Fewer than 1 per cent German soldiers harbor “consistent right-wing-extremist attitudes,” according to a new study conducted by the military’s own Bundeswehr Center of Military History and Social Sciences (ZMSBw).The study found that only 0.4 per cent of soldiers show right-wing-extremist attitudes. Among the military’s civilian personnel, the proportion is 0.8 per cent, much less than the 5.4 per cent measured in the general German population, the authors said.The report did, however, find other problematic views among the soldiers: 6.4 per cent have “consistent chauvinist attitudes,” and 3.5 per cent have “consistent xenophobic attitudes.”In general, the study appears to be positive news, especially as the Bundeswehr has been dogged in recent years with well-documented stories of far-right networks and terrorist plots involving members of the military.In 2022, a Bundeswehr lieutenant named Franco A. was convicted of planning to carry out an act “threatening the security of the state” while posing as a Syrian refugee. In 2017, a nationwide network of armed preppers suspected of planning a military coup was found to include several current and former soldiers. Some German media outlets have even spoken of a “shadow army” within the Bundeswehr that has been ignored by the military’s intelligence service, the MAD.
Due to France’s drug trafficking crisis, a large majority of French are in favor of the army being deployed into disadvantaged neighborhoods in problematic neighborhoods in France, including 80 percent of women.
According to a CSA poll conducted for CNews, Europe 1 and JDD, 76 percent of French people overall want the army called in to battle drug trafficking in “disadvantaged neighborhoods.”
In fact, women are more supportive of troops being deployed than men, with 80 percent of women saying yes to the question: “Should the army be called in to combat drug trafficking in troubled neighborhoods?” In turn, only 72 percent of men supported such an action.
🇫🇷 Marseilles. France
The French port city is now a major narcotics hub for Europe.
Last year, a 15-year-old was stabbed 50 times and burned alive in the drug violence as murders hit record highs.
German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius told European Union lawmakers on Tuesday that Berlin is open to raising military spending to 5% of its GDP, an amount President Trump demanded to get NATO allies to pay their “fair share” for defense.
Germany’s Defence Minister Boris Pistorius on Tuesday accused Russia of playing for time in peace talks over Ukraine rather than being genuinely interested in a ceasefire.
Pistorius told reporters in Brussels that Russian President Vladimir Putin was “only talking about a ceasefire on his terms”, which including blocking Ukraine from becoming a member of NATO and Kyiv’s withdrawal from occupied territories.
“Putin is clearly playing for time, unfortunately we have to say Putin is not really interested in peace,” the German defence minister said.
“This is my assessment. There is no timetable,” Pistorius added of the ongoing ceasefire negotiations, in which the Kremlin has repeatedly refused to agree to a US-proposed 30 day ceasefire agreement.
LISBON — Portugal’s third general election in three years has failed to deliver the result that could break the worst spell of political instability for decades in the European Union country of 10.6 million people.
Sunday’s vote delivered another minority government for the center-right Democratic Alliance, which will be at the mercy of opposition parties. The significant rise in support for the hard-right populist party Chega (Enough) adds more uncertainty.
The Democratic Alliance, led by the Social Democratic Party, lost a vote of confidence in parliament in March as opposition lawmakers teamed up against it. That triggered an election, which had been due in 2028.
The confidence vote was sparked by a political storm around potential conflicts of interest in the business dealings of Prime Minister Luís Montenegro’s family law firm. Montenegro, who is poised to become prime minister again, has denied any wrongdoing.
Ukraine’s parliament on Thursday was set to vote on ratifying a resources deal with the United States that Kyiv hopes will pave the way to further military support.The deal, signed last week in Washington, will see Washington and Kyiv jointly develop Ukraine’s natural resources and minerals.Securing a fresh agreement was seen as a diplomatic success for Kyiv, coming after a White House clash between Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy that derailed an original deal that was ready to be signed.”We hope we will successfully complete the ratification today,”
German Chancellor Freidrich Merz has told President Trump and the United States to “stay out” of his country’s politics.
The country’s intelligence agency confirmed last week that it had classified the conservative Alternative for Germany party as a “proven right-wing extremist organization” because of their opposition to mass immigration and progressive ideology.
In a post on the X platform, Secretary of State Marco Rubio slammed German authorities for their continued crackdown against their political opposition.
He wrote:
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 that the AfD opposes.
