Algerian student, his mother and friend apprehended after explosion leaves 13 wounded
French police have arrested three people over an explosion in the heart of the city of Lyon last week that injured 13 people.
According to Paris prosecutors, the suspected bomber is a 24-year-old Algerian citizen, who was arrested along with his mother and another Algerian friend. Police have also questioned the main suspect’s sister.
Continue reading...Foreign ministry says it is opposed to the death penalty ‘at all times and in all places’
France has confirmed it will take “the necessary steps” to try to prevent Iraq carrying out the death penalty against French citizens convicted of fighting with Islamic State.
“France is opposed in principle to the death penalty at all times and in all places,” the French foreign ministry said on Monday, as an Iraqi court sentenced a fourth French citizen to death, a day after handing capital punishment sentences to three others.
Continue reading...Deal would create world’s third-largest automaker and ‘save €5bn a year’ by sharing research
Fiat Chrysler has proposed a merger with France’s Renault that would create the world’s third-largest carmaker and save billions needed to invest in the race to make electric and autonomous vehicles.
The merged company would produce 8.7m vehicles annually and save €5bn ($5.6bn or £4.4bn) each year by sharing research, purchasing and other activities, according to a statement released by Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA). It said the deal would involve no plant closures but did not address potential job cuts.
Continue reading...Sebastian Kurz faces no-confidence vote after his party tops EU election polls despite video-sting scandal
Austrian politicians are likely to sack the chancellor, Sebastian Kurz, in a no-confidence vote after the leader of the far-right Freedom party (FPO) indicated it would probably vote against him.
Kurz’s conservatives came out on top in Sunday’s European parliament elections despite a video-sting scandal a week ago involving the FPO leader, Heinz-Christian Strache, which brought down their coalition government. Strache then resigned from all his political posts.
Continue reading...Party could hold balance of power in EU parliament with projected 71 MEPs
Green parties have swept to their strongest ever showing in European elections, boosting their tally of MEPs to a projected 71 compared with 52 last time and giving themselves every chance of becoming kingmakers in a newly fragmented parliament.
“Thank you so much for your trust in us Greens,” a delighted Ska Keller, one of the European Greens’ two lead candidates for the post of European commission president, told a press conference in Brussels.
Continue reading...Death of Sophie Toscan du Plantier in west Cork in 1996 and protracted, bungled investigation has gripped Ireland
After 23 years of trying to clear his name, Ian Bailey is bracing for the appellation he has always dreaded: convicted murderer.
A court in Paris is due to try the English former journalist this week for the 1996 murder of the French film-maker Sophie Toscan du Plantier in west Cork, a bucolic Atlantic region known as the Irish riviera.
Continue reading...Human rights groups have criticised the country’s trials of fighters captured in Syria
An Iraqi court has sentenced three French citizens to death after they were found guilty of joining Islamic State, a court official said.
Captured in Syria by a US-backed force fighting the jihadists, they are the first French Isis members to receive death sentences in Iraq, where they were transferred for trial.
Continue reading...Growing numbers of Britons are taking official Spanish language exams in order to become citizens of Spain, motivated by fears about Brexit and a looming deadline for people with Sephardic Jewish ancestry.
Figures published by the Instituto Cervantes show a 21% increase since last year in the numbers taking Spanish as a foreign language diploma, which is a requirement for anyone wanting citizenship.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Campaign groups prepare legal challenge following ‘systemic denial’ of suffrage
The government is facing the prospect of being sued by campaigners for EU citizens in the UK and British nationals abroad who were denied a vote in the European parliament elections.
John Halford, a public law specialist at Bindmans, said this week’s electoral fiasco was something a democracy should not tolerate.
Continue reading...Home Office releases Najat Ibrahim Ismail, an Iraqi Kurd who faced deportation three times
A man who brought his baby niece to the UK from a French refugee camp after she sustained serious burns has been released from detention and reunited with his family.
Najat Ibrahim Ismail, 32, an Iraqi Kurd, faced three attempts by the Home Office to put him on a plane to Iraq in recent weeks. He is married to a British woman, Emma Ismail, and has three young British children, including a 10-year-old son who has autism.
Continue reading...Olaf agency is carrying out an assessment of payments made by Arron Banks
The European Union’s anti-fraud watchdog is considering whether Nigel Farage should be investigated for any illegal activity over lavish payment from Arron Banks, the Guardian has learned.
The agency, which goes by its French acronym, Olaf, revealed it was carrying out an assessment, which could lead to a formal investigation. This “initial assessment … does not mean that the individuals in question are guilty of any wrongdoing”, it said.
