It is 5.15am and I am walking down my street, feeling smug. The buildings are bathed in peachy dawn light. “Win the morning and you win the day,” suggests productivity guru Tim Ferriss. The prize is within my sights: an oat-milk latte, my reward for getting up ridiculously early.

The trains have not started running yet and the silence seems to magnify hitherto inaudible sounds. There is a mysterious squawk of gulls. I live in Camden, north-west London, many miles from the seaside. I have certainly never heard them here before.

I note that my neighbours’ gas meter is emitting a weird hum; should I ring their doorbell to let them know? Probably not. On to the deserted six-lane high street where supermarket delivery vans and the occasional bus are the only signs of life.

Perhaps the most poignant aspect of being up and about so early is that it unmasks the lie that London is a 24-hour city. Corner shops that I had assumed were open all night are locked behind graffiti-sprayed shutters. Aha, what is this I see? A human. He is listing from side to side, clearly heading home after a big night.

I pass the coach stop for the airport where three shift workers, discernible by lanyards and their lack of luggage, are staring glassily into the empty road. They are not exactly radiating winning-the-day exuberance.

Further along, outside the 24-hour gym, a couple clad in matching grey Lycra are huddled over a phone screen. Perhaps they are synchronising their workouts? I bid them a cheery good morning, but they scuttle inside like startled mice.

My mood starts to plummet. There is no coffee to be had at any of the eight shuttered cafes I pass, so I head for a patch of green space to meditate. En route, I realise a hooded man has fallen into step with me. Freaked out, I decide to head for home. Is the man following me? I look back. He is not. Lack of sleep is making me unhinged.

Why am I doing this? Because, in an attempt to become one of the elite superbeings who are members of the 5am club, I am trying a week of very early starts. Being an early bird is increasingly popular among the rich and famous, with everyone from Jennifer Lopez, Jennifer Aniston and the Kardashians to tech bros such as Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, Apple’s Tim Cook and Twitter founder Jack Dorsey subscribing to the club. So do Anna Wintour and Michelle Obama. Gwyneth Paltrow is a longtime member, sharing on Instagram how she rises at 5am for a 30-minute tongue scrape and Ayurvedic oil pull (me neither), before settling down for 20 minutes of transcendental meditation, followed by a dance workout devised by her friend, the fitness guru Tracy Anderson.

The extreme early start as a cultural phenomenon first exploded on social media, inspired by Robin Sharma’s book The 5am Club and other hashtag-friendly titles such as The Miracle Morning and Power Hour. Leadership guru Sharma’s catchphrase “Own your morning, elevate your life” has inspired legions of smug people – sorry, highly disciplined individuals – to share their impressive #5amClub routines (17.5m TikTok posts).

To a sceptic, there is a degree of magical thinking to much of this. If you can just do this one thing – get out of bed while others snooze – you will have time to get fit, eat healthily and achieve all your goals. Still, after scrolling through a tsunami of turmeric lattes, gratitude journals and sun salutations, I am sufficiently inspired to try it.

Although I am not what you would call a natural lark, my relationship with time was transformed during the pandemic, in common with many others. With nowhere to go in the evening, staying up late became pointless. Gradually, my wake-up time got earlier. As a photographer, rising at dawn to catch the best light makes a lot of sense too.

By January 2021, I had begun a lockdown project of climbing to the top of Primrose Hill near Camden Town to photograph the sunrise. Inscribed on the viewing platform are words by the poet William Blake. “I have conversed with the spiritual Sun. I saw him on Primrose Hill.” There was something about that pale violet stillness, as I stood alone with other sunrise watchers, that felt as close to a sacred experience as I had ever witnessed in London.

The early rising habit stuck, but not the brisk walks. Ordinarily, I get up at 6.30am without an alarm. I am not at my best at this hour. I mainline instant coffee and doomscroll for 90 minutes, and then it is time to get ready for work. Could rising at 5am and following a structured routine make me productive and focused? I commit to doing it for a week.

The night before I begin, I go to bed at 9pm with Sharma’s audiobook and soon fall into an unusually deep sleep. At 4.50am, my alarm, set to Arcade Fire’s Wake Up, blares out of my phone at top volume. There is a thud from above: I have accidentally recruited my neighbour into the 5am club.

I make coffee and slump on the sofa. But then I remember this isn’t allowed. I must instead follow the book’s 20/20/20 formula. From 5am to 5.20am you do some form of vigorous exercise; 5.20am to 5.40am is for meditation and journaling; and from 5.40am to 6am, it is time for reading or learning. I feel terrible, despite having had eight hours’ sleep.

