The Economist Continental Europe Edition June 25, 2022

Politics Gustavo Petro, a former leftist guerrilla, won Colombia’s election. Mr Petro, an exmayor of Bogotá, will become the country’s first left-wing president in August. He won 50.4% of the vote to 47.3% for Rodolfo Hernández, a populist property tycoon. Investors are nervous; Mr Petro has sought to reassure them by suggesting he would appoint a centrist finance minister. But he still plans to ban oil exploration, open-pit mining and fracking, and give all persistently unemployed people a government job. Colombia’s currency and stockmarket wobbled after the result was announced. No majority for Macron Emmanuel Macron suffered a serious political reverse when his electoral grouping, Ensemble, lost its majority in France’s parliamentary election. Only recently re-elected as president, Mr Macron faces the prospect of a second term in which he will find it…

THIS YEAR’S energy shock is the most serious since the Middle Eastern oil crises of 1973 and 1979. Like those calamities, it promises to inflict short-term pain and in the longer term to transform the energy industry. The pain is all but guaranteed: owing to high fuel and power prices, most countries are facing soggy growth, inflation, squeezed living standards and a savage political backlash. But the long-run consequences are far from preordained. If governments respond ineptly, they could trigger a relapse towards fossil fuels that makes it even harder to stabilise the climate. Instead they must follow a perilous path that combines security of energy supply with climate security. In Europe what was long imagined as a nightmare of freezing midwinter nights has instead erupted as a midsummer fever dream.…

LESS JUPITER than Icarus, Emmanuel Macron came crashing down this week. On June 19th French voters did something that was last seen over 30 years ago: they denied a newly elected president a majority in the National Assembly. It is not quite impossible to govern without one, but for the next five years Mr Macron will be scratching around for the votes he needs to get anything done. That is bad news for France—and for Europe too, which sorely lacks a leader of global stature. Angela Merkel left the field last winter, and the man who had hoped to reshape a continent after her departure will have his work cut out just keeping his own house in something that resembles order. This outcome should not have been as surprising as it…

Politics Gustavo Petro, a former leftist guerrilla, won Colombia’s election. Mr Petro, an exmayor of Bogotá, will become the country’s first left-wing president in August. He won 50.4% of the vote to 47.3% for Rodolfo Hernández, a populist property tycoon. Investors are nervous; Mr Petro has sought to reassure them by suggesting he would appoint a centrist finance minister. But he still plans to ban oil exploration, open-pit mining and fracking, and give all persistently unemployed people a government job. Colombia’s currency and stockmarket wobbled after the result was announced. No majority for Macron Emmanuel Macron suffered a serious political reverse when his electoral grouping, Ensemble, lost its majority in France’s parliamentary election. Only recently re-elected as president, Mr Macron faces the prospect of a second term in which he…

JESUS SAID that man does not live by bread alone. Nonetheless, its scarcity makes people furious. The last time the world suffered a food-price shock like today’s, it helped set off the Arab spring, a wave of uprisings that ousted four presidents and led to horrific civil wars in Syria and Libya. Unfortunately, Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has upended the markets for grain and energy once again. And so unrest is inevitable this year, too. Soaring food and fuel prices are the most excruciating form of inflation. If the prices of furniture or smartphones rise, people can delay a purchase or forgo it. But they cannot stop eating. Likewise, transport costs are baked into every physical good, and most people cannot easily walk to work. So when food and fuel…

THIS YEAR’S energy shock is the most serious since the Middle Eastern oil crises of 1973 and 1979. Like those calamities, it promises to inflict short-term pain and in the longer term to transform the energy industry. The pain is all but guaranteed: owing to high fuel and power prices, most countries are facing soggy growth, inflation, squeezed living standards and a savage political backlash. But the long-run consequences are far from preordained. If governments respond ineptly, they could trigger a relapse towards fossil fuels that makes it even harder to stabilise the climate. Instead they must follow a perilous path that combines security of energy supply with climate security. In Europe what was long imagined as a nightmare of freezing midwinter nights has instead erupted as a midsummer fever…