Kate, 42, the wife of Prince William, said that she is “making good progress” as she undergoes chemotherapy but is not “out of the woods yet.”
“I am making good progress, but as anyone going through chemotherapy will know, there are good days and bad days,” Kate said in a written message shared by Kensington Palace. “On those bad days you feel weak, tired and you have to give in to your body resting. But on the good days, when you feel stronger, you want to make the most of feeling well.”
Kate said her treatment will continue “for a few more months,” adding, “On the days I feel well enough, it is a joy to engage with school life, spend personal time on the things that give me energy and positivity, as well as starting to do a little work from home.”
Kate also described herself as having been “blown away” by the support she has received since publicly revealing her diagnosis.
“It really has made the world of difference to William and me and has helped us both through some of the harder times,” she said, adding at the end of her message, “Thank you so much for your continued understanding, and to all of you who have so bravely shared your stories with me.”
In addition to the health update, the palace on Friday shared a new photo of Kate, taken this week in Windsor, England, where Kate and her family live.
Just weeks after Christmas, in mid-January, Kate was hospitalized for what the palace described at the time as a “planned abdominal surgery.”
After a nearly two-week hospital stayfollowing the surgery, Kate continued to take time off from royal public duties in order to recover.
In March, amid growing speculation about her health and absence from the public eye, Kate announced in a pre-recorded video message that she had been diagnosed with cancer.
Speaking alone and directly to a camera, Kate described the cancer diagnosis as a “huge shock” for her and her family. She said the cancer was discovered in post-operative tests after her abdominal surgery in January
The type of cancer has not been disclosed. According to the palace, Kate started a course of preventative chemotherapy in late February.
In the aftermath of the victory of the National Rally over the Europeans, far-right activists carried out attacks against demonstrators and LGBT people in several cities.
Since French President Emmanuel Macron lost the European elections to the far-right National Rally on June 9 and announced snap parliamentary elections, attacks on LGBTQ people have been deliberately political. Rights groups fear that if the far right comes to power in under two weeks, laws put in place to protect LGBTQ people could be dismantled and violent attacks legitimised.
In Lyon, the extreme right multiplies violent expeditions.
About fifty far-right activists made a raid on Friday, June 14, after a demonstration against the RN. This is not the first time that these demonstrations of force have targeted left-wing activists or cultural and political places in Lyon.
In Angers, a small group of nationalists armed with tear gas bombs sowed panic in a popular guinguette in the city. A person was injured.
Raja Ali Asghar, a senior member of the Pakistani political party, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, in France, first came to Paris from Pakistan 35 years ago. “Immigrants living in France are worried about their future,” he told DW.”
Right-wing political parties have always had a particular view against immigrants,” he said. “In [a right-wing] government, the problems of immigrants will increase.
“He expressed concern that migrants would be put at a disadvantage when seeking employment and accessing social benefits.”I think that the problems of immigrants will increase in Europe next year,” he added.Satar Ali Suman, who immigrated from Bangladesh 24 years ago and operates several restaurants in Paris, agrees.
“Everybody knows that extreme right-wing political parties do not like immigrants, and especially Muslims,” he told DW. “Immigrants living in France are fearful about the coming days,” he added.The French social outreach organization Ghett’Up that works with young migrants in the working-class Paris neighborhoods also commented on the looming snap election. “We need to switch into combat mode”
Populist and far-right parties that promise to restore law and order may be the electoral beneficiaries of the anxiety generated by political violence.
Farmhouse collapses in north, streets flooded in Bordeaux and vineyards damaged in Charente-Maritime. Heightened alerts are now in place across central France.
Storms hit both the north and south-west of France hard (June 18), leaving a trail of damage in their wake in several departments.
Dramatic images were captured throughout the day of hail – some of which was 6cm in diameter, heavy rainfall, and even a small tornado, which destroyed a farmhouse as it swept through it, in the Oise department, in the Hauts-de-France region.
Boasting numerous advantages compared to “classic” food supplements (capsules, tablets, pills, etc.), they are starting to make their way into our stores and pharmacies and not without reason.
A food supplement is a product designed to provide nutrients or other substances with a nutritional or physiological effect, consumed in insufficient quantities in a person’s daily diet. These products may contain a variety of ingredients like vitamins, minerals, botanicals, amino acids and enzymes. They are usually available in various forms such as:
Tablets
Capsules
Capsules
Liquids and powders
Used for many reasons, including to ensure adequate intake of essential nutrients by improving physical and mental health, and sometimes to help cure certain health conditions.
Gummies refer to infused gelatinous candiesenriched with vitamins, minerals or other health-promoting substances such as plant extracts . They are designed as a tasty, stress-free and easy-to-consume alternative to capsules, tablets or pills.
The term “gummies” comes from the English “gummy” , which refers to an elastic and sticky texture. This term is often used to describe gelatin-based candies that have a soft, chewable texture, similar to gummy bears that are popular in many countries.
The adoption of the term “gummies” to designate food supplements in the form of candies is inspired by this texture. These supplements are made to resemble traditional gummies making them more appealing and easier to consume for those who don’t like swallowing pills or capsules.
Many gummy vitamins contain added sugar. Excessive sugar consumption can lead to health issues like weight gain, heart disease, and diabetes. Consider how much added sugar you consume from gummy vitamins and other food sources when deciding which vitamin is best for you.
Artificial colors and flavors may trigger sensitivities and have other health and behavioral implications.
Animal-derived gelatin, carmine, and beeswax found in gummy vitamins may pose concerns for vegans, vegetarians, and those with ethical or religious considerations.
If you prefer to avoid foods made from GMOs, look for a certified GMO-free gummy vitamin that has been third-party tested.
France’s Europe minister says the country is being ‘being pounded by Russian propaganda’ while Emmanuel Macron has ‘no doubt’ that Russian disinformation campaigns are targeting the Olympics – so how serious is the threat of Russian interference in France? And is France being singled out for Kremlin-directed operations?
As the Paris 2024 Olympic Games draw closer, France has been unafraid to point the finger at Moscow for an uptick in disinformation campaigns, with some involving actions on the ground in France.
In February, France’s foreign minister Stéphane Séjourné addressed the public on X, calling for “the utmost vigilance” in the face of information attacks in the run-up to the European elections. “Each of our countries will be a target for foreign powers (…) let us not be deceived,” he said.
In April, France’s Minister Delegate for Europe told Ouest France that the country was “being pounded by propaganda from Vladimir Putin’s Russia and its transmission channels.”
Later that month, President Emmanuel Macron said that he had “no doubt” Russia was targeting the Paris Olympics including with disinformation.
Russia meddling in France is not new. During the 2017 presidential election, the hacking group ‘Fancy Bear’, which is associated with the Russian military, is thought to have leaked emails from the Macron campaign. Similarly, France accused Kremlin outlets of supporting the campaign of far-right candidate Marine Le Pen.