U.S. President Donald Trump called on Thursday for a 30-day unconditional ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine and said that both countries will be held accountable for the “sanctity of these direct negotiations.”
Trump said in a social media post: “If the ceasefire is not respected, the U.S. and its partners will impose further sanctions.”
Germany’s Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) has declared Alternative for Germany (AfD) a “right-wing extremist group” and “opposed to the basic democratic order,” allowing the country’s intelligence apparatus to intensify surveillance efforts against the nation’s second-largest political party.
Late last week BfV delivered its 1,100-page report (which is not publicly available) to the Federal Minister of the Interior Nancy Faeser, who is leaving office after her party, the Social Democratic Party, finished third in Germany’s February elections.
Allegedly the report states, “Central to our assessment is the ethnically and ancestrally defined concept of the people that shapes the AfD, which devalues entire segments of the population in Germany and violates their human dignity.”
The report claims that AfD, which campaigned on immigration reform and the assimilation of Muslim migrants, seeks to exclude Muslims from society.
Despite warnings from European Union officials, Slovakia’s Moscow-friendly prime minister, Robert Fico, shook hands with Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin before becoming the only EU leader to attend Russia’s 9 May parade of military forces waging war on Ukraine.
The Serbian president, Aleksandar Vučić, whose country aspires to join the 27-nation bloc, also accepted the Russian president’s invitation to attend the annual Victory Day celebrations marking the defeat of Nazi Germany in the second world war.
The pair were the only European leaders to travel to Moscow after strong injunctions from EU officials not to do so. On Thursday, the bloc’s chief diplomat, Kaja Kallas, said: “All those who truly support peace cannot stand side-by-side with Putin. Those who truly support peace should be in Ukraine tomorrow, not Moscow.”
Ukrainian drone attacks across Russia triggered hours of travel chaos late Tuesday and early Wednesday, with repeated airport closures in Moscow and its surrounding regions.
Aviation authorities grounded flights at Moscow’s Domodedovo, Vnukovo and Zhukovsky airports, as well as in the cities of Nizhny Novgorod, Kirov, Yaroslavl, Kazan and others, warning of possible cancellations.
“The restrictions were imposed to ensure the safety of civil aircraft flights,” said Artyom Korenyako, a spokesperson for Russia’s Federal Air Transport Agency.
Major airlines, including Aeroflot, Pobeda and S7, told passengers to expect disruptions and announced the cancelations of hundreds of flight for Tuesday and Wednesday. S7 promised to issue a full refund for passengers with canceled flights or exchange tickets for other flights if there are available seats.
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The European Union launched a drive on Monday to attract scientists and researchers to Europe with offers of grants and new policy plans, after the Trump administration froze U.S. government funding linked to diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.
“A few years ago, no one would have imagined that one of the biggest democracies in the world would cancel research programs under the pretext that the word diversity was in this program,” French President Emmanuel Macron said at the “Choose Europe for Science” event in Paris.
“No one would have thought that one of the biggest democracies in the world would delete with a stroke the ability of one researcher or another to obtain visas,” Macron said. “But here we are.”
Taking the same stage at the Sorbonne University, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said that the EU’s executive branch would set up a “super grant” program aimed at offering “a longer-term perspective to the very best” in the field.
The EU says it has cut gas imports from 45% to 19%, and oil from 27% to 3%, of its prewar levels. But that still makes it Russia’s biggest gas client, with pipelines in operation across the Black Sea, Belarus, and Turkey, according to the Energy and Clean Air think tank.
In a historic first, conservative leader Friedrich Merz ’s bid to become Germany’s 10th chancellor since World War II failed by six votes in parliament on Tuesday, a stunning defeat as he had been widely expected to win smoothly.
A candidate for chancellor has never failed to win on the first ballot since the end of the war. The loss triggered a stock market slide: the DAX, the index of major German companies, was down 1.8 per cent following the vote.
Merz needed a majority of 316 out of 630 votes. He only received 310 votes — well short of the 328 seats held by his coalition, which is also one of the slimmest postwar majorities. Because the vote was held by secret ballot, it was not immediately clear — and might never be known — who had defected from Merz’s camp.
Merz’s coalition is led by his center-right Christian Democratic Union and its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union. They are joined by the center-left Social Democrats, outgoing Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s party. The parties were now to regroup to discuss the next step but it was also unclear how long the process could take.