We have been covering here on TGP the many scandals and crises involving Leftist-Globalist Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez.
Corruption investigations and prosecutions involve Sánchez’s brother, his wife, several of his key allies – not to mention the never-ending sexual harassment and sexual assault scandals in his PSOE party – so why doesn’t he do the right thing and resign?
That’s what a deluge of protesters who packed the streets of the capital Madrid are demanding today.
🚨 HOLY CRAP! Tens of THOUSANDS of Spanish patriots just stormed the streets demanding the resignation of socialist left-wing PM Pedro Sanchez, who has betrayed his people
"SANCHEZ, RESIGNATION NOW!" 🔥
This comes after UK patriots marched to oust Keir Starmer
“At least seven police were injured in clashes with protesters, officials said, as tens of thousands of people marched through Madrid on Saturday, demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez after a series of corruption scandals.
A small group of protesters tried to break through barriers around Sanchez’s residence during the rally which was otherwise largely peaceful.”
— Tommy Robinson 🇬🇧 (@TRobinsonNewEra) May 23, 2026
“Police detained a group of masked people on the main road approaching the Moncloa Palace, where the Socialist leader lives with his family, images on Spanish television showed. Three people were arrested, police said.
Demonstrators carried banners marked with ‘Resignation of the socialist mafia’ and other slogans, alongside scores of gold and red national flags in the ‘March for Dignity’, organized by the Spanish Civil Society association.”
🚨🇪🇸Spanish PM Pedro Sánchez ordered police to fire tear gas at Spanish patriots protesting in Madrid.
The pro-migration government deployed riot police against crowds marching toward his residence in the Spanish capital.
Because the landmark 2025 UK Supreme Court ruling stating that “sex” in the Equality Act refers only to biological sex — rather than “gender identity,” as trans activists claimed — the transgender movement has faced setback after setback. After being almost entirely conquered by the trans movement in less than a decade, the pendulum has been swinging back in the UK. Consider just a few of the major changes:
Now, organizations can legally bar trans-identifying men from female-only spaces, including change rooms, bathrooms, hospital wards, and women’s refuges, among others.
Several sports governing bodies, including the English and Scottish Football Associations, England Netball, and the England and Wales Cricket Board, among others, have formally banned trans-identifying men from participating in female categories.
Many businesses are updating or reviewing their policies to ensure that female-only spaces are for … well, females only (sometimes prompted by lawsuits).
The Cass Review recommendations, which condemned sex change “treatments” for minors in nearly all circumstances, continue to be implemented by the National Health Service.
Trans-identifying males have been formally evicted from the UK’s girl scouting organization.
A number of high-profile lawsuits have been won by women persecuted for objecting to men in their spaces.
The latest news, reported by the Guardian on May 21, indicates just how sweeping the reversal might be. “Single-sex toilets and changing rooms in England, Wales and Scotland must exclude transgender men and women, according to a new code of practice from the equalities watchdog,” the liberal outlet reported.
But the long-awaited guidance also says that businesses and service providers have to offer practical alternatives such as gender-neutral toilets for people who do not wish to use services for their biological sex. The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) document sets out how public bodies, businesses and other service providers should respond in practical terms to April 2025’s landmark Supreme Court ruling that sex in the Equality Act refers only to biological sex.
Additionally, the EHRC emphasized that female-only spaces in health care are mandatory. Trans activist groups — which lobbied the EHRC aggressively before the new guidance came out — are very upset with Trans+ Solidarity Alliance director Alexandra Parmar-Yee, stating that the guidance was “worryingly similar to a U.S. bathroom ban condemned by the UK Foreign Office in 2016.” But it isn’t 2016 anymore; it’s 2026. That stuff doesn’t seem to be working anymore.
According to a May 22 report in the Guardian, this return to normalcy — which, as staggering as it sounds, is only a decade or so back — has rendered life unlivable for LGBT people: “Like many transgender individuals, the Guardian has interviewed in recent years, Alice is making plans to move out of the UK. It’s been made abundantly clear that I’m not welcome. I love my job and my family, have a happy life here, but I will not be a second-class citizen in my own country.’”