But watchdogs believe that the threat is intensifying.
“Russia is ramping up these malign campaigns against France, President (Emmanuel) Macron, the IOC, and the Paris Olympics,” Clint Watts, general manager of the Microsoft Threat Analysis Center, wrote in a blog post on Sunday.
“While Russia has a decades-long history of targeting the Olympic Games, the Microsoft Threat Analysis Center has observed old tactics blending with artificial intelligence…that may intensify as the 2024 Paris opening ceremony approaches,” he added.
In response, the Kremlin called the report “absolute slander”.
The face of interference
Russian interference in France has spanned everything from deepfake videos, like the false documentary criticising the Olympics called ‘Olympics has fallen’ ‘including an AI-generated impersonation of Tom Cruise, to fictitious news stories, including forged content meant to look like mainstream French media stories in order smear Macron.
There have also been organised efforts online and especially via social media to amplify and create hysteria around real news stories – such as the problems with bedbugs in Paris.
One key example of this was the circulation of two fake articles. They were made to look as if they had been published by the French regional news outlet La Montagne, but they actually originated elsewhere and claimed that sanctions against Russia were partially to blame for the bedbug scourge in France.
These fake articles were shared across social media, arguing that Russian chemicals were needed to create insecticides and disinfectants, but with the imports of these products banned due to sanctions, France was left without the means to get rid of the bugs. This is untrue, and sanctions have little role in the problems of bedbugs that are experienced by Paris and many other big cities.
To the average person, it may appear that France has been targeted to a greater extent than other Western allies of Ukraine, but experts are not so convinced.
“I am not sure that France is more targeted than Germany, the UK, or even some central European countries, the notable difference is France’s public transparency about Russian disinformation, and the steps taken to prevent it.
“Until recently, France was very cautious about making public information about the intelligence world – hacking, spying, etc,” he said.
“This has changed because Macron directly attributes Russia’s actions and uses them within domestic politics to show how the country, and himself, have been targeted.
“Attribution is a sensitive and dangerous game. If you make it with good arguments and foundation, evidence, then it is clearly powerful. But there are risks.”
Hénin said there are two primary concerns, aside from the possibility that owning up to foreign interference could simply make the country look weak.
The first is that attribution “can trivialise and make foreign interference seem routine. Though, I would say the answer to that is that we ought to disregard small scale operations, or just sum them up in a quarterly report.
“The second is the possibility of being incorrect. It’s worth clarifying that there is no evidence any of the attributions so far have been false. It’s fair for the government to continue doing this, but they need to be very careful.
“If you mistake one attribution then your credibility is seriously damaged and it will take a very long time to recover.”
In addition to politicians calling out interference publicly, the French government has also taken administrative steps. For example, the creation of the government agency, VIGINUM, which is mandated to detect disinformation.
In February, the agency was able to expose a dormant network of 193 websites nicknamed ‘Portal Kombat’ that could be activated during election periods to spread pro-Russian news in several languages (French, English, Spanish and German).
To Hénin, this has been a success. “VIGINUM is a great initiative, and it really is working. Their limited mandate is a good thing – they have to focus only on foreign, online, impactful interference – if these conditions are not met, then they will not study the phenomenon.”
Nevertheless, depending on who you ask, Russian interference has also been successful, though it can be difficult to quantify. “It’s easy to divide the French public,” Hénin said.
“The next steps must involve preventive work to offer media literacy training for the general public, all without giving too much space or importance to our adversaries.”
As for Colon, he recalled the success of disinformation regarding the Covid-19 vaccination, as well as the growing rates of QAnon followers in France.
“If you look back to the Star of David operation in the autumn, that sparked a huge debate amongst the French public. The Kremlin was able to accentuate existing division,” Colon said.
“The real impact of disinformation is to break down social cohesion in democracies, accentuate division, decrease confidence in institutions, diminish our capacity to react in a unified way and ultimately to break down our ability to distinguish between true and fake.”
Anouk Aimée, Oscar-Nominated French Star of ‘A Man and a Woman,’ Dies at 92
Anouk Aimée, the French actress known for her elegance and cool sophistication in films including Claude Lelouch‘s “A Man and a Woman” (1966), Fellini classics “La Dolce Vita” (1960) and “8½” (1963) and Jacques Demy’s “Lola” (1961), died on Tuesday. She was 92.
Aimée’s daughter, Manuela Papatakis, confirmed her death in a post on Instagram.
“With my daughter, Galaad, and my granddaughter, Mila, we have great sadness to announce the departure of my mother Anouk Aimée,” she wrote. “I was right by her side when she passed away this morning at her home in Paris.”
Fairly described in one encyclopedia as an “an aloof but alluring presence on the screen,” Aimée was frequently described as ““regal,” “intelligent” and “enigmatic,” giving the actress, according to journalist Sandy Flitterman-Lewis, “an aura of disturbing and mysterious beauty that has earned her the status of one of the hundred sexiest stars in film history (in a 1995 poll conducted by Empire magazine).”
Aimée was Oscar-nominated for best actress for her role opposite Jean-Louis Trintignant in “A Man and a Woman” — one of a relatively small number of actors to be so nominated for a performance in a foreign film. The movie’s director, Claude Lelouch, was also nominated (he won the Palme d’Or at Cannes), and “A Man and a Woman” won Oscars for best original screenplay and foreign language film.
The film, made on a small budget, was also an enormous commercial success. Aimée played a production assistant in the movie business who meets a race-car driver played by Trintignant at a school where each has a child boarding.
Reviewing the 1966 film for the DVD Verdict website in 2003, Dan Mancini wrote that “A Man and a Woman” serves as “a reminder that the sleekly produced modern Hollywood romance isn’t the only way to go, that romantic films can benefit from the raw aesthetics of the low-budget independent. Aimée and Trintignant are movie-star pretty, but Lelouch’s style gives them both a weighty humanity, as do their performances. Like any respectable disciple of the French New Wave, Lelouch gives his actors plenty of room to improvise, to get to the heart of a scene via whatever path feels natural. The tentative nature of the interactions between Aimée and Trintignant — their halting eye contact, pregnant pauses, nervous laughs — undercuts (in a good way) their sparkling good looks and movie-star mystique.”
Back in 1965, Variety said: “Anouk Aimée has a mature beauty and an ability to project an inner quality that helps stave off the obvious banality of her character, and this goes too for the perceptive Jean-Louis Trintignant as the man.”
(Lelouch brought the two actors back together for 1986’s “A Man and a Woman, Twenty Years Later,” which was far less successful.)
