NCF Senior Fellow Emma Trimble debates political commentator Jonathan Lis as 60,000 migrants storm the Spanish city of Ceuta, located in North Africa, and which has a population of just over 80,000.
Month: July 2026
Migration Drives 95% of Population Growth in England and Wales
Migration accounted for 211,700 of the 224,900 people added to the population of England and Wales in the year to mid-2025—almost 95% of the total increase.
Bombshell figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show that the combined population hit a record 62 million, rising by 224,900 in just one year.
Net international migration added 211,700 people, while the excess of births over deaths accounted for just 19,600.
A total of 816,500 people arrived from abroad during the year, compared with 604,800 who left. Although net migration fell sharply from 612,500 the previous year, it still dwarfed every other source of population growth.
Political analyst Matt Goodwin said the figures showed that Britain had entered an “entirely new demographic era,” with rapid change now remaking towns and smaller cities as well as London.
Migration has been the leading driver of population growth since 1999. Before then, the population largely expanded because more people were born than died, according to the ONS.
Goodwin’s analysis found that more than 130 council areas gained at least 1,000 residents in the year to mid-2025. Fifteen grew by more than 3,000.
In nearly a quarter of those areas, migration accounted for at least half of the increase.
And in 11 areas, it accounted for more than 100%—meaning arrivals more than replaced residents lost through deaths or people moving elsewhere.
In Wolverhampton, net migration was equivalent to a staggering 429% of the city’s overall population growth. The figure reached 322% in Bristol, 281% in Slough, 225% in Derby, 208% in Reading and 177% in Bolton.
The same dramatic pattern can be seen over the longer term.
Between 2020 and 2025, the populations of 110 council areas surged by at least 10,000. Migration accounted for at least half of the growth in 53 of them.
Milton Keynes gained more than 25,000 people in five years, with migration responsible for 60% of the increase.
Coventry grew by more than 20,000, while migration was equivalent to 280% of its total population growth.
Across roughly 100 areas—including Cardiff, Guildford, Oldham, Walsall, Swansea, Barnet and Stevenage—migration accounted for more than 100% of the increase.
The figures suggest that Britain’s demographic upheaval is no longer confined to London and a handful of major cities. It is now reaching communities across England and Wales, putting growing pressure on housing, schools, transport and public services.
The overall population rise has slowed, however. Growth fell to 0.4% in the latest year—the lowest rate since 2020—following three years of unusually rapid expansion.
Wales suffered its first population decline in a decade, while London’s population also fell as people leaving for other parts of Britain outnumbered gains from immigration and births.
The ONS cautioned that its estimates are subject to uncertainty, particularly at council level, and could be revised as its migration data and methods improve.
BMW to cut 8,000 jobs in latest blow to German manufacturing
BMW is the latest German manufacturer to announce cost-cutting measures by eliminating around 8,000 jobs worldwide by the end of 2027.
The reductions are expected to begin in October following six weeks of negotiations between management and employee representatives. The agreement was finalized on Tuesday, as reported by Handelsblatt.
BMW chief executive Milan Nedeljković warned staff that the restructuring would be difficult but said the company had to restore profitability and competitiveness. The measures are estimated to save approximately €1 billion a year from 2028.
“I am aware that the coming period will demand a great deal from all of us,” he said. “BMW is important to me — and therefore I will do everything necessary to ensure that we become successful again.”
The program will focus primarily on administrative, research, planning and management roles, with further reductions expected through natural attrition and unfilled vacancies. Voluntary redundancy is also set to be offered to tens of thousands of employees in Germany.
BMW employs approximately 154,000 people worldwide, including around 84,000 in Germany.
The company has come under growing pressure from weak demand in China, competition from Chinese electric-vehicle manufacturers, U.S. tariffs and the high cost of developing new technology.
The announcement follows major reductions elsewhere in Germany’s auto industry.
Porsche announced this week that it is preparing to cut approximately 8,900 jobs, including a further 5,000 positions at its Zuffenhausen plant and Weissach development center. The measures will be carried out mainly through voluntary severance, partial retirement, and natural attrition.