But this guidance was published despite lobbying from the once extraordinarily powerful LGBT lobby. I am not one to get unrealistically optimistic in the wake of small culture war battles — the fact that we’re having one over men in women’s bathrooms is a sign of just how degraded our culture is to begin with — but it does look like the pendulum swing in the UK may be more enduring than we pessimists first feared. If some trans activists are planning to move, it means they think they’ve lost.
For a lobby that has run the country for a decade, that is an admission I was not expecting.
Brits gather for Unite The Kingdom march under heavy police surveillance, in central London on May 16, 2026. Screengrab youtube
Britain is no longer divided by ordinary politics. It has split into two rival nations which loathe each other, obey different moral rules and receive radically different treatment from the state.
Last Saturday’s rival demonstrations in London exposed that divide with unusual clarity. On one side stood ‘Unite The Kingdom,’ the event organised primarily by now-veteran nationalist campaigner Tommy Robinson. At this, thousands of people who are angry about immigration, national decline, and the feeling that their country is being transformed without their consent gathered in order to display their frustration and patriotism.
On the other was another large ‘Nakba Day’ march, part of the now permanent cycle of pro-Palestinian activism that has dominated London’s streets since the Hamas atrocity on October 7, 2023. The Nakba Day event is an annual protest to commemorate the Nakba, which refers to the mass dispossession of Palestinians (as the demonstrators see it) during the 1948 Arab–Israeli war surrounding the establishment of the State of Israel.
Both protests were controversial in their own ways. Both required significant policing. Yet only one was subjected to live facial recognition technology. Only one was treated as a potential security threat before a single banner had even been raised. Only one marched under extraordinary state surveillance. And only one had a number of European speakers denied entry to the UK. I’m sure you can guess which one. The message was impossible to miss. Britain’s establishment no longer simply disagrees with patriotic dissent. It increasingly treats it as dangerous.
The Metropolitan Police insist their decision was ‘intelligence-led’. A catch-all phrase, if ever there was one, this wording is always deployed to head off awkward questions, as they cannot reveal intelligence sources. But public trust depends less on official explanations than on visible fairness. When sweeping surveillance powers are deployed against one political tendency but not another, accusations of double standards are inevitable and justified. And those suspicions have been building for years.
The public has watched anti-lockdown protesters vilified as extremists while eco-activists who paralysed roads and disrupted public life were often handled with virtual indulgence. They have watched sectarian chants and extremist Islamist rhetoric excused as ‘context,’ while pensioners who carry St. George’s flags or Union Jacks are treated like a threat to public order.
Against that backdrop, the policing operation around ‘Unite the Kingdom’ was striking. Thousands of officers, riot units, mounted police, helicopters, reinforcements drafted in from across the country, and the sinister threat to deploy new armoured vehicles in the UK for the first time. The language surrounding the event sounded less like routine crowd control than preparation for some form of domestic insurgency.
What truly unnerves Britain’s ruling class is not disorder itself. It is the re-emergence of a politically conscious working- and lower-middle-class Britain that no longer accepts being ignored, economically displaced or culturally sneered at without resistance—hence the recent gaslighting centrist talk that the country is becoming ‘ungovernable.’
For decades, ordinary Britons have watched the institutions governing their country drift steadily out of alignment with them. Westminster, the BBC, universities, NGOs, the civil service, and much of the professional class increasingly began speaking a political language alien to millions of voters.
Concerns about immigration across the West are dismissed as ignorance. Anxiety about Islamism is reframed as ‘Islamophobia.’ Attachment to national identity is mocked as backward nostalgia. The result is a growing belief that Britain now operates under two systems: one for approved opinions and another for forbidden ones. The use of facial recognition technology at a nationalist rally only deepens that perception. It tells citizens that attending the wrong protest may place them under state scrutiny, and I know full well that some potential attendees were put off by that very thought.
Even those who despise Tommy Robinson or reject everything his supporters advocate should recognise the danger here. Exceptional powers rarely remain confined to one target. Once governments discover they can monitor and intimidate certain political groups with little resistance, those tools inevitably spread. A democracy cannot survive if large sections of the population conclude the law is enforced according to ideology rather than principle.
