Emmanuel Macron admits failings and tells nation that end to crisis not yet in sight
France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, has announced that the country will remain in coronavirus lockdown for another month.
In a national address on Monday evening, he said that only by respecting the confinement rules would the battle against Covid-19 be won.
Continue reading...A 33-year-old man has been arrested for a knife attack in the centre of Romans-sur-Isère
A man killed two people and injured at least five others – one of them critically – during an attack in a town in south-east France.
The man, 33, was said to have slit the throat of one of his victims in front of the man’s wife and son, in the centre of Romans-sur-Isère in the Drôme, 20km north of the town of Valence.
Continue reading...Roland Marchal, whose colleague remains in detention, reportedly released in return for Iranian engineer
Emmanuel Macron says Iran has freed a French researcher imprisoned in the country, after France reportedly released an Iranian threatened with extradition to the US.
Macron said on Saturday he was “happy to announce the release of Roland Marchal, imprisoned in Iran since June 2019” and urged the Iranian authorities to immediately also free fellow researcher Fariba Adelkhah, the French president’s office said.
Continue reading...Imagine the reaction in Britain if armed Islamist jihadists were to burst in on a Sunday church service in a Surrey village, spraying automatic weapon fire at the congregation and killing the vicar and at least 23 worshippers. Horror and fury would be unconfined. The attack would be an immediate worldwide media sensation.
This is exactly what happened to Protestant churchgoers in Pansi, a village in northern Burkina Faso, on 16 February – though you would hardly know it, judging by the ensuing international silence. The increasing frequency of such atrocities in Africa’s Sahel region is one possible explanation for this apparent indifference, although there are others.
Continue reading...Member states agree EU should have right to apply sanctions if divergence causes ‘disruptions’
The EU will demand the right to punish Britain if the government fails to shadow the Brussels rulebook in the future, member states have agreed, as Boris Johnson was warned that the bloc would not be hurried into a deal on the future relationship.
A final draft of the EU’s negotiating position agreed by ambassadors on Monday, ready for ministerial sign off on Tuesday, establishes the bloc’s developing environmental, social and workers’ standards as the baseline for a trade deal.
Continue reading...Macron’s autocratic attitude towards dissent in countries such as Niger and Mali is only stoking anti-French sentiment
Large protests have been taking place in Bamako, the capital of Mali, demanding that French troops leave the country. “We marched for them to leave, and now they send 600 more,” one blogger in Mali wrote in response to the news that more French soldiers were to be deployed to the Sahel. In total, roughly 5,100 French troops are deployed in Mali, as well as across Chad, Niger, Mauritania and Burkina Faso. Public opposition to French military intervention in the Sahel, seen as undermining national sovereignty, has been growing over the last year across francophone Africa. The popular Cameroonian musician Géneral Valsero recently declared, “The presence of the French army is an insult.”
French troops have been in the region on and off since they occupied it in the 19th century, seeking to secure French access to labour and resources. They have remained, and returned, since independence. The French launched Operation Serval in 2013 in response to gains made by insurgent groups in the north of Mali. Since then, instability has spread and different states in the region are now dealing with repeated attacks and insurgencies from a range of groups, some linked to al-Qaeda and Islamic State.
Continue reading...Petr Pavlensky and partner questioned after complaint from Benjamin Griveaux
The girlfriend of a Russian performance artist and activist who released a video of a sexual nature that prompted a Paris mayoral candidate to stand down is being questioned by police over her role in the scandal.
The woman was taken into custody along with the artist, Petr Pavlensky, on Saturday afternoon as they left a Paris hotel. They are being questioned over accusations of invasion of privacy and “broadcasting images of a sexual nature without the permission of the person involved”.
Continue reading...French president says EU must have effective defence policy, larger budget and integrated capital markets
Europe’s middle classes will only remain reconciled to the European Union if it becomes more integrated, with an effective defence policy, a larger budget and integrated capital markets, and is shorn of vetoes that slow decision-making, the French president, Emmanuel Macron, has said.
Setting out his 10-year vision for Europe on Saturday, Macron said he still wanted to see the UK involved in defence, but urged European countries to recognise that in terms of social welfare, Europe had a different values to the US.
Continue reading...Schoolgirl Mila received death threats after posting anti-religious diatribe on Instagram
Emmanuel Macron has waded into a row over a schoolgirl whose attack on Islam has divided France, insisting that blasphemy is “no crime”.
The French president defended the teenager, named only as Mila, who received death threats and was forced out of her school after filming an anti-religious diatribe on social media.
Continue reading...Now that Britain has left the European Union, the French president, Emmanuel Macron, has moved swiftly to put French nuclear weapons front and centre of EU defence policies. In an hour-long speech on Friday to L’École de guerre (School of War) in Paris, the French president called for a European dialogue about defence and deterrence based on France’s force de frappe of nuclear weapons launched by air and submarine, and invited other EU states to participate in exercises by his country’s nuclear forces.
