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Paris begins reopening next week, bringing relief to residents missing its long-shuttered shops, museums, theaters and cafes that make France’s iconic capital so special. Not to mention something more basic—easily accessible toilets. Cecile Briand ducks into a small cement building, tucked inside a northern Paris square. The toilet she’s inspecting is a bit dirty, but no nasty surprises—nothing a little tissue can’t fix. Number one advice walking this city: always bring toilet paper.  Briand is a writer and artist. Also possibly this capital’s best resource on restrooms. Her guidebook Ou Faire Pipi a Paris? — or Where to Pee in Paris — is now in its second edition.   She earned her expertise firsthand— spending hours on the streets researching a separate Lonely Planet guide on Paris walks. Discovering its hidden and not-so-hidden toilets, she says, is another way of discovering the city.Briand checks out a restroom in a small square and pronounces it “correct.” (VOA/Lisa Bryant)Some of Briand’s top picks include the 5th-floor restrooms at the Galeries Lafayette department store —over a terrace with a stunning view of the capital. There’s also the red-carpeted Drouot auction house, and Josephine Baker swimming pool on the Seine River.  Lockdown has shuttered these and many other places — like this public library we pass by.  For the desperate — and less choosy — there are always the city’s 435 sanisettes, elegant-looking steel structures that—despite their automatic cleaning— aren’t always so elegant inside.  Peeing in Paris has been problematic long before coronavirus. The city hall has long been at war against what it calls ‘wild pipi’ — mostly by men — in public spaces. Residents and tourists mocked the environmentally friendly urinals it set up a few years ago— and this public service announcement featuring actors singing through toilet seats. Meanwhile, critics recently launched an online campaign hash tagged #saccageaparis, or “trashed Paris,” blaming the municipal government, fairly or unfairly, for unkempt streets.   Pere Lachaise cemetery, the next stop on Briand’s tour, offers a respite from the controversy. It’s here Frederic Chopin, Honore de Balzac, Jim Morrison and many other famous people are buried. Equally important is its restroom in a little chalet. Visitors Elena and Rosa Marie, from the northern city of Reims, are hunting for the entrance.One of the restrooms at the Pere Lachaise cemetery in Paris. (VOA/Lisa Bryant)Elena says it’s very complicated spending time outside in big cities these days. Either you hold off peeing, or you stay at home.  The lockdown has brought Briand’s guide more media attention. She’s now waiting to assess its impact on the city’s toilet landscape — before working on the third edition of Where to to Pee in Paris.  
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An independent panel released a report Wednesday saying the coronavirus pandemic was a “preventable disaster,” exacerbated by a slow and weak World Health Organization (WHO) and lack of global political leadership.
The panel, formed to examine the cause of and response to the pandemic, said that while there had been years of warnings about the threat of pandemics, initial signs of the threat from clinicians in Wuhan, China were not acted on. It said coordinated, global leadership was absent, and global tensions undermined efforts by international, multilateral institutions to take cooperative action.  
The panel also concluded that the international threat warning could have been declared at least a week earlier than it was on January 30, 2020.
Close to 160 million cases have been recorded globally, along with more than 3.3 million deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins University’s Coronavirus Resource Center.
The independent panel faulted countries worldwide for their “wait and see” approach, rather than enacting aggressive containment strategies that might have slowed or prevented the crisis. The group also criticized restrictive international health laws that hindered the WHO’s response.
The independent panel was formed last year by WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus at the request of the organization’s membership. Former Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark led the panel.
In its final report, the panel made a series of recommendations, such as creating a global health threats council through the United Nations. It would include heads of state, giving the WHO more power and financial independence and have it work with the World Trade Organization with vaccine-producing countries and manufacturers to quickly reach deals to boost the world’s global supply of coronavirus shots.
The panel also suggested that Tedros, WHO’s current director-general, should be limited to a single seven-year term. As it stands, the WHO chief is elected to a five-year term that can be renewed once.
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Russia has denied involvement in the cyberattack that crippled Colonial Pipeline, a critical artery for almost half of the U.S. East Coast’s fuel supply. While the Biden administration has taken steps to address gasoline shortages, drivers are beginning to see higher prices at the pump. White House Correspondent Patsy Widakuswara has this report.  