But Saturday exposed something deeper than political bias. It revealed a profound moral and class divide. Siobhan Whyte was about to speak at the Unite the Kingdom rally. It will be remembered that Siobhan is the mother of Rhiannon Whyte, the young woman who worked at a migrant hotel and, for her trouble, was stabbed to death with a screwdriver twenty-three times in the head and chest by one of the residents. Shortly before Siobhan Whyte addressed the crowd, activists ‘Led By Donkeys’ projected the slogan ‘Immigration makes Britain brilliant’ onto a giant screen nearby.
These so-called progressives are a distinctly self-satisfied activist group born of middle-class contempt for the 2016 Brexit vote. They regularly congratulate themselves (and so does the mainstream media) for their oh-so-witty stunts. Whatever their intention on this occasion, the effect was grotesque—a smug abstraction about diversity being ‘our strength’ looming over the grief of a bereaved mother.
For the chattering classes, mass immigration is often treated as a moral posture or cosmopolitan virtue. For working-class communities, it is experienced as competition for housing, pressure on wages, overcrowded schools, weakened cohesion, and a state increasingly unable—or unwilling—to maintain order. One side speaks the language of virtue. The other speaks the language of consequences. That is why Saturday felt like more than just another London protest. It resembled a snapshot of the Two Britains.
One Britain still believes in borders, national identity and the right of a people to defend their own social fabric. The other, dominant across media, academia, and cultural institutions, increasingly treats those instincts as morally suspect. The contrast between the two marches sharpened the point further. Unite the Kingdom was focused inward: borders, sovereignty, crime, security, and the future of Britain itself. But it was also the happiest. The Nakba demonstration focused outward, directing its emotional energy towards a distant conflict that has become a central cause of Britain’s activist class. And this was the one which contained the most visceral hate.
Whatever one thinks of either side, the symbolism mattered. One crowd was asking what happens to Britain. The other was demanding Britain prioritise a conflict elsewhere. Of course, there were ugly elements at Unite the Kingdom; there are at any gathering. But standards only matter if they apply universally. The public notices when extremism is denounced thunderously in one context and quietly excused in another. They notice when patriotic crowds are portrayed as uniquely threatening while eliminationist and nihilist slogans elsewhere are dismissed as unfortunate excesses.
Saturday’s demonstrations were not an isolated clash. They exposed the twin crises hollowing out modern Britain: the growing belief that state power is applied selectively. Britain will not restore unity by policing dissent more aggressively or smearing patriotic anxiety as extremism. It will recover only when the law is applied equally, multiculturalism is discussed honestly, and when ordinary citizens, once again, believe that their government considers them worth protecting at all.
Kardinal-von-Galen-High school in Kevelaer, CC BY-SA 3.0
A German school was forced to withdraw a sex-ed lesson after children aged 13 and 14 years old were given the classroom task of designing a “new brothel for all”.
Children in an eighth-grade class at a Catholic high school in Kevelaer (photo), North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, were assigned the classwork of designing an inclusive brothel, including floor plans. The local Rheinische Postreported on the remarkable lesson plan on Wednesday, and news quickly spread nationwide, leading to the headmistress and mayor facing demands for explanations.
The worksheet, entitled ‘The New Brothel For All!’, asked students to consider key areas of modern “house of sexual pleasure” design, including “What sexual preferences need to be addressed and catered to?” “How should a brothel be designed from the outside so that it can be visited and desired by all kinds of people?” and “What should an advertisement for such a brothel look like?”
After considering these factors, including who would work there, what it would offer, and drawing a floor plan, the class would be brought in at the end for a group discussion.
The school, Kardinal von Galen Gymnasium, was invited to offer an explanation for this extraordinary sex education lesson, and while it didn’t exactly double down, it also insisted it had been delivered for all the right reasons.
The headmistress said, reports WDR: “The material under the heading: ‘Sexual Education of Diversity: Practical Methods on Identities, Relationships, Bodies, and Prevention for Schools and Youth Work’ is deliberately designed to be provocative in order to stimulate discussion.
“It responds to developments in our society with a diversity of lifestyles and gender roles. It also addresses the heavy use of social media channels by children and young people and the associated flood of information about various forms of sexuality.”
The school said it would not offer the same lesson again in future, stating “students are to discuss the ‘diversity of lifestyles and sexuality’ in a different way in the future”, and apologised for causing “unrest” in the community.
