Macron and Scholz have suffered humiliating defeats triggering concern of a bigger shift to the right in France and Germany. If this happens, Europe's power balance could fundamentally transform.
For decades the far right sat on the periphery of Western politics, dismissed as angry skinheads or deluded neo-Nazis by the centrist mainstream. No longer.
A big pro-EU bloc should still hold sway even if the ultra-nationalists make gains. More broadly, the results will act as a barometer of public mood in the first vote since Russia invaded Ukraine.
Twin fears of an inward-looking Donald Trump and a westward-looking Vladimir Putin have left officials in Europe's treasuries urgently revising their budgets to make room for more defence spending.
It is curious that amid the global attention on the Gaza war, very few commentators have remarked on the way that European imperialism laid the foundations for the Israel-Palestine conflict.
The political goal was a US and European effort to demonstrate the capacity for connectivity idea generation, or less generously, to try and out-China the Chinese Belt Road Initiative.
A simple snapshot of a small grocery shop in Amsterdam reveals the power of human geography and how it can shape society. Without embracing diversity, European cities cannot re-invent themselves.
The American CIA director's visit looks to be a desperate attempt by the Trump administration to avert a doomsday scenario in which NATO is pulled into a larger war with Russia
Al Majalla looks at his military career, political positions, possible paths to victory, and what a change in leadership could mean for Israel and the region after three years of war
As social media transforms how people seek medical advice, figures such as Barbara O'Neill offer something conventional medicine rarely can: absolute certainty
The Iran war exposed the risks of being too closely tied to US military posture, which is why some Gulf states are repositioning themselves not merely as consumers of security but as architects of it