Employees will also face reduced bonuses, delayed pay increases and tighter remote-working arrangements.
The wider VW Group is pursuing an even broader restructuring program that could eliminate tens of thousands of jobs by 2030 and result in some German factories being reduced in size or closed.
German Association of the Automotive Industry president Hildegard Müller recently warned that some plants may need to be transferred to foreign manufacturers to avoid closure.
Spain invaded at noon, Africans breaking and entering by midnight
It took mere hours for them to start sacking civilization.
Yesterday, in the span of mere hours, more than 60,000 third world foreigners poured into Ceuta, Spain. For context, this is an area of just seven square miles, an autonomous Spanish jurisdiction on Morocco’s coast—so it is off the mainland, though it’s likely only a matter of time before these people are transferred to Europe proper as “refugees” and “asylum seekers,” since the leftist prime minister is quite welcoming of these “newcomers.”
🚨BREAKING: An emergency has now been declared in the Spanish city of Ceuta after tens of thousands of illegal migrants break in from Morocco
— Inevitable West (@Inevitablewest) July 30, 2026
Pedro Sánchez is REFUSING to deploy the military to defend the borders. 🇪🇸 pic.twitter.com/OvtzvEZxBs
For more of an in-depth dive on the situation and the politics, check out a brand new podcast from Andrea Widburg titled, “Spain invaded!” at AT’s “Watch Now” section.
It literally looks like Thomas Cole’s Destruction, the fourth painting in his “Course of Empire” series.
Now, I’m not exactly sure what time this all happened yesterday morning/afternoon, but mere hours into the invasion, this is how it was going for the local grocery stores:
Ceuta amanece sumida en el caos, decenas de marroquíes asaltan una tienda de comestibles. pic.twitter.com/39s9DqW1Qu
— David Santos (@davidsantosvlog) July 31, 2026
And then, by midnight, the barbarians had commandeered ladders, and were breaking into the locals’ homes:
Reports indicate illegal aliens in Ceuta, Spain, are now attempting to break into homes as midnight approaches. pic.twitter.com/wbYQ9QuxVi
— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) July 30, 2026
We always hear from the left how the third-worlders are coming “for a better life,” as if that is a reasonable and rational justification to permit total lawlessness and the erasure of borders and national sovereignty.
But isn’t that almost every criminal’s motivation? Doesn’t the rapist often rape because he wants a “better” lay? Doesn’t the burglar break into your home and take your stuff because it’s “better” than what he has? Doesn’t the pickpocket take your wallet because it’ll be “better” to have more money as opposed to less?
Sure, it’s obvious that it’s better for them to come to an established and functioning nation (no thanks to them), but it’s better for us when they don’t.
BREAKING: Rising Risk Of Military Intervention In Spain As Islamo-Marxist Prime Minister Sanchez Enables Migrant Invasion Of Spanish Territory
In a scene that should alarm every defender of national sovereignty, Spanish territory is once again under pressure from mass irregular migration, facilitated by the active policies and passive negligence of Pedro Sánchez’s socialist government. The recent surge of thousands of migrants overwhelming the border in Ceuta—prompting the deployment of Spanish troops to do nothing—comes on the heels of Sánchez’s sweeping 2026 regularization program. That decree opened a path to legal status for hundreds of thousands of undocumented migrants already inside Spain, drawing well over a million applications and sending a clear signal of open doors.
Critics on the Spanish right, including Vox, have long described this as an “invasion” accelerated by the government itself. Sánchez’s administration frames the regularization as economic necessity and humanitarian justice for an aging population.
Yet the practical result is the same: Spanish soil is treated as a destination rather than a border to be defended, while public services, housing, and social cohesion absorb the strain. Irregular arrivals via the Canary Islands and Mediterranean routes have fluctuated, but the policy of mass legalization and limited enforcement creates a powerful pull factor.
This is not mere mismanagement. It is active complicity through decree and passive complicity through failure to secure the frontiers of Ceuta, Melilla, and the Atlantic approaches.
