57.4% of the electorate did not go to the polls yesterday in the second round of parliamentary elections (against 51.3% in the first round). Not surprisingly, in many constituencies, voters had only a choice between "tweedledee or tweedledum" under various labels (LREM, LR or even the PS).

On Wednesday, June 14, Americans received the jarring news that a US Congressman had been shot down during practice for a bipartisan baseball charity event. House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA) remains critically wounded. The gunman, who perished in the shootout with police officers, has been identified as James T. Hodgkinson of suburban small-town Illinois. A nation chronically desensitized to images of sensational and senseless violence stopped its morning routine to observe the disturbing development of a mass shooting—something ordinarily reserved for children’s schools, “inner-city” crime, and faraway war zones—bringing down a senior Capitol Hill politician.