The local Alternative for Germany (AfD, sovereigntist-right) demanded an explanation from the mayor of Kevelaer, Social Democrat (SPD, globalist-left) Dominik Pichler. While he acknowledged the lesson had been “provocative and perhaps not entirely without risk”, the mayor said in general, children receiving sexual education is normal and what happened is “not a scandal” in his opinion.
Germany is one of only a handful of countries where both prostitution and the operation of brothels are totally legal. Prostitution is treated as a registered profession with registration documents and income tax paid. However, this hyper-liberal settlement is one that has come under increasing criticism, particularly because the sex industry is propped up by immigration and human trafficking.
Broadcaster Tagesschaureflected this changing attitude in its report, noting criticism of the school lesson from some quarters, not only for its suitability for the classroom but also for its implicit acceptance of prostitution as moral. The report highlighted commenters, who said the portrayal of a “brothel for all” as something positive in a school demonstrates the lingering prevalence of what are now old-fashioned “hip, cool, and super-feminist” ideas in education that prostitution is liberating and anti-patriarchal.
Twenty men were convicted following a major organised exploitation investigation linked to Huddersfield and West Yorkshire. Defendants received more than 230 years in prison combined, including a life sentence for the ringleader. The case exposed years of abuse involving vulnerable teenage girls and became one of the UK’s most notorious criminal investigations.
Those convicted included:
Ansar Mahmood Qayum, age 49, from Dewsbury, sentenced to 10 years for three offences of rape and two offences of indecent assault. This sentence was added to an existing 20 sentence imposed on Qayum at court in a separate trial in another case in 2022, making a total sentence of 30 years
Sajid Majid, aged 53, from Mirfield , sentenced to 28 years for five offences of rape and three offences of indecent assault.
Manaf Hussain, aged 51, from Heckmondwike, sentenced to 25 years for six offences of rape and an offence of supplying Class A drugs.
Tariq Azam, aged 57, from Dewsbury, sentenced to 24 years for five offences of rape and four offences of indecent assault.
Zulfiqar Ali, aged 47, from Dewsbury, sentenced to 22 years, six months for four offences of rape.
Aurrangzeb Azam, aged 56 , from Dewsbury, sentenced to 20 years for ten offences of rape and an offence of indecent assault.
Shakeel Haq, aged 58, from Birmingham, sentenced to 19 years for three offences of rape and an offence of false imprisonment.
Rafiq Patel , aged 73, from Batley was sentenced to 18 years for two offences of rape.
Zaheed Ali Novsarka, aged 58, from Batley, sentenced to 18 years for two offences of rape.
Mohammed Sheikh, aged 53, from Batley, sentenced to 14 years for two offences of rape and two offences of indecent assault.
Mohammed Yasin, aged 52, from Batley, sentenced to 14 years for an offence of rape and two indecent assaults.
Liaquat Hussain Hanif, aged 49, from Batley, sentenced to 12 years, six months for two offences of rape and an offence of supplying Class A drugs.
Ebrahim Mananiat, aged 56, from Batley, sentenced to 12 years for two offences of rape.
Ibrahim Khalifa, aged 87, from Bradford, sentenced to 11 years for two offences of rape.
Shafiq Siddique, aged 56, from Dewsbury, sentenced to 11 years for an offence of rape.
Mohammed Munir Shaffi, aged 48 from Dewsbury, sentenced to nine years for two offences of rape.
Mohammed Ishtiaq Hussain, aged 51, from Dewsbury, sentenced to eight years for an offence of rape.
Abbas Kaji, aged 57, from Batley, sentenced to seven years for an offence of rape.
Donna Lynn, aged 45, from Cleckheaton, sentenced to three years for an offence of controlling prostitution.
Tasawar Hussain, aged 46, from Dewsbury, sentenced to three years for an offence of rape.
The left-wing U.K. government has claimed it is making real progress in tackling the ongoing migration crisis enveloping Britain after official statistics published on Thursday showed that net migration had decreased to 171,000 last year. However, that figure alone doesn’t tell the whole story.
“I promised to restore control to our borders. My government is delivering,” under-pressure Prime Minister Keir Starmer wrote on X in response to the latest publication by the Office for National Statistics.
“Net migration is now at 171,000, down from a high of 944,000 under the Conservatives,” added Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood, claiming the government had “restored order” after the unprecedented figures under the last Conservative administration.