Spain’s military has already been called in to contain the latest Ceuta incident. History shows what happens when civilian authorities lose control of the nation’s territory and order.
The 1930s Parallel: Polarization, Disorder, and the Barracks
The Spanish Civil War did not erupt from nowhere in 1936. Its premises were years of intensifying polarization under the Second Republic. Leftist governments pursued aggressive marxist reforms, tolerated or excused street violence, attacks on traditional institutions, and the erosion of public order. Conservative and military elements came to view the constitutional government as incapable—or unwilling—to defend the nation’s integrity.
When the Popular Front took power amid assassinations, land seizures, and church burnings, a significant portion of the officer corps concluded that only military action could restore the state.
The parallel is not perfect, and no serious observer claims Spain today stands on the brink of 1936-style civil war. Democratic institutions, NATO membership, and a professionalized armed forces under civilian control are vastly different.
Yet the structural risks are recognizably similar: a left-leaning government pursuing transformative social policies that large segments of the population and the security apparatus see as undermining national sovereignty and internal security; visible loss of control over parts of the national territory; rising support for hardline opposition parties that frame the issue as existential; and the gradual normalization of the idea that the military’s ultimate duty is to the nation rather than any particular cabinet.
Vox has explicitly called for militarization of the borders and described Sánchez’s migration approach as accelerating demographic replacement. The Popular Party has hardened its own immigration stance. Public frustration is measurable in regional election results and street protests. When troops are already being sent to Ceuta because civilian border management has failed, the threshold for further military involvement lowers.
The Risk, Not the Reality
No credible evidence exists of active coup plotting inside the Spanish Armed Forces. Claims of imminent “golpe de estado” would be irresponsible speculation. What exists is risk. Risk that continued mass irregular entries, combined with large-scale regularizations that critics say incentivize more arrivals, will produce further breakdowns of order in the enclaves or on the mainland. Risk that crime, cultural friction, and pressure on welfare systems will radicalize more of the electorate and more of the officer corps. Risk that a government perceived as prioritizing ideology and internationalist signaling over the defense of Spanish territory will forfeit legitimacy in the eyes of those sworn to protect that territory.
In the 1930s the military ultimately intervened because successive governments appeared unable or unwilling to maintain the basic conditions of a functioning civil society. Today’s Spain is far richer, more institutionalized, and more European. That does not eliminate the danger. When a government actively legalizes hundreds of thousands who entered illegally and responds to territorial breaches primarily with troops after the fact, it invites the question of who truly controls the borders.
Spain’s history is littered with military interventions when civilian politics failed the nation. The current trajectory under Sánchez—massive corruption, massive regularization, no border control, and escalating right-wing mobilization—raises the historical risk that some in the armed forces may again begin to calculate that their oath to Spain requires more than waiting for the next election.
The responsible course is clear enforcement of borders, an end to policies that function as invitation, and democratic political contestation. The alternative path is the one Spain has walked before, with tragic results. The risk is real. Ignoring it is not prudence; it is denial.
French court rejects Macron party bid to ban Le Pen’s Renaissance campaign slogan
A French court has rejected Macron’s Renaissance party’s request to stop Marine Le Pen from using the word “renaissance” in her presidential campaign slogan, ruling that it neither infringes the party’s trademark nor misleads voters.
The Paris Judicial Court dismissed the emergency request on July 30, dealing a setback to Renaissance secretary-general and former prime minister Gabriel Attal ahead of France’s 2027 presidential election, in which he is also a candidate.
The dispute centres on a campaign poster unveiled by Le Pen days earlier, showing her against a dark blue background with her arms outstretched and her eyes raised, beneath the words Pour la France, la renaissance (“For France, the renaissance”).
The image was also adopted as the banner of the account on X of the National Rally (RN), the party led by Jordan Bardella.
Attal’s centrist party argued that the slogan unlawfully appropriated its political identity and filed legal action on July 15 accusing the RN of trademark infringement and “parasitism”, a French commercial law concept referring to unfairly benefiting from another party’s reputation.
The case was brought in summary proceedings, known in French law as a référé, which allow a judge to order urgent interim measures without settling the underlying dispute.