In 1961’s “Lola,” Jacques Demy’s first film, which was not appreciated until later, Aimée starred “as the alluring and guileless Lola, the mysterious woman of the world who draws the attention of a trio of lovers, in her universal portrayal of a vulnerable cabaret singer jilted in love but still hopeful of her man returning,” in the words of critic Dennis Schwartz. In the film, set in the port town of Nantes, most loves sadly go unrequited. (Aimée reprised the role of Lola in Demy’s Los Angeles-shot 1969 film “Model Shop,” in which her character worked in a photo studio where men could rent cameras and take pictures of naked women; she encounters a young man played by Gary Lockwood. The New York Times said Lockwood’s character “meets Miss Aimée, falls in love with her, and after much coffee house philosophy about war, marriage, love and politics, they part.”)
In Federico Fellini‘s “La Dolce Vita,” Marcello Mastroianni plays a journalist wandering through the realm of the glamorous people of Rome while juggling a number of romantic entanglements. Marcello is drawn to Aimée’s Maddalena, who is beautiful and exceptionally rich but also bored and apathetic, and his wooing of her is half-hearted.
In Fellini’s “8½,” a film declared the director’s “obvious masterpiece” in a 1964 review by Esquire’s Dwight MacDonald, Mastroianni’s movie director is having a professional and personal crisis after scoring a big hit, leaving him nervous and uncertain about what to do next; he seeks solace or at least escape at a health spa, but those who depend him, including his mistress and then his intellectual, chain-smoking wife, played by Aimée, follow him. Aimée’s Luisa is, in the words of Roger Ebert, “enraged at him — as much for his bad taste in women as for his infidelity.”
The New York Times declared that much is “wonderful” in the film, including “some splendid and charming performing — Sandra Milo as the mistress, Guido Alberti as a producer, Anouk Aimée as the director’s jealous wife, Claudia Cardinale as a ‘dream girl,’ and many, many more.”
Aimée also gave a memorable performance in Belgian filmmaker André Delvaux’s 1968 surrealist classic “Un Soir, un train,” in which she starred with Yves Montand, he as a linguistics professor in Flanders, she as his lover, a Frenchwoman who designs costumes for a theater and feels uncomfortable in her alien surroundings while he shows no signs of wanting to take the next step in their relationship.
Aimée and Dirk Bogarde turned in good performances in “Justine” (1969), but the film was handed to George Cukor after another director had made something of a muddle of it, and it doesn’t ultimately really work as a film.
Of mild interest considering that the actress did not appear in many English-language movies is Aimée’s appearance in Robert Aldrich’s dreadful 1962 biblical epic “Sodom and Gomorrah,” in which she plays the evil queen of the Sodomites.
Aimée did not work in film for the first half of the 1970s, returning in 1976 for the Lelouch film “Si c’était à refaire” (Second Chance), in which she starred with Catherine Deneuve.
In Marco Bellocchio’s “A Leap in the Dark” (1980), Aimée starred with Michel Piccoli and Michele Placido, playing a woman fraught with depression and fantasies of suicide; after seeming to recover, she begins a relationship with a brilliant actor (Placido), leading to jealousy on the part of her brother (Piccoli), a judge, whom she raised. The film won best actress and actor awards for Aimée and Piccoli at the Cannes Film Festival, and Bellocchio was nominated for the Palme d’Or.
In Bernardo Bertolucci’s critically acclaimed 1981 film “Tragedy of a Ridiculous Man,” she played the wealthy, French-born wife of a Parma cheese factory owner (Ugo Tognazzi) whose son may or may not have been kidnapped.
Aimée was the star of Henry Jaglom’s 2001 film “Festival in Cannes,” a satire of Hollywood wheeling and dealing at the center of which is a struggle for the services of her character, European screen legend Millie Marguand, who is married to Maximilian Schell’s Victor. The New York Times said: “Most of the movie’s warmer moments that don’t seem forced belong to Millie and Viktor, who have been through too much together to pull any wool over each other’s eyes. As they philosophize about love, marriage, passion and companionship, you sense the power of a bond formed over many decades. Ms. Aimée and Mr. Schell emerge from the film with a worldly dignity.”
She also appeared in Robert Altman’s 1994 film “Prêt à Porter,” aka “Ready to Wear,” in which she played the mistress of Jean-Pierre Cassel’s head of the French fashion commission, who dies under somewhat mysterious circumstances. Aimée’s character is a top designer, and she and her son (Rupert Everett) face the prospect of selling their label to a Texas boot tycoon played by Lyle Lovett.
Nicole Françoise Florence Dreyfus was born in Paris, the daughter of actor Henri Murray (born Henry Dreyfus) and actress Geneviève Sorya.
Though her father was Jewish, she was raised in the Roman Catholicism of her mother, though she converted to Judaism as an adult. She studied dance at the Marseille Opera, and she studied theater in England, after which she studied dramatic art and dance with Andrée Bauer-Thérond.
She made her film debut at the age of 14 in Henri Calef’s “La Maison sous la mer” (1947) (she adopted her character’s name Anouk as her stage name), and was among the stars of Marcel Carné’s “La Fleur de l’âge” (1947), a film that was never completed and whose footage has disappeared; that film’s co-writer, Jacques Prévert, gave her the name “Aimée.” She starred opposite Serge Reggiani in André Cayatte’s Romeo and Juliet story “Les amants de Vérone” (1949).
The actress made her English-language debut in 1950 in Ronald Neame’s “Golden Salamander”; the tagline on the poster was “Introducing the compelling new star discovery of the year….exotic ANOUK!”
The New York Times said: “The authentic Tunisian backgrounds and atmosphere of this film are its best points — these and a pretty young lady who now goes by the name of Anouk. Miss Anouk (if that is how we should call her) is a wistful but strong and pliant girl who recently made a quite impressive appearance in ‘The Lovers of Verona,’ a French film. And now, as a French girl residing in a somewhat remote Tunisian town where things happen during the course of this picture, she continues to draw attention to herself.”
Jacques Becker’s “Modigliani of Montparnasse” (1958) was a stepping stone for Aimeé to the lead roles that would soon be hers. In this tragic biopic of the artist, she had a supporting role as Jeanne, a smart, wealthy woman keen on art who provides emotional support to the frail, older Modigliani (played by Gerard Philipe).
Aimeé’s last film was Charlotte de Turckheim’s “Mince alors!” in 2012.
She won an Honorary César at France’s César Awards in 2002, an Honorary Golden Berlin Bear at the Berlin Film Festival in 2003 and the Silver Medallion Award at Telluride in 2009.
Aimeé was married four times, the first to Edouard Zimmermann (1949-50), the second to Nikos Papatakis (1951-55), the third to Pierre Barouh (1966-69) and the last time to actor Albert Finney (1970-78). All the marriages ended in divorce.
She is survived by her daughter, Manuela Papatakis.
“Transmania” is a book that describes itself as “an investigation into the extremes of transgender ideology” and the “harmful political project” behind it.