The gym is out of the question, and luckily it is closed. I decide to do some meditation, which is lovely, but 40 minutes later I have pretty much dozed off. I feel exactly like you do when you have got up early to catch a flight, except I am not going anywhere. There is a sense of anticlimax, and also of raging hunger. Somehow, my appetite regulation has gone haywire. I have porridge, then toast, then two pancakes, then a nut bar. By lunchtime, I feel queasy and also freezing cold. The day passes in an unproductive fog.

Day two is much worse, because, for some reason, I have a terrible night’s sleep. Groggily, I get out of bed and stumble into the kitchen to put on the kettle. In the process I knock over an open box of porridge oats. I unleash a stream of Glaswegian swear words and then hear a door slamming above me. Oh dear.

Onwards to the yoga mat. But downward-facing dog leaves me feeling dizzy, so I stop. I move on to journaling, but all I can think of to write is: “I want to go back to bed, please.” I do a quick round of Duolingo to tick the “learning” box, but that lurid-green owl isn’t an ideal dawn companion.

It is now 6am and the whole day stretches ahead of me. But I can barely summon the energy to get off the sofa, let alone get on the tube and go to the office.

I attempt to do some work; the day passes slowly, but then I have a strange sense of anticipation that something lovely lies ahead. What is it, I wonder. Then it dawns on me – only five hours and I can go to bed.

Day three is equally dismal, mostly because I sleep in until 8am and then remember I have to go to a meeting on the other side of town. Gratitude journaling will have to wait.

Why is this so hard? I put the question to Russell Foster, head of the Sleep and Circadian Neuroscience Institute at Oxford University. But he wants to know why I would want to sign up for the 5am club in the first place. To say he is scathing about the fetishisation of the early start would be an understatement. “There’s nothing intrinsically important about getting up at 5am. It’s just the ghastly smugness of the early start. Benjamin Franklin was the one who started it all when he said, ‘Early to bed, early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise’ and it’s been going on ever since. It goes back to the Protestant work ethic – work is good and if you can’t or won’t work, that is, by definition, bad. Not sleeping is seen as worthy and productive.”

There is plenty of research indicating that getting up early can make you happier, and even eat more healthily. However, Foster points out a major pitfall. “In order to get enough sleep, many people would need to go to bed at 9pm. Unfortunately, most of us aren’t able to do that because we have all this stuff we need to do, whether that be helping kids with homework or putting a load of washing on. So, the danger is, we don’t actually get to bed when we should, and another factor is that other people are likely to still be making a noise around you, so how are you going to get to sleep?”

He also points out that the most enthusiastic exponents of these regimes are people who can afford to outsource life admin. “These productivity gurus and entrepreneurs have money to pay people to do everything. Imposing this schedule on other people is punitive and it’s also boastful: ‘Oh, aren’t I a great person; why don’t you become more like me?’ Truth is, most of us can’t afford to.”

Foster raises some excellent points, but I am still keen to master an earlier wake-up. Will it get easier over time? Sleep psychotherapist Heather Darwall-Smith isn’t so sure. “We each have a chronotype that determines our body clock. Everyone knows there are people who are morning larks and others who are night owls,” she says. “But actually, most people fall somewhere in between. So, there will be people who can go to bed at 10pm and wake naturally at 5am, and it’s a routine that fits with their chronotype. But many of us are not like that. And let’s not forget, there are lots of people who have a 5am wake-up imposed on them by their work shifts.”

By day four of my experiment, I am grumpy and miserable. I’ve had to cancel a trip to the pub because, newsflash, an evening of merlot and a dawn wake-up isn’t a good combination. I’ve also become borderline insufferable. “Late night?” I ask a colleague who is yawning at the advanced hour of 11am. I really want to mention that I’ve been up for SIX WHOLE HOURS, but wisely desist. People might get jealous of my self-discipline.

Day five is a new low. I sleep in until 5.43am and then eat a salted caramel Magnum for breakfast to compensate for missing out on the pub. Morning six is more successful. I have a deadline looming and welcome the extra time to get ahead. Day seven is the fruitless coffee odyssey and I realise that going outside definitely does make me feel a lot more energised and upbeat.

I decide to talk to some non-celebs who have made the 5am club work for them. Jenny Wilson, a colour therapist, gets up every morning at 4.55 and, while the rest of her family sleeps, has a quick shower before creeping into the spare room to start her day.

“I call it my bewitching hour because as long as I have this time for myself, the rest of the day falls into place like magic,” she says. Her ritual is always the same – 30 minutes of yoga followed by 20 minutes of meditation, ending with speaking her intentions for the day aloud. “After that, I’m ready to make breakfast for my children and get on with my life. It means I start the day with a feeling of accomplishment, that I’ve already done amazing things before anybody else is up.”

