny him access. Lange responded by filing a negative declaratory action to have a court confirm that Holstein had no right to membership. However, this action was overtaken by Holstein’s lawsuit, which is set to be heard at the Nuremberg-Fürth Regional Court, as reported by the German press agency.
Alongside the lawsuit against the fitness studio owner, Holstein is pursuing legal actions against media outlets that report on his birth name or sex.
The Frankfurt Regional Court, at Holstein’s request, ordered the deletion of an episode of the Hoss & Hopf podcast in which Holstein was referred to as a man and prohibited hosts Kiarash Hossainpour and Philip Hopf from using male pronouns, under threat of fines up to €250,000 or imprisonment.
Against the news portal NiUS, the court issued a preliminary injunction in July 2024, banning the designation of Holstein as a man. However, the injunction was lifted due to a procedural error, as it was not served to NIUS’s legal representative. According to Legal Tribune Online (LTO), the court’s press chamber emphasized at the start of its reasoning about the procedural error, that it upheld its legal assessment.
A further injunction from Holstein ordered NiUS editor-in-chief Julian Reichelt to remove a post on X dated November 15, 2024, in which he announced the lifting of a prior injunction and used an unpixelated photo of Holstein and called him a man.
“We may […] once again and continue to refer to the man who wanted to enter the women’s locker room as what he is: a man! The preliminary injunction has been LIFTED!” The now-deleted post is accessible via archive.
Holstein was represented by HateAid, a Berlin-based nonprofit organization that has supported victims of so-called “online hate speech” since 2018 with process cost financing, despite “hate speech” not being a criminal offense in Germany.
The organization is funded by the Federal Ministry of Justice and the Federal Ministry for Family Affairs with more than €1 million annually (approx. $1.09 million USD).
Holstein’s legal team has threatened journalists with cease-and-desist notices for “misgendering” or disclosing his name, asserting that such actions infringe upon his personal rights. The online magazine Tichys Einblick received correspondence from Holstein’s lawyers stating that they are prohibited from publishing even a pixelated photo of him and that: “Misgendering constitutes an inadmissible expression of opinion, as a result of which our client’s personal rights are violated.”
In addition to being represented by the taxpayer-funded organization HateAid, Holstein is raising funds for his legal battles under the pseudonym “Monica Weiß,” a name his lawyers employed in communications with WELT to conceal his identity and cast him in a positive light.
He is seeking financial support to defend himself “against discrimination” and what he describes as “prejudicial reporting” while advocating for his “human rights as a woman” in the face of “transmisogynistic narratives.”
Germany’s Conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party has moved closer to the left-wing Die Linke party.
On May 7, Thorsten Frei, Minister of the Chancellery and right-hand-man for newly-minted German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, said in an online interview with TV station n-tv.de that the CDU would start internal talks on abolishing the so-called “incompatibility resolution”.
“We are in a situation where we have to re-evaluate one question or the other,” Frei told the interviewers.
“We have to talk about it together. At the end of the day, it is about finding pragmatic solutions for our country. The well-being of the country is always more important than the well-being of the party,” he added.
In 2018, the CDU had adopted a party resolution precluding any “coalition and other form of co-operation” both with Die Linke and the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) party. Die Linke is the legal successor to the Socialist Unity Party (SED), the one-time state party of the former German Democratic Republic (GDR), which ran from 1949 to 1990.
As the CDU wrote in a document explaining its 2018 resolution: “The SED was responsible for the totalitarian dictatorship in the GDR … Political enemies and dissidents were not only spied upon and persecuted but also murdered in the GDR.… How can anybody ask the CDU to co-operate with the SED’s successor party which has never really distanced itself from this injustice?”
Despite that, after Friedrich Merz unexpectedly lost the first vote in the German Bundestag to become chancellor on May 6, the CDU had quickly to organised a two-thirds majority. This was necessary to change the rules of procedure so that there could be a second round of voting on the same day, instead of at least three days later.
