All right, Alexander, let's talk about Germany and the farmer's strike.

We can talk about Olaf Schultz's dismal approval ratings.

They seem to get lower with each passing week.

And now he's got this farmer's strike.

While at the same time he is calling

on Germany to spend more money on Ukraine. So go figure. And then we have trouble in France as well.

The prime minister has resigned, and there's going to be a reshuffle in the Macron cabinet. So the situation in Europe is not going well

at all. Where should we begin? Germany or France? Well, let's start with France because the most

interesting thing is that we now have statements from the French finance minister saying that the

situation is becoming increasingly

bleak and that France might have to look forward to a period of austerity.

So this decision to basically sack the prime minister because, of course, she resigned,

but it was quite clear that Macron wanted her out

that Macron has lost confidence in her is a sign that again things economically are not going

well in France and that Macron's own position is becoming more brittle.

And what he's now trying to do is he's trying to find some means to strengthen his government because he senses that the whole thing is now slipping slowly.

Power is slipping away from him.

He's increasingly finding he's finding it increasingly

difficult to govern France one senses that his popularity there is falling and the economic situation

as I said is bad but you talked about Schultz more money for Ukraine Macron is going to supply Ukraine with 85 more scalp missiles,

the French equivalent of the storm shadow. So you can see that even as in France,

Macron understands that things are not going well.

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