For more than a week, we have seen increasingly disturbing images from France and elsewhere in Europe: burning town halls, looted shops and brutal violence. What has been portrayed as “student protests” increasingly resembles scenes from a civil war. Behind the mob, there is an uncanny alliance: well-organised left-wing extremists and political Islam. Two movements that could hardly be more different - but united in their rejection of our free and open society. Both are enemies of the Enlightenment. The far left likes to present itself as its guardian. Yet it marches side by side with those who reject freedom of speech and everything a liberal society stands for. Beyond the violence itself, what is most shocking is the unwillingness to acknowledge what is happening, or even the apparent attempt to conceal the truth by many. The violence we are witnessing has nothing to do with legitimate student protest. To me, these scenes reflect the consequences of nearly two decades of failed migration policy. Unless we change course immediately, we risk seeing the same scenes soon in Berlin, Vienna and Munich. For years, Hungary and other Central European countries have faced harsh criticism from their Western European neighbours over their approach to migration. Today, Budapest, Warsaw and Prague stand out as islands of calm.

For too long, people with no right to stay have remained in the EU. Now, this is set to change. Today, our return rules enter into force - a common system, swifter procedures & stronger rules for security threats. We control who enters the EU, who can stay, and who must leave.

Ukraine has “already lost” the war against Russia, says @Alice_Weidel, co-leader of the Alternative for Germany party, which is leading German opinion polls. She told @zannymb, that Germany should pull the plug on support for Ukraine against Vladimir Putin’s invasion. Watch the full interview at 6pm London time (1pm in New York): bit.ly/4yrcX9s

Congratulations to lawyer and human rights activist Navanethem “Navi” Pillay on her Nobel Peace Prize. Few have devoted their lives to justice, peace and human dignity like she did. From the violence of apartheid in South Africa to the horrors of the Rwandan genocide, she has confronted some of humanity’s darkest chapters. She has looked the brutality of injustice in the eye and never looked away. She is the defender of the persecuted, the vulnerable, the voiceless and the excluded. Of the rule of law over the right of might. In a world that needs justice more than ever, her courage and moral clarity are a precious compass.

What puzzles me about French economists like Gabriel, as well as Emmanuel and Tomas, is the zeal they bring in trying to convince Americans that they have to implement a French model that is focused on redistribution rather than growth, because every indication we have suggests that the focus on redistribution has cost France, and some other countries in Europe, like my own native Belgium, very dearly so far. In fact, the French economy looks like it is about to enter a serious fiscal crisis because its redistribution model is no longer sustainable. Californians ought to celebrate the fact that wealth is being created in California, and not somewhere else in the U.S. or in the rest of the world. Americans, and Californians, for that matter, should continue to do what they do best, which is focus on growing the pie. It would be a mistake to adopt a model that is fundamentally broken. What the French should do instead is try to copy the model that made California an engine of innovation. In that case, smart, highly educated French kids wouldn't come to the U.S. to start companies. They would do so in France. If they had done that, they would have more than one AI startup company.