The CDU and its coalition partner the Social Democratic Party (SPD) could only obtain such a “supermajority” with the support of either Die Linke and the Greens party or the right-wingers from AfD.
As both the CDU and the SPD were adamant not to vote together with AfD, the left-wing was the only option.
Merz was finally elected Chancellor in a second round of voting in the afternoon of May 6 with a slim majority of 325 of 614 votes cast.
Publicist Boris Reitschuster surmised on X on May 7 that the abolition of the incompatibility resolution was the price the CDU had to pay for the Left’s consent.
Journalist Ulrich Reitz said on news outlet FOCUS online that Die Linke was “the winner of the day”, even though it was calling for the abolishment of capitalism and a systemic revolution.
Alice Weidel, leader of the AfD, on X on May 7 accused the CDU of making a pact with the Left, calling it “the next great betrayal not only of the voters, but of our country”.
Operation Sindoor: Nine terror camps destroyed including Lashkar base training Kasab and Headley (Image: Dall-E)
India had suffered repeated horrifying Islamic terrorist attacks sponsored by Pakistan before it struck back. Despite what you see in the media and hear from politicians, India’s strikes on Pakistan were light and understated. But you wouldn’t know that from the replay of the usual way the media covers India and Israel.
India struck terror targets. Unfortunately, in Pakistan, from Osama bin Laden on down, Islamic terrorists have have ties to the Pakistani Islamic terrorist regime. And Islamic terrorists have long since learned to play the victimhood game.
Despite what you might see on social media, this isn’t WWIII. (Ukraine and Russia also wasn’t WWIII. So beware of people predicting WWIII at the drop of a hat.) But India is sending an important and overdue message. And our elected officials should be standing with India, rather than playing the both sides are bad game, and \no amount of betrayals ever seems to convince U.S. government officials to stop cozying up to Islamic terrorists.
Cardinals Walter Kasper and Godfried Danneels, two prominent members of the Saint Gallen Group. Wikimedia Commons , Carolus, CC-BY-SA-3.0
Heterodox Cardinal Walter Kasper claimed that the “St. Gallen Mafia,” a group revealed by Cardinal Godfried Danneels’ biographer and dubbed by Danneels himself as a “mafia,” is “an invention of journalists.”
In an interview with the Swiss newspaper Blick on Sunday about the approaching conclave, Kasper — who according to a papal biographer was himself a member of the St. Gallen group — attempted to dismiss prior attestations that a group of cardinals and bishops met regularly in St. Gallen as part of a conspiracy to elect Jorge Bergoglio as pope.
Karim Schelkens, who co-authored the authorized biography of Danneels, affirmed in a 2015 interview, “The election of Bergoglio was prepared in Sankt-Gallen, without doubt. And the main lines of the program the Pope is carrying out are those that Danneels and Co were starting to discuss more than 10 years ago.”
Danneels said the term “mafia” was used by the prelates themselves: “The Sankt-Gallen group is a sort of posh name. But in reality we said of ourselves, and of that group: ‘The Mafia.’”
This past Sunday, Kasper instead insisted: “At the suggestion of Cardinal Carlo Martini from Milan, there was a discussion group of friendly European bishops and cardinals who met once a year after Christmas in St. Gallen. We have exchanged about our pastoral experiences and problems and the situation of the Church – but never about who the future Pope should be.”
“The circle was dissolved after the election of Pope Benedict in 2005 and as such no longer existed at the election of Pope Francis in 2013,” Kasper continued.
Kasper, who even before Amoris Laetitiapushed for divorced and civilly remarried persons to receive Holy Communion, on Sunday affirmed his support for Francis’ agenda of change for the Church, which orthodox Catholics point out includes the acceptance of mortal sin under the pretext of being “pastoral.”
“In my impression, most cardinals want to continue on Francis’ path,” said Kasper, who expressed gratitude that Francis accomplished “a lot,” but noted “he couldn’t finish” his goals.