Probation officer Quynh Nguyen-Dang has been following an early morning routine since January, after reading The 5am Club. Every morning, she sets her smartwatch to vibrate at 4.30 and then again at 5. She puts on her workout gear, gets in her car and drives to her local gym to do 30 minutes of cardio. “It’s a beautiful drive, so peaceful. The other morning I stopped to admire the pink candyfloss clouds. When I’m in the gym, I often send emails and update social media for my fashion business side hustle while I’m pedalling away. There are only so many hours in the day and this is a great way to get ahead. It’s like a secret society. I see the same group of women there every morning. Afterwards, we’re all lining up at the mirror, doing our hair and getting ready for work.”

However, adopting such a punitive regime comes at a cost. “I turn into a pumpkin at 9pm,” she says. “I feel bad if I have to say no to seeing people after work but on the weekends I do tend to sleep later.”

On day eight, I wake up at 5.04am without an alarm. The morning beckons. Do I bound out of bed to seize the day? I do not. I decide to return to my usual wake-up time, only now with a renewed focus. The week hasn’t been a total waste of time – far from it. What it has made me realise is how much time I was wasting before, particularly in the morning. It’s not when you get up that matters – it’s how you choose to use the precious minutes you have that really counts.

The world has baked for 12 consecutive months in temperatures 1.5C (2.7F) greater than their average before the fossil fuel era, new data shows.

Temperatures between July 2023 and June 2024 were the highest on record, scientists found, creating a year-long stretch in which the Earth was 1.64C hotter than in preindustrial times.

The findings do not mean world leaders have already failed to honour their promises to stop the planet heating 1.5C by the end of the century – a target that is measured in decadal averages rather than single years – but that scorching heat will have exposed more people to violent weather. A sustained rise in temperatures above this level also increases the risk of uncertain but catastrophic tipping points.

Carlo Buontempo, director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service, which analysed the data, said the results were not a statistical oddity but a “large and continuing shift” in the climate.

“Even if this specific streak of extremes ends at some point, we are bound to see new records being broken as the climate continues to warm,” he said. “This is inevitable unless we stop adding greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and the oceans.”

Copernicus, a scientific organisation that belongs to the EU’s space programme, uses billions of measurements from satellites, ships, aircraft and weather stations to track key climate metrics. It found June 2024 was hotter than any other June on record and was the 12th month in a row with temperatures 1.5C greater than their average between 1850 and 1900.

Because temperatures in some months had “relatively small margins” above 1.5C, the scientists said, datasets from other climate agencies may not confirm the 12-month temperature streak.

Whether pumped out the chimney of a coal-burning power plant or ejected from the exhaust pipe of a passenger plane, each carbon molecule clogging the Earth’s atmosphere traps heat and warps weather. The hotter the planet gets, the less people and ecosystems can adapt.

“This is not good news at all,” said Aditi Mukherji, a director at research institute CGIAR and co-author of the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report. “We know that extreme events increase with every increment of global warming – and at 1.5C, we witnessed some of the hottest extremes this year.”

Some ecosystems are more vulnerable than others. In its latest review of the science, the IPCC found that 1.5C of warming will kill off 70-90% of tropical coral reefs, while warming of 2C will wipe them out almost entirely.

A Guardian survey of hundreds of IPCC authors this year found three-quarters expect the planet to heat by at least 2.5C by 2100, with about half of the scientists expecting temperatures above 3C. The increments sound small but can mean the difference between widespread human suffering and “semi-dystopian” futures.

Mukherji compared 1C of global heating to a mild fever and 1.5C a medium-to-high grade fever. “Now imagine a human body with [that] temperature for years. Will that person function normally any more?”

“That’s currently our Earth system,” she added. “It is a crisis.”

François Gemenne, an IPCC author and director of the Hugo Observatory at the University of Liège, said the climate crisis is not a binary issue. “It is not 1.5C or death – every 0.1C matters a great deal because we’re talking about global average temperatures, which translate into massive temperature gaps locally.”

Even in a best-case scenario, he said, people need to prepare for a warmer world and “beef up” response plans. “Adaptation is not an admission that our current efforts are useless.”

A visitor to Death Valley national park died Sunday from heat exposure and another person was hospitalized as the temperature reached 128F (53.3C) in eastern California, officials said.

The two visitors were part of a group of six motorcyclists riding through the Badwater Basin area amid scorching weather, the park said.

The person who died was not identified. The other motorcyclist was hospitalized in Las Vegas for “severe heat illness”, the statement said. The other four members of the party were treated at the scene.

“High heat like this can pose real threats to your health,” said park superintendent Mike Reynolds.

“Besides not being able to cool down while riding due to high ambient air temperatures, experiencing Death Valley by motorcycle when it is this hot is further challenged by the necessary heavy safety gear worn to reduce injuries during an accident,” Reynolds said.