“The diversion is not insignificant: It is clearly intended to exploit the reputation of our movement by appropriating an essential element of its identity, namely its name,” the party argued when launching the case.
The court rejected those arguments.
In its ruling, judges found that the disputed slogan was used to promote a political offer rather than a commercial product or service and therefore fell outside the scope of trademark law.
On the allegation of parasitism, the court held that the use of the common noun “la renaissance” did not create confusion with the proper name Renaissance, nor suggest any collaboration between the two political movements.
It added that the RN was not acting as an economic operator and had drawn no advantage from the name.
The judges also concluded that the slogan did not constitute an unlawful interference with the democratic process because it was not intended to deceive voters.
The court ordered Renaissance to pay €5,000 each to Le Pen and the National Rally to cover part of their legal costs, amounting to a total of €10,000.
It also rejected a counterclaim by Le Pen and the RN alleging that the lawsuit itself was abusive, ruling that Attal’s party had merely made “a legal error without any intention to cause harm”.
Following the ruling, Renaissance announced it would appeal.
It insisted that its legal action was intended solely to “protect the identity, values and name under which thousands of activists have campaigned for several years”.
The party said it was for the appeal court to clarify the rules of law “so that they are the same for everyone and protective of a fair democratic debate”.
The party also questioned whether “the name of a political party can be freely reused by a competing political movement”.
The movement at the centre of the dispute was founded by Macron as La République En Marche in 2016 and renamed Renaissance in September 2022. Macron, who cannot stand again after two consecutive terms, remains its honorary president.
Le Pen unveiled the poster after declaring her candidacy on July 7, hours after the Paris Court of Appeal cut the ineligibility sentence imposed on her over the RN’s European Parliament assistants.
The court reduced the ban to 45 months, of which 30 were suspended, leaving a 15-month term that expired on June 30 and had already been served.
She was also sentenced to three years in prison, two of them suspended and one to be served under electronic monitoring, and fined €100,000. Le Pen has appealed to the Court of Cassation.
A 2027 bid would be her fourth. She reached the second round in 2017 and 2022, losing to Macron on both occasions.
Attal declared his own candidacy on May 22 and is competing with former prime minister Édouard Philippe to represent the centre bloc.
An Ifop survey for LCI and Le Figaro conducted on July 7-8 put Le Pen on 36 per cent in the first round, ahead of Philippe on 19 per cent and Attal on 15 per cent in an alternative scenario.
The case marks one of the first legal skirmishes of what is expected to be an increasingly contentious presidential campaign, with the two rounds due on April 18 and May 2, 2027.
The Rushdie trial reminds us that one does not negotiate with Iran
by Giulio Meotti
“I tried to run away, but he was on top of me and kept hitting me,” Salman Rushdie told the federal court in Buffalo. “I felt the pain and I screamed: ‘What happened to my eye?’ It was a huge lake of blood.”
He lost the eye, and it took seven months of physiotherapy before Rushdie could use one hand again. He can no longer drive, and the wounds have made writing difficult for him.
Federal Prosecutor Timothy C. Lynch invited Rushdie to remove the glasses he has worn since the day of the attack.
One lens is clear, the other dark, covering the stabbed eye. “As you can see, there is nothing left now,” Rushdie said, pointing to it.
On Valentine’s Day thirty-seven years ago, Ayatollah Khomeini, Supreme Leader and founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran, sentenced a writer to death for having written a novel. Tehran ordered Rushdie’s killing after the publication of his book, The Satanic Verses.
After years of British clandestinity, Salman Rushdie resumed a more or less normal life, making public appearances and abandoning his armed escort. That normality was shattered on 12 August 2022, when a Lebanese-American, Hadi Matar, rushed onto a stage in the state of New York, where Rushdie was giving a speech, and stabbed him fifteen times. The attack left the writer blind in one eye, with damaged nerves and scars all over his body.
Rushdie, 79, had already testified last year about the attack during Matar’s state trial in Mayville, where the terrorist was sentenced to 25 years in prison for attempted murder.
