In France, politics is happening at a ferocious pace.
This country – big, wealthy, influential and vital to the stability of Europe – is suddenly facing a moment of tumult. Change, and perhaps really big change, is looming.
There are election posters up everywhere, candidates staring out at you with fixed grins and slogans. But there is one face that seems to appear more than anyone else – Marine Le Pen.
Image: Posters of Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella
A fixture in French politics for a quarter of a century, she has stood for president, rebuilt her party, and even remoulded France’s far-right conversation. But now, more than ever, she sits on the brink of real power.
After Sunday’s election, the polls suggest that her far-right Rassemblement National (RN) will be the biggest winner, even allowing for the curious complexities of the French system.
A left-wing alliance will probably come second with the centre-ground party of President Emmanuel Macron trailing along in third.
If – and it’s a huge, wobbly, unreliable if – the RN were to get most seats in the National Assembly, the country would be transformed.
More on Emmanuel Macron
Related Topics:
Madame Le Pen’s protege, the 28-year-old Jordan Bardella, would inevitably be installed as prime minister, working uneasily alongside a president who loathes pretty much everything that the RN stands for.
Image: Marine Le Pen and Emmanuel Macron. Pic: Reuters
Mr Bardella would want much tougher laws against immigration, and against supporting immigrants.
Advertisement
He would also want to unwind some of Macron’s economic reforms and is much more sceptical about European integration than Macron.
How, you might wonder, could these two politicians work together in any meaningful way?
It would pave the way for instability, but also for the RN to flex real political clout.
And it would also lead to Ms Le Pen, once again, running for president. And as I write this, she is the favourite to win that contest, too.
But back to that big “if”.
Image: Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella. Pic: Reuters
France has a two-round voting system, with a week in between ballots. Candidates knocked out in the first round often advise their supporters who to back in the decisive second ballot. People might change their minds anyway.
The results from the first influence the way people behave in the second. A higher turnout may help the RN, except in the big cities, where it will probably help their opponents. It is a confusing, noisy mechanism almost everyone agrees on two things.
Firstly, the RN, led by Le Pen but also focused upon Mr Bardella, is destined to win more seats than any other party. And, secondly, this is all the more frenetic because it came out of the blue.
Make no mistake, a month ago, none of this was predicted. Sure, everyone knew that the Renaissance party of President Emmanuel Macron was likely to suffer a bloody nose during the European elections.
The RN, powered by disaffection with Macron and the populist, anti-immigration, “France First” rhetoric of Ms Le Pen and the youthful Mr Bardella, was certain to prosper.
But history is littered with mid-term elections that produce curious results. Macron, surely, would just shrug it off.
Image: Jordan Bardella could soon take a key role within France’s government. Pic: Reuters
Except he didn’t.
Humbled by the scale of his defeat, Macron went on French television within minutes to announce that he was doing the very thing that his enemies in the RN had demanded – using his presidential power to dissolve parliament and call for fresh elections within weeks.
His logic was that the nation – his nation – would somehow come to its senses and turn its back on radical politics in general, and the RN in particular. And the evidence is that, fuelled by his own iron-clad self-belief, he got that wrong.
So what’s happening? More than anything, this is about two big political waves meeting each other. The first one has to do with Macron himself, whose popularity has simply declined. The second has to do with the ripple of populism that is moving through so many countries.
When he stormed to the presidency seven years ago, he was seen by many as the fresh new start that France needed – a dynamic young man, just 39 years old, who would shake up the nation and bring back some sense of dynamism and glory.
In the run-off against Ms Le Pen, he pitched himself as the politician of optimism, and her as a figure of hate. It worked – he won easily.
His follow-up victory a couple of years ago was less overwhelming but still comfortable. But then he lost control of the parliament and his control waned.
The old complaints came back – that he is, to quote an accusation I’ve heard countless times – the “president for the rich”; that he doesn’t understand the problems of normal people; that his interest is in promoting himself, not his country.
During the violent riots in Nanterre last year, Mr Macron’s government looked hopelessly leaden, while his efforts to raise the retirement age caused widespread fury.
His opponents from the centre have fragmented but his rivals on the left and right have become emboldened.
So while Mr Macron has tried to sound reasonable and emollient, he’s faced strident, unapologetic rhetoric from left and right, which has found an ever-greater audience.
Mr Macron is still a young man by the standards of global political leaders but perhaps his nation is now fed up with him, particularly at a time when so much space in the European political arena is being taken by leaders who favour strident opinions over considered nuance.
Image: Giorgia Meloni, prime minister of Italy. Pic: AP
The French just have to look over their border with Italy, after all, to see how Giorgia Meloni’s brand of right-wing populism has prospered.