Kam Hugh, a drag queen who has appeared on French television, first alerted to the existence of the “openly transphobic” book on X, formerly Twitter.
Dora Moutot, one of the book’s authors, said the book was not transphobic and denounced “censorship based on assumptions rather than an analysis of the contents” of the book.
She said she and co-author Marguerite Stern had interviewed trans people for it.
“It is a sourced investigation into puberty blockers and certain actors who push for gender transitions and make a profit from it,” she wrote on X.
Dora Moutot and Marguerite Stern faced chants of ‘A terf, a bullet, social justice’, while they have also been criticised by politicians for their alleged ‘transphobic’ views.
Yet there has been public support from Harry Potter author Rowling who is outspoken on gender issues, defending women against TRAs – trans rights activists – who call opponents ‘terfs’, or trans-exclusionary radical feminists.
Posters promoting the book have been taken down in Paris after a top city official said the work amounted to hate speech.
French advertising firm JCDecaux told AFP the posters had been removed, and apologised to people who could have been hurt by them.
The African National Congress (ANC) has lost parliamentary majority and will need coalition partners to surpass 50 percent votes and form a government.
After all the ballots have been counted in South Africa, the ruling African National Congress (ANC) has received only 40.18 percent votes in Wednesday’s election, well short of a majority.
For the first time since the end of apartheid in 1994, the once-dominant party will need to make a deal with other parties to form a coalition government.
The Democratic Alliance (DA), the main opposition party, received the second-highest number of votes (21.81 percent) followed by the MK party (14.58 percent) and EFF (9.52 percent).
South Africa’s lowest voter turnout
Ahead of the May 29 elections, a record 27.7 million South Africans registered to vote. However, only 16.2 million votes were cast on election day, resulting in a voter turnout of 58.64 percent – the lowest ever in South Africa’s 30-year democratic history.
In fact, voter turnout has been on a gradual decline in recent years. In 1999, nearly 90 percent of the registered voters cast their ballots, while the 2019 election had a 66 percent turnout.
Results by provinces
The ANC managed enough votes to secure more than 50 percent in five out of South Africa’s nine provinces: Limpopo (74 percent), the Eastern Cape (62 percent), North West (59 percent), Free State (53 percent), and Mpumalanga (52 percent).
In the Northern Cape (49 percent) and Gauteng (36 percent), the ANC fell short of a majority and will need to find coalition partners to form the government
The Democratic Alliance (DA) will continue to govern the Western Cape (53 percent), which it has done since 2009.
And in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN), former President Jacob Zuma’s MK received the highest number of votes at some 46 percent, ahead of the ANC which managed about 18 percent.
Of nearly 39,000 South Africans who voted from outside the country, more than 75 percent voted for the DA.
How is the president elected and what happens next?
South Africans do not directly vote for the president.
Instead, they elect the members of the National Assembly, who then elect the president by a simple majority – 201 or more votes determine the presidency.
Following the IEC’s announcement of results, certain procedural steps must be followed for South Africa to form a government. They include :
Allocation of seats: Seats in the 400-member National Assembly are proportionately allocated based on the election results.
First sitting of the National Assembly: Within 14 days of the election results, the newly elected National Assembly must hold its first sitting, where members are sworn in and the speaker is elected.
Election of the president: During the first sitting, or soon after, the National Assembly elects the president of South Africa, who is then responsible for appointing the cabinet and forming the government.
Formation of government: Once the president is elected, the process of forming a government, including the appointment of ministers, usually follows.
The entire process is usually completed within a couple of weeks to ensure a smooth transition of power and continuity of governance.
Ramaphosa’s future in doubt
South Africa’s current president, 71-year-old Cyril Ramaphosa, has indicated he will not resign following the ANC’s poor performance at the polls.
The former anti-apartheid activist, trade union leader and businessman from Soweto was hoping for his second and final term as president.
Some opposition parties, including Zuma’s MK party, have ruled out a coalition deal with the ANC unless it sacks Ramaphosa first.
As the Paris Opera has gained considerable profit for the first time since 2017, the French Ministry of Culture has announced a reduction of six million euros in the company’s budget, Radio France reports.
This comes after the cancellation of more than 200 million credits, imposed on the Ministry of Culture, resulting in nationwide budget cuts to large cultural institutions.
Similarly, the budget of the Comédie-Française will be reduced by five million euros, the Théâtre national de Chaillot will see its budget drop by €500,000, and the Louvre Museum will see a three million euro reduction in subsidies.
After several years of increases, Paris Opera’s state subsidy was €99.8 million in 2023, which saw them close the budget year with a significant net profit of €2.3 million, wrote the Diapason magazine; the opera house recently revealed its 2024/25 season.
Due to the credit cancellation, the French Ministry must save enough for a total of €204.3 million in savings. To do this, the French Minister of Culture Rachida Dati recently announced drawing from the ministry’s precautionary reserves.
As reported in The Times, music audiences across France have argued the decision to reduce subsidies for the arts, claiming that opera will risk disappearing in all but Paris and other big cities if public funding continues to decrease.
Additionally, music organizations stated in a joint declaration, that this was “an absolutely unprecedented level of budget cuts … [which] threatens the entire ecosystem already largely destabilized by the effects of the complex exit from the health crisis, and inflationary crises and more recent energy sources,” Diapason added.
According to the French Ministry of Culture, funding has steadily increased, with its main priorities to be financed through a rise of €241 million to support “a lively, open cultural policy rooted in all territories.”
The endeavor will include strengthening creative industries with over €41 million, and support for artists, which will gain part of over €84 million alongside other categories such as trades and education.
“We are aware that the State is entering a phase of budgetary tightening and it is likely that the Opera, as a major operator and a culturally healthy one, will be put to good use,” explained Paris Opera’s director, Alexander Neef in radiofrance.
“[Our] thanks to revenues, which have developed favorably; thanks to increasing patronage; [and] thanks to visits to the Palais Garnier,” Neef added. “And thanks to the State which, for the first time in 15 years, had slightly increased our operating subsidy.”
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Polls show bloc could be bigger than Macron’s in parliament
Former President Hollande backs deal, says unity essential
Left-leaning political parties in France sealed an alliance to join forces in the upcoming legislative election, with polls showing it can win the second-biggest bloc behind Marine Le Pen’s National Rally.
Parties including the Greens, Socialists, Communists and leftist firebrand Jean-Luc Melenchon’s France Unbowed agreed they would only field one candidate in each of the 577 districts for the first round of voting June 30.
Left-wing leaders were also debating who might be prime minister if their alliance comes out on top. LFI’s repeat presidential candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon and senior MP François Ruffin have thrown their hats in the ring.
Macron’s gamble on early elections comes two years after he failed to secure a majority in parliament to buttress his second presidential term. It risks strengthening the far-right Rassemblement National (RN).