The death comes as a long-running heatwave has shattered temperature records across the US.

An excessive heat warning – the National Weather Service’s (NWS) highest alert – was in effect for about 36 million people, or about 10% of the US population, said NWS meteorologist Bryan Jackson. Dozens of locations in the west and Pacific north-west were expected to tie or break previous heat records, he said.

That was certainly the case over the weekend: many areas in northern California surpassed 110F (43.3C), with the city of Redding topping out at a record 119F (48.3C). Phoenix set a new daily record Sunday for the warmest low temperature: it never got below 92F (33.3C).

Triple-digit temperatures were common across Oregon, where several records were toppled – including in Salem, where on Sunday it hit 103F (39.4C), topping the 99F (37.2C) mark set in 1960.

Rare heat advisories were extended even into higher elevations including around Lake Tahoe, on the border of California and Nevada, with the weather service in Reno, Nevada, warning of “major heat risk impacts, even in the mountains”.

On the more humid east coast, temperatures above 100F were widespread, while storm Beryl is expected to strengthen back into a hurricane and hit east Texas Monday.

The Associated Press contributed reporting

A leftwing alliance was on track to become the biggest force in the French parliament on Sunday after tactical voting held back the far right, but the shape of the future government remained uncertain after no group looked set for an absolute majority.

The surprise result for the left – which was projected to win up to 192 seats, followed by president Emmanuel Macron’s centrist alliance and the far right in third – showed the strength of tactical voting against Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally (RN). The far right and its allies had forged a commanding lead in the first round but were ultimately held back by massive tactical voting to prevent them winning enough seats to form a government.

Although the left alliance was slightly ahead, it was projected to be at least 100 seats short of an absolute majority. Amid a high turnout estimated at about 67%, no single group was predicted to win an absolute majority of 289 seats and form a government. The parliament was likely to be divided into three blocs: the left, centrists and the far right.

France now enters a period of unprecedented uncertainty over the shape of its future government and its likely prime minister. Macron has promised to remain as president, but he did not speak publicly on Sunday night, privately calling for people to be “prudent” until the final results were clear on Monday morning.

It could now take weeks to establish a government with no party gaining anywhere near an absolute majority. It was uncertain what shape of government would be leading France when the Olympic Games open Paris in less than three weeks.

The prime minister, Gabriel Attal, announced that he would hand his resignation to president Macron on Monday morning. But he also said he could stay in place for the short term, if required, while a new government was formed.

“Tonight, a new era begins,” he said, adding that France’s destiny would play out “more than ever in parliament”.

Attal said: “I know that, in the light of tonight’s results, a lot of French people feel uncertainty about the future because no majority has emerged. Our country is in an unprecedented political situation and is preparing to welcome the world [at the Olympics] in a few weeks. I will stay in my role as long as duty requires.”

Jockeying for position in the new parliament began instantly. Jean-Luc Mélenchon, leader of the leftwing La France Insoumise party, said: “The president must invite the New Popular Front [left alliance] to govern.” The outgoing interior minister, Gérald Darmanin, said: “I note that today, no one can say they have won this legislative election, especially not Mr Mélenchon.”

Raphaël Glucksmann of Place Publique and the Socialist party, part of the left alliance, said: “We’re ahead, but we’re in a divided parliament … so we’re going to have to act like grownups. We’re going to have to talk, to discuss, to engage in dialogue.”

The New Popular Front alliance of parties – which includes the former ruling Socialist party, the leftwing La France Insoumise, the Greens and Communists – was predicted to take 172–192 seats, according to projections by Ipsos for the French public broadcaster. Emmanuel Macron’s centrist grouping, Ensemble, was in second place, projected to take between 150 and 170 seats, a loss of up to 100 seats but a stronger showing than expected.

Marine Le Pen’s far-right, anti-immigration National Rally (RN) was predicted to come third with 132–152 seats, along with its allies on the right.

This was a historic result for the RN – its biggest ever score in a parliamentary election, and an increase from the 88 seats it had when parliament was dissolved last month. But it was much lower than the party had expected after it topped the vote in the first round last week.

Jordan Bardella, the RN president, said the parties who had teamed up to stop the far right were a “disgraceful alliance”. Le Pen, who intends to run for president for the far right in 2027, said the far right’s rise to power would continue. She said: “The tide is rising. It did not rise high enough this time, but it continues to rise and our victory has simply been deferred.”

The RN’s limited score showed the success of a tactical voting pact formed last week by centrists and the left to hold back the far right.