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Among the many stories of World War Two, Nazi Germany’s Siege of Leningrad —  the Soviet city now known as Russia’s Saint Petersburg —  stands among the most harrowing. It also helped shape the world we live in today, as Charles Maynes reports for VOA, from St. Petersburg.Camera: Ricardo Marquina Montañana
 
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Britain’s Queen Elizabeth delivered the official Opening of Parliament speech Tuesday, her first ceremonial appearance since the death of her husband, Prince Philip.The speech, traditionally a large-scale event full of pageantry in which the queen opens the new parliament, was scaled back considerably due to the COVID-19 pandemic, with the queen wearing a day dress instead of the usual robes and crown.The queen presented Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s agenda, focusing on economic recovery and development in a post-pandemic Britain. Johnson’s Conservative majority party made gains in regional elections late last week and is expected to press that advantage by pushing through reforms sidelined by the pandemic in the past year.  The queen outlined several bills the government hopes to pass during the next year on everything from job creation and strengthening the National Health Service to stripping back post-Brexit bureaucracy.In a speech prepared by Johnson’s cabinet the queen said, “My government’s priority is to deliver a national recovery from the pandemic that makes the United Kingdom stronger, healthier and more prosperous than before.”The queen said the government will balance opportunities across all parts of the United Kingdom, supporting jobs, businesses and economic growth and addressing the impact of the pandemic on public services.”Much of Tuesday’s “Queen’s Speech” comprised policies and proposals already offered, prompting the opposition Labour Party to challenge the government to turn its “rhetoric into reality.”While Johnson solidified his majority in parliament, last week’s elections also brought him problems in Scotland. There, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon’s ruling party won a pro-independence vote majority, and she told him Saturday that is not a question of “if, but when” Scotland will hold another referendum on independence from Britain.
 
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Turkey’s foreign minister is visiting Saudi Arabia in a bid to repair deeply strained relations. The visit is part of broader regional efforts by Ankara to stem its growing isolation in the region.  Turkish foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu’s two-day visit to Saudi Arabia that started Monday follows this month’s phone call between President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Saudi King Salman.  The visit comes as an escalating rivalry between the two countries plunges relations to a historic low, with Turkey at one point accusing Saudi Arabia of enforcing a trade embargo.  Turkish presidential adviser Mesut Casin says Ankara is now looking for a reset. “Turkey is looking for closer ties with Saudi Arabia, beneficial for the regional peace and security,” he said. “Saudi Arabia is very important for Turkey. But there is a positive atmosphere and intention to repair. First, improve the economic relations in the trade side; Saudi Arabia the ban some of the Turkish products is not very good for Turkey we have to repair this situation.”Riyadh denies enforcing an embargo, but Ankara claims exports to the Kingdom had fallen by 90% in the last year.    FILE – A Saudi woman looks at the dairy products in a supermarket, after Saudi Arabia’s retail stores urged customers to boycott Turkish products, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Oct. 18, 2020.Observers say Erdogan and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman have been competing for regional leadership in the Middle East.    Following the 2018 murder of Saudi dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, Erdogan led international calls to hold Riyadh to account. Huseyin Bagci, head of the Ankara-based Foreign Policy Institute said Erdogan has ceased those efforts. FILE – People hold pictures of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi during a gathering to mark the second anniversary of his killing at the Saudi Consulate, in Istanbul, Turkey, Oct. 2, 2020.”Tayyip Erdogan has realized that this policy cannot continue; they see that cooperation is more important, not confrontation, but cooperation. Tayyip Erdogan’s personal sympathy for Saudi Arabia as an Islamist was always there. For him not to have good relations with Saudi Arabia is not acceptable,” said Bagci. Ankara also sees Riyadh as playing an essential role in its bid to repair relations with Egypt. Last week’s high-level Turkish and Egyptian talks in Cairo to restore full diplomatic ties appear to have made little progress, with Cairo pressing for  a withdrawal of Turkish forces from Libya and the extradition of Egyptian regime opponents living in Turkey.  International relations professor Soli Ozel of Istanbul’s Kadir Has University says Turkey is in an increasingly vulnerable position. “I think it’s serious because the country is very isolated because, quite frankly, Turkey needs to have decent relations with all those countries, certainly with Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Otherwise, it will be isolated both in the Middle East and Eastern Mediterranean,” he said. With the Turkish economy struggling and its isolation growing, Ankara sees no choice but to reach out and start making friends again. 