Prime Minister Gabriel Attal told France Inter radio that voters faced a “societal choice.” Macron’s centrist camp offers a “progressive, pro-work, democratic” alternative, he said.
Macron’s camp has dubbed itself Together for the Republic, a senior member told Agence France Presse on Thursday after a strategy meeting with Attal and chiefs of allied parties. Their message will be, “do you want [RN president] Jordan Bardella or [LFI founder] Jean-Luc Melenchon” as prime minister, a source close to Attal said.
While some European countries, such as Spain and Ireland, have recognized the State of Palestine in a bid to safeguard what remains of the ‘two-state solution,’ President Emmanuel Macron is delaying the decision, but making small steps toward it.
In the final stretch before the European elections on June 9, the recognition of a Palestinian state has become a major topic in the French campaign. While Spain, Ireland and Norway have formally recognized the State of Palestine in a bid to preserve what remains of the “two-state solution” against the backdrop of the Israeli offensive in Rafah, France continues to delay. Believing it to be an inopportune moment, Paris chose not to follow in the footsteps of its European neighbors, but is nonetheless examining the terms and conditions of a possible recognition.
“I am completely ready to recognize a Palestinian state, but (…) I believe that this recognition must come at a useful time,” said President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday, May 28, alongside German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, at the end of his state visit to Germany. “I won’t do a recognition out of emotion,” he warned. On the same day, the question was the subject of heated debate at the Assemblée Nationale.
“I’m disappointed,” reacted Raphaël Glucksmann, the Socialists’ lead candidate for the European Parliament, on the television channel LCI later that evening. He accused Macron of putting off the decision indefinitely. To his left, the radical left party La France Insoumise (LFI) has been actively pushing for the recognition of a Palestinian state.
The formal recognition of a Palestinian state has been the long-term objective of Western countries supporting a two-state solution for Israel and the Palestinian territories. But with Israel’s war against Hamas grinding on, some countries are moving towards state recognition as a political gesture.
The recognition has also highlighted EU divisions over its approach to the conflict in the Middle East.
At the press conference, Germany’s Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, whose country is not in favor of recognition, said the focus should be “on political solutions” and “concrete talks.”
“The hostages that are held must be liberated, humanitarian aid must enter Gaza. Without that it is not real to imagine a diplomatic solution for the Palestinians,” she said.
Throughout April and continuing into May 2024, extreme record-breaking heat led to severe impacts across the Asian continent.
From Israel, Palestine, Lebanon and Syria, in the West, to Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam and the Philippines in the East, large regions of Asia experienced temperatures well above 40°C for many days. The heat was particularly difficult for people living in refugee camps and informal housing, as well as for outdoor workers.
Heatwaves are arguably the deadliest type of extreme weather event and while the death toll is often underreported, hundreds of deaths have been reported already in most of the affected countries, including Palestine, Bangladesh, India, Thailand, Myanmar, Cambodia and the Philippines. The heat also had a large impact on agriculture, causing crop damage and reduced yields, as well as on education, with holidays having to be extended and schools closed in several countries, affecting millions of students.
Extreme heat in South Asia during the pre-monsoon season is becoming more frequent. Two previous World Weather Attribution studies focused on extreme heat events in the region: the 2022 India and Pakistan heatwaveand the 2023 humid heatwave that hit India, Bangladesh, Lao PDR and Thailand. Despite differences in the nature and impact of the events (drier heat in 2022 leading to widespread loss of harvest, and humid heat in 2023 with greater impacts on people), both studies found that human-induced climate change influenced the events, making them around 30 times more likely and much hotter.
Scientists from Lebanon, Sweden, Malaysia, the Netherlands, the United States and the United Kingdom collaborated to assess to what extent human-induced climate change altered the likelihood and intensity of the extreme heat in three Asian regions: 1) West Asia, including Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine and Jordan; 2) the Philippines in East Asia; and 3) South and Southeast Asia, including India, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Lao PDR, Vietnam, Thailand and Cambodia.
Using published peer-reviewed methods, the scientists analysed how human-induced climate change altered the likelihood and intensity of the 3-day April heatwave in West Asia and a 15-day April heatwave in the Philippines. Figure 1 shows these two regions, outlined in blue, while figure 2 shows the South Asia region. For this region, the analysis focused on observed weather data, but not climate models, as the affected region largely overlaps with the study areas of the previous studies. The observational data for the whole month of April confirmed that the role of climate change is likely of similar magnitude to the heatwaves studied in 2022 and 2023, and the results of a full attribution analysis would not be significantly different.
The 10th anniversary of the SCOP-TI cooperative, a symbol of success.
They fought 1336 days of struggle for the maintenance of their production tool against the giant Unilever. In May 2014, the former Fralib employees of the Gémenos tea factory, east of Marseille, merged into a cooperative. They are celebrating the 10th anniversary of the takeover of their company.
May 2014-May 2024, successful bet. 10 years after the creation of Scop-Ti with 34 cooperative employees, they succeeded in a completely crazy bet at the time, that of challenging an international agri-food giant. Unilever had decided to separate from this Gémenos production unit east of Marseille. The struggle of the employees with the occupation of their factory had then made headlines. They were and have always become a symbol of job struggles.
Today, they own their production tool. The land and premises belong to a mutualist group. The Scop-Ti, as they are called, produce 120,000 boxes of tea and infusion per week. The vast majority of their production (85%) is in “white label”, i.e. intended in particular for retailer’s brands.
Republicans party chief Eric Ciotti, who has called for an electoral alliance
Republicans party chief Eric Ciotti, who has called for an electoral alliance between his French party’s candidates and Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally (RN), was unanimously kicked out of his party on Wednesday, party official Annie Genevard said. The party will now be helmed by Genevard and François-Xavier Bellamy, who was head of the party’s list for the European elections.
The apparent implosion at the heart of France’s mainstream conservative party comes hot on the heels of National Rally’s stinging victory in Sunday’s European elections – and President Emmanuel Macron’s quick decision to call a national vote.
Mr Ciotti hit back at his colleagues, accusing them of a “flagrant violation” of party rules and insisting he was going nowhere.
Elected party leader in December 2022, Mr Ciotti has always been seen as more hardline than most leading Republicans.
But when he went on TV on Tuesday to announce Republicans “need to have an alliance while remaining ourselves… an alliance with the RN [National Rally] and its candidates”, leading party figures said he had only spoken for himself in proposing a pact.
National Rally leader Jordan Bardella then confirmed there was a deal and that his party would be supporting “dozens” of Republican candidates.
Highly respected Senate speaker Gérard Larcher said he would never swallow a pact with the RN, and other colleagues openly called for Mr Ciotti’s immediate dismissal ahead of two rounds of parliamentary elections on 30 June and 7 July.