More than 200 candidates from the left and centre had pulled out of the second round last week in order to avoid splitting the vote against the RN. Those parties had called on voters to choose any candidate against the RN, in an attempt to prevent the far right winning an absolute majority of 289 and forming a government.

The party, which was founded as the Front National by Jean-Marie Le Pen in 1972, was presented by the left and centrists as a danger to democracy that promoted racist, antisemitic and anti-Muslim views. Brice Tinturier, director general of Ipsos, said the results showed that a majority of French voters still saw the RN as dangerous.

Clémence Guetté, who was re-elected for the leftwing La France Insoumise, said the lower-than-expected score for the RN showed that “this is not a racist country and France does not want to be divided”.

Macron shocked his own government and party by calling snap elections on 9 June after his centrists were trounced by the far right in European elections.

Lewis Hamilton won the British Grand Prix with a mighty and historic drive in immensely tricky wet and dry conditions at Silverstone to end finally his two-and-a-half-year win drought. The Mercedes driver beat the Red Bull of Max Verstappen into second and the McLaren of Lando Norris into third in a gripping and thrilling encounter. McLaren’s Oscar Piastri was fourth and Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz in fifth.

In a remarkable race, Hamilton delivered a superb performance as he and Mercedes gave a masterclass of driving and tactics. What it meant to the 39-year-old was clear as he was reduced to tears in the cockpit on his in-lap. “Get in there Lewis, you the man, you the man,” his engineer Peter Bonnington yelled over the team radio. “I love you, Bono,” replied Hamilton as the home crowd erupted in celebrating a win many might have thought they might not see again.

The victory finally ends the longest winless streak of Hamilton’s career, stretching back 56 races to the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix in December 2021, lasting more than two years across 945 days. The win is the 104th of Hamilton’s career in his 344th grand prix, with the 39-year-old becoming the first driver to claim a victory after passing the 300th-race milestone.

The win at Silverstone is also another record as he becomes the first driver to achieve nine victories at a meeting, an extraordinary achievement.

In a race that was all but impossible to call, defined by periods of rain and the strategy calls they entailed, Hamilton, always a master in the wet, and Mercedes, with no little experience in guiding their man to wins, executed with aplomb.

Starting in the dry, despite the threat of rain, George Russell, who ultimately retired with a water system problem, held his lead from Hamilton but Verstappen made up a place on Norris, passing round the outside through the Loop to take third.

During the first bout of rain McLaren took advantage, with Norris taking the lead, but it was the second spell of wet weather that was crucial. After stopping for wet rubber, Norris held his lead from Hamilton and Verstappen but as the track then dried the crossover back to slick rubber proved vital.

Hamilton was stopped to take the soft slicks on lap 38, as did Verstappen for hard rubber, but Norris stayed out. He went into the pits a lap later but the 4.5-second stop was slow and Hamilton had been rapid on his out-lap, sweeping into the lead as Norris emerged.

The Mercedes call had been spot on as Hamilton had a full two-second advantage over that one lap. The crowd were roaring his every circuit with 11 remaining, Norris looking to chase him down and Verstappen similarly edging up on Norris.

It was a tense showdown to the flag, Verstappen’s hard tyre was perfect for the circumstances as the Red Bull found real pace in the dry and he caught Norris on lap 48 and made the pass with ease at Stowe to take second.

Hamilton’s lead was three seconds with four laps to go and, while Verstappen went hard, the British driver executed with all the clinical control and experience that has returned him seven titles, to maintain his lead and take an unforgettable win.

After 12 rounds Verstappen now leads the drivers’ championship by 84 points from Norris.

Nico Hülkenberg was sixth for Haas, Lance Stroll and Fernando Alonso in seventh and eighth for Aston Martin, Alex Albon ninth for Williams and Yuki Tsunoda 10th for RB.

Judy Murray said she was being sarcastic when she suggested that Emma Raducanu’s withdrawal from the mixed doubles with Andy Murray was “astonishing”, saying their late scheduling would have played a part.

Raducanu announced her withdrawal on Saturday, saying she had felt some soreness in her right wrist. Having had surgery on both wrists last year – and with her fourth-round singles match on Sunday to prepare for – she decided it was safer to pull out.

Judy Murray had responded to a post from broadcaster Marcus Buckland, saying: “Yes, astonishing.” Her post caused a furore on social media, with some saying that Raducanu had ruined her son’s Wimbledon farewell.

However, on Sunday, Murray suggested she’d been misunderstood. “Not sure anyone understands sarcasm these days,” she wrote on X. “Pretty sure the scheduling (4th match court 1 with a singles following day) will have played a major part in any decision making.”

Eyebrows had been raised when Raducanu and Andy Murray were placed last on Saturday’s schedule. Initially, it had been anticipated they would be the first match, at 1pm, also to avoid any potential clash with England’s Euro 2024 quarter-final against Switzerland.