Continue reading...‘Super Sunday’ of city, regional and European elections could inflict further damage on traditional party of Spanish right
Spain is heading to the polls for a “super Sunday” of European, regional and municipal elections this weekend that will see Madrid and Barcelona’s city councils up for grabs and the socialist PSOE party hoping to repeat its victory in last month’s general election.
Twelve of Spain’s 17 autonomous regions will be voting to choose new governments, including the Madrid region, which has been in the hands of the conservative People’s party (PP) since 1995, despite a series of corruption scandals.
Continue reading...Twelve people injured in incident described by Emmanuel Macron as an attack
Police in France were hunting a suspect following a blast in a pedestrian street in the heart of Lyon that wounded more than a dozen people just two days before the country’s fiercely contested European parliament elections.
The president, Emmanuel Macron, called Friday’s explosion, apparently from a package packed with shrapnel and placed in the street, an “attack” and sent his interior minister, Christophe Castaner, to Lyon.
Continue reading...French police have evacuated a pedestrian street in the heart of Lyon after more than a dozen people were wounded in a suspected package bomb blast. President Emmanuel Macron, who was beginning a broadcast address as news of the explosion broke, described the incident as an "attack" with no fatalities
Group of MEPs writes to Electoral Commission over reports of ballot paper delays
The Electoral Commission has been asked to permit late postal votes for the European parliament elections to be counted as reports continue of many British nationals living abroad receiving their ballot papers too late to return on time.
A group of 10 MEPs has written to the regulator to say that it should consider any postal vote that arrives by Sunday when the polls close across Europe. “We cannot permit lousy disenfranchisement like this,” said the Liberal Democrat MEP Catherine Bearder, who wrote the letter to the commission.
Continue reading...The suspect, who told staff she had ‘killed someone’, has been placed in psychiatric care after the incident in France
A woman aged 102 has been placed in psychiatric care in north-eastern France after she was suspected of murdering her 92-year-old neighbour in a care home, prosecutors said.
The victim was found dead on Saturday night in her room at the care home in the town of Chezy-sur-Marne. Her face was swollen.
Continue reading...In its Brexit delirium, the party is tearing itself apart on an election day, its voters rampaging off into the Farage wildwoods
Welcome to an extraordinarily bizarre election day. Pause on the way to the polling station to wonder at the astounding mayhem within our “ruling” party, soliciting votes even while wrenching its leader from Downing Street. We may be so used to the Tory party in meltdown that we forget to be amazed at what is unfolding before our eyes – on election day.
Even allowing for all Andrea Leadsom’s fantastical ambitious absurdities, ponder how astonishing it is to see the leader of the house, no less, resigning on election eve just to steal a march on all her improbable leadership competitors. Jeremy Hunt is marching in to see the prime minister in publicly threatening mode – on election day. Forget any sense of decorum towards their party or their country, or the electoral process.
Continue reading...Fifteen years ago, all the Slovenian capital’s waste went to landfill, but by 2025, at least 75% of its rubbish will be recycled. How did the city turn itself around?
Words and photographs by Luka Dakskobler
From the lush green hill you can see Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia, in the distance. Populations of deer, rabbits and turtles live here. The air is clean and the only signs that we are standing above a 24-metre (79 feet) deep landfill are the methane gas pipes rising from the grass.
Ljubljana is the first European capital to commit to going zero-waste. But fifteen years ago, all of its refuse went straight to landfill. “And that is expensive,” says Nina Sankovič of Voka Snaga, the city’s waste management company. “It takes up space and you’re throwing away resources.”
Continue reading...Tory ministers and backbenchers conspicuously absent as Theresa May makes statement about her proposed Brexit bill
Labour’s deputy leader Tom Watson criticised Andrea Leadsom’s decision to step down on the eve of the European elections, calling it a “slap in the face” for her colleagues.
He tweeted: “I accept that she may want to go but to do it the night before an election looks odd.
Commentators are pointing out the irony that it may be a resignation by Andrea Leadsom, who stood aside to let Theresa May take the Tory leadership in summer 2016, which may eventually lead to the prime minister’s downfall.
.@andrealeadsom will be seen by history to have delivered the coup de grace to @theresa_may - which is appropriate some would say because it was her withdrawal from leadership race that handed 10 Downing St to May on a plate. Revenge dish best served steaming hot perhaps
Continue reading...Technology firm’s Ad Exchange processing of users’ personal data being investigated
The Irish data protection commission has opened an investigation into Google over suspected infringements of European Union privacy rules.
The statutory inquiry will probe whether Google’s online Ad Exchange violated general data protection regulations (GDPR) covering the sharing of personal data of internet users, the watchdog said in a statement on Wednesday.
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