As Olympic Idyll Recedes, French Fret Over Absentee Government, While Britain Grapples With More Migrants

After the Olympic intoxication cometh le grand hangover: France still has no prime minister, and the new one in Britain appears to have missed the boat on what is actually ailing vast sections of British society: mismanagement of the migrant crisis. In the background, war in Ukraine and a Middle East as muddled as ever. The Paris games gave the French a literal reprieve from the weeks of political turmoil that preceded them — or as Le Figaro put it, an “insouciant parenthesis” — but a new crisis is just around the corner. This is the time of year when typically France powers down for summer vacation, but this year’s mid-August break will be shorter than usual. Tom Cruise came and went, the Olympics political “truce” that President Macron sought and received is over, and there is now mounting pressure on the Élysée Palace to find a new prime minister by August 19.That doesn’t leave much time. A leading contender for the job is the New Popular Front’s Lucie Castets, who currently works under the radical left-wing mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, and recently came out as a lesbian. Support from Mr. Macron is not assured.The damage President Macron has done to the role of prime minister in recent years is substantial and it will take more than just a fresh face to energize the position. The caretaker prime minister, Gabriel Attal, handed in his resignation prior to the Olympics. According to French press reports, Mr. Attal is no longer on speaking terms with Mr. Macron, although on Monday they jointly attend a reception at the Élysée Palace to thank the Olympic organizers.With leading figures on the right such as the National Rally’s Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella now more focused on solidifying their positions in the European Parliament, the French political theater’s next act may avoid some of last spring’s drama. France has an enduring supporting role in the turmoil that has roiled the British Isles in recent weeks. The violent riots are over and the blame game has begun — it was all the fault of Elon Musk and that accursed social media, according to some policy cognoscenti in the Labor government — but the source of the trouble is still bubbling. It is the arrival on the English coast of small boats, packed with migrants, that set off from the coast of France. On Sunday a veritable flotilla of 11 such boats plied the English Channel, with data from the British Home Office indicating that more than 700 illegal migrants came ashore on that day. Two migrants reportedly died trying to make the crossing, and some 50 were rescued from the water with what French authorities described as “fuel burn injuries” and were returned to France. According to the Home Office, the total number of arrivals to the United Kingdom in small boats in 2024 to date stands at a “provisional” 18,342. That figure is 13 percent higher than at the same point last year. On June 18 this year, 882 migrants crossed the Channel in a single day. Even before he was chosen as the new prime minister, Sir Keir Starmer repeatedly promised to “smash the gangs” operating in France and locations further afield that facilitate human smuggling. So far, however, he hasn’t done anything. He has evoked the creation of a new “Border Security Command” that will give officers authority under 2008’s Counter Terrorism Act to conduct stop-and-searches at the border, but it has not been created yet.On Monday a spokesperson for 10 Downing Street said that “summer is a challenging time” for boat crossings and that “we expect to see increases before we see improvements.”The government’s inaction is already a liability, as the eruption of anti-immigrant riots in the wake of the murder of three young girls last month by the British son of Rwandan immigrants showed. New migrant arrivals, many of whom are asylum-seekers, are temporarily housed at hotels that are part of major brands like Holiday Inn Express. The system has gone haywire. As the Times of London first reported, immigrants are now filling more new jobs than Britons. That report follows Primer Minister Starmer’s announcement last month that more than $85 million in aid will be allocated for African and Middle Eastern countries to try to address the migration crisis “at its source.”Those schemes have not worked well for the European Union as a whole nor individual EU member countries like Italy.The anger of the British working class is still palpable. No one excuses the recent violence, but the scent of outrage has yet to clear from many of Britain’s economically flagging urban districts. At least in France there were a couple of weeks of Olympic distraction. In Britain, an absence of angry demonstrations today is no guarantee there will not be more looming around the corner.

As Olympic Idyll Recedes, French Fret Over Absentee Government, While Britain Grapples With More Migrants

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