Then, with a poor weather forecast and with one of their opponents, Marcelo Arévalo, also having a men’s doubles match to complete because of the rain, they were put fourth match on instead. As it turned out, Arévalo did not even get on court for the completion of his men’s doubles until 1pm.

If Andy Murray needs someone to chat to about it all, then perhaps he could seek out John McEnroe. The former world No 1 came out of retirement in 1999 to partner Steffi Graf in the mixed at Wimbledon that year and the pair thrilled the crowds.

McEnroe and Graf beat Venus Willams and Justin Gimelstob on their way to the semi-finals and looked for all the world as if they would win the title, only for Graf to tell him that she was pulling out to save herself for the final of the singles the next day. “It’s too much, and it’s too late in the day – I’m defaulting”, McEnroe recalled, in his book, Serious. McEnroe was furious and still rues the missed opportunity. Graf then lost the final to Lindsay Davenport in straight sets.

Murray pulled out of the singles because of injury but was treated to a touching farewell on Centre Court, including a video tribute from Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic and Venus Williams following his doubles defeat with brother Jamie Murray on Thursday.

The bright blue skies and calm waters of the estuary belie rough conditions at sea, and there is no sign of activity among the colourful fishing boats moored around the harbour of Cananéia, a sleepy fishing town 160 miles south of São Paulo.

On the wharf, however, a delivery of frozen fish from Uruguay has just arrived and a few men in white gumboots are busy unloading pallets of beheaded specimens labelled Galeorhinus galeus – school shark.

These thin grey fish will be kept in a cold store on shelves already stacked ceiling-high with carcasses of blue sharks, all awaiting processing and distribution to cities inland.

“Why do we work with shark?” says Helgo Muller, 53, the company manager. “Because people like it; it’s good and cheap protein. It doesn’t give you crazy profits, but it’s decent enough.”

Shark is just a small fraction of the firm’s business but they process about 10 tonnes a month, he says, mostly blue shark imported from countries including Costa Rica, Uruguay, China and Spain.

Communities up and down Brazil’s 4,600-mile (7,400km) coastline have always eaten sharks. “It is part of our tradition,” says Lucas Gabriel Jesus Silva, a 27-year-old whose grandfather moved to the area in the 1960s to fish sharks for their fins.

However, the widespread appetite for shark meat that Muller’s company helps feed is now troubling scientists and environmentalists, who worry about unsustainable pressure on various species.

Demand has made Brazil the top importer and one of the biggest consumers of shark meat in a global market worth an estimated $2.6bn (£2bn).

“Sharks are very vulnerable to overexploitation as they don’t reproduce as often or with as many offspring as bony fishes do,” explains Prof Aaron MacNeil, of Canada’s Dalhousie University.

Research published in April found that 83% of the shark and ray species sold in Brazil were threatened, according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) classification.

For years, conservation efforts focused on the fin trade with Asia and the barbaric practice of “finning” – removing a shark’s fins and returning the wounded and helpless animal, often still alive, to the sea. But research from earlier this year suggests restrictions on finning have not reduced shark mortality, with at least 80 million sharks still being killed annually.

“Meat was kind of left by the wayside,” says MacNeil, who is researching the global shark meat trade. “It’s only now we’re realising how big the trade is. Its value has certainly exceeded that of fins.” The pressure on sharks for food has risen in parallel with a decline in catches of other fish, he says.

Traditionally, Brazilians ate shark in moqueca, a seafood stew from the states of Bahia and Espírito Santo. And many of Cananéia’s residents recall how their older relatives would use shark’s head broth and cartilage as homemade remedies.

But now, sold in fillets or steaks, shark has been absorbed into Brazilians’ diet as it is cheaper than other white fish, boneless and easy to cook. It now appears in school and hospital canteens.

The fact that few Brazilians realise they are eating shark has probably helped make it ubiquitous. While coastal people with a shark-eating tradition recognise the subtle differences in texture and flavour between shark species, to most Brazilians it is just cação – a generic term under which both shark and ray meat are sold.

“Brazilians are very poorly informed – they don’t know that cação is shark, and even when they do they often aren’t aware that these animals are at risk of extinction,” says Nathalie Gil, president of Sea Shepherd Brasil, a marine conservation organisation.

In Cananéia, locals joke: “It’s cação when you eat it, and shark [tubarão] when it eats you.” But campaigners say the generic labelling prevents informed decisions by consumers, and this could even affect their health due to high concentrations of dangerous pollutants in these top predators.

“If they knew, they might not eat it,” says Ana Barbosa Martins, a researcher at Dalhousie University.

