European elections under the specter of war – today Morocco

The European voter who goes to the polls at the beginning of next June will not be solely motivated by these two wars, which nevertheless directly affect their daily economic and security lives, but will undoubtedly be subjected to a difficult and sometimes anxiety-inducing atmosphere. it borders on the impotence that surrounds and will certainly affect these elections and the formation of the future European Parliament.

There is an original fact that sets these European elections apart. Their campaigns take place under the fire of two wars of unprecedented impact and intensity. The war between Russia and Ukraine that has engulfed Europe and Israel’s war in Gaza that threatens to reshape the political geography of the Middle East.
The war that Russia has been waging against the Kiev authorities for two years and several months has been an essential indicator of political behavior throughout Europe. A dividing line has emerged between extreme and traditional parties. Faced with Vladimir Putin and his war machine, the far right had the eyes of Chimena.

Admiring its authoritarian style, militaristic agenda, expansionist goals, extreme right in all forms, Marine Le Pen, Éric Zemmour, Marion Maréchal, expressed support for the Russian regime in its conflict with America and the European Union. While traditional parties, whether left or right, support military aid to Ukraine and a regime of international economic sanctions against Moscow, this extreme right has stood out for its opposition to these sanctions and its desire to block military and economic aid to Ukraine as the great godfather of the far right in Europe, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, he tried. This Russian war in Ukraine therefore revealed new divisions that divided the political field and enabled new positioning.

The same gap can also be found in the impacts that the war in Gaza has had on this European election campaign. We find, if we leave all similarities aside, the same political furrows. While the traditional parties more or less solemnly call for a ceasefire and the resumption of political negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, the French and European far-right have highlighted unprecedented and massive support for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the belligerent policies of his far-right government. Apart from the political kinship these forces might find in common under exceptional circumstances, the fact that the far right can support Israel’s war machine with such force clashes with its proven anti-Semitic past and its historical distrust of the State of Israel.

Israel’s war in Gaza caused a huge split in the French political spectrum. On the one hand, the radical left embodied by Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s France Insoumise showed unwavering support for the Palestinians. On the other hand, far-right parties have aligned themselves as one behind the military solutions adopted by the Israeli government.
It is true that the topics that have so far dominated the French political debate and that have paved the way, in public opinion, for the announced successes of the extreme right have mainly revolved around the migrant crisis, the fact remains that nothing less than the new perceptions of this campaign have directly produced positioning in these wars . The two will undoubtedly, each in their own way, influence the electoral approach of French and European citizens.

Vladimir Putin and his determined desire to seize large parts of Ukrainian territory by force in the name of historical legality rediscovered by cannon force. And Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister at the head of a far-right government that seeks to use the crimes committed by Hamas on October 7 to definitively bury the Palestinian cause in the name of a biblical obsession applied to the current geography of the Middle East policy.
The European voter who goes to the polls at the beginning of next June will not be solely motivated by these two wars, which nevertheless directly affect their daily economic and security lives, but will undoubtedly be subjected to a difficult and sometimes anxiety-inducing atmosphere. it borders on the impotence that surrounds and will certainly affect these elections and the formation of the future European Parliament.
These European elections are taking place under the specter of two wars with unprecedented asymmetric effects. One in the heart of Europe and the other in the heart of the Middle East. The big unknown today is whether the polling stations will be receptive to their echoes.