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A rocket attack on a Turkish military supply convoy in Syria’s northwestern Idlib province has killed one soldier and wounded four others, Turkey’s Defense Ministry said Tuesday. Turkish forces retaliated to the attack by firing on targets they identified in the region, the Defense Ministry said in a statement. It did not elaborate or say who was responsible for the attack late Monday. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war monitoring group, said a roadside bomb exploded when a Turkish convoy of seven vehicles was passing on a road between the border crossing point of Bab al-Hawa and the Syrian border village of Kfar Lousin. The Observatory said one of the vehicles suffered a direct hit. Ambulances, it said, rushed to the areas to evacuate Turkish troops who suffered injuries. It added that Turkish troops cordoned off the area for some time preventing people from reaching it. Last year, Turkey and Russia reached a cease-fire agreement that stopped a Russian-backed Syrian government offensive on Idlib – the last major rebel stronghold in Syria. Despite sporadic violations, the agreement has held since then. Russia is the Syrian government’s main military ally, while Turkey has backed the Syrian opposition.
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Nearly 200 jihadists imprisoned in France are due to be released over the next two years and French security officials are pressing French lawmakers to approve fresh antiterrorist measures to impose enhanced restrictions on those freed and to give police new legal powers to fight terrorism. British officials, likewise, are fearful of a resurgent jihadist threat and are considering overhauling Britain’s 650-year-old treason law to make it easier to prosecute militants returning from Syria and Iraq.  And it is not only returnees from the Levant who are preoccupying European security officials.  During the pandemic jihadist assaults have subsided — the consequence, officials think, of society-wide lockdowns and other travel restrictions that have stymied would-be attackers. The lack of crowds and public events have also deprived militants of high-profile targets. But in the meantime there has been increased activity online by radical Islamists, according to security officials. Neil Basu, assistant commissioner for specialist operations at London’s Metropolitan Police told The Times newspaper this week that he fears large numbers of vulnerable and marginalized youngsters have been trapped online during lockdowns and surfing increased amounts of propaganda that have been posted online during the pandemic.“I don’t know what effect that is going to have on people who are vulnerable to that kind of message, who may want to take action, who may have been sitting on that suppressed feeling for 12 months or more,” he said. 
 New wave alert   The possibility of a new wave of recruits and so-called lone-wolf assailants combined with the release of dozens of jailed jihadists is a toxic mix, say counter-terrorism officials. They say they will be stretched to maintain surveillance of released jihadists let alone trying to detect radicalization online.  A woman hands flowers to an officer to be taken to the police station where a female police worker was stabbed to death two days earlier, in Rambouillet, southwest of Paris, France, April 25, 2021.The last eight attacks on French soil were carried out by assailants who were previously unknown to French security services — including last month’s stabbing by a Tunisian immigrant of a female civilian police employee in Paris and the murder in October of middle-school teacher Samuel Paty in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, a suburb of the French capital.Of the 500 jihadists currently in French prisons, most were convicted for joining the Islamic State or al-Qaida in Syria and Iraq, or assisting others to do so. Fifty-eight are scheduled to be released this year after serving an average five-year sentence. And more than another 100 are due to be freed by 2023.    New controls 
  
New counterterrorism measures before the National Assembly would give the French security services new powers to help them, they say, both to keep tabs on those released after they have served their sentences and to monitor what’s happening online and to try to unmask potential attackers. The measures would enable authorities to track communications by Islamist extremists when they are using encrypted message. School-teacher Paty was killed by an 18-year-old Chechen who used Instagram messaging to maintain contact with French jihadists in Syria. FILE – The coffin of slain teacher Samuel Paty is carried away in the courtyard of the Sorbonne university during a national memorial event, Oct. 21, 2020 in Paris.Security services would also be able to use algorithms to enable them to spot people who consult extremist websites and will have more access to satellite communications. Last month, Gérald Darmanin, France’s interior minister, acknowledged that security services had been unable to detect messages between militants involved in the past nine attacks.  “We continue to remain blind with just surveillance of normal telephone lines that no one uses any more. We are now dealing with isolated individuals, increasingly younger and unknown to intelligence services, and often without any links to established Islamist groups,” he said. When it comes to jihadists released from prison the measures awaiting the legislature’s approval  would extend the time freed prisoners are kept under surveillance from one to two years. Courts will also have new powers to require released offenders to check in frequently with probation officers and to enroll in training schemes for up to five years after being freed. FILE – Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson speaks during the weekly question time debate at the House of Commons in London, Britain, March 10, 2021. (UK Parliament/Jessica Taylor/Handout via Reuters)The ruling Conservative government in Britain, too, has already recently passed legislation ending early release for anyone convicted of a serious terror offense. And it is considering new measures to make it easier to prosecute British jihadists returning from overseas — and if convicted serve long jail terms, possibly life imprisonment. Ministers say they are planning to overhaul the treason laws to cover membership or support of non-state actors who seek to harm Britain — that would include terrorist groups and hackers. New national security legislation may also place the burden of proof on returnees from countries designated as terrorist hotspots to provide a legitimate reason for their travel — or face prosecution for treason. Ministers complain that the evidence needed to convict people who travelled to Syria and Iraq to join militant groups in the past ten years makes it too difficult to mount prosecutions. And they have fulminated against the ancient treason law, which dates back to 1351 and was amended in 1946. The last person to be convicted for treason in Britain was William Joyce, a Nazi propagandist known as Lord Haw-Haw. Around 400 British jihadists have returned to the UK since 2011, but only 10 percent were prosecuted. Revamping the treason law has strong support from Conservative lawmakers. “We need tough sanctions for betrayal,” Tom Tugendhat, the chair of the British parliament’s  the foreign affairs committee, said last week. Other European countries have also been toughening counter-terrorism measures recently, prompting Amnesty International in February to warn that a side effect is to inflame anti-Muslim sentiments. The rights group said an environment was being created “in which Muslims are more likely to be the subject of hate speech and attacks.” “In the never-ending ‘War on Terror,’ Muslims continue to endure ethnic profiling and are disproportionately subjected to surveillance, limitations on their movements, arrest and deportation,” said Eda Seyhan, author of the research guide published by Amnesty. 
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Mosques across Turkey broadcast prayers Monday in support of Palestinians injured in violent confrontations with Israeli police in Jerusalem. The unrest, which coincides with the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, comes amid the possible eviction of Palestinians from east Jerusalem homes on land claimed by Jewish settlers.Also Monday, hundreds of people, many waving Palestinian flags, massed in front of Israel’s consulate in Istanbul in protest of Israeli police actions around the Al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem’s Old City. The site is known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary, considered the holiest site in Judaism and the third holiest in Islam. Witnesses reported Israeli security forces fired tear gas, rubber bullets, and stun grenades at Palestinian demonstrators, some of whom threw rocks at police.Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan speaks during an event in Ankara, May 8, 2021. In a speech late Saturday, Erdogan, strongly condemned violence in Jerusalem.Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s communication chief, Fahrettin Altun, Monday tweeted, “It’s time to stop Israel’s heinous and cruel attacks.”His comments come two days after Erdogan denounced Israel.”Israel, the cruel terrorist state, attacks the Muslims in Jerusalem, whose only concern is to protect their homes and their sacred values, in a savage manner devoid of ethics,” Erdogan said.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday Israel “will continue to maintain freedom of worship for all faiths, but we will not allow violent disturbances.” The Israeli leader told a cabinet meeting that he had met with security officials and vowed to “enforce law and order decisively and responsibly.” Ankara had been looking to repair strained relations with Israel as part of a broader strategy to end its regional isolation. Both countries withdrew ambassadors in 2018 over Israel’s crackdown on protests by Palestinians.Relations also soured in 2010 after Israeli commandos stormed the Mavi Marmara, a Turkish-owned ship that was part of a flotilla trying to break an Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip. Nine pro-Palestinian activists aboard were killed.Turkish presidential adviser Mesut Casin, while condemning the recent violence, says a reset in bilateral ties is still possible but says Washington needs to act.”This is unacceptable during the prayers of the Muslims in the very important religious time, during the Ramazan (Ramadan); it is an unacceptable situation,” Casin said. “So the radical groups do not want to normalize Turkey-Israel relations. However, Turkey-Israel economic relations are in good condition; why we not do change to normalize diplomatic relations. This depends also on a little bit of Washington to control some of the unlawful actions.”  The United States has voiced concern over the violence in Israel, with National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan speaking by phone Sunday with Israeli counterpart Meir Ben-Shabbat, according to the White House. A statement said Sullivan expressed the Biden administration’s commitment to Israel’s security and to supporting peace and stability throughout the Middle East.