Brazilian law does not allow fishing for any sharks, but they can be landed as bycatch with few restrictions. The country’s tuna fleet often lands larger amounts of shark than tuna. “Theoretically, it’s all within the realms of the law. But it’s a form of fishing that’s completely unregulated,” says Martins.

The capture and sale of protected species is banned. If caught they must be returned to the sea, even if dead – which is usually the case, fishers say.

That rule is hard to enforce. Silva, the fisher from Cananéia, recalls how sand tiger sharks (known locally as mangona) were landed with impunity long after they became one of the first species to be listed as endangered in 2004. “Mangona was easily sold at the distribution centre. It was only in 2017, I think, the guys got fined and then it stopped,” says Silva. He claims fishers were unaware that it was protected.

Misidentification, whether accidental or deliberate, is frequent in domestic landings and imports. Santos identified a specimen in the Uruguayan shipment seen by the Guardian as a narrownose smoothhound shark, rather than the school shark listed on the label (both species are considered critically endangered in Brazil, but their import is permitted).

Martins believes effective monitoring depends on authorities better communicating and collaborating with fishing communities, who often resent restrictions that they consider unreasonable. This was evident in the views of local fishers along the São Paulo coast.

“Fishers don’t cast their nets to catch shark specifically, but sometimes a [protected] hammerhead comes up. What can you do?” says Lucia Rissato,who runs a fish stall in Peruíbe, a seaside town about 75 miles north of Cananéia.

Silva echoes a widely held view in his community. “A fisher’s got to do his job,” he says. “Prohibition comes with good intentions, but it doesn’t stop [sharks] from getting caught in nets that are set for Atlantic croaker, for hake.” He started going to sea aged 12 and believes shark populations have not declined “as much as people say”, another widely held opinion in Cananéia.

Last year, the government added five new species to its endangered list, including the shortfin mako, which is popular with consumers. Rissato complains that she can no longer sell any locally captured shark as it is not clear what is permitted.

“We have to sell it in secret, like drugs,” says the 48-year-old, who that day had a haul of Brazilian sharpnose shark in her fridge – a permitted species, but which she showed as furtively as if they were contraband.

Sixty-five year-old Ana Alinda Alves sorts fish at the wharf in Cananéia and has five sons who fish. “The authorities treat fishers like gangsters,” she sighs. “The fisher goes to sea, he gets a cação and he can’t even bring it home to feed his family. He didn’t steal anything. He went fishing, he went to work.”

Amid global efforts to improve protection of sharks, Brazil is taking action. A bill presented to congress last year would require cação to be labelled as shark (or ray) at every stage of the production chain, as well as identifying the species. Another bill proposes banning buying shark in public tenders. And for the first time, the government has introduced quotas for blue shark caught by Brazil’s tuna longliners.

But these provisions can only go so far, especially as they do not affect imports. Conservationists such as Gil argue that public opinion on these ecologically vital animals needs to change.

“Would they take a whale that got caught in the net and serve it to their family? No, because it’s illegal, but also because there is a respect for whales,” she says.

In the past week, since Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) stormed into its daunting lead in the first round of the French parliamentary elections, a menacing graffito has appeared in my neighbourhood in Paris, on a busy street corner between the boulangerie and the wine shop. Written in black, in a clear and steady hand, it reads “Les nerfs sont tendus, les Fachos seront pendus” – “Nerves are being stretched, the fascists will be hung”.

As France has advanced towards the runoff second round of the elections, life has been quietly humming along in the quartier – Euro football matches in the cafes, shopping and commuting have all been as normal. But the graffito has always been there, an ominous backdrop to everyday life, a sinister threat and a warning about the tensions in France right now.

Emmanuel Macron has not been shy about using the term “civil war” to describe the situation, and commentators have been unsure whether he means it as a metaphor or something that might happen. On Thursday, 30,000 extra police were deployed across the country in anticipation of civil disorder in the wake of the elections. There has also been much talk in the media of what comes after the election. The consensus seems to be chaos. The philosopher Michel Onfray, not the typical supporter of the far-right RN – although a longtime advocate of “Frexit” – says that what is happening is the death of European liberalism and sees political violence as almost inevitable.

At the Métro station on rue Pernety, Gabrielle, a 22-year-old marketing student, has been handing out flyers for Céline Hervieu, the local Socialist candidate for the New Popular Front (NFP) – the opposition coalition to the RN – all afternoon. She is footsore and weary, having had the same conversation all day with voters. “It’s always the same,” she says. “Emmanuel Macron has inflicted a deep wound on our democracy. Everyone repeats that he is a cynic who cares only about himself and not the people. I agree.” This was an unusually jaded opinion from someone who was effectively canvassing to keep Macron in power.

