Media rhetoric about migrants and crime is rallying support for the National Rally in the countryside but, say city folk, the reality is different

Flanked by fields of corn and tree-lined ponds, the regular rumbling of planes in the distance is the only hint of Colombier-Saugnieu’s proximity to the bustling metropolis of Lyon.

But in recent days journalists from the city have begun traipsing out to the tiny commune, population 2,500, in hopes of better understanding a dynamic seemingly at play in the country’s snap parliamentary elections: the sharp divide when it comes to voters in rural and urban areas.

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Investors have reacted to political turmoil in France in week since President Macron called shock snap election

Paris has lost its spot as Europe’s largest equity market to London, as investors react to political turmoil in France in the week since president Emmanuel Macron called a shock snap election .

Stocks listed on Euronext Paris are collectively worth about $3.13tn after about $258bn was knocked off the market capitalisation of French companies, putting it behind the London Stock Exchange’s $3.18tn (£2.51tn), according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Separate data from Refinitiv, a subsidiary of the London Stock Exchange Group, also suggest that the market value of UK-listed companies is bigger.

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Macron’s move to call snap elections also seen as helping commission president’s bid for second term

Ursula von der Leyen is on track to remain for a second term as president of the European Commission, as EU leaders meet on Monday for a first discussion on divvying up the bloc’s top jobs.

The EU’s 27 heads of state and government will gather for dinner in Brussels in their first group meeting since European elections last week boosted nationalist and far-right parties and triggered Emmanuel Macron to call snap elections in France .

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Ex-president says decision to hold vote after upheaval of European parliamentary ballot is ‘major risk’ for country

Emmanuel Macron has been warned by a former French president that his decision to call snap elections could plunge France into chaos, as his centrist party languishes third in opinion polls, far behind the far-right National Rally.

Nicolas Sarkozy said dissolving the national assembly was “a major risk” for France, “because it could plunge it into chaos, from which it will have the greatest difficulty emerging”.

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Seemingly random assaults in Britain and other parts of Europe are coming from left and right

The response of Mette Frederiksen, Denmark’s centre-left prime minister, to being physically assaulted in a Copenhagen street was dignified and very human. “I’m not doing great, and I’m not really myself yet,” she admitted last week . The attack, in which she escaped serious injury, had left her feeling shocked and intimidated, she said.

Frederiksen suggested her experience was the culmination of some broadly familiar trends: proliferating social media threats, increasingly aggressive political discourse, a divisive Middle East war. “As a human being, it feels like an attack on me. But I have no doubt it was the prime minister that was hit. In this way, it becomes a kind of attack on all of us.”

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Marine Le Pen’s party is breaking record high scores across vast areas of the country, polls show, with an increase in its influence inevitable

It is 8pm on Sunday 7 July. Polling stations have just closed after the second round of snap French parliamentary elections – the country’s most momentous ballot in living memory – and the first estimations flash up on the nation’s TV screens.

President Emmanuel Macron has lost his gamble . The National Rally (RN) of Marine Le Pen has more than trebled its tally of deputies in the assemblée nationale to just over 290: an absolute majority. France’s next government will be far right.

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President’s move viewed as ‘Russian roulette’ after far-right support reached record high in European elections

France’s prime minister, Gabriel Attal, stared ahead with his arms folded while another minister covered his face with his hands as Emmanuel Macron gathered top government figures at the Élysée last Sunday to make the shock announcement that he would dissolve parliament and call a snap legislative election in the wake of a win at the polls by Marine Le Pen’s party. The mood, said Attal, was “grave”.

One senior centrist figure said this week they had not slept properly since the announcement of a campaign that will be the shortest in modern French history at barely three weeks. Some party supporters said their world had been turned upside down. “We’re going to get out there and do our best,” said a government minister.

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Text has reportedly been cut from communiqué being finalised at summit in Puglia addressed by the pope

Italy’s far-right government has denied that it removed a reference to LGBTQ rights in a draft of the final declaration of the G7 summit in Puglia.

In the declaration, expected to be published late on Friday, a reference to the protection of the “gender identity and sexual orientation” of the LGBTQ community has been scrapped, Bloomberg reported on Friday. The allegedly deleted reference had been contained in the final declaration of the G7 in Japan last year.

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Emmanuel Macron’s snap legislative poll could have big consequences, even propelling the far-right National Rally into government

France’s snap legislative election is one of the most consequential in decades for both the country and the rest of Europe, potentially propelling the far-right National Rally (RN) to a parliamentary majority and therefore into government.

The two-round election will take place on 30 June and 7 July. How will it work, what are the stakes and what is the result likely to be?

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