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Italy

Austria And Italy, Mixed Message

Many observers feared that yesterday would be the day that could rock the European Union to its core, six months after the Brexit referendum. Austria looked ready to elect Europe's first far-right president since the end of World War II. Meanwhile, Italy, a founding member of the EU, was expected to reject a proposed constitutional reform, paving the way for new elections and possibly an anti-EU government.


This morning, the best Brussels can do is a one-handed clap: The far-right candidate Norbert Hofer lost the Austrian presidency to his left-backed opponent Alexander Van der Bellen; but in Italy, where the vote actually mattered more, it was a "Triumph for the ‘No"," as La Repubblica puts it on its front page. Making good on his pre-vote pledge, Prime Minister Matteo Renzi resigned, opening a period of uncertainty for Italy and, for many reasons, the EU itself.


The aftermath of the referendum could prove dramatic for Italy's third-largest bank, Monte dei Paschi di Siena, which is saddled with bad loans and needs to raise more than $5 billion by the end of the month. Failure to raise that capital would likely trigger a banking crisis in what is Europe's second most indebted country after Greece.


That, added to what La Stampa"s editor-in-chief Maurizio Molinari describes as a "middle-class protest" behind the referendum result, provides a perfect stage for anti-establishment parties, especially the increasingly popular Five Star Movement led by former standup comic Beppe Grillo. "Italy needs a new welfare for families facing hardships, it needs a recipe to reignite economic growth and a formula for integrating migrants," Molinari warns in his post-referendum editorial. "The longer these questions are left unanswered, the wider the protest movement will grow, which could trigger a domino effect of unpredictable consequences. To relaunch Italy, a new government is simply not enough: The popular rebellion must be respected, and its demands must be met."

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Geopolitics

Senegal's Democratic Unrest And The Ghosts Of French Colonialism

The violence that erupted following the sentencing of opposition politician Ousmane Sonko to two years in prison left 16 people dead and 500 arrested. This reveals deep fractures in Senegalese democracy that has traces to France's colonial past.

Image of Senegalese ​Protesters celebrating Sonko being set free by the court, March 2021

Protesters celebrate Sonko being set free by the court, March 2021

Pierre Haski

-Analysis-

PARIS — For a long time, Senegal had the glowing image of one of Africa's rare democracies. The reality was more complicated than that, even in the days of the poet-president Léopold Sedar Senghor, who also had his dark side.

But for years, the country has been moving down what Senegalese intellectual Felwine Sarr describes as the "gentle slope of... the weakening and corrosion of the gains of Senegalese democracy."

This has been demonstrated once again over the last few days, with a wave of violence that has left 16 people dead, 500 arrested, the internet censored, and a tense situation with troubling consequences. The trigger? The sentencing last Thursday of opposition politician Ousmane Sonko to two years in prison, which could exclude him from the 2024 presidential elections.

Young people took to the streets when the verdict was announced, accusing the justice system of having become a political tool. Ousmane Sonko had been accused of rape but was convicted of "corruption of youth," a change that rendered the decision incomprehensible.

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