Papal biographer shows objectives of St. Gallen mafia align with program of Pope Francis
One of the best sources of information on the St. Gallen mafia, papal biographer Austin Ivereigh, describes objectives of the “mafia,” which clearly align with Francis’ program for the Church. Ivereigh was well situated to know the St. Gallen mafia’s inner workings, since he served as the former assistant of Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor. In his biography of Francis titled The Great Reformer, Ivereigh described Murphy-O’Connor as part of the “core” of the St. Gallen group from its beginning.
In his biography of Francis, Ivereigh wrote that the St. Gallen group was formed in the late 1990s due to “growing concern” about a “position” that “looked to some critics as if it were harking back to the days before the Second Vatican Council”: the position that there is “only one ‘Magisterium,’ or teaching authority, in the Church, and that the universal church is ‘ontologically prior’ to the local church.”
The St. Gallen group considered this traditional position to be opposed to true “collegiality,” which Ivereigh describes as one of its most fervently desired goals for the Church. According to Ivereigh, collegiality is a kind of joint authority wherein the bishops help govern the church cum et sub Petro — with and under the Pope. In his idea of collegiality, the “local Church shar(es) in the governance of the universal Church.”
The Synod on Synodality, initiated under Francis, can be seen as a major avenue toward this vision of collegiality.
The self-described “mafia” lamented the lack of Church collegiality as an obstacle to evangelization, as well as to “Christian unity.” Something as fundamental as the “assertion of papal power” after the Reformation, Ivereigh wrote, was “cited as a major stumbling block” by leaders of the “reformed or orthodox traditions.”
This radical and heterodox take on collegiality was articulated by Kasper himself in opposition to a 1992 document by Cardinal Ratzinger.
Ivereigh explained that Kasper argued “in a widely published article in December 2000” that Cardinal Ratzinger’s position “became ‘really problematic when the one universal Church is identified with the Roman Church, and de facto with the Pope and the Roman Curia,’ describing it as ‘an attempt to restore Roman centralism.’”
What Kasper objects to, then, is perennial Catholic doctrine.
Ivereigh said Kasper “went on to argue that collegiality was vital to resolve pastoral questions such as the admission of divorced and remarried persons to Communion, as well as making credible the Catholic invitation to unity with other Christians. Progress on unity depended, he argued, on this recognition of the value of the local Church. ‘The ultimate aim is not a uniform united Church, but one Church in reconciled diversity.’”
In other words, a decentralization of the Church, aka “collegiality,” will permit a departure from unchangeable Church teaching on faith and morals.
It is noteworthy that, according to Ivereigh, “the phrase ‘reconciled diversity’ was one Bergoglio adopted in Buenos Aires when discussing relations with other Christians and other faiths.”
Ivereigh explained that these early concerns of the St. Gallen group carried into discussions during the conclave after Pope Benedict XVI’s resignation. “There was much talk of reform of governance … and for fluid contact between Rome and the local Church,” Ivereigh wrote. He quoted Vatican spokesman Fr. Federico Lombardi as telling journalists on March 9, a few days before the papal conclave, that “collegiality had been ‘a constant theme in these discussions.”
In a September 2017 article for The Tablet, Ivereigh described Murphy-O’Connor as a “kingmaker” in the conclave that elected Pope Francis. Ivereigh said the cardinal was “proud to have opened that channel for the Holy Spirit to get to work.”
Some Catholics, such as Father Giorgio Maria Faré, believe Francis’ election was doubtful because four members of the St. Gallen Mafia in particular — Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, Kasper, Danneels, and Karl Lehmann — conspired for years to make Francis the pope in order to start a revolution in the Church. The priest added that this conspiracy would violate articles 79-82 of Pope John Paul II’s motu proprio on electing a new pontiff, Universi Dominici Gregis.
