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What a forty eight hours it has been for Emmanuel Macron. On Monday, he gave his regal address to the National Assembly at the Palace of Versailles, a grandiose occasion during which the French president rivalled Tony Blair and Barack Obama for swaggering self-confidence. As Jonathan Miller said in theSpectator, its hard not to be cowed by the absolute bravado of the young president.Then, on Tuesday, Macrons prime minister, douard Philippe, presented to the Assembly his governments programme for the next five years. As is the tradition, the MPs were asked at the end of the general policy speech to give the PM their backing. Of the 577 MPs in the Assembly, only 67 dared vote against the government the fewest number to oppose a Premier Ministers programme since 1959.So the coup is complete. Emmanuel Macron has swept to power, as has his En Marche! party, and with an unprecedented majority in the Assembly, the president has carte blanche to reform and revitaliseFrance.

While Philippe was addressing the parliament on Tuesday, Macron visited Frances nuclear submarine base in Brittany. As is the presidents custom he tweeted the fact, declaring that France has a deterrent force, guaranteeing peace while posting several photographs including one of himself being lowered onto a submarine from a helicopter. As one magazine noted, he really does believe hes Jupiter, descending from the sky to save France.But before the president goes too overboard with the man of action memehe should perhaps ponder recent events in France. It has been anything but a peaceful few days.

On Saturday, a brawl broke out among an estimated 100 Ethiopian and Eritrean migrants in Calais, the latest in a growing number of violent incidents at the Channel port; a fortnight ago, a driver was killed when his van collided with a makeshift barricade.OnMonday evening two masked men opened fire outside a mosque in Avignon, wounding several people including a young girl in what police said was a gangland crime. Twenty four hours later, a man disguised as a woman wearing a niqab pulled an assault rifle from the pram his was pushing in Toulouse and shot dead one man and wounded six others.These stories dont make the global headlines in the same way as the Islamist attacks on the Champs-lyses but they continue to corrode the morale of the French. That was evident in a poll published this week that revealed 65 per cent of the population think there are too many foreigners in France, and 60 per cent judge Islam to be incompatible with the Republics values.

With Europes migrant crisis deepening by the day those percentages will only increase in the coming months, particularly as a growingnumber of Africans are making their way to the Italian-French border. In the first six months of 2017, nearly 20,000 were intercepted as they tried to cross into France and the local police are struggling to cope; as are their colleagues inCalais, and in Paris, where one district in the north of the capital has reportedly become a no-go zone to women because of the number of sexually aggressive young men.

Something else happened this week of which the president will be aware. Marine Le Pen announced that she will consult with her partys members to discuss refounding the National Front. In other words, changing its name to attract the millions of voters that Le Pen believes share her anxieties but are fearful of voting for a party called the National Front.Le Pen also seems to have accepted that she got her strategy hopelessly wrong in the presidential campaign, focusing too much on leaving the EU and too little on immigration, Islam and insecurity. That was the fault of her vice-president, Florian Philippot, loathed by most grass root supporters of the FN, but whose influence is now on the wane after his failure to win a seat in the National Assembly.

So Le Pen is returning to the partys core issues, regarding them as the best means to attack the government. Asked by reporters for her reaction to the Prime Ministers address, Le Pen expressed her incredulity that there wasnt one word on security, one of the very importantconcerns of the French people[and] not a word on how were going to tackle Islamist fundamentalism.

Emmanuel Macron is clearly a man who likes to be in control, and already in his short presidency he has exerted his authority on his party, his parliament and his people. But can he control the flow of migrants coming to Europe? Since Angela Merkel invited the world to come to the continent two years ago, no-one has shown the remotest sign of getting a grip on the gravest crisis to face Europe since 1945. Maybe Macron can work a miracle. France has given him five years, and while the clock ticks, Le Pen waits.

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The migrant crisis could prove to be Macron's undoing - Spectator.co.uk (blog)

I expect that very soon border controls will be activated and that a assistance deployment (by the military) will be requested, Hans Peter Doskozil told the online edition of the Krone daily.