Mr Macron weighed in on Wednesday, accusing Mr Ciotti of turning his back on a party that owed its heritage to former Presidents Charles de Gaulle, Jacques Chirac and Nicolas Sarkozy.
The Republicans have suffered at the polls in recent years, unable to counter the rise of either Mr Macron’s centrist party, now called Renaissance, or National Rally. In Sunday’s election they could only manage 7.25%.
Although an estimated half of grassroots Republicans back an alliance with National Rally, the vast majority of party leaders have rejected it out of hand.
In an apparent bid to halt his dismissal at an emergency meeting of party leaders on Wednesday, Mr Ciotti ordered the doors of party headquarters in Paris be locked, citing a security risk.
He later asserted that “none of the decisions taken at this meeting carry legal consequences. They may have criminal repercussions”. He later told French TV that “about 80” candidates would fight for the Republicans with National Rally backing.
The Republicans have now appointed their lead candidate in Sunday’s vote, François-Xavier Bellamy, as interim leader. “Forces of chaos are today threatening our country… We have a line to hold,” he told reporters.
Hours earlier, Mr Macron defended his bombshell decision to dissolve parliament and call elections, urging French voters to come together and “say no to the extremes”.
The French president denied he wanted to hand the far right the keys to power, arguing that a national vote was the only republican option.
He said that a broad range of political groups who “cannot identify with this extremist fever” should unite against it.
His remarks did not just reflect Mr Ciotti’s overtures towards the leaders of National Rally, Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella.
He was also reacting to the mainstream centre left’s decision to agree a pact with the far left, which he accused of espousing antisemitic and anti-parliamentary attitudes.
On Sunday, Raphaël Glucksmann led the centre left to third place with a campaign that attracted voters alienated by the more extreme France Unbowed of Jean-Luc Mélenchon.
Mr Macron suggested that the masks of both mainstream forces had slipped and the battle for values had burst into the daylight.
Mr Mélenchon accused the president of diving into a strategy of chaos and of drowning in a flood of insults towards “those who don’t share his opinion”.
Mr Macron has been widely criticised for an apparently spontaneous decision to call elections, an hour after his party polled below 15% while National Rally achieved almost 31.5% in the European vote.
Two years into his second term as president, his party is without a majority in France’s National Assembly – so every piece of legislation requires support from political allies.
Mr Macron argued that the system had become jammed, leaving the government unable to act.
He said that, as president, he would not get involved in campaigning and would leave that to Prime Minister Gabriel Attal – though his speech on Wednesday sounded very much like the launch of his party’s campaign.
Asked by a reporter whether he had handed the keys of France to the far right, Mr Macron said that doing nothing was not an option and asking the people to decide was a principle of democracy.
Voters who had backed National Rally on Sunday had expressed their anger, he said, adding: “Message received.”
Known for her melancholy, existential lyrics, Hardy rose to prominence in the Sixties and became one of France’s most celebrated artists
FRANÇOISE HARDY, THE French icon and singer known for evoking romantic existentialism in her music, has died at the age of 80.
Her son, Thomas Dutronc, confirmed her death in a Facebook post. Sharing a photo of her holding him as a baby, Dutronc simply wrote, “Maman est partie.”
According to Barron’s, the singer had struggled with cancer since 2004.
Hardy rose to prominence in the Sixties, becoming known for her songwriting and evocative lyrics. Her debut album, Tout les garçons et les filles, release in 1962 and delivered some of her first commercial success — catapulting her to the front of European yé-yé pop music. As she began to record music in London in 1964, she released Mon amie la rose, L’amitié, La maison où j’ai grandi and Ma jeunesse fout le camp, expanding the influence of her sound. Throughout the early Seventies, Hardy collaborated with numerous musicians including Serge Gainsbourg, Patrick Modiano, Michel Berger and Catherine Lara. Hardy recorded her work in English, German, and Italian.
Rolling Stone named her as one of the 200 best singers of all time, noting that Bob Dylan was so taken by her artistry, he addressed her in a poem on the back of Another Side of Bob Dylan and on their first meeting, he serenaded her, unsuccessfully, with “I Want You”.
When speaking to the Guardian in 2018, Hardy discussed how her album, Personne d’Autre, which released that year, explored mortality and her acceptance of it. “I sing about death in a very symbolic and even positive way. There is an acceptance there, too,” she said. “For instance, there is a song called “Special Train,” which I like very much, but at my age, I can really only sing about that one very special train that will take me out of this world. But, of course, I am also hoping that it will send me to the stars and help me discover the mystery of the cosmos.”
The French left, including the Greens and radical left Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s La France Insoumise, agreed to form a coalition on Monday evening. But the question remains as to who will lead the alliance into the battle of the snap elections called by President Macron.
Out with the NUPES, in with the Popular Front. Seven months after the implosion of the former left-wing alliance, the New Popular Ecological and Social Union, France’s left-wing parties have succeeded in laying the foundations of a new alliance in record time, ahead of the snap elections on June 30 and July 7. On Monday, June 10, the four leaders of the main left-wing parties, Marine Tondelier (Greens), Olivier Faure (Socialists), Fabien Roussel (Communists), and Manuel Bompard (La France Insoumise, LFI) appeared side by side at around 10:30 pm outside the headquarters of the Green party in Paris to announce the “constitution of a new Popular Front,” bringing together “all the forces of the humanist left, trade unions, associations and citizens.”
The name had been launched the day before by LFI lawmaker François Ruffin, in the wake of the dissolution of the Assemblée Nationale by President Emmanuel Macron. “The Popular Front is a commitment that goes far beyond ourselves,” Faure, the Socialist leader, said as he left the meeting on Monday. Like in the parliamentary elections of 2022, the announcement of the creation of the alliance came before the conclusion of an agreement on a policy platform. For now, the left is focused on agreeing to avoid the worst, by making the dissolution an opportunity rather than a guaranteed catastrophe in the face of the far right. Disagreements persist, though, in terms of policy. “Each side is advancing on its red lines,” said Faure on Tuesday morning.
But the left’s determination has already reassured many politicians. “They can’t back out of this, because the first person to do so will end up with their head on a spike,” said Sandrine Rousseau, a prominent Green MP. The degree of optimism about the alliance varies.
Le Pen’s RN is in a strong position to scoop up many more seats in the 577-member parliament than the 88 it holds now. The party’s leaders say they are gunning for an outright majority that would allow them to take the prime minister’s office and run the government, which would be a calamity for Macron and an earthquake for France. The first polling released by Harris Interactive late on Monday predicted the RN would come in first with 235 to 265 seats, short of the 289 needed for an outright majority, while Macron’s centrist alliance would win 125 to 155 MPs, compared with the 249 it holds now. A combined leftwing list would win 115 to 145 seats versus the 153 they have now, the poll predicted. The conservative Les Républicains, inheritors of the Gaullist movement that still has a significant group of MPs in the current parliament, are on track together with other, smaller rightwing parties to win 40 to 55, compared with 74 now. The new leftwing alliance branded their new alliance as the Front Populaire, or Popular Front, named after a short-lived tie-up of Communist and Socialist factions that started in 1936 and led socialist politician Léon Blum to become prime minister.
