While Britons proceed on their rocky road toward Brexit – a desire reflected in the European election results, the majority of those who voted in France and Italy preferred the anti-immigrant rhetoric of Marie Le Pen’s National Rally Party and Matteo Salvini’s League Party, respectively. Similar messages were rewarded in Hungary and Poland. These results, coupled with the still high level of abstentionism, do not bode well at a time when solidarity work and human mobility are being criminalised at, and within, European borders and on the Mediterranean Sea. On the other hand, citizen mobilisation in Algeria or Soudan is overwhelmingly calling for democratisation and open societies, while in countries like Syria and Egypt citizens are prevented from pursuing their aspirations to freedom and justice due to real war crimes and repressive measures systematically carried out by their regimes.
