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France's film industry is reeling after its biggest production company – Canal+, owned by right-wing billionaire Vincent Bolloré – announced it would no longer work with some 600 professionals who signed a petition opposing Bolloré and the "grip of the far right" on cinema. The fallout is highlighting some uncomfortable truths about the industry's reliance on one company.

Access to future EU aid funding is likely to be tied to preferential treatment for European firms and withheld from backers of the likes of Russia and Iran, EU foreign affairs chief Kaja Kallas has said.

If the US wanted to destroy its credibility in Europe deliberately, it could hardly have done it better.

The Trump administration doesn’t like a unified European Union because the bloc is a geopolitical power that Washington has to contend with, EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said on Sunday, urging EU member countries not to weaken the bloc by pursuing bilateral agreements with the U.S.

A member of the European Parliament from Poland’s national-conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party has been barred from entering the UK, where he had planned to attend and speak at a rally in London this weekend organised by far-right activist Tommy Robinson.

On Tuesday evening, Dominik Tarczyński shared a screenshot of a message from the British Home Office informing him that his Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA), which allows entry to the UK without a visa, had been cancelled.

“This is because: Your presence in the UK is not considered conducive to the public good,” read the message. “You cannot appeal this decision.”

“This is what communism looks like in the 21st century,” wrote Tarczyński, who said that he would sue “communist” British Prime Minister Keir Starmer personally.

Former British Conservative Prime Minister Liz Truss described the decision to ban Tarczyński as “shocking”. She noted that, in the European Parliament, he is a member of the European Conservatives and Reformists Group that the British Conservative Party was also part of before Brexit.

However, Poland’s foreign minister, Radosław Sikorski, wrote on social media that, by “addressing the prime minister of our ally Great Britain, Sir Keir Starmer, as a ‘communist’, Tarczyński has unfortunately confirmed that he is an unhinged extremist”.

Tarczyński is even “more dangerous for Poland than for the UK”, added Sikorski, who is a deputy leader of the centrist Civic Coalition (KO), Poland’s main ruling party. 

PiS ruled Poland from 2015 to 2023 and is now the main opposition party. Tarczyński is not a particularly senior figure, serving as an MP from 2015 to 2020 and since then as an MEP, but he enjoys a relatively high profile internationally due to his vocal opposition to Muslim immigration to Europe.

In a 2018 interview with Channel 4 News in the UK, Tarczyński declared his pride that Poland was taking in “zero illegal Muslim migrants”.

Tarczyński has ties to Donald Trump’s MAGA movement as well as to Robinson (whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon), the most prominent far-right, anti-Muslim activist in the UK.

Last year, Tarczyński marched alongside Robinson at his Unite the Kingdom rally, which drew over 100,000 people to London. The Polish politician also gave a speech from the main stage at the event, leading the crowd in a chant of “Send them [migrants] back”.

“We have to be very radical,” declared Tarczyński. “Zero means zero. Enough is enough…Protect your family, protect your children, fight for your country.”

“We are taking our Christian Europe back. We are taking this continent, because this is our home,” he continued. “I love Europe. I love my culture. I love my identity. I love this crowd. I love being European.”

In recent days, Tarczyński has been using his social media profiles to promote his participation a new Unite the Kingdom rally, which is being organised this Saturday by Robinson in London. The revocation of his ETA, however, means it is unlikely he will now attend.

On Monday, Starmer announced that the UK would block “far-right agitators” from entering the country to attend the event, reports The Guardian.

The Standard reports that among those banned are US-based commentators Joey Mannarino and Valentina Gomez, Belgian politician Filip Dewinter, Catalan commentator Ada Lluch and Dutch activist Eva Vlaardingerbroek.

Last week, another Polish politician, Sławomir Mentzen, who is one of the leaders of the far-right Confederation (Konfederacja), another opposition group, was briefly held at a London airport when entering the UK before eventually being allowed to proceed into the country for a private family visit.

Daniel Tilles

Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.