The European Union parliament has 720 seats in total, all of which are up for election. 361 seats are needed for a majority, with no single political group likely to pass this. Each country has a certain number of members of the European parliament (MEPs), allocated broadly based on population. People vote for national parties that then form largely Europe-wide blocs in the parliament.
The political groups in the parliament are outlined below the map, starting with the most leftwing group. Before the election, polls predicted that Eurosceptic and anti-establishment parties in the ECR and ID groups were set to make significant gains.
France’s President Emmanuel Macron has dissolved the country’s parliament, the National Assembly, and called a snap election after an exit poll showed his Renaissance party is set to be trounced by the far-right opposition in European parliamentary elections on Sunday.
After initial projections, the far-right National Rally (RN) party came out on top with 31.5% of the vote, more than double the share of Renaissance, which scraped into second place on 15.2% of the vote, just ahead of the Socialists in third with 14.3% of the vote.
In a celebratory speech after the publication of the exit poll, RN leader Jordan Bardella had called on Macron to dissolve the French parliament, calling the gap between the two parties a “stinging disavowal” for the president.
“This unprecedented defeat for the current government marks the end of a cycle, and Day 1 of the post-Macron era,” Bardella told a raucous audience at RN’s headquarters.
Within an hour, Macron made a national address, announcing he would dissolve the French lower house and hold parliamentary elections. The first round will be held on June 30, with a second round on July 7, Macron said.
“I have decided to give you back the choice of your parliamentary future by voting. I am therefore dissolving the National Assembly this evening,” Macron said in the shock announcement.
“This decision is serious, heavy. But it is above all, an act of trust. Trust in you, my dear compatriots. In the capacity of the French people to make the most just decision,” the French president added.
Under the French system, parliamentary elections are held to elect the 577 members of the lower house, the National Assembly. Separate elections are held to choose the country’s president, which are not scheduled again until 2027.
In the last set of parliamentary elections held in 2022, the Ensemble coalition including Macron’s Renaissance party fell short of an overall majority and were forced to seek help from elsewhere.
Speaking after Macron’s announcement, Marine Le Pen – who ran unsuccessfully against Macron for the French presidency in 2017 and 2022, but whose RN party has since enjoyed a resurgence in the polls – said she welcomed his decision to hold elections.
“We are ready to take power if the French place their trust in us,” said Le Pen, now the parliamentary leader of RN.
“We are ready to rebuild the country, ready to defend the interests of the French, ready to put an end to mass immigration, ready to make the purchasing power of the French a priority, ready to begin the reindustrialization of the country,” she said.
Since the beginning of his second term in 2022, Macron has been ruling with a relative majority, forcing him to invoke Article 49.3 of the French constitution several times – pushing legislation through parliament without a vote, to the increasing displeasure of opposition lawmakers and much of the French public.
The last time a French president dissolved parliament was in 1997, which led to Jacques Chirac losing his majority and ushering the Socialists into power under Lionel Jospin.
An Élysée source close to Macron, who asked to remain anonymous, told CNN the predicted results showed there is a “republican majority” in France made up of those who “don’t agree with the far-right ideas.”
“We should never be afraid of the French people,” the source said. “Convince, convince, convince – that is the spirit that the presidential majority will take up.”
Foreign minister Sergei Lavrov makes statement after permission given by Kyiv for trainers to come from France to support its troops
Any French military instructors in Ukraine would be a “legitimate target” for Russian armed forces, Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, said on Tuesday during a tour of Africa, where frustration with the west has swayed several countries toward Moscow.
Lavrov made the remarks at joint news conference with the Republic of Congo’s foreign minister, Jean Claude Gakosso.
“As for the French instructors, I think they are already on the Ukrainian territory,” Lavrov said, referring to the military instructors that France could send to train Ukrainian troops. “Regardless of their status, military officials or mercenaries represent a legitimate target for our armed forces.
In Moscow, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said that “instructors who train the Kyiv regime’s troops don’t have any sort of immunity, and it doesn’t matter whether they are French or not.”
Ukraine’s top commander said last week he had signed paperwork allowing French military instructors to access Ukrainian training centres soon. But France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, said last week he would not comment on “rumours or decisions that could be made”. He said he would elaborate on France’s support during the 80th anniversary commemorations of D-day later this week.
Large fires broke out in northern Israel overnight, Israeli police said early Tuesday, attributing the blazes to rocket fire from southern Lebanon.
The flames consumed some 4,000 dunams (1,000 acres or 400 hectares) of the northern region, chief of the Tiberias fire station Boris Eisenberg said. Israel Fire and Rescue Services said multiple firefighting teams, including an air firefighting squadron, had been deployed, working through the night.
On Tuesday, Israel Fire and Rescue Services in the north of the country dealt with two blazes. Twelve teams were deployed to Keren Naftali, where a fire had spread in several directions, while 10 teams had been deployed to the Biria Forest in the Upper Galilee area, where a falling Israeli interceptor missile caused a second blaze.
“We saw the interception and responded with increased forces and high intensity, we are operating on the spot and trying to contain the fire,” spokesperson Uri Cohen told CNN.
“We are dealing with extreme weather conditions, changing winds, high dryness with low humidity, high temperature. All these conditions together accelerate the development of the fire,” Cohen said.
By late Tuesday, all major fires in the north had been brought under control, according to the rescue authority.
Authorities had begun evacuating residents as fires broke out at noon local time on Monday in the mountainous Galilee region, Israeli police said. Israeli police said they helped to evacuate homes in Kiryat Shmona, a northern city near the Lebanese border.
The blazes came after authorities warned the public Monday that a heatwave was expected and cautioned against lighting fires in forests.
Lebanon-based Islamist group Hezbollah said Monday that it launched a “swarm of drones” at an Israeli military command center in the Galilee, causing fires in the building. The group said they were a response to Israeli strikes on Hezbollah forces as well as homesin southern Lebanon, adding that three Hezbollah fighters were killed on Monday.
Thousands of Israeli residents have been displaced after cross-border hostilities began between Hezbollah and the Israeli military in October. The Lebanese group said its attacks on northern Israel were in response to Israel’s war in Gaza.
During a tour of some of the most heavily damaged areas, the Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Major General Herzi Halevi said the IDF was ready to respond if called on.
“We are approaching the point where a decision will have to be made, and the IDF is prepared and very ready for this decision,” Halevi said. “We have been attacking here for eight months and Hezbollah is paying a very, very high price.”