He was then convicted for terrorism: “Matar did not merely attempt to kill Rushdie; he acted under the direction of Hezbollah and on behalf of the Iranian fatwa.”
There are Matar’s trips to southern Lebanon, where Hezbollah runs training camps.
At the time of his arrest, Matar was carrying a false New Jersey driver’s license in the name of “Imad Mugniyah,” the Hezbollah terrorism planner eliminated in Syria by Israel. In the months before the attack, Matar had assembled propaganda videos with titles such as “Fatwa against Rushdie 1.6.”
“If Muslims had killed Rushdie,” Matar had written, “there would have been no cartoons of the Prophet.”
According to federal prosecutors, Matar had also planned the attack with a person in Iran. In May 2022, Matar wrote to him saying he knew “where to find Rushdie,” but that “the problem is how to do it.”
According to the indictment, Matar then asked the person, named Kamyar, whether Khomeini’s fatwa against Rushdie was still valid. After the Iranian confirmed the validity of the fatwa, Matar attempted to kill Rushdie. “He wanted everyone to know that he was doing this in the service of Hezbollah,” prosecutor Lynch declared. “He wanted to do it in order to be perceived as an Islamic martyr.”
Two months ago, it was the former Iranian foreign minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, who again threatened Rushdie on the regime’s television. “Those two, Trump and Netanyahu, must be put on trial and the execution of the verdict entrusted to Muslims around the world, just like the fatwa against the crime committed by Rushdie, condemned as an apostate.”
The late Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said that if someone had carried out the Iranian fatwa, European newspapers would not have dared publish a caricature of Muhammad in 2006.
In court, Matar’s lawyer had the gall to question Rushdie about the content of The Satanic Verses and asked him whether he should have anticipated the reaction the book would provoke among Islamic extremists.
That is the same crazy question that is still heard in Western chancelleries and newsrooms: we shouldn’t have provoked them, we should negotiate with the ayatollahs.
Italian PM Giorgia Meloni Threatens to Suspend Schengen with Spain After Insane Footage of Young African Males Storming Ceuta Enclave
Italy’s conservative government is considering extraordinary border controls as Spain’s socialist open-borders experiment erupts into chaos.
The Gateway Pundit reported earlier that Spain’s border police were overwhelmed as thousands of mostly young men poured into the Spanish enclave from Morocco, forcing businesses to close and local officials to demand troops.
Spain’s border with Africa descended into “absolute chaos” Thursday as thousands of migrants stormed into the Spanish enclave of Ceuta from neighboring Morocco.
Videos from Tarajal Beach showed enormous crowds swimming around breakwaters, scaling barriers, breaking through a border gate, and running through the streets. Most appeared to be young men, although women and children were also among the arrivals.
Spain’s national broadcaster TVE reported that between 2,000 and 3,000 migrants crossed into Ceuta within hours.
A Spanish Guardia Civil spokesman said migrants were “massively entering from the sea” after completely overwhelming border authorities.
“The situation is absolute chaos,” Rachid Sbihi, who leads the association representing Guardia Civil officers in Ceuta, said. “There are thousands of migrants crossing.”
Sbihi said the border had “totally collapsed.”
Footage showed migrants using inflatable tubes and other flotation devices to reach Spanish territory. Others reportedly broke through a gate or climbed the heavily fortified border fence.
🇪🇸 Insane footage from the Moroccan border with Spain: thousands of migrants are gathering at the border
— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) July 30, 2026
This is exactly what Spanish Prime Minister Sanchez was aiming for. pic.twitter.com/Fb1pEKU0jj
Ceuta’s leader, Juan Jesús Vivas, declared an “absolute humanitarian and social emergency.” Facilities for unaccompanied minors are operating at 2,400% of capacity.
Hundreds are sleeping outdoors. Vivas begged Madrid to declare a national emergency and deploy the army to restore control of the border, warning the situation risks matching the 2021 crisis when roughly 10,000 people flooded the enclave in days, according to Reuters.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni is threatening to suspend Schengen travel arrangements with Spain after thousands of illegal migrants overwhelmed security forces and poured into the Spanish enclave of Ceuta from Morocco.
