During the past year, right-wing populist politicians have been on the march, in France, the US and even in Germany, where chancellor Angela Merkel’s generous response to the migration crisis has left her exposed, politically, as never before.

French far-right party leader Marine Le Pen will go on trial for comparing Muslim street prayers to wartime Nazi occupation, party officials and the prosecutor’s office said yesterday.

France’s far-right National Front founder Jean-Marie Le Pen, whose party membership has been suspended by his own daughter, plans to set up his own political group.

Three topless women from the Femen activist group, making Nazi salutes, disrupted a May Day speech by French far-right leader Marine Le Pen attacking her political rivals.

Jean-Marie Le Pen, founder of France’s far-right Front National (FN), said he would not seek its ticket to stand in regional polls later this year, taking some of the sting out of a damaging public row with his daughter Marine, the party leader.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy was gaining on his Socialist rival after officially announcing his re-election bid last week, but still faces a tough challenge, a poll indicated.

TENS of thousands took to the streets across the globe for May Day yesterday, to press for workers’ rights amid tough economic times and to back an array of other causes.

FRENCH president Nicolas Sarkozy was taking stock after local election results gave the opposition Socialists a launch pad for the 2012 presidential election and fresh hope for the far right.

A retired Garda ballistics expert told the Don Tidey kidnap trial today that he concluded that gunfire from two automatic weapons had been fired in the direction of a recruit garda and soldier who were killed when the supermarket executive was rescued almost twenty five years ago.