He was cited as saying that this move was indispensible if the inflow into Italy does not ease. The paper said that 750 soldiers were available and that four armoured vehicles had already been sent to the area over the weekend.

Austria introduced checks on its eastern border with Hungary in 2015 and has readied physical measures such as barriers on its Italian border in the south-west, including at the famous Brenner Pass.

Nearly 85,000 migrants and refugees have arrived in Italy by sea this year, the UN refugee agency said earlier Monday. More than 2,000 others have died or gone missing on the perilous crossing.

This is not sustainable. We need to have other countries joining Italy and sharing that responsibility, Vincent Cochetel, the UNHCRS special envoy for the central Mediterranean, told reporters in Geneva.

The comments from the centre-left Doskozil come ahead of early elections in Austria in October when the anti-immigration far-right is forecast to do well and potentially emerge as the biggest party.

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Migrant Crisis: Austria Ready to Deploy Army, Impose Checks at Italy Border - Breitbart News

GETTY

Thousands of lives have been lost but also thousands have been saved because they have been assisted to a safe landing.

The law requires the rescue of people in distress on the high seas and so does common humanity.

But with nearly 6,000 refugees arrive on its shores each day mostly from Africa Italy has had enough and is actively considering blocking the boats carrying migrants from landing.

The Italian ambassador to the EU, Maurizio Massari is seeking a mandate to raise the issue with the European commission with a view to changing EU asylum procedures.

The UN has called for a Europe-wide solution to this ongoing crisis and not before time.

If there are signs of some sort of concerted action then it is to be welcomed.

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Refugees and migrants wait in a small rubber boat to be rescued off Lampedusa, Italy

But merely passing the problem around the various European states to alleviate the burden on Greece and Italy cannot be the answer.

What is essential is to make it far more difficult and far less profitable for people smugglers to operate in the first place.

International co-operation must stop the problem at its source and prevent yet more deaths by drowning in the coming months of summer.

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Downing Street has told business leaders in no uncertain terms that Britain will walk away from the Brexit talks if there is no satisfactory deal in the offing regarding the divorce settlement.

The going figure is now set at 87.7billion which is surely more than the most disgruntled exspouse is entitled to.

Theresa May is right to remind both business leaders and Brussels that the option of a walkout is still very much a possibility.

For otherwise the Eurocrats would sense that they can batter Britain into submission with their demands.

The setback for the Government following the General Election can be overstated.

The fact is that Britain is still in a position of strength in its negotiations with Brussels.

We have the power to walk from the table and Mrs May is not bluffing when she says she is willing to use that power.

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Andy Murary's wife Kim in pictures

Anew baby on the way and another Wimbledon Championship to win.

So no pressure for Andy Murray as he walks out on court.

Best of luck Sir Andy and congratulations to Lady Murray.

Within a few years the family will be able to hold their owns doubles matches.

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Call for a solution to the migrant crisis is overdue - EXPRESS COMMENT - Express.co.uk

EMMA Jane Kirby is an award-winning broadcaster but she is also a consummate storyteller, touching millions of listeners with her heart-rending dispatches from the frontline of the migration crisis in the Mediterranean.

Her book The Optician of Lampedusa tells the real-life story of Carmine Menna, an optician who lives on the Italian island which is one of the main entry points for migrants from Africa.

In October 2013, Menna was on a sailing trip with friends when they heard what they initially thought was the sounds of seagulls screeching.

However, it was hundreds of refugees screaming for their lives as the boat they were on sank. Menna and his friends sailed to their aid, rescuing 47 people; 368 lost their lives.

Kirby, a BBC radio journalist, will read from the book on board the L Samuel Beckett in Bantry Bay later this month, as part of the West Cork Literary Festival.

The Irish navy ship completed two deployments to the Mediterranean in 2015 and 2016, rescuing more than 4,000 people.

When Kirby encountered Carmine Menna, she knew her reports on the migration crisis were already losing their impact.

The images of overcrowded rubber boats had reached saturation point. We knew people were switching off because it was happening again and again. We desperately needed to find a new angle; I interviewed five ordinary Italians who had been affected by the crisis; a gravedigger who had the dreadful task of burying them; a hospital director who had to find space to treat them; a wonderful lady who worked in a soup kitchen; and a carpenter, a very religious man who had decided to make crosses from the driftwood washed up on the shores of Lampedusa from the wrecked boats.

