As Helen Fitzwilliam reports in our cover story, an Italian judge has found a weak link in the impenetrable ranks of the ’Ndrangheta – the women and girls who refuse to put up with the medieval oppression they suffer at the hands of the clan godfathers. The big question is, can the Italian state contain the clans before they turn their cash piles into legitimate businesses and consolidate their influence?
Elsewhere in Europe we have two contrasting stories. The state of Kosovo, 10 years old in February, is by any standard a failed project of the European Union. Andrea Garaiova charts how the former commanders of the Kosovo Liberation Army have resisted attempts to turn their fief into a democratic state. In France, Marie le Conte explains how Emmanuel Macron has managed to keep his one-man revolution rolling on. The only threat at the moment is his arrogance.