Yet, a glance at the broader figures shows the reported number isn’t as impressive as the government would have you believe.
In the year ending December 2025, the total number of people immigrating to Britain stood at 813,000. For comparison, this figure is around two-thirds of the population of the U.K.’s second-largest city, Birmingham.
That figure comprises 110,000 British nationals returning to the U.K., and 76,000 EU citizens. By far the largest contingent of immigrants was from non-EU countries, accounting for 627,000 arrivals.
The 171,000 figure is also largely offset by emigration — nearly a quarter of a million (246,000) British nationals left the country, while 118,000 EU nationals and 278,000 non-EU nationals also packed their bags.
Total emigration of 642,000 was marginally down on the 680,000 recorded the previous year.
So, while the headline figure looks impressive, that is still a considerable decline in British nationals — down a net figure of 136,000 — effectively being replaced by largely non-EU immigrants. A total of 138,000 Indians, 56,000 Pakistanis, 54,000 Chinese, and 47,000 Nigerian nationals arrived.
The figures suggest that Britain remains a major destination for long-term migrants, and the scale of departures has become an increasingly important factor when reflecting on the overall migration picture.
The net figure for British nationals was the largest exodus since the 1960s.
Meanwhile, non-EU net migration to the U.K. still remains higher (by some margin) than in any other year preceding 2021.
Migration monitoring groups released statements on Thursday contesting the Labour government’s assessment that it was successfully tackling the problem.
“Our immigration system is dysfunctional,” wrote the Centre for Migration Control. “Three quarters of a million foreign nationals still arrive every year, and one in five people living in Britain was not born here.
“Rather than heed these warning signs, Labour ministers will insist they have ‘taken back control,’” it added.
Other commentators noted that the Home Office no longer publishes the numbers of immigrants who entered the country on a visa that has since expired, and assumes they have left, leaving the figures contentious.
Reminder that net migration figures have been unreliable since the Home Office stopped publishing visa overstayer numbers in 2020
“If people’s visas expire and ONS has no record of them leaving the country, they simply assume that they have left — one reason to treat emigration and ‘net’ migration figures with care,” noted Conservative MP Neil O’Brien.
Academic Matt Goodwin, who most recently stood for the right-wing Reform U.K. party in a by-election, warned, “The British people are being demographically replaced – there is no other term for it.”
Migration Watch U.K. called the recent migration wave into Britain “one of the most rapid and drastic demographic changes, outside of war, in human history — no wonder the public are concerned!”
It further questioned why the British public should be “thankful that net migration has ‘crashed’ from the city a size of Birmingham arriving in a single year, to a city the size of Norwich.”
“Where is the infrastructure for this massive inflow of immigrants?” it asked.
Vox leader Santiago Abascal and senior figures from Spain’s centre-right Partido Popular (PP) have confirmed they would attend a Madrid protest on May 23 calling for the immediate resignation of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez.
The march, organised by Sociedad Civil Española, a platform coordinating more than 150 civic associations, is scheduled to depart from Plaza de Colón in central Madrid at 10.30am and conclude at the Arco de Moncloa around 12.30pm, according to organisers.
Branded the Marcha por la Dignidad (“March for Dignity”), the protest carries the slogan “¡Sánchez, dimisión ya!” (“Sánchez, resign now!”). Organisers have said the rally responds to public anger over what they describe as the “drift” of the Spanish Government across the economy, security, the rule of law, civic life, ethics and diplomacy.
It is the first march directly convened by the platform since it was constituted last December, although several of its component bodies – including the NEOS Foundation, Pie en Pared and Foro Libertad y Alternativa – have organised earlier rallies against the Sánchez Government. Organisers have said the march is civic rather than party-political, but have invited opposition formations to take part.
VOX TO TURN OUT IN FORCE
Abascal will personally lead the Vox delegation, the right-wing party has confirmed. He will be accompanied by the head of the party’s European delegation, MEP Jorge Buxadé, alongside sectoral spokespersons Isabel Pérez Moñino, Samuel Vázquez and Alberto Rodríguez Almeida, and the party’s national spokesperson José Antonio Fúster.
Also joining the Vox contingent are Jordi de la Fuente, secretary general of the party-aligned trade union Solidaridad, and the regional spokespersons for Castilla-La Mancha, Aragón and Valencia – David Moreno, Santiago Morón and José María Llanos respectively.