Meloni issued a blistering statement following the border collapse:
“The images coming from Ceuta are striking and demonstrate, once again, that uncontrolled illegal immigration poses a concrete threat to the security of Europe’s borders.
“I have spoken with Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi. Italy will not stand by and watch. We are convening the relevant bodies, and following these meetings, we are prepared to intervene with extraordinary measures to defend the borders and the safety of citizens, including the suspension of the Schengen Area with Spain.
“On illegal immigration, we will not yield an inch: defending the borders, stopping human traffickers, and ensuring effective repatriations will continue to be the line of this Government.”
Meloni’s government is reportedly considering temporarily reinstating checks on travelers arriving from Spain. Although officials have described the proposal as “suspending Schengen with Spain,” the practical effect would be the reintroduction of internal border controls rather than the cancellation of visas.
Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani immediately backed the proposal.
“I am in favor of closing the Schengen Area with Spain,” Tajani wrote, warning that “irregular and uncontrolled immigration represents a danger to national security.” He also blasted Madrid’s mass-regularization policy, arguing that it encourages additional human trafficking. ANSA reported that Tajani expressed full confidence in Interior Minister Piantedosi.
Ceuta and Melilla, both Spanish territories located on the North African coast, form the European Union’s only land borders with Africa.
As The Gateway Pundit reported in June, Meloni directly confronted Sánchez during an EU leaders’ meeting and warned that Spain’s unilateral immigration policies would inevitably affect the rest of Europe.
Those warnings were ignored. Now the border has erupted.
More Polish People Have Been Killed in Islamist Terror Attacks in Germany Than in Poland
In a staggering condemnation of Germany’s open borders ideology, Berlin’s paper of record has noted that more Polish citizens have died in Islamist terror attacks in Germany than in Poland.
As a result of yet another deadly terror attack in Germany last weekend, a 65-year-old woman from Warsaw lost her life as a 21-year-old Abdul Ballout rammed a van into crowds at the Christopher Street Day Pride Parade in central Berlin. Among the further 31 injured was the daughter of the 65-year-old Polish woman, both of whom had travelled to the German capital for the annual LGBTQ event.
Remarkably, she was not the first Pole to have been killed in an Islamist terror attack in Germany, with Łukasz Urban, a Polish truck driver, also being killed in a vehicle attack. Urban was among 12 to have lost their lives as Tunisian terrorist Anis Amri used a Semi-trailer truck to plough into pedestrians at a Berlin Christmas market in 2016. A further 56 people were also injured in the attack.
German paper of record Die Welt noted that this means that more people from Poland have died in jihadi terror attacks in Germany than in their home country, which has so far experienced zero fatal Islamist attacks. This is in large part due to Warsaw’s restrictive immigration policies, which have come in stark contrast to Germany’s open approach towards Islamic immigration.
Indeed, currently, Poland has only roughly between 40,000 and 76,000 Muslims in the country as a whole, compared to a population of around 37.7 million inhabitants. This means that the Islamic community accounts for around 0.1 to 0.2 per cent of the total population.
In contrast, at least 6.6 to 7.0 million Muslims are currently living in Germany, representing between 8 and 8.5 per cent of the population of 82.7 million people. This included the Berlin terror attacker, a Lebanese heritage 21-year-old, who was born in Berlin.
This disparity has arisen almost entirely from different immigration policies in recent years, with Poland being one of the few EU countries to resist mass migration and enforce strict border controls after German Chancellor Angela Merkel essentially opened the gates in 2015, sparking the European Migrant Crisis.
Die Welt notes that there is a growing perception among Polish people that Germany is unsafe, with social media users frequently mocking violent acts in Germany as having been committed by “cultural enrichers” or “engineers”.
This growing sentiment has translated into real-life decisions, with more people choosing to move from Germany to Poland than the other way around for the first time on record.
Indeed, data from Destatis showed that around 90,807 people moved from Germany to Poland, compared to 82,082 per cent of people from Poland moving to Germany in 2024.
