In the spotlight: the United Kingdom disunited

Audio 04:19

Installation of voting equipment for the Scottish local legislative elections on May 6, 2021. May 4 in Edinburgh.

© REUTERS - RUSSELL CHEYNE

By: Frédéric Couteau Follow

9 mins

Publicity

Is Brexit going to have the skin of the United Kingdom?"

 “Asks

Liberation

.

“ 

In the midst of a global pandemic, the British government faces another crisis, political this time.

This Thursday will be decisive for the old empire and its Prime Minister.

And it is in Scotland and Wales, in the context of regional parliamentary elections, that everything will play out.

Because the United Kingdom, so proud of its identity, is breaking up.

The solid union, so vaunted by Boris Johnson's government, is slowly deteriorating.

And faced with the desire for emancipation, the lack of a unionist vision is revealed by the traditional political parties, conservative and labor.

 "

Nationalist desires

Indeed, continues

Liberation

“ 

since 2016, and the referendum on Brexit, nationalist desires have aroused in the Scottish, Welsh and Irish nations, eager for change and sovereignty. The coronavirus crisis has further deepened the divisions. Within a year, the pro-independence movements reached unprecedented support

. "

And beware, specifies

Le Figaro

, " 

in the event of a clear victory for the separatists in the local Parliament elections on Thursday, the Scots will demand more and more to" take back control ", as chanted by the Brexiters.

The Scottish Prime Minister again warned London of her determination the day before yesterday.

Nicola Sturgeon said only the courts could prevent a referendum.

 "

Scotland ready for independence?

“ 

The sovereignist and identity dynamic is a bit like a chemical chain reaction,”

emphasizes

Ouest France. It is easier to trigger fragmentation than to master its course. London despised Brussels to the point of divorce; Edinburgh has just as much reason to have the same feeling about London. Especially since Brexit, widely rejected in Scotland in the 2016 referendum vote, kicked the Scots out of the European Union against their will.

 "

Seven years after the narrow 'no' victory in a first referendum,"

concludes

Les Latest Nouvelles d'Alsace, "the Scottish Prime Minister hopes to win these general elections in order to obtain a new independence referendum.

Like a somersault, BoJo, Boris Johnson, remains standing in England but makes the United Kingdom and Europe dizzy.

 "

The discord on the right

Also on the front page, politics in France, with the pataquès between LR and LREM in the Provence Alpes Côte d'Azur region with a view to the next regional ones. 

It's not over, points

Le Parisien.

The tremors caused by the announcement of the agreement (which finally collapsed) between Renaud Muselier and LREM are still shaking the right in Paca.

Hubert Falco, the mayor of Toulon, announced yesterday that he was leaving LR.

Christian Estrosi, the mayor of Nice, could follow…

 ”

For

Le Figaro, “

the right has limited the damage;

but at what cost !

The Republicans kept their head of the list and succeeded in blocking the macronist operation.

It's not nothing.

But the violence of the shock, the wickedness exchanged, the in camera fleeing live, the outraged and contradictory postures, all of this revived the memory of deadly dramas not so old.

 "

What to consolidate the RN

And during this time, Marine Le Pen is rubbing her hands. " 

The anti-Le Pen fight, which should supplant all the others, remains for the moment swallowed up by the ruthless rivalry between its opponents,"

notes

Le Monde. The president of the RN takes the opportunity to increase the pressure on right-wing voters revolted by a rapprochement with the head of state that she is fighting. It does so at a time when no one considers it useful to dissect its program or to point out its multiple contradictions. She endorsed demonization, but responded positively to the petition of factious soldiers who claim to react to the "disintegration" of the country, published on April 21 on the site of Current values. It is high time,

concludes

Le Monde, to call him to account. 

"

Covid-19: the decline?

Finally, the Covid-19 epidemic in France: " 

a beginning of decline

 ", exclaims

La Dépêche

on the front page.

“ 

For now, the decline that seems to be starting is slow, fragile, but real.

What to reinforce in his choices and his bets Emmanuel Macron who freed himself from the only opinions of scientists to take into account other economic and social criteria in particular.

 "

But we know that everything can change.

Without playing the ominous birds,

Paris-Normandy

announces that two cases of the Indian variant have been detected in sailors in the port of Le Havre. 

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