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European and Chinese leaders are urging swift ratification of the trade deal they agreed to in December, after tensions over accusations of human rights abuses in China delayed approval of the deal by European Union lawmakers.  The EU-China Comprehensive Agreement on Investment (CAI) took seven years of negotiations and was finally agreed to in principle December 30, 2020, following a virtual summit between EU and Chinese leaders. Europe said it was the most ambitious trade deal China had ever undertaken with a third party.  However, EU Commission Executive Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis said last week that efforts to get the deal ratified by lawmakers in the European Parliament had been halted.  FILE – European Commission Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis speaks at the European Parliament in Brussels, Belgium, March 10, 2021.“We have … for the moment suspended some efforts to raise political awareness on the part of the commission, because it is clear that in the current situation, with the EU sanctions against China and the Chinese counter-sanctions, including against members of the European Parliament, the environment is not conducive to the ratification of the agreement,” Dombrovskis told Agence France-Presse on May 4.  The suspension follows tit-for-tat sanctions imposed over China’s treatment of the Uyghur population in Xinjiang province.  The United States, along with several other Western states, has described the treatment of the Uyghur population as genocide. Washington imposed sanctions on several Beijing officials in March. Officials had also voiced reservations over the China-EU trade deal.  The EU followed days later with its own measures, targeting four Chinese officials linked to Beijing’s policies in Xinjiang.  China retaliated by sanctioning five lawmakers in the European Parliament — the very body tasked with approving the trade deal — said Alicia García-Herrero, a senior fellow at the Bruegel think tank, who spoke to VOA from Hong Kong.  “At the end of the day, the ratification happens at the European Parliament. So, in a way, the target of the sanctions was somehow too involved in the decision to ratify,” García-Herrero said.  She added that tensions between China and Europe over Xinjiang and the crackdown on the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong mean ratification of the trade deal looks unlikely anytime soon. Beijing denies any persecution of the Uyghur population and has urged Western nations to stop interfering in what it calls the “internal affairs” of Hong Kong.  Market expansionAnalysts say the CAI could benefit German carmakers who already have a strong presence in China and are looking to expand the production and sales of electric vehicles.  FILE – German Chancellor Angela Merkel takes her seat during the weekly cabinet meeting at the chancellery in Berlin, Germany, May 5, 2021.Speaking May 5, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the trade deal should not be abandoned.  “Despite all the difficulties that we will certainly encounter in ratification, it is nevertheless a very important initiative that opens up greater reciprocity in access to our reciprocal markets,” Merkel told reporters.  The agreement was meant to open China’s huge market to European companies and provide greater transparency. From the beginning, many in Europe saw the deal as deeply flawed, García-Herrero said.  “Every single piece of market access that Europe was getting, when you read the details, it’s not actually as big,” she said.  Garcia-Herrero added that the investment deal is a key part of China’s expansion plans.  “Europe is kind of the one and only big developed economic area where China can still buy companies,” she said.  Beijing is pushing Europe to ratify the agreement.  “The China-EU Comprehensive Agreement on Investment aims to be mutually beneficial, to be beneficial to China, to (the) European Union and to the world,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin told reporters last Thursday. “China is willing to communicate and cooperate with (the) EU to promote the realization of the deal as early as possible, to benefit people from both sides and to positively signal to the international community that China supports maintaining an open economy.”   Meanwhile, the EU has unveiled separate plans to block foreign companies that are supported by state subsidies from buying European businesses or bidding for public contracts. Analysts say that would impact Chinese state-backed companies looking to expand in Europe.   