Despite conventional wisdom that mass migration is essential to the economy, Poland has consistently outpaced Germany in recent years, with the German economy growing by just 0.2 per cent last year compared to 3.6 per cent in Poland.
Paris makes gender assessments mandatory for all public space projects
The Council of Paris has voted to make gender-based “usage assessments” mandatory before any future public space development, as part of what officials describe as a broader effort to build a “feminist city” and combat what they call the rise of “masculinist” ideas.
The motion, a non-binding resolution known in French as a vœu, adopted at the council session of May 19-20, 2026, requires that all urban planning projects undergo a diagnostic study examining how different groups use public spaces and whether planned developments adequately address gender disparities in safety and accessibility.
The policy also seeks to ensure that recommendations arising from these assessments are actually implemented, something city officials acknowledged has not always happened in previous projects. The city already holds a project-management support contract covering such diagnostics but its use has not been systematic.
Paris published a reference guide on gender and public space in June 2023, launched at the Pavillon de l’Arsenal, and had run pilot schemes across six sites in 2021.
Defending the measure, deputy mayor for gender equality Barbara Gomes of the French Communist Party (PCF) argued that public space had been designed neither for women nor by women. She noted that 52 per cent of Parisians are women.
Gomes said the council intends to make Paris a feminist city through education and public planning, by funding feminist associations and by countering what she called masculinist discourse.
The initiative comes as the Socialist-led Paris administration has intensified its focus on gender equality in public policy. Emmanuel Grégoire, who succeeded Anne Hidalgo as mayor on March 29, 2026, campaigned on neighbourhood police kiosks and lighting schemes aimed at women’s safety.
The motion argues that a growing “masculinist” movement, which it links to a reactionary right-wing politics, is increasingly challenging feminist policies.
According to figures cited by the city, 68 per cent of women aged 20 to 25 in the Île-de-France region say they have experienced harassment or sexist or sexual violence in public spaces. The Haut Conseil à l’égalité entre les femmes et les hommes, France’s national equality council, has separately found that 76 per cent of French women have been followed in the street at least once.
The city has appointed Gabrielle Siry-Houari of the Socialist Party (PS) as deputy councillor responsible for combating sexist and sexual violence, working alongside Gomes.
Officials said the new assessments could lead to measures including wider pavements, redesigned pedestrian routes and the installation of neighbourhood police kiosks.
The motion states that public transport, the approaches to railway and metro stations, car parks, poorly lit spaces and under-equipped areas are where women most report feeling unsafe.
Siry-Houari has pointed to what she described as the monopolisation of freely accessible sports facilities in parks and gardens by men, saying many women feel illegitimate in using them.
Beyond physical planning, the city intends to expand public awareness campaigns aimed both at potential perpetrators and victims of harassment. Officials said they are examining similar campaigns carried out in London and Brussels.
Siry-Houari has said the aim is to make the public aware that harassment and verbal aggression are criminal offences, and not only rape and sexual assault.
Paris has also begun consultations with feminist organisations, including the Centre d’information sur le droit des femmes et des familles (CIDFF), the information centre on the rights of women and families, Osez le féminisme, À places égales, Sine qua non and the Collectif féministe contre le viol, with further meetings planned. The first of these took place at the Hôtel de Ville on May 21, 2026.
City officials say the strategy extends beyond women, arguing that ethnic minorities and LGBTQIA+ people also experience public spaces differently and should be considered in urban planning decisions.
The initiative reflects a broader trend among several European cities to incorporate identity-based criteria into urban development.
The Socialist-run city of Nantes, western France, has pledged since 2020 to become the country’s first “non-sexist city” by 2030 and piloted a “gender-sensitive budget” in 2023 to test whether municipal spending benefited women and men equally. Mayor Johanna Rolland was re-elected to a third term on March 22, 2026.
In Belgium, the Flemish government has launched a 2026 funding call for projects improving women’s and girls’ safety, access and participation in public space. Successful bids are required to produce guidelines, methods or tools for use beyond the municipality concerned.