The Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, signed in 2019 by the French President Macron and the German Chancellor Merkel, is widely seen as a major step for border regions on their way towards being fully acknowledged as political entities. However, while much ink has been spilled on the relevance of the treaty for future cross-border cooperation, we know surprisingly little about how that particular aspect actually became the Chapter 4 of the treaty. Given the centralized architecture of the French 5th republic, the new stipulations are actually a giant’s leap, which is difficult to explain. In this paper, we draw on evidence from policy documents and expert interviews to trace how cross-border cooperation was set on the government’s agendas as an issue to be integrated in the Aix-la-Chapelle Treaty. Building on the Multiple Streams Framework as theoretical lens, our analysis shows that actors from the French and German border regions were instrumental for the inclusion of cross-border cooperation in the Treaty. They used different channels in the multi-level system to push both central governments towards the integration of cross-border cooperation. Hence, the story how border regions made it into the Aix-la-Chapelle Treaty is a prime example of the dynamics of multi-level governance.

The article contains the results of preliminary comparative research on virtual communication conducted by ideologically populist right-wing parties in Poland and in France. The research was carried out using the method of discursive construction of dissatisfaction, analyzing content published on Facebook by the Confederation Liberty and Independence (Polish: Konfederacja Wolność i Niepodległości) and National Rally (French: Rassemblement National) parties. All posts published by the parties from December 1, 2023, to January 31, 2024, were examined (N—720). It was found that both parties built narratives that were negative and critical toward the created “enemy,” as well as self-promotional narratives aimed at emphasizing the successes and achievements of the party and its leaders. Only incidentally there appeared posts in which parties proposed substantive, unique solutions, introducing them into the virtual political discourse. It was also established that the milieu has a key impact on the topic of virtual communication offered by each entity. Parties only address topics present in the national space and in a manner consistent with cultural values. However, they avoid topics that would not find a large enough audience. Management of virtual communication processes in the case of both parties is focused on achieving short-term goals, including achieving immediate political effects using communication on social media which play a key role in spreading information despite differences arising from the milieu where the narrative is provided.

In France’s 2024 legislative elections, two-thirds of the candidates who qualified for the runoff withdrew from the competition. The media argued that this was a deliberate strategy to reduce the radical right’s chances of winning an absolute majority of seats. This kind of strategic behavior is based on rationality and collective action that hardly covers the full range of possibilities. This article seeks to identify the reasons why candidates pulled out before the second round of the national legislative elections in France. Our analysis uses semi-structured interviews with candidates who withdrew and identifies several explanations for their decision: electoral tactics driven by coercion, the long-term prospects of profile-raising benefits, voter pressure, disaffection with the campaign content, and the personal examples of other candidates. These results indicate that the decision to leave the race involved rationality, responsiveness to public preferences, emotions, and a learning process.