Look, perhaps, at the success in the Netherlands of Geert Wilders, a man who, like Ms Le Pen, spent decades in the political margins, confident that one day his time would come.
Or consider the volume of support given to the farmers who brought France’s motorways to a halt, angry with governments in Paris and Brussels.
The RN has tapped into that discontent and also benefited from it.
Image: Dutch anti-Islam politician Geert Wilders of the PVV, or Party for Freedom, voting in the European election in The Hague, Netherlands. Pic: AP
Sky News Data has analysed voting data from across France and drawn a few clear links that occur again and again.
In places where unemployment is high, such as near the border with Spain, or where disposable income is low, such as northwest France, the RN scores highly.
Madame Le Pen herself represents one of these places in the assembly – the 11th constituency of Pas-de-Calais. It includes Henin-Beaumont, a coal-mining town where she used to be a councillor and which is now an RN stronghold.
All around it are slag-heaps, now covered in grass. They are a reminder of the town’s past and also induce a widespread and lingering sense of resentment that the area, and its people, have been left behind.
If politics is a horseshoe, this is Mr Macron’s problem. The far-left leaders, like Jean-Luc Melenchon, condemn the President for not doing enough to protect workers and for damaging the fabric of society. So, too, do Ms Le Pen, Mr Bardella and the far-right.
Their solutions are different, with Mr Melenchon’s rhetoric focusing on tax rises for the rich and stronger workers’ rights, while Ms Le Pen talks about immigration and protectionism, but perhaps the specifics don’t matter.
The fact is that after years of leadership from the centre, France is now increasingly looking to its margins.
We know the RN will do well, so the question is now just how well. And if they don’t take an absolute majority, and if Mr Macron resists appointing Mr Bardella as prime minister, what happens then?
Will the French government grind to a halt, gummed up by political divisions that stop anything being done?
Could Macron, as proud a leader as you’ll find, ever really be pushed into resignation?
We simply don’t know. And that is what makes this election so enthralling but also slightly unnerving.
Iran’s foreign ministry has told Sky News there is still a chance for peace talks with the United States.
In an interview in Iran’s foreign ministry in Tehran, a senior Iranian official said despite the attacks on his country by America and Israel, back-channel efforts are under way to restart the search for a diplomatic solution.
The comments will be seen as an olive branch for the Trumpadministration to seize as it explores a diplomatic way forward.
We also filmed the impact of Israel’s attacks on ordinary Iranians in Tehran.
In the wake of a ceasefire declared by Donald Trump, Esmaeil Baqaei, the Iranian foreign ministry spokesman, said the US must show it is genuine in its desire for peace.
“Diplomacy must not be abused or used as a tool for deception or for simply a sort of psychological warfare against their adversaries.”
Iran felt diplomacy had been betrayed, he said. US-Iranian talks were on the verge of reconvening when Israel attacked his country.
And America had breached international law in its support of what he called “Zionist aggression”.
But Mr Baqaei said “diplomacy never ends, there are contacts, indirectly. My minister is talking to Oman, Qatar and others”.
President Trump says he is ready to talk with Iran, but major stumbling blocks need to be overcome.
The US wants Iran to give up nuclear enrichment completely. Iran has long insisted it has the right to carry on.
Image: A residential building hit by Israel in Tehran
Image: A residential building hit by Israel in Tehran
Across town, we witnessed the impact of Israel’s attacks in Gisha, an upmarket neighbourhood of Tehran.
Israel claims its attacks on Iranian figures were precision-targeted. In reality they appear to have been far from surgical.
The airstrike came at 10.30 Friday morning two weeks ago. It ripped a hole through four floors of reinforced concrete in the residential apartment block.
The target may have been a nuclear scientist living there, but everyone in the building is now without a home. Engineers say it will almost certainly need to be torn down.
The mood in the Iranian capital seems subdued and tense.
Iranians fear Israelis will renew their air campaign despite the ceasefire, but the foreign ministry spokesperson said they “will respond” to any Israeli attack.
Follow The World
Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim every Wednesday
There is widespread resentment of the leadership after nationwide social unrest and massive economic problems.
But the Israeli attacks have rallied many Iranians around their government all the same.
They had hoped diplomacy with America could deliver a new deal and an end to sanctions, then Israel began its 12-day aerial onslaught and the US joined in.
Iranians hope somehow talks can be restarted, but they also know the chances of progress are, for now at least, not great.
Sky News analysis shows that aid distributions by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) are associated with a significant increase in deaths.
Warning: This article contains descriptions of people being killed and images of blood on a hospital floor.