Tom Cotton, Wikimedia Commons,U.S. Senate Photo Office,PD US Congress
U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Tom Cotton (R-AR) asked Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard to keep the American intelligence community from cooperating with Germany over its “police state” activities against the anti-mass migration party, Alternative for Germany (AfD).
While the right-wing populist AfD has become popular amongst Germans and topped a national poll for the first time in the party’s history last month, reports out of the European nation revealed that police officers may face expulsion if they are found to be AfD members after a spy agency classified the party as being “right-wing extremist.”
Leaders in the states of Hesse and Bavaria have announced that they will examine whether to ban civil servants, including members of the police, for being affiliated with the AfD, the Bildnewspaper reported Saturday.
That announcement came just a day after the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) intelligence agency officially classified the party as being a “right-wing extremist” organization for its views on mass migration’s negative impact on Germany, Breitbart News reported.
In a letter to Gabbard exclusively obtained by Breitbart News on Tuesday, Sen. Cotton wrote:
I understand that liberal elites on both sides of the Atlantic loathe the AfD, but AfD’s platform has resonated with many Germans. Unsurprisingly so, since an agenda of strong borders, energy independence, and economic growth has appealed to our own electorate and many other Western democracies.
“Rather than trying to undermine the AfD using the tools of authoritarian states, Germany’s incoming government might be better advised to consider why the AfD continues to gain electoral ground and how Germany’s government can address the reasonable concerns of its citizens,” the intelligence chair continued.
Cotton went on to ask the DNI to “pause the sharing of intelligence” that could be used to target the AfD.
The letter signaled Cotton’s support for Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, with both having spoken out against Germany for going after the party in Friday social media posts:
Germany just gave its spy agency new powers to surveil the opposition. That’s not democracy—it’s tyranny in disguise.
What is truly extremist is not the popular AfD—which took second in the recent election—but rather the establishment’s deadly open border immigration policies…
The AfD is the most popular party in Germany, and by far the most representative of East Germany. Now the bureaucrats try to destroy it.
The West tore down the Berlin Wall together. And it has been rebuilt—not by the Soviets or the Russians, but by the German establishment. https://t.co/Un6suHtSNJ
“Germany just gave its spy agency new powers to surveil the opposition. That’s not democracy—it’s tyranny in disguise,” Rubio wrote in response to BfV’s classification of the AfD as a “right-wing extremist” group.
“What is truly extremist is not the popular AfD—which took second in the recent election—but rather the establishment’s deadly open border immigration policies that the AfD opposes,” the secretary continued. “Germany should reverse course.”
Vance replied to Rubio’s post, remarking, “The AfD is the most popular party in Germany, and by far the most representative of East Germany. Now the bureaucrats try to destroy it.”
“The West tore down the Berlin Wall together. And it has been rebuilt—not by the Soviets or the Russians, but by the German establishment,” the vice president added.
In a statement justifying the move, the BfV specifically cited the AfD’s stance towards immigration, specifically from Muslim countries, as being “not compatible with the free democratic basic order” of Germany:
This can be seen in the large number of statements made on an ongoing basis by leading officials of the party that are hostile to foreigners, minorities, Islam and Muslims. In particular, the ongoing agitation against refugees and migrants promotes the spread and deepening of prejudices, resentments and fears towards this group of people.
The devaluation of the aforementioned groups of people is also reflected in the generalised use of terms such as ‘knife migrants’ or in the general attribution of an ethnoculturally determined tendency to violence by leading members of the AfD.
According to a senior congressional official who spoke to Breitbart News, “Senator Cotton made clear that the Intelligence Committee has the Trump Administration’s back: Germany will pay a serious price for spying on its populist party the way that James Comey and [the] corrupt Obama Administration spied on the Trump campaign.”
Pakistan-born Ayesha Khan, known for her far-left militancy and openly hostile statements towards Germany and its people, has been naturalized as a German citizen in an official ceremony held at St. Paul’s Church in Frankfurt. Khan, 27, obtained citizenship alongside around 800 other people in a process that has sparked intense public debate.