The think tank Atenea, chaired by Iván Espinosa de los Monteros, and Alejo Vidal-Quadras, a former politician and Vox co-founder, have also confirmed they would join, as has the pro-Israel association Acción y Comunicación sobre Oriente Medio (ACOM).
PP TO ATTEND WITHOUT BANNERS
The PP will send a delegation of deputies and senators from the Popular Group, headed by its spokesperson in the Senate, Alicia García, sources within the party have told the Spanish news agency Europa Press. PP leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo and the party’s secretary general Miguel Tellado would be absent, as both are due to be in the Balearic Islands for a regional party congress expected to re-elect Marga Prohens as PP’s Balearic president.
“We will be represented at that march, which incidentally passes through Génova street [where the party’s national headquarters is located],” PP sources have said. The party would attend without its banners, they have added, as it does not want to “appropriate” the protest – something they predict Vox may attempt to do.
The Madrid PP, led by regional president Isabel Díaz Ayuso, would also back the demonstration, with a delegation from the Popular Group in the Madrid Assembly expected to take part.
Marcos de Quinto, a businessman, former Ciudadanos deputy and one of the rally’s organisers, has criticised the PP’s opposition role on the social media platform X, writing that the party’s Génova headquarters “is turning the PP into a joke” and urging it to demonstrate its “indignation” by joining the protest.
A GROWING LIST OF SCANDALS
The march comes against the backdrop of an escalating series of investigations engulfing the Sánchez administration. On May 19, the National Court (Audiencia Nacional) formally placed former Spanish prime minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero under investigation in the so-called Plus Ultra case, concerning a €53 million state bailout of the airline during the Covid-19 pandemic. It marks the first time since the return of democracy in Spain that a former premier has faced a formal corruption-related inquiry.
The Zapatero investigation adds to a long list of cases affecting the prime minister’s political circle. Sánchez’s wife, Begoña Gómez, faces a separate corruption probe and his brother, David Sánchez, is also under judicial scrutiny. Former transport minister José Luis Ábalos and former PSOE organisation secretary Santos Cerdán are caught up in their own proceedings, while former aide Koldo García is at the centre of the so-called Koldo case, relating to pandemic-era public contracts.
Speaking in the Congress of Deputies on May 20, Sánchez publicly backed Zapatero, called for respect for the presumption of innocence and dismissed calls to step aside, insisting that the next general election would be held in 2027 as scheduled.
It is not only the barbecue areas on the Danube Island that are popular, but also the Steinbruchwiese barbecue area in Ottakringer Wald. Four student friends from Vienna had gone there to have a barbecue together, but the large Muslim families who were also barbecuing there took offence at their food. “You’re not barbecuing pig, go somewhere else,” the Austrians were told.
“Go somewhere else,” the foreign invaders tell the native population. That sums up open borders.
“When we arrived, there were already loads of people having a barbecue, and the place was packed. There seemed to be a lot of people or families from migrant backgrounds, but that didn’t bother us at all. We did get a few sceptical looks when we settled in among the crowd, but nobody had a problem with us. Until we took the meat out and two men came a bit closer to have a closer look. Then came the question: ‘Pork?’ When we answered ‘Yes’, the second man said in a sharp tone: ‘You don’t barbecue pork, go somewhere else.’ Then they went back to their group and everyone gave us very angry stares. “We then packed up because we didn’t want any arguments or a row,” says one of the students.
Rows with Muslims tend to escalate quickly to violence. So they packed up and left.
Where Austrians on the whole will pack up and leave to remains to be seen. The USA was once an option, but now it is also undergoing Islamification.
Rep Chip Roy (R-TX) warns that the same hijrah that has been transforming Europe is “happening right now on steroids” in the USA. Since 9/11, 5.5 million have poured in from Muslim countries. In contrast to the native population, they have been reproducing explosively.
Imagine a Texas where you are not allowed to barbeque ribs. Roy may live to see it.
The status of low-emission zones (LEZs), designed to keep cars out of French city centres, is at the heart of a political battle that has been raging for months. Having been scrapped a few weeks ago by MPs, these exclusion zones have just been reinstated, following a ruling by the Constitutional Council. This is not the first time that this major state body has overruled the National Assembly to impose its own agenda.