The US and Israeli-backed group has been primarily responsible for aid distribution since Israel lifted its 11-week blockade of the Gaza Strip last month.
The GHF distributes aid from four militarised Secure Distribution Sites (SDSs) – three of which are in the far south of the Gaza Strip. Under the previous system, the UN had distributed aid through hundreds of sites across the territory.
According to Gaza’s health ministry, 600 Palestinians have been killed while seeking aid from GHF sites, which charities and the UN have branded “death traps”.
Datawrapper
This content is provided by Datawrapper, which may be using cookies and other technologies.
To show you this content, we need your permission to use cookies.
You can use the buttons below to amend your preferences to enable Datawrapper cookies or to allow those cookies just once.
You can change your settings at any time via the Privacy Options.
Unfortunately we have been unable to verify if you have consented to Datawrapper cookies.
To view this content you can use the button below to allow Datawrapper cookies for this session only.
The UN put the figure at 410, but has not updated this number since 24 June. Both the UN and health ministry source their figures from hospitals near the aid sites.
Speaking to Sky News, GHF chief Johnnie Moore disputed that these deaths were connected with his organisation’s operations.
“Almost anything that happens in the Gaza Strip is going to take place in proximity to something,” he said.
“Our effort is actually working despite a disinformation campaign, that is very deliberate and meant to shut down our efforts.
“We just want to feed Gazans. That’s the only thing that we want to do.”
However, new analysis by Sky’s Data & Forensics Unit shows that deaths in Gaza have spiked during days with more GHF distributions.
On days when GHF conducts just two distributions or fewer, health officials report an average of 48 deaths and 189 injuries across the Gaza Strip.
On days with five or six GHF distributions, authorities have reported almost three times as many casualties.
Out of 77 distributions at GHF sites between 5 June and 1 July, Sky News found that 23 ended in reports of bloodshed (30%).
At one site, SDS4 in the central Gaza Strip, as many as half of all distributions were followed by reports of fatal shootings.
Sky News spoke to one woman who had been attending SDS4 for 10 days straight.
“I witnessed death first-hand – bodies lay bleeding on the ground all around me,” says Huda.
“This is not right. Food should be delivered to UN warehouses, and this entire operation must be shut down.”
Image: Huda told Sky News that she has been trying to obtain aid from SDS4, in the central Gaza Strip, for the past 10 days
Huda says that the crowds are forced to dodge bombs and bullets “just to get a bag of rice or pasta”.
“You may come back, you may not,” she says. “I was injured by shrapnel in my leg. Despite that, I go back, because we really have nothing in our tent.”
One of the deadliest incidents at SDS4 took place in the early hours of 24 June.
According to eyewitnesses, Israeli forces opened fire as people advanced towards aid trucks carrying food to the site, which was due to open.
“It was a massacre,” said Ahmed Halawa. He said that tanks and drones fired at people “even as we were fleeing”. At least 31 people were killed, according to medics at two nearby hospitals.
Footage from that morning shows the floor of one of the hospitals, al Awda, covered in blood.
The IDF says it is reviewing the incident.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
15:58
Doctor’s final moments revealed
Issues of crowd control
Unnamed soldiers who served near the aid sites told Israeli newspaper Haaretz that they were instructed to use gunfire as a method of crowd control.
An IDF spokesperson told Sky News that it “strongly rejected” the accusations that its forces were instructed to deliberately shoot at civilians.
“To be clear, IDF directives prohibit deliberate attacks on civilians,” the spokesperson said, adding that the incidents are “being examined by the relevant IDF authorities”.
Eyewitness testimony and footage posted to social media suggest that crowd control is a frequent problem at the sites.
The video below, uploaded on 12 June, shows a crowd rushing into SDS1, in Gaza’s far southwest. What sounds like explosions are audible in the background.
Footage from the same site, uploaded on 15 June, shows Palestinians searching for food among hundreds of aid parcels scattered across the ground.
Instagram
This content is provided by Instagram, which may be using cookies and other technologies.
To show you this content, we need your permission to use cookies.
You can use the buttons below to amend your preferences to enable Instagram cookies or to allow those cookies just once.
You can change your settings at any time via the Privacy Options.
Unfortunately we have been unable to verify if you have consented to Instagram cookies.
To view this content you can use the button below to allow Instagram cookies for this session only.
Sam Rose, the director of UNRWA operations in Gaza, describes the distribution process as a “free-for-all”.
“What they’re doing is they’re loading up the boxes on the ground and then people just rush in,” he says.
Sky News has found that the sites typically run out of food within just nine minutes. In a quarter of cases (23%), the food is finished by the time the site was due to officially open.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
27:55
Doctors on the frontline
Confusing communications
Sky News analysis suggests that the issue may be being compounded by poor communications from GHF.