Khan, who arrived in Germany in 2016, has used the social media platform X under the pseudonym Migrantifa, from which she spreads provocative messages and co-hosts the podcast “[un]deutsch” with Dîlan Karacadag. The show addresses social and political issues from a migrant perspective, often challenging the foundations of traditional German identity.
Khan has drawn attention for a series of posts considered openly anti-German. Among them are messages such as: “You know those people who say ‘if God exists, why is there war?’ I ask: if God exists, why do Germans exist?”, “Fortunately, Frankfurt will soon be completely de-Germanized,” and “Almans [Turkish slang for Germans] are trash.”
She has also attacked the white population, endorsing statements like: “Being white IS a defect,” to which she affirmatively replied: “YES.” The activist has not limited herself to insults but has also issued explicit threats. In 2020, she wrote: “When I have a German passport, I’ll finish you all” and “When I get the German passport, it’s over for you,” barely four years after her arrival in Germany.
An analysis of her X account shows that the word “Pass” (passport) appears more than 30 times, reflecting her obsession with obtaining German citizenship despite her repeated expressions of disdain. Among her posts are phrases like: “I had a German passport in my hand and thought about keeping it and running away” and “My wish for Germany: give me money and a German passport.”
Political background
In addition to her social media activity, Khan has been affiliated with the ÖkoLinX party (Die Ökologische Linke), founded by former Green Party members Jutta Ditfurth and Manfred Zieran. The activist was actively involved in radical left-wing protests and ran in 2021 for the Frankfurt city council, although her candidacy was rejected because she did not hold German citizenship at the time.
Khan initially claimed to have British nationality, which would have facilitated her naturalization, but it was later discovered that she also held a Pakistani passport, complicating the process. Ultimately, after nearly a decade, she obtained German citizenship, a milestone celebrated by Ditfurth on X.
Khan’s case adds to other recent controversies surrounding Germany’s immigration policy. In 2023, German-Iranian writer Behzad Karim Khani published an article in Berliner Zeitung in which he stated that migrants will not only remain in Germany but will end up “inheriting” the country, referencing the aging native population. In that piece, Khani wrote: “We are here not just for your pensions but to make sure the Aryan nightmare never becomes reality again in this country.”
New polls in France showed National Rally (RN) President Jordan Bardella gaining traction, outperforming even his political mentor and de facto party leader Marine Le Pen.
While the findings were broadly positive for RN with the French presidential elections still two years away, Bardella’s rising popularity could stir tensions within the party, especially as Le Pen — long positioned as its frontrunner — has been barred from standing by a court ruling.
Both Le Pen and Bardella consistently scored between 32 per cent and 35 per cent in first-round voting intentions across multiple scenarios.
Bardella, just 29 years old, has emerged as a formidable second-round contender, according to the new IFOP survey released on May 5.
Some other polls even suggested he could win by a significant margin against centrist figures such as former prime minister and Horizons party founder Édouard Philippe or fellow former PM Gabriel Attal of the Renaissance party.
In head-to-head matchups, Bardella was projected to defeat Attal (52 per cent to 48 per cent) and Republicans party interior minister Bruno Retailleau (53 per cent to 47 per cent), while tying with Philippe.
By contrast, Le Pen, tested only against Philippe, would lose, 48 per cent to 52 per cent.
🔴 EXCLUSIF : la plus grande enquête électorale depuis 2022
Voici la synthèse de notre sondage réalisé avec @IfopOpinion auprès d'un échantillon inédit de 10 000 personnes
— Hexagone – La France en chiffres (@Hexagone_org) May 5, 2025
That development was potentially politically explosive. Le Pen has spent decades reshaping the RN, even ousting her own father from the party to achieve this, while positioning herself as a legitimate presidential candidate.
Her prospects for 2027 were put in jeopardy due to her conviction for embezzling European Union funds on March 31, giving her a five-year ban from holding public office pending an appeal in summer 2026.
