Expert warns Europe risks ‘descent into world war’ amid French unrest

The new Prime Minister of France has faced a tumultuous first day in the role as protests erupted across the country, stoking fears about the nation’s declining influence.

Sébastien Lecornu was sworn in today, replacing François Bayrou, who was removed from Parliament after just nine months in the role, the BBC reports.

Almost simultaneously, Block Everything demonstrators railed against President Emmanuel Macron’s proposed budget cuts, taking to the streets to express their outrage.

Professor Anthony Glees, an expert in European Affairs at the University of Buckingham, told Herald NOW France’s political weakening has far-reaching international implications.

He said divisions between the right, far right and far left could “paralyse” France, diminishing the nation’s global power - one of Putin’s biggest opponents.

“There is nobody that can save France from itself as de Gaulle was able to do,” he said.

“So the impact on Europe in particular of France in disarray is absolutely critical.”

The French civil unrest comes as 19 Russian drones have been shot down over Poland, an event Glees said is the most significant in the country’s history since September 1939.

He described the parallels with the Nazi invasion of Poland as “horrifying”, warning that “world wars don’t happen overnight”.

“They happen incrementally, but only a complete idiot could fail to see that the big steps in that descent into a world war have already been taken.”

Glees feared continuing political instability across the continent and the US will embolden Putin to continue undermining European security.

“All of this serves Putin and only Putin,” he said, “so this is really the mother and father of political crises in our time.”

He referred back to France’s defeat “at home” before World War II as a chilling reminder of what could lie ahead.

There is still one advantage missing in 1939, Glees said - “we at least have history to warn us”.