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Disquiet is growing within France’s military ranks, with the publication of a second open letter — this time by serving soldiers — warning growing Islamism, delinquency and violence threaten the country’s very survival.This latest open letter by members of France’s armed forces is making headlines — and stirring debate. Like one last month signed by some 20 retired generals, it too warns of civilian insurrection — fueled, it claims, by President Emmanuel Macron’s alleged concessions to fundamentalist Islam.But this newest missive, published late Sunday by right-wing magazine Valeurs Actuelles, is from an anonymous group of solders currently serving in the army. They describe serving in countries like Afghanistan and Central African Republic—and losing friends in the fight against fundamentalist Islam which they claim Macron is caving into at home.The group endorses the earlier letter by the generals—and criticizes the president for allegedly disrespected those officers. But it says the military will maintain order in France, should civil war break out.Macron’s government blasted the generals’ letter as defying Republican principles and the army’s duty. It says its signatories will be punished.  Critics also include far-left leader Jean-Luc Melenchon. In remarks to French media, he called for an investigation claiming the generals’ letter amounted to a call for a coup.But a recent poll suggests the majority of French support that letter. An online petition backing this latest letter by serving officers quickly got nearly 1,000 signatories within hours.  News reports suggest up to 2,000 French soldiers also back the generals’ call.So does the main opposition Far-right National Rally party.Leading National Rally politician, Thierry Mariani, told French radio Monday the military are loyal to the country. The letters’ authors, he said, were simply voicing today’s reality.The letters come amid heightened concern about radical Islam here, following a spate of terrorist attacks. Government legislation, aimed to boost the anti-terrorism response and crack down on extremist groups, has drawn criticism from the left for going too far— and the right for not going far enough.
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Boris Johnson’s resounding victory in local and regional elections in Britain last week is dismaying not just for the country’s storied Labour Party, but also for mainstream leftist parties on the continent of Europe, most of which are also struggling for electoral relevancy.  From Italy to Germany, France to the countries of Central Europe, the traditional parties of social democracy are largely in the doldrums and have increasingly become political bystanders rather than participants. Britain’s Labour Party saw its vote slump by an extraordinary 25% last week in the elections for local and regional governments in England.  Labour politicians had thought their drubbing by Johnson in the general election of 2019 would mark their historic low-point — but they did even worse last week.  Speaking as the vote tallies started to unfold, and as scores of local government seats in former Labour strongholds in the north of England and the Midlands fell to the Conservatives, also known as Tories, embattled Labour leader Keir Starmer admitted his party had “lost the trust of working people.” His deputy, Angela Rayner said Sunday she is determined to “show that the Labour Party speaks for the working class.” But while Labour and its counterparts in Europe largely grew out of trade union movements and still consider themselves parties of the working-class, the working-class voters they claim to represent are rejecting them in droves.FILE – Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson holds up a pint during a visit to The Mount Tavern Pub and Restaurant on the local election campaign trail in Wolverhampton, West Midlands, Britain, Apr. 19, 2021. (Jacob King/PA Wire/Pool via Reuters)“Labour’s plight is similar to other traditional center-left parties on our continent,” according to Ian Birrell, a columnist with opinion-site Unherd.com. “Once their leaders could rely on a powerful alliance of middle-class progressives backed by the massed ranks of working-class voters to win elections.”  Now, he says, the “brothers and sisters of socialism find themselves rebuffed, rejected and sliding into irrelevance across their European heartlands.” Europe’s traditional left-wing parties have been in disarray for several years with 2019 being an especially gloomy year for them as they battled a head wind of disapproval from their traditional working-class supporters, who deserted to newly emerging populist parties or to traditional center-right parties who adopted successfully populist positions. They have suffered a seemingly non-stop series of electoral blows in most countries — Spain being an exception. Labour’s sister parties in Austria, France, Germany, Greece, Italy and Holland all plumbed historic new lows. The rising electoral clout of Green parties, notably in Germany, which is now more popular than Germany’s Social Democrats (SPD), isn’t helping. And they have been squabbling about how to rebuild winning electoral coalitions with moderates insisting a shift to the center is in order and progressives demanding more radical policies.  