1. 🇫🇷 POLL: WIDESPREAD DISAPPOINTMENT WITH FRENCH LEADERSHIP AMID RIOTS

New polling out this week finds 79% of French voters say the government wasn’t up to the challenge during the recent French riots. The unrest began in September and grew into a national revolt, causing more than $2 billion in damage, leaving nearly 3,000 businesses looted or damaged, and injuring more than 2,200 police officers. Public buildings were set on fire, including the bell tower of Limoges’s 143-year-old city hall.

Sixty-four percent say the riots show a “genuine crisis of the regime,” a view held by French citizens across the political spectrum (60% of National Rally voters and 72% of Socialists). It was also held by 82% of voters for La France Insoumise, the party accused of fomenting the unrest. Eighty-five percent say police aren’t sufficiently protected, and majorities back drones, armored vehicles, and crowd-control grenades.

And to top it off, President Macron’s approval rating sits at a mere 13%.

2. 🇨🇭 SWITZERLAND WANTS IT BOTH WAYS ON DRUG PRICES

Switzerland wants lower U.S. tariffs and continued access to American patients. It does not want to pay for the medicines its own companies sell them.

Few countries depend more on pharmaceuticals than Switzerland. Novartis, Roche and Basel’s deep biotech ecosystem make medicines a pillar of Swiss prosperity, and Americans spent roughly $35.5 billion on Swiss pharmaceutical imports in 2024. Yet as the EU-US Forum noted in July, Bern, the capital of Switzerland, has been moving toward broader administrative price controls and mandatory volume-based clawbacks of up to 40% on innovative medicines. The Cost Containment Package 2 is expected to push prices down further. Swiss legal analysts describe “a prevailing public and political consensus that remains firmly opposed to price increases.”

The consequences are already showing up at home. An Interpharma survey found that between January 2025 and June 2026, drugmakers did not submit seven of 22 new innovative medicines for Swiss reimbursement, and three more never sought Swiss market approval at all. Reimbursement submissions fell to 15, down from an average of 24 over comparable periods. Swiss patients now lack insured access to about a third of newly developed innovative medicines.

Meanwhile, Bern has worked hard to protect its own interests in Washington. Its trade framework brought U.S. tariffs on Swiss goods, including pharmaceuticals, down from 39% to a 15% ceiling, alongside a pledge to “encourage and facilitate” $200 billion in U.S. investment over five years. Switzerland’s industry lobby is now warning that U.S. policy could cost the country up to CHF 194.5 billion by 2040. That’s a remarkable figure to cite while defending a pricing system that says innovation is worth less in one of the richest countries on earth.

The fix isn’t complicated. Switzerland can drop the clawbacks, pay prices that reflect the value of what its own companies develop, and follow the United Kingdom, which agreed to substantially raise its investment in innovative medicines as part of its deal with Washington. A trade deal that protects Swiss exports while Swiss price controls undercut them is only half a deal.

🖥️ BRUSSELS MISTAKES A NEW CONGRESS FOR A REPRIEVE FROM DMA PUSHBACK

Following the United States’ 2026 midterm election results, many EU organizations and outlets are incorrectly viewing the outcome as “a welcome reprieve” from US pressure on the DMA, and drawing idealistic conclusions about what the result means for the US’s stance towards Brussels’ digital regulatory framework. But that expected relief is unlikely to actualize.

EUPerspectives pointed to the end of Rep. Jim Jordan’s time leading the House Judiciary Committee as a change that “removes [Brussels’] loudest critic in Washington,” yet Rep. Jordan just won reelection and will now lead Republicans in the House as Minority Leader, and many don’t expect this issue to subside.

Other organizations, such as the European Council on Foreign Relations, were even more optimistic, suggesting there may be “an opportunity to reshape the narrative in the US about Europe’s approach to tech, making clear the benefits of promoting safety, competition and freedom.”

Republicans in DC are not going to let this issue go away. President Trump retains extensive presidential powers, including opening a Section 301 investigation and imposing tariffs such as those currently in place on European steel which the President has refused to lower until Brussels scales back its DMA enforcement.

Europe is wrong to interpret the election’s outcome as a repudiation of the Trump Administration’s anti-DMA posture. The DMA’s exploitation of American firms has led even progressives to join the president in opposing the regulation. Further, 12 Democrats, 11 of whom remain in office, previously joined 10 Republicans in warning President Biden about the DMA’s cost to American companies.

With President Trump in charge, the EU can expect the same firm approach from Washington if they continue plundering American companies across the pond.