Between 19 June and 1 July, 86% of distributions were announced with less than 30 minutes’ notice. One in five distributions was not announced at all prior to the site opening.
The GHF instructs Palestinians to take particular routes to the aid centres, and to wait at specified locations until the official opening times.
The map for SDS1 instructs Palestinians to take a narrow agricultural lane that no longer exists, while the maps for SDS2 and SDS3 give waiting points that are deep inside IDF-designated combat zones.
The maps do not make the boundaries of combat zones clear or specify when it is safe for Palestinians to enter them.
Datawrapper
This content is provided by Datawrapper, which may be using cookies and other technologies.
To show you this content, we need your permission to use cookies.
You can use the buttons below to amend your preferences to enable Datawrapper cookies or to allow those cookies just once.
You can change your settings at any time via the Privacy Options.
Unfortunately we have been unable to verify if you have consented to Datawrapper cookies.
To view this content you can use the button below to allow Datawrapper cookies for this session only.
The same is true for SDS4, the only distribution site outside Gaza’s far south. Its waiting point is located 1.2 miles (2km) inside an IDF combat zone.
The official map also provides no access route from the northern half of Gaza, including Gaza City, across the heavily militarised Netzarim corridor.
Datawrapper
This content is provided by Datawrapper, which may be using cookies and other technologies.
To show you this content, we need your permission to use cookies.
You can use the buttons below to amend your preferences to enable Datawrapper cookies or to allow those cookies just once.
You can change your settings at any time via the Privacy Options.
Unfortunately we have been unable to verify if you have consented to Datawrapper cookies.
To view this content you can use the button below to allow Datawrapper cookies for this session only.
“They don’t know what they’re doing,” says UNRWA’s Sam Rose.
“They don’t have anyone working on these operations who has any experience of operating, of administering food distributions because anyone who did have that experience wouldn’t want to be part of it because this isn’t how you treat people.”
Once the sites are officially open, Palestinians are allowed to travel the rest of the way.
The distance from waiting point to aid site is typically over a kilometre, making it difficult for Palestinians to reach the aid site before the food runs out.
The shortest distance is at SDS4 – 689m. At a pace of 4km per hour, this would take around 10 minutes to cover.
But of the 18 distributions at this site which were announced in advance, just two lasted longer than 10 minutes before the food ran out.
“We don’t have time to pick anything up,” says Huda, who has been visiting SDS4 for the past 10 days.
In all that time, she says, all she had managed to take was a small bag of rice.
“I got it from the floor,” she says. “We didn’t get anything else.”
More than 200 charities and non-governmental organisations have called for the closure of GHF and the reinstatement of previous, UN-led mechanisms of aid distribution.
In a joint statement issued on 1 July, some of the world’s largest humanitarian groups accused the GHF of violating international humanitarian principles. They said the scheme was forcing two million people into overcrowded, militarised zones where they face daily gunfire.
Additional reporting by OSINT producers Sam Doak and Lina-Serene.
The Data and Forensics team is a multi-skilled unit dedicated to providing transparent journalism from Sky News. We gather, analyse and visualise data to tell data-driven stories. We combine traditional reporting skills with advanced analysis of satellite images, social media and other open source information. Through multimedia storytelling we aim to better explain the world while also showing how our journalism is done.
A red shipping container sits on the tarmac of Sierra Leone’s Queen Elizabeth II Quay, under swinging cranes and towering stacks of similar steel boxes.
This one will likely be parked at the port permanently. The contents are suspected to be the ingredients of kush, the deadly synthetic drug ravaging Sierra Leone.
Sky News was given access to the container two weeks after it was seized.
“Preliminary testing has shown that these items are kush ingredients,” says the secretary of the Ports Authority, Martin George, as he points to the marked contraband in massive multicoloured Amazon UK bags and a large blue vat of strongly smelling acetone.
He adds: “Shipped from the United Kingdom.”
The container was selected for screening based on its origin. The UK is with the EU and South America on the list of places considered high risk for the import of illicit substances fuelling the drug trade in Sierra Leone and the region.
Kush has shaken this part of West Africa to its core – not just Sierra Leone but Liberia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau and the Gambia. It is highly addictive, ever-evolving and affordable.
More on Africa
Related Topics:
The sprayed grey-green marshmallow leaves are rolled in a joint like marijuana and are extremely dangerous. Samples of the drug tested by researchers contained nitazens, one of the deadliest synthetic drugs in the world.
