Giorgia Meloni made public request for Daniela Santanchè to quit in effort to restore credibility after voters rejected judicial reform

Italy’s embattled tourism minister has resigned, heeding a call to step down as the prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, strives to restore credibility after a bruising defeat in a referendum that has thrown her far-right government into turmoil.

The resignation on Wednesday of Daniela Santanchè, a prominent and brash member of Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party, came after the prime minister took the unusual step of calling in a public statement for her to go.

Events in Denmark and Italy show geopolitical instability is creating opportunities for a centre-left response to the far right

In the lead-up to Denmark’s snap election on Tuesday, it was revealed that blood supplies were flown into Greenland in January in order to treat Danish military casualties in the event of a US invasion. Against that surreal backdrop, the country’s Social Democrat prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, did not need to work too hard to justify a “stick to what you know” message in uncertain times.

Ms Frederiksen’s surprise gamble in calling an early poll duly paid off, but only just. Donald Trump’s threats to annex territory belonging to a Nato ally handed her party a patriotic lifeline, after it had endured a historic humiliation in local contests last November. But in a campaign dominated by domestic issues, the hoped-for Trump bump was modest, meaning that any Frederiksen-led coalition will depend on centrist support. The Social Democratic party remains comfortably the biggest political force, but its vote share dropped markedly compared to the last general election, while rivals to the left and on the far right made notable gains.

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France’s National Rally missed key targets in local elections ahead of next year’s seismic presidential vote – and the mainstream is doing OK elsewhere, too

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The Rassemblement National is not invincible. A year out from a make-or-break presidential vote, that might be the main lesson (though there are others, which may prove more significant) from last weekend’s local elections in France. What’s more, news elsewhere – Giorgia Meloni’s referendum defeat in Italy, Janez Janša beaten in Slovenia, Hungary’s Viktor Orbán in trouble, the left bloc largest in Denmark – might suggest the rest of Europe’s far right are not having it all their own way, either.

But let’s focus first on France – if only because while local elections are rarely a wholly accurate guide to future national outcomes, these ones seem to provide some pointers – and the stakes in the country’s next major election are vertiginously high.