Although party officials publicly maintained she remained their preferred candidate and expressed confidence in her appeal, Bardella’s polling numbers may cause some to reconsider.
On the centre-right, Retailleau was the strongest performer for the Republicans but would struggle to surpass 10 per cent if Philippe entered the race.
The left remained fragmented. Two figures — de facto leader of La France Insoumise Jean-Luc Mélenchon plus either MEP and Place Publique party member Raphaël Glucksmann or left-wing French MP François Ruffin — appeared capable of making an impact.
According to the IFOP poll, in a Mélenchon versus Glucksmann scenario, Glucksmann lead slightly (15 per cent to 13 per cent). When Mélenchon was pitted against Ruffin, he held a narrow edge (12 per cent to 10 per cent).
Still, volatility remained high: Some 28 per cent of respondents said they had no intention of voting in the second round of the presidential election. The robustness of the IFOP survey was underscored by its large sample size, approximately 10,000 participants.
Bardella’s appeal has been rooted in his youth, media fluency and ability to connect with younger voters. A TikTok sensation with millions of followers, he has helped modernise the RN’s image. His working-class background in the suburbs of Paris enhanced his outsider credentials in a political landscape often dominated by elites.
Critics, though, have warned that his lack of experience — he has never held major office — could prove a liability in a presidential campaign.
While Le Pen has spent decades building political capital, Bardella’s rapid ascent may be seen as premature.
Nonetheless, the RN was now closer than ever to the Élysée Palace, driven by public concerns over immigration, security, and the economy.
Yet the second round remained the party’s major hurdle, with France’s traditional “republican front”, a broad anti-RN alliance, still capable of blocking a right-wing presidency.
Some French observers speculated that the poll was made intentionally with this discord in mind, as it was commissioned by Conservative billionaire Pierre-Édouard Stérin.
According by the news magazine Journal Du Dimanche on May 3, tensions within RN were already rising before the survey.
French National Rally President Jordan Bardella has confirmed he would step forward as a presidential candidate if de facto chief Marine Le Pen were unable to run. https://t.co/XpuvV7Ptbx
Spain has seen an alarming rise in sexual violence over recent years, culminating in a record-high number of rapes, which reached 5,206 incidents in 2024, according to new official statistics from the Ministry of the Interior.
With an average of 14 rapes per day across the country, the figure nearly triples the 1,878 cases reported in 2019 when five daily incidents were reported. The upward trend has remained consistent year-over-year since 2018, aside from a brief dip during 2020 due to Covid-19 restrictions.
Regional breakdowns show that communities like Catalonia, Madrid, and Andalusia report the highest numbers, although increases have been noted throughout all regions of Spain. Cases involving minors, nightlife-related assaults, and attacks perpetrated by groups of offenders are also on the rise. The grim reality presented by these numbers translates to a woman being raped every hour and 45 minutes in Spain.
Remix News reported in November last year on a La Rázon report that revealed 91 percent of those convicted of rape in Catalonia are foreigners, with immigrants comprising just 17 percent of the region’s total population.
When it comes to sexual assault and rape combined, 64.2 percent of inmates are foreign nationals.
As reported by El Español, the rapid increase in sexual violence has overwhelmed specialized police units such as the Family and Women’s Care Units (UFAM) of the National Police and the Women-Minor Teams (EMUME) of the Civil Guard, both reporting understaffing and resource constraints. Officers within these units indicate that they are working beyond capacity, often handling a significantly higher workload than a decade ago without adequate support, training, or compensation.
Government officials have partly attributed this increase to more women coming forward and make no reference to the dramatic rise in mass immigration into Spain over the past decade. However, the continuous surge raises difficult questions about the effectiveness of initiatives such as the “Only Yes Means Yes” law, designed specifically to curb sexual violence.
Elena Ramallo, a Spanish campaigner battling violence against women, took to social media to criticize the El Español report for failing to address an obvious factor.