This is the post-Brexit revival of a vision held by successive French leaders, who itched to establish EU defence policies that would rely on European nuclear weapons rather than the US and Nato. For decades, this aim was marginalised by other EU members. Brexit, Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin have emboldened Macron to put it back on the table – and this time he is getting more attention.
Continue reading...The conspiracy theorists’ claim that the media are playing down the Paris protests is nonsense
France is riven by civil war, president Emmanuel Macron is hiding in a castle surrounded by the army, and hundreds are dead. Britons know nothing about this because the UK government has issued a D-notice banning the media from reporting it, and the European Union has been buying up video footage of the conflict to bury it.
All of this is news to me – and it’s my job to know what is going on here. Perhaps because it is, in polite terms, utter nonsense.
Continue reading...The north African country’s population have suffered years of turmoil, fuelled by the meddling of outside players. The civil war may yet escalate
Let’s all be good. This was, in essence, the conclusion of the conference in Berlin this month which aimed to at least begin the work of ending a war which has cost thousands of lives and displaced hundreds of thousands of people in Libya. Participants agreed that foreign meddling should cease and that everyone should abide by the UN arms embargo.
Despite the desperate need for peace, there was good reason to be cynical. The host, Angela Merkel, argued publicly with the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, over what had actually been agreed. Fighting soon raged again. The UN refugee agency announced on Thursday that it is suspending all operations at a facility in Tripoli and moving refugees from the site, fearing for their safety and that of its staff and partners amid worsening conflict. The UN says that several participants in the Berlin meeting have since shipped both arms and mercenaries to Libya, blatantly violating the embargo.
Continue reading...Head of powerful CGT tells French president of trouble to come unless he cancels reform
The union leader heading protests against France’s bitterly contested pension reforms has accused Emmanuel Macron of playing with fire and showing contempt for the country’s workers.
Philippe Martinez, head of the powerful CGT, said the president and his government were “disconnected” from the real world, and their advisers needed to “shake the hands of a few who actually work”.
Continue reading...As a year of big EU decisions begins, the bloc’s most important relationship is stuck in a rut
In early December, Emmanuel Macron and Angela Merkel sat down opposite each other in Gordon Ramsay’s restaurant at the Savoy Hotel, central London, for a two-hour tête-à-tête dinner. They had some talking to do.
Cordial and constructive, diplomats in Paris and Berlin said, the evening apparently cleared the air. But it will take more than a dinner to clear the structural obstacles to a relationship that is critical to what Europe can achieve in 2020.
Continue reading...French president to address 25-day strike and widespread protests in new year speech
Emmanuel Macron will be forced to speak out on France’s ongoing pensions strike in his televised new year address on Tuesday as transport stoppages look likely to continue into a fifth week, causing major disruption over the holiday period and into January.
The centrist French president, who made overhauling the country’s pensions system a key election pledge, has until now refrained from intervening personally, leaving his prime minister, Edouard Philippe, to deal with the day-to-day response to the crisis.
Continue reading...Striking French rail workers have clashed with riot police in Paris after holding a demonstration against pension changes despite Emmanuel Macron’s call for a Christmas truce. Hundreds of trade unionists and protesters gathered outside Gare de Lyon on Monday morning. The nationwide transport strikes have dragged on for a 19th day, causing what the state rail operator SNCF has described as 'ongoing severe disruption' to services
Continue reading...President gives up automatic pension given to French leaders as union standoff continues
Emmanuel Macron is to give up his own generous presidential pension in an attempt to calm anger over politicians’ privileges, as French transport strikes caused chaos for Christmas travellers.
With rail strikes continuing into their third week and travellers scrambling to get to home for the holidays, Macron, who turned 42 this weekend, made the symbolic move to become the first president in more than 50 years to give up the automatic pension of more than €6,000 a month that all French leaders receive after leaving office, regardless of age or wealth.
Continue reading...French president makes announcement on west Africa trip that has focused on jihadist threat in region
French forces have killed 33 Islamic extremists in central Mali, Emmanuel Macron has said.
The French president made the announcement on the second day of his three-day trip to west Africa, which has been dominated by the growing threat posed by jihadist groups.
Continue reading...As prelude to day of action, power to thousands of homes deliberately cut by workers
Police fired teargas and charged at demonstrators in central Paris as hundreds of thousands of protesters across the country staged a show of force against the government’s controversial pension reform plans.
The violence erupted at Place de la Nation, one of Paris’s biggest squares, as riot police attempted to disperse protesters. Police said they had charged after coming under a hail of paving stones and missiles. There were 27 arrests by late afternoon.
Continue reading...Medics say budget cuts have pushed health system to brink of collapse and put lives at risk
More than 600 French hospital doctors have threatened to resign if the government does not increase health funding, as striking medics prepare to take to the streets this week across the country.
The doctors warn that budget cuts, bed closures and staff shortages are bringing France’s health system to the brink of collapse and putting patients’ lives at risk.
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