Labour’s pains  In the immediate aftermath of their defeat last week Labour politicians can’t agree on what went wrong for them. Some are blaming the defeat on the lackluster quality of the party’s top spokespeople, including party leader Starmer, a former human rights lawyer and one time director of public prosecutions. Starmer has responded with a reshuffle of his shadow Cabinet. FILE – Former Labor Party leader Jeremy Corbyn addresses demonstrators during a ‘Kill the Bill’ protest in London, April 3, 2021. The demonstration is against the contentious Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill going through Parliament.Others, including Starmer’s predecessor as Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, insist more radical socialist policies, including the nationalization of a swathe of the British economy, would resonate with the working people. “It is new ideas from across our movement — not reshuffles or cosmetic tweaks — that will bring hope back,” Corbyn said Monday.  Much the same internecine battle has been playing out in other mainstream European parties of the left.FILE – Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban, Poland’s Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki and Italy’s League party leader Matteo Salvini pose for a picture after a news conference following their meeting in Budapest, Hungary, Apr. 1, 2021.Italy’s Democratic Party (PD) has seen its so-called “Red Belt” in the country’s north and center unbuckled in recent years by the populists of Matteo Salvini’s Lega party— an echo of the dismantlement of Labour’s “Red Wall” in the north of England by Johnson’s populist-minded Conservatives. The never-ending struggle for mastery between the PD’s reformists and traditional leftists resulted in the resignation in March of party leader Nicola Zingaretti, who said he was quitting because he was “ashamed of the power struggles” within the party. Only five governments in the European Union are headed by the traditional center-left parties — an extraordinary decline from earlier in the century. In 2012 socialist Francois Hollande won the French presidency in 2012, but in 2017 his party only secured a dismal 6% of the French presidential vote.FILE – French president Francois Hollande picks up ballots before voting in the first round of the presidential election in Tulle, central France, Apr. 23, 2017.In the Netherlands, the Labour Party was swamped by the greens, liberals, hard-left and populist right challengers and lost three-quarters of their lawmakers in the 2017 election.Only in Scandinavia, Malta and Spain has the traditional left been able to buck the trend of defeat — either by forming short-term alliances with hard left fringe parties or by adopting tough anti-migrant policies.  No Biden boost European leftist leaders had hoped that Joe Biden’s win on the other side of the Atlantic in November would be the harbinger of a resurgence of the traditional political left in Europe. But so far that has failed to materialize. Political commentator Janan Ganesh suggests there aren’t any lessons for Europe’s social democratic parties to learn from the U.S. “If the Democrats stand out from a center-left malaise, it is for reasons that are not much imitable outside the U.S.” according to Ganesh, political commentator for The Financial Times. He argues the Democrats — so too the Republicans — are protected by a strict two-party system. “The liberal, labour and green veins of thought, so often distinct in Europe, are crammed into just one U.S. movement,” notes Ganesh.  Race adds a structural advantage. “The leftward tilt of minorities can be overdone [Republicans have gained, especially among Latinos] but it holds often enough to matter. Few democracies have the ethnic diversity of the U.S., so few parties of the left have the electoral reach of the Democrats,” he maintains. Working-class voters have become increasingly socially conservative and more nationalist, while progressive activists and younger metropolitan voters are embracing very different identity politics, says British academic Matt Goodwin. Ahead of last week’s election he predicted Labour would likely perform badly.He says the traditional left is being pulled apart by new cultural divides. “If you look at the polling data and the evidence on where Labour is at the moment I think one of the big concerns for Keir Starmer and his team is that they don’t seem to be cutting through on cultural factors,” he says.  
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