“Not a single reference in the entire article to the identity of the aggressors,” she wrote.
Ni una sola referencia en todo el artículo a la identidad de los agresores.https://t.co/RX3tkFZ4Uc
Police unions, however, have cited multiple factors contributing to this trend, including what they describe as “influence from cultures that undervalue women,” deteriorating societal values, and growing youth gang violence. The unions called for preventive measures, such as education on consent and bolstering police resources to cope with the epidemic.
Amid mounting public and political pressure, calls are intensifying for the Spanish government to strengthen institutional responses, not just through symbolic campaigns but by significantly investing in personnel, specialized training, and improved victim support initiatives.
Something must have gone wrong with the great multicultural celebration, as the BBC described the new Syrian Caliphate in December.
What could go wrong, wasn’t the EU reopening its embassy in Damascus? It was still December and the optimists of will at the BBC and the European foreign ministries certainly couldn’t foresee what would happen.
It didn’t take a genius. You just need to know something about history, religion and the Middle East and maybe have read Huntington instead of Fukuyama to know that minorities in Islam, to use the old Algerian slogan, have only two choices: the suitcase or the grave.
After the massacres of Alawites (at least 1,800 dead in 72 hours), the new Islamic masters of Damascus have moved on to chase away another minority: the Druze, a small esoteric community scattered across Lebanon, Syria and Israel that has never hurt a fly.
So far, hundreds of Druze have been killed in the silence of the media, European chancelleries and the UN (if the victim is not Islamic, the UN does not speak up).
Gerard Russell in his book, “Heirs to Forgotten Kingdoms: Journeys Into the Disappearing Religions of the Middle East”, describes the Islamist destruction of some of the oldest religions in the region. The Yazidis, victims of a genocide ten years ago; the Kakais and the Shabak, whose ancestors were fire worshippers; the Alawites and the Druze, whose tradition is anchored in Greek philosophy; the Mandaeans, the last Gnostics on earth, the heirs of the Nestorians and the Jacobites.
Muslims in Syria have just marched against the Druze and Jews, declaring jihad against both communities. They shout: “Khaybar Khaybar, O Jews, the army of Muhammad has returned. Listen, listen, O Druze! Listen, enemy of Islam: war and fire. There is no peace!”.
Because radical Islam is the same everywhere. Just look at the shocking similarities between the terrorist forces who kidnapped the Syrian Druze and the Hamas terrorists who kidnapped the Israeli Jews on October 7.
The international community must unite against radical Islam before it is too late.
The Islamists lined up the Druze and forced them to shave their mustaches. For the Druze, growing a mustache is a religious obligation. The West must truly begin to be afraid of these barbarians.
But Christians are also persecuted in Syria.
And as usual, sans the European chatterboxes (who have just given 6 billion euros to the Syrian butchers), Israel intervened to defend the Druze, who begged for help from the Jewish state.
The French, once “defenders of Eastern Christians,” were busy during the last 24 hours signing a 30-year agreement with the Al Qaeda-led Syrian regime for the development of the port of Latakia.
At the origin of the massacres of the Druze in the last few hours is a fake video in which a Druze leader attacks Muhammad. “Blasphemy”! The same laws that some European governments now want to bring back to Europe to protect Islam after an Iraqi Christian refugee was murdered in Sweden.
Europe should have listened to the Chaldean Archbishop of Mosul, Emil Nona, who told the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera:
“Our sufferings are the prelude to those that you, Europeans and Westerners, will suffer in the near future. Your liberal and democratic principles are worth nothing here. You must reconsider our reality in the Middle East, because you welcome an ever-increasing number of Muslims into your countries. You are in danger. You must make strong and courageous decisions, even at the cost of contradicting your principles. You think that all men are equal, but that is not true: Islam does not say that all men are equal. Your values are not their values. If you do not understand this soon enough, you will become victims of the enemy you have welcomed into your home”.
But Europe doesn’t want to understand. And now I fear it is too late.
