[This editorial is also available in Ukrainian.]
The European elections showed relative stability among the continent's political groupings, with the exception of France, Italy and Austria. Everywhere else, sovereignist movements regressed, often affected by the exercise of power.
The European Union is in good working order, despite external interference and mounting challenges.
The appointment of the heads of the common institutions should bear witness to this. The dominant centre-right, allied with the social democrats and liberal centrists, will renew their majority in Parliament and send their representatives to exercise the main functions. This post-election installation period will be accelerated.
Yet France has distinguished itself by a dissolution that is worrying both economically and politically. The prospect of an extremist majority, from the right or the left, coming to power in Paris is bad news for the whole of Europe, which reproaches the French President for not taking into account the European consequences of his mainly national choice.
At a time when support for Ukraine has been reiterated and amplified by the Europeans and by the enlarged G7, and when pressure is mounting on Putin and the Russian economy, this uncertainty is ill-timed, to say the least, and jeopardises European unity by allowing the Russian dictator's henchmen to get closer to power.
A new term of office is about to begin in Brussels and Strasbourg, which will have to face many challenges. War, of course, but also the place of standards and regulations in the management of digital and environmental transitions and, beyond that, real debate over economic policy.
Revitalising European growth is the only real way of containing the protests that the States of Europe, like all democracies, are experiencing. Confidence in the European economy, already fragile, is now suffering from the irresponsibility of France's extremist promises.
By opening the door to instability, France, whose President had launched bold and constructive proposals, is wasting an opportunity to lead the necessary changes in European policies. Its leadership will be weakened as a result. Unless the outcome of the elections it is organising is more favourable than expected.
Once again, a national situation will weigh on the Union as a whole, which is enough to confirm that it remains a "Europe of nations", the name of which has been hijacked to be used as a slogan by ignorant demagogues, the real adversaries of Europe.