The long-running saga of low-emission zones (LEZs) has taken a major new turn with the Constitutional Council’s decision to overturn their abolition, despite it having been voted through by Parliament as part of the law to simplify economic life. The members of this major state body, responsible for ensuring that laws comply with the constitution, deemed that this abolition constituted a ‘legislative rider,’ that is to say, a provision lacking sufficient connection to the text’s original purpose. Consequently, the LEZs remain in force, despite MPs and senators voting to abolish them.
This decision comes after several months of political turmoil surrounding a measure that has become one of the symbols of France’s social and regional divisions. Initially designed to combat air pollution in major urban areas, the LEZs are gradually banning the oldest and most polluting vehicles in certain cities.
On paper, the health objective seems attractive: supporters of the scheme argue that air pollution causes tens of thousands of premature deaths each year in France. But in practice, LEZs have faced growing opposition. Many local councillors have criticised the scheme as impossible to implement, socially explosive, and perceived as a form of marginalisation for low-income households, particularly in urban outskirts and rural areas. For many motorists, the obligation to replace an old vehicle with a newer model represents an unaffordable financial burden, despite existing public subsidies. As inflation and the crisis in purchasing power have worsened, LEZs have become politically toxic.
It was against this backdrop that a cross-party majority eventually voted to scrap them in the spring. The episode had already revealed the government’s ambiguities, torn between defending its environmental commitments and the fear of renewed social unrest comparable to that of the ‘Yellow Vests’—a grassroots protest movement triggered by high fuel prices, leading to hundreds of thousands of demonstrators blocking roads across the country off and on for over a year. But the parliamentary victory of the opponents of LEZs was ultimately short-lived: the Constitutional Council overturned this repeal on procedural grounds, without even ruling on the substance of the case.
This legal justification reignites a much broader debate on the role of the Constitutional Council in French democracy. For the political issue now extends far beyond the question of LEZs alone. How far can an unelected institution go to correct or prevent the will expressed by parliamentarians elected by universal suffrage?
The precedent of the immigration law is fresh in everyone’s minds. In January 2024, the Constitutional Council struck down 35 of the 86 articles in the bill passed by Parliament, most of which were measures secured by the Right and the Rassemblement National (RN). Here too, a large proportion of the strikes were based on the notion of a ‘legislative rider.’
At the time, the right wing denounced a bill “stripped of its substance” by those known as “the Wise men.” Provisions on the tightening of social benefits, family reunification, and certain restrictions on birthright citizenship had disappeared following the constitutional review. The Council pointed out that it did not necessarily consider these measures to be contrary to the Constitution on their merits but claimed they had been introduced through a procedure deemed irregular. Yet this legal nuance had all the hallmarks of a pretext, poorly concealing a hijacking of the democratic decision-making process.
The LEZ case follows exactly the same pattern. A parliamentary majority votes for a highly publicised measure; the Constitutional Council then strikes it down on procedural grounds. On the one hand, staunch defenders of the so-called rule of law point out that the Council’s role is precisely to ensure compliance with the Constitution and to prevent ‘catch-all’ laws. They defend themselves by highlighting the fact that the rules on legislative riders have existed for decades and are intended to ensure the clarity of parliamentary debate. On the other hand, critics believe that a gap is widening between legal legitimacy and democratic legitimacy. Clearly, the Constitutional Council is gradually becoming a sort of third chamber capable of overturning political compromises that have nevertheless been approved by the nation’s elected representatives. Unsurprisingly, the rulings concern highly sensitive issues such as immigration, security or, now, punitive environmentalism.
Political reactions were swift following the decision. Marine Le Pen denounced a Constitutional Council that “constrains democracy” and called on the president of the National Assembly, Yaël Braun-Pivet, to swiftly put the issue of the LEZ back on Parliament’s agenda for a specific debate. For the RN, but also for other parts of the Right, this episode illustrates the need to regain political control over decisions deemed out of touch with social realities.
The paradox is that this new battle could ultimately further reinforce the symbolic significance of the LEZs. Originally a simple environmental policy tool, they have become an explosive political issue at the crossroads of debates on ecology, regional divisions, and the power of institutions. The Constitutional Council’s decision therefore does not close the case; on the contrary, it opens up a new confrontation, this time over the hierarchy between parliamentary sovereignty and constitutional review.
