The Heritage Foundation goes from MAGA to MEGA — Make Europe Great Again

On the agenda: pro-natalism, freedom of expression, opposing trans rights and fighting Chinese influence.

November 10, 2025
By Hannah Roberts

ROME — The conservative think tank behind Donald Trump’s Project 2025 roadmap is looking for new friends across the Atlantic.

The Heritage Foundation, the intellectual engine behind the 922-page blueprint that has become the key policy manual for Trump’s second term, is partnering with a constellation of European nationalist far-right movements to export its playbook for countering progressive policies.

Continued: https://www.politico.eu/article/the-heritage-foundation-goes-from-maga-to-mega-make-europe-great-again-donald-trump-us-influence/

Global anti-feminist backlash gains ground after decades of equality gains

Spain and France justify enshrining the right to abortion in their Constitutions as a safeguard against a ‘reactionary’ wave that could roll back achievements

Marc Bassets, Berlin
OCT 31, 2025

History never advances in a straight line. Although, as Martin Luther King said, “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” Progress always moves in fits and starts: two steps forward, one step back. This is also the case with women’s rights and equality.

For a decade or more — in Western countries and in the Global South — there have been numerous cases of rights being stripped away after a long period of progress. This regression — according to progressive and liberal political leaders — is linked to the global rise of new forms of authoritarianism and nationalism.

Continued: https://english.elpais.com/international/2025-11-01/global-anti-feminist-backlash-gains-ground-after-decades-of-equality-gains.html

Abortion rights activists rally voters for EU election

Civil society groups are encouraging voters to stop a far-right surge.

MAY 24, 2024
BY CLAUDIA CHIAPPA

Activists behind a campaign calling for EU-wide abortion rights are urging people to vote against a far-right surge in the European Parliament.

Campaigners will gather Friday evening in Hénin-Beaumont, South of Lille in France, where National Rally leader Jordan Bardella and former leader Marine Le Pen are set to host a party meeting.

Continued: https://www.politico.eu/article/abortion-rights-activists-rally-voters-for-eu-election/

24.05.2024

News

Alice Coffin

European Citizens’ Initiative

‘It was a wake-up call’: After Roe v. Wade, French lawmakers seek to enshrine abortion rights

By Maya Szaniecki and Claudia Colliva, CNN
Sat December 2, 2023

When the United States Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022, French women were paying close attention. They watched with alarm as those across the Atlantic lost their long-standing right to abortion, seemingly overnight. What if France came next?

“It was a wake-up call for everyone,” French Senator Mélanie Vogel told CNN. “We don’t want to wake up like American women… with this right being taken from us,” she said.

Continued: https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/02/europe/us-overturn-of-roe-v-wade-prompts-france-to-embed-abortion-rights-in-constitution/index.html

France moves closer to making abortion a constitutional right

Lower house approves resolution to guarantee access to ‘the right to voluntarily end a pregnancy’

Angelique Chrisafis in Paris
Thu 24 Nov 2022

France has moved a step closer to becoming the first country in the world to enshrine abortion as a constitutional right, after lawmakers approved a resolution in the lower house to guarantee access to “the right to voluntarily end a pregnancy”.

In a rare cross-party move, members of parliament from the left’s La France Insoumise party and Emmanuel Macron’s centrist coalition agreed on the wording of a clause that could be added to the constitution. It read: “The law guarantees the effectiveness and equal access to the right to voluntarily end a pregnancy.”

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/nov/24/france-moves-closer-to-making-abortion-a-constitutional-right

French women push to cement abortion rights after US ruling

By BARBARA SURK and JADE LE DELEY
July 8, 2022

PARIS (AP) — The right to abortion in France hardly seems under threat — it’s been inscribed in law for 47 years and enjoys broad support across the political spectrum. But more and more French women are asking: Could what happened in the U.S. happen here one day?

The decision by the U.S. Supreme Court to strip women of the right to abortion has reverberated across Europe’s political landscape, forcing the issue back into public debate in France at a time of political upheaval.

Continued: https://apnews.com/article/abortion-us-supreme-court-health-government-and-politics-paris-fae308e307dc5c250534a593e0410354

Where France Differs on Abortion

The French and Americans once saw eye to eye on reproductive rights. Today, not so much.

By Pamela Druckerman
JUNE 30, 2022

When the United States Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last week, a quote attributed to Simone de Beauvoir quickly circulated on French social media. “Never forget that all it takes is a political, economic or religious crisis for women’s rights to be called into question,” it said. “These rights are never fully acquired. You must remain vigilant your whole life.”

The French are feeling vigilant in part because, historically, they moved in near-lockstep with the U.S. on abortion and related reproductive rights. In 1965, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a landmark ruling granting married couples access to birth-control medication; France authorized free access to the pill, for anyone, two years later. The U.S. Supreme Court issued its ruling on Roe in 1973; two years later, France decriminalized abortion by passing what became known as the loi Veil, after Simone Veil, the celebrated postwar politician who, as health minister, spearheaded the effort to enact the legislation.

Continued: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/06/france-abortion-rights-roe-united-states/661447/

30.06.2022