New PM Michel Barnier says he will not increase the tax burden and says the number of migrants ‘has become unbearable’

Germany’s Social Democratic party (SPD) narrowly won yesterday’s election in Brandenburg – and the party leadership is now downplaying questions about Olaf Scholz’s candidacy in next year’s national election.

“Yesterday’s election gives us courage that we can do it, but of course I also know that the challenges and the questions we have to deal with at national level are far from dealt with as a result of yesterday evening,” the party’s co-leader, Lars Klingbeil, said today, the Associated Press reported.

Klingbeil reiterated that that Scholz’s candidacy isn’t in question.

“There is absolutely no wobbling,” he said. “In the leadership of the party, the parliamentary group, among the state governors and ministers, there is no discussion about this in any place.”

Critics of new cabinet, finalised by Michel Barnier on Saturday night, said it was ‘same-old, same-old’

Mounting threats of a parliamentary motion of no-confidence have put Michel Barnier’s new government under considerable duress before it has even had a chance to start work, as street protesters continued to voice their anger over the French prime minister’s new administration.

Eleven weeks after Emmanuel Macron, France’s president, called a snap general election, the new government was finally appointed on Saturday night. But there was little sense that the new cabinet, which signals a clear shift to the right, would bring calm into the political realm.