Germany’s deportation system has been effectively crippled by the Syrian authorities, which are refusing to take back their own citizens by blocking the documents required for their return—an approach critics say reflects both political calculation and the nature of the country’s new leadership.
According to multiple official reports, authorities in Damascus have halted the issuance of replacement travel documents for Syrians facing deportation. Without these papers, German authorities are unable to enforce removal orders in most cases.
The result: an increasingly awkward and frustrating standoff. Thousands of migrants who are legally required to leave Germany remain in the country because Syria’s radical Islamist regime refuses to cooperate.
Federal police data shows that around 11,000 Syrian nationals, all issued deportation orders, are currently under a binding obligation to leave. In practice, however, thanks to the Syrian regime, deportations have been largely paralyzed.
German officials have stopped short of formally accusing Damascus of obstruction. But the pattern, unfortunately, for now, is pretty clear: without documentation from Syrian authorities, the system cannot function.
The situation basically amounts to deliberate sabotage. By withholding cooperation, Syria is effectively dictating Germany’s ability to enforce its own laws.
The issue is further complicated by the composition of Syria’s current leadership. It’s common knowledge that elements within the post-Assad governing structure are linked to former radical Islamist terrorist factions, including individuals previously associated with groups such as the al-Nusra Front, which was affiliated with al-Qaeda.
While the new Syrian authorities have sought international legitimacy, skepticism remains high in parts of Europe. Critics argue that these backgrounds raise serious concerns about reliability and cooperation on issues such as migration.
The issue has quickly become a political flashpoint. Europe—and Germany’s—liberal migration policy is already under intense scrutiny, resulting in massive loss of support, and the current impasse has only deepened public frustration.
Roman Poseck, interior minister of the state of Hesse, has called for direct negotiations with Damascus. He stressed that without Syrian cooperation, both deportations and voluntary return efforts will remain severely limited.
Germany’s migration policy relies on the assumption that returns can be carried out when necessary. Without that capability, enforcement mechanisms lose their effectiveness.
In response, the government is now exploring alternative strategies. One proposal under consideration is to dramatically increase payments for voluntary return.
According to reports, Berlin is weighing incentives of up to €8,000 ($9,300) per person. That would represent a sharp increase from the current average of around €1,000.
Many argue that financial incentives may be the only viable option under current conditions. If forced deportations are blocked, voluntary returns become the primary tool.
Poseck has argued that even higher payments could make economic sense. The long-term costs of housing and social benefits far exceed one-time incentives.
“Support payments in the four-figure range or sometimes even in the lower five-figure range would often still be a gain for the state,” he said.
Germany continues to host a large Syrian population. As of 2025, more than 950,000 Syrians were living in the country.
Many of them hold temporary protection status tied to the civil war—that’s been over for multiple years now. Despite this, voluntary return rates have remained low.
The debate has intensified as asylum policies shift. Germany is now rejecting the vast majority of new asylum applications from Syrians.
This marks a significant departure from earlier policies. During the 2014–2015 crisis, Germany opened its doors to large numbers of refugees, paving the way for the mess that it has on its hands currently.
That decision continues to shape the country’s incredible challenges and rapidly deteriorating society. The long-term implications are still unfolding.
Current Chancellor Friedrich Merz has pledged to tighten migration controls, but opposition politicians like AfD argue that implementation has lagged far behind rhetoric, if any implementation is happening at all.
The deportation impasse underscores that gap. Legal decisions alone are meaningless without the ability to enforce them.
Public frustration is growing. Many voters see the situation as a test of state authority.
Economic pressures are adding to the tension. Housing shortages and rising costs are straining local systems.
At the same time, policymakers face legal and diplomatic constraints. Deportations must comply with international law and depend on cooperation from origin countries.
The broader geopolitical context complicates matters further. Any engagement with Damascus carries political implications.
Still, officials say some form of dialogue may be unavoidable. Without it, the current stalemate is likely to continue.
For now, Germany faces a difficult reality. Its migration system is constrained not only by domestic law, but by decisions made in foreign capitals.
As pressure builds, the search for solutions is intensifying. But until the underlying issue is addressed, options remain limited.