The RN has not been a visible presence in the area, and would very quickly be made unwelcome in this multi-ethnic district. Yet, sitting at a cafe terrace you silently wonder who has voted for whom. People will, however, quietly reveal their affiliations. Arturo (not his real name) is in his seventies, of Portuguese origin, and has lived in this neighbourhood all his life. He is voting RN for the first time. “It is the only party that has the interests of the people in its heart,” he said to me over a pastis in the Café Métro. “People think the RN are divisive but really they just want to establish some order, and that’s in the interests of everyone, black, Arab, or whatever. France has been falling apart for a long time and Macron or the left just don’t see or just don’t care.”

The current standoff is not simply between two opposing sides, left and right. Alain Finkelkraut, another philosopher, has talked recently about the “Lebanonisation” of France, a society disintegrating into fragments, into warring factions with no common interest. What Finkelkraut fears is a splintered state and the crumbling away of “la République indivisible” – the first pillar of the French constitution.

The urban geographer Christophe Guilluy has been observing this process close up for many years and explains it as the result of changes in the deepest structures of French society – the “desertification” of large swathes of provincial France and the domination of self-interested metropolitan elites. He explained to me that, until recently, France had always been like a family, divided between right and left, who might hate each other but everyone knew their place. This had fragmented and French people no longer stood by traditional class identities. He has not been in any way surprised by the RN’s great leap forward in 2024. “It’s an unstoppable movement,” he said, “a movement of ordinary people who want their voice heard.”

Certainly, the extremes are dangerously far apart. This much was demonstrated in the past week with the vying viral popularity of two music anthems from the right and the left. The song Je partira pas (“I ain’t going” in bad French) has now been banned from TikTok but it is still a massive hit with the rightwing gen Z youth. It begins with the voice of an immigrant being deported before crashing into a bouncing Euro-pop refrain with the catchy chorus “Si, si tu partiras” (“oh yes, you’re going” in correct French), taunting the deported immigrant to pack his djellaba and go home.

The anti-RN rap opposition is not heartening. No pasarán, concocted by DJ Kore and a rap collective, takes aim at the RN but is loaded with misogyny, death threats, conspiracy theories, Islamism and antisemitism. As such, it may well be an accurate reflection of political nihilism in the banlieues but is hardly a rallying cry. Rather, it affirms every easy prejudice that RN supporters and others have about the culture of the suburbs. The track is, however, the sound of “nerves being stretched”, as the graffito says.

France has not been so politically fraught for decades. Whatever happens today, whether or not the RN gains the full majority it craves, France has reached a historical moment from which it cannot easily step back.

Andrew Hussey is the author of The French Intifada: The Long War Between France and its Arabs

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“This film contains extremely dangerous and illegal activities. Do not attempt to imitate.” Those words flash up on the screen at the start of Skywalkers: A Love Story, the most vertigo-inducing documentary you will see this year.

It tells the story of two Russian “rooftoppers”, Angela Nikolau and Ivan Beerkus, who find fame by scrambling to the top of the world’s tallest buildings and posing there, without harnesses or safety nets, taking photographs and films to post on social media to incite wonder and admiration. On their way up a construction crane on the tower of Goldin Finance 117 in Tianjin, China, they begin to fall in love.

The film, artfully shaped by director Jeff Zimbalist, himself a former rooftopper, culminates in their attempt to climb the Merdeka skyscraper in Kuala Lumpur, all 118 storeys of it, its metal spire reaching 2,227 feet into the sky. It is the world’s second tallest building and when Nikolau and Beerkus broke through its security on the night of the World Cup Final in December 2022, it seemed a fitting challenge for their sky-scraping skills.

The climb, at first inside the building’s semi-finished interior and then perilously up the fragile spire at the summit, has all the tension of a thriller. But it is also deliberately presented as a chapter in their relationship, a symbol of the need for trust between two people as they struggle to balance on a thin girder so he can lift her horizontally in the air, floating gracefully in a shimmering red dress.

Drones and selfie sticks record this astonishing image, and their unbelievable bravery. Sitting on a sofa in Netflix’s office in New York and recalling the feat, Beerkus preserves a sense of wonder. “Usually when I go on the roofs I feel adrenaline and a sense of accomplishment that I have conquered something,” he says. He is talking in rapid Russian with the film’s co-director, Maria Bukhonina, as translator. “But it was different with Merdeka because by the time we made it to the top, I knew we would achieve our goal. I was experiencing a strange calmness and quietness. I was so focused.”

Nikolau recalls the sensation of his hand on her stomach, holding her aloft. “It is kind of like riding a horse,” she says, making him laugh. “You connect into one, you have this unity. I could hear only my own breath, not the traffic below or the wind. It was a moment of complete harmony.”