“It was a shock to find them in around half of the kush samples we tested, as at that point there was no public evidence they had reached Africa,” says Lucia Bird Ruiz-Benitez de Lugo from Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime (GI-TOC) who independently tested kush from Sierra Leone.
“Nitazenes are among the deadliest drugs available on retail drug markets across the world – with one nitazene in kush in Freetown being 25 times stronger than fentanyl,” she added.
The shocking effects of its potency can be seen on the bodies of young men and women around Freetown. Teenagers with sores eating away at their legs, unable to walk. Mothers who smoked during pregnancy carrying sickly rash-covered infants. Young men drooling from the intense high and slumped over while still standing.
They are not the fringes of Sierra Leonean society but a growing demographic of kush users searching for an escape. People riddled by poverty and unemployment, living in the dark corners of a capital city which has endured a brutal civil war and Ebola epidemic in the last three decades alone.
An entire community of men and women of all ages is held together by kush addiction under a main road that cuts through the heart of Freetown.
They call themselves the “Under de Bridge family” and live in the shadows of the overpass, surrounded by the sewage and rubbish discarded by their neighbours.
One of them tells us the harsh conditions drive him to keep smoking kush even after losing more than 10 friends to the drug – killed by large infected sores and malnutrition.
Nearby, 17-year-old Ibrahim is pained by growing sores and says the drug is destroying his life.
“This drug is evil. This drug is bad. I don’t know why they gave me this drug in this country. Our brothers are suffering. Some are dying, some have sores on their feet. This drug brings destruction,” he says.
“Look at me – just because of this drug. I have sores on my feet.”
Across a stream of sewage, a young mother expecting her second child cries from fear and anguish when I ask her about the risk of smoking while pregnant.
“Yes, I know the risk,” Elizabeth says, nodding.
“I’ll keep smoking while I live here but I have nowhere else to go. It helps me forget my worries and challenges.”
Life under the bridge is disrupted from its sleepiness by a yell. A plain-clothed police officer is chasing a child accused of selling kush.
The lucrative industry is absorbing all age groups and spreading rapidly to nearby countries – even passing through three different borders to reach the smallest nation in mainland Africa, The Gambia.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
2:53
Police hunt for kush dealers in West Africa
Gambian law enforcement has cracked down on spreading kush use with regular zero tolerance drug raids. The small population is extremely vulnerable and the country is yet to open its first rehabilitation centre. Rising xenophobia seems to be mostly directed at Sierra Leonean immigrants who they blame for smuggling kush into the country.
We spoke to one man from Sierra Leone who was arrested for dealing kush in The Gambia and spent a year in prison. He says that though he feels saddened other Sierra Leoneans are being alienated as a result of the trade he was involved in, he has no remorse for “following orders”.
“Do I feel guilty for selling it? No, I don’t feel guilty. I’m not using my money to buy the kush, people always give me money to get kush for them,” he tells Sky News anonymously.
“I needed a job. I needed to take care of my son.”
Gambia’s hardline approach has been credited with driving its local kush industry underground rather than eradicating it but is still hailed as the most impactful strategy in the region. Sierra Leone’s government told Sky News it needs help from surrounding countries and the UK to tackle the sprawling crisis.
Transnational crime experts like Lucia Bird Ruiz-Benitez de Lugo see the rise of kush as part of a global synthetic drugs network that requires a multi-national response.
“Coordinated action is urgently needed across the supply chain, particularly focused on nitazenes – the deadliest kush component,” says Ms Bird.
“Our research indicated that kush components are being imported to West Africa from countries in Asia and Europe, likely including the UK. All countries in the supply chain bear responsibility to act to mitigate the devastating and expanding impacts of kush across West Africa, a region with scarce resources to respond.”
Sky News’ Africa correspondent wins award
Yousra Elbagir has been named a winner of the International Women’s Media Foundation 2025 Courage in Journalism Awards.
She has chronicled the current war in Sudan, which has displaced more than 13 million people, including her own family.
Recently, Elbagir led the only television news crew to document the fall of Goma – the regional capital of eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo – to M23 rebels backed by Rwanda.
In the past year, her reports from the frontlines of Sudan’s war have broadcast massive scenes of devastation inside a global humanitarian crisis.
She said: “Our job as journalists is to reveal the truth and inform the public. Sometimes, it’s about exposing the misdeeds of the powerful. Other times, it’s about capturing the scale and depth of human suffering. Our job is also getting more difficult: Information wars and contempt for legacy media is growing by the day, which makes our job even more important.”
Elbagir added: “It is an honour to receive the IWMF Courage Award and join the ranks of such incredible women journalists. The courage to share the truth in our polarised world is at the heart of public service journalism and to be recognised for it is truly affirming – it gives me faith that people are listening.”