Then we had the optician, just an ordinary guy who was getting on with his own life, exactly as we all do, then one day, bang, he found himself in the middle of what was then Lampedusas worst shipwreck.

There was a hugely positive response to the series from listeners and Kirby went on to win the prestigious Prix Bayeux-Calvados award for war correspondents.

People could see themselves in those we interviewed particularly the optician. They could imagine literally being in that same boat what would they have done?

The optician was reluctant to speak at first, says Kirby.

He absolutely did not want media attention. First, he was terribly traumatised and second, he didnt want to be a hero. I remember saying to him when he told me he had saved 47 people, You are a hero. It was the only time I ever saw a flash of anger. He replied: A hero would have saved them all.

While Kirby was initially worried about telling him about the book, she was surprised by the encouraging response.

I went to see him and I showed him the photographs of being awarded the prize and he said Good grief, they actually understood the importance of the story. I told him I wanted to write this book and I thought he would explode but he said: I love reading and I trust you to give the message. He was delighted when Waterstones made it their book of the month and it raised 56,000 for Oxfam. He said he had been searching for meaning for three years and the fact that it has raised all this money for a charity for migrants had given his story meaning.

Kirby doesnt name the optician in the book: I wanted him to remain an everyman figure, it could have been you or me. I knew I wasnt going to write a biography or reportage. There is something in the story that lends itself to literature, the adage of the old man and the sea; the metaphor of the optician who helps us see clearly.

She is still in regular contact with Menna and returned to Lampedusa last October to mark the third anniversary of the boat disaster.

Coffins of died migrants are lined up inside a hangar of Lampedusas airport, Italy.

I went back on that same boat with him and four of his friends and three of the migrants who had been rescued. The boat is still there and they scattered hibiscus flowers onto the water, where the 368 people met their deaths. I cant tell you how moving it was to be included.

The response to the crisis in the Mediterranean has been less than compassionate in many quarters. Kirby believes it is hard for people to empathise with such large-scale suffering, until, like the optician, they encounter it in a human context.

He said it wasnt until he felt the hand of the first man he pulled from the sea in his that he realised they were names not numbers, that was his phrase. I remember we went out to dinner to talk about it. He started to sweat, and he was shaking as he was re-enacting for me pulling all these people out. He said: It was like electricity going through me, knowing I was their chance for life; as I touched them I felt something like and he couldnt finish his sentence. He looked down and fiddled with his napkinand his wife said: he felt something like love.

Kirby says Menna, his wife and friends have come to look on the people they rescued as family.

He takes them out fishing and tries to teach them to love the sea again because they are so frightened of it.

One of the men they saved went to live in Sweden; when he had to say goodbye, he clung to the opticians wife like a baby, sobbing.

Kirby strikes me as a very strong person, to be able to bear witness to such horrific testimony and remain so calm and professional. But she argues she is no different to anyone else and is just doing her job.

Journalists are sent to witness on behalf of other people who cant be there. We have a duty to tell people what is happening and not shield people from horror. But I cried every single day writing this book. I was haunted by the opticians story, I still am.

Irish Examiner Ltd. All rights reserved

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Emma Jane Kirby's story of an optician helped us all to see migrant crisis more clearly - Irish Examiner

BBC News

Europe migrant crisis: Italy threatens to close ports as ministers meet BBC News The interior ministers of Germany, France and Italy are due to meet for crisis talks in Paris amid a warning from Italy that the influx of migrants into the country is unsustainable. Italy has threatened to close its ports and impound rescue ships run ... Interior Ministers of France, Germany and Italy to Discuss Italian Migrant CrisisVoice of America Talks in Paris on Sunday on Italy's migrant crisisThe Local Italy France, Germany, Italy to meet over migrants crisisVanguard Pulse Nigeria -Washington Post -The Navhind Times all 48 news articles »

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Europe migrant crisis: Italy threatens to close ports as ministers meet - BBC News