“We are prepared after a very good process of training – up to the level of a military exercise – to move to an attack in the north. Strong defense, readiness to attack, we are approaching a decision point,” Halevi added.
French artist Ben, best known for his ironic painted slogans, has died aged 88, killing himself just hours after the death of his wife of 60 years, his family said Wednesday.
His wife, Annie, suffered a stroke on Monday evening and died on Wednesday, the couple’s two children, Eva and Francois, said in a statement.
“Unwilling and unable to live without her, Ben killed himself a few hours later at their home” in the French Mediterranean city of Nice, they said.
Born Ben Vautier in Naples in 1935, the artist, who was known professionally only as Ben, moved to Nice aged 14 and spent the rest of his life there.
He was associated with the Fluxus movement of the 1960s that sought to disrupt what counted as art, with a style of street-based, provocative irony that proved highly influential.
“Everything is art,” he would say, and instead of traditional artworks, he made “gestures”: standing in the window of a gallery and shouting until he lost his voice, organising plays that never happened, or piano recitals where the pianist would run away.
He would sign anything he wanted, claiming it as his creation: the bodies of passers-by on the Promenade des Anglais in Nice, or even other artists’ work.
“My art will be an art of appropriation. I seek to sign everything that has not been signed. I believe that art is in the intention and that it is enough to sign,” he once said, as always with a smile.
By ignoring the “protected framework of museums” and refusing to see art as the fruit of training and talent, Ben irritated some in his own profession who considered him an opportunist and dilettante.
But he insisted there was always a serious message behind the jokes. “I am not a money machine, but a communication machine,” he said.
He became best known for his humorous slogans, usually painted in white on a black background, in a childlike handwriting: “What is the use of art?”, “Is the new always new?”, “What are you doing here?”
They earned him a place in MoMA in New York as well as being replicated widely – on school bags, notebooks or tram stops in Nice.
“On our children’s pencil cases, on so many everyday objects and even in our imaginations, Ben had left his mark, made of freedom and poetry, of apparent lightness and overwhelming depth,” said the French president, Emmanuel Macron, in a statement.
“The world of culture has lost a legend,” added the culture minister, Rachida Dati, hailing a “goldsmith of language”.
The D-Day landings on 6 June 1944 were a decisive turning point in the Second World War: the Liberation of France and Europe began on the beaches of Normandy. It was in Normandy that the face of today’s world was shaped. From 1942 onwards, with the Raid on Dieppe, the history of Normandy as a whole was intimately linked to that of the return of Freedom, Peace and Reconciliation.
On 6 June 1944 and in the days that followed, thousands of young men from fifteen different nations and 177 Frenchmen from the Kieffer Commando landed on the beaches of Normandy to liberate the country. By midnight on 6 June, more than 150,000 Allied soldiers were in Normandy, including 23,000 paratroopers and 20,000 vehicles of all sizes. 12,000 men had been killed, wounded or taken prisoner. Three months of battles followed to liberate Normandy. Then it was the turn of Paris and finally the whole of Europe.
Even today, through the remains, cemeteries, places to visit and emblematic heritage of the Reconstruction, these traces are still visible and keep this memory alive in Normandy. The D-Day landings on 6 June 1944 and the Battle of Normandy are engraved in the minds of every Norman and form part of a shared heritage that we have a duty to pass on.
Because freedom is worth celebrating and passing on to children, too, Alexandra Hamon, 35, drank champagne and shared the sunrise with her boys, Karl and Neils, both 13, as the day dawned Thursday over the beaches where Allied soldiers landed on D-Day.
The family was among a crowd several thousands strong that stretched for kilometers along Utah beach — one of the five beaches along the coast of Normandy where Allied troops landed. Utah and Omaha were taken — at the cost of hundreds of lives — by American forces, with the others stormed by troops from Britain and Canada, also killing many hundreds, plus others from France. The other code-named beaches are Juno, Sword and Gold.
Karl sat perched on the hood of their 1943 Dodge truck, lovingly restored by her husband, Enogat, as the family from Saint Malo, a French coastal city that was badly damaged in major fighting about two months after D-Day, stared out across the English Channel.
The waters Thursday were still and peaceful — unlike on that fateful day that helped change the course of WWII and precipitate Adolf Hitler’s downfall 11 months later.
“It’s indescribable, just imagining the chaos. Now it’s peaceful, almost festive, we try to imagine but I think it’s unimaginable,” she said.
“You think of all those guys, everything they went through,” she added of the fast-dwindling D-Day veterans. “They say they aren’t heroes. But they are, they are. Those guys really should never die. I imagine the boats, the guys arriving, the sounds. It must have been horrible, yes, horrible.”
In their first major strike in a decade, pharmacists across France stopped work to draw attention to drug shortages, forced closures and potential restrictions on online sales. They also want higher pay.
“The main concern is the disappearance of pharmacies,” economically weakened in both rural areas and sometimes in cities, Philippe Besset, president of the French Federation of Pharmaceutical Unions (FSPF), told French press agency AFP.
According to the group, France has lost nearly 2,000 pharmacies over the past 10 years, leaving only around 20,000 operating nationwide.
At the age of 69, Hélène Roy will soon be putting away her white lab coat to enjoy a well-deserved retirement. But before she finally leaves the counter of her “modest” pharmacy in Dijon, the pharmacist intends to wage one last battle alongside her colleagues, to defend a profession “at the service of patients” which she cherishes and believes to be under threat today.
“We have an image of [being] rich people. The reality is much more mixed. Yes, there are pharmacists who earn a very good living, but they’re not as numerous as we imagine,” she lamented. She cited the many messages she received from “struggling” colleagues after she published an op-ed in Le Monde (in French) on April 15, in which she expressed alarm at the growing economic difficulties of France’s pharmacies. This Thursday, she will close up shop for the day to march with her staff through the streets of Dijon – nearly 40 processions, including one in Paris, are planned across France – to draw the attention of public authorities to the malaise of the pharmacy sector.
The unions are also demanding a pay increase starting in 2025, citing the impact of inflation on their expenses. They see the latest proposals by health insurance organisations in the ongoing contractual negotiations that began at the end of 2023 as “insufficient”.
Representatives are scheduled to meet with health insurance officials on 5 June for a “conclusive meeting”.
Much of the planet is swimming in discarded plastic, which is harming animal and possibly human health. Can it be cleaned up?
Plastic pollution and marine litter have emerged as pressing environmental challenges of our time, impacting the health of our oceans and ecosystems. With the relentless production and disposal of plastic materials, our planet has become a dumping ground for an alarming array of plastic debris. From microplastics, to larger plastic items like bottles and bags, these pollutants pose a threat to marine life, the food chain, human health and the delicate balance of our planet’s aquatic environments.
In this era of heightened environmental awareness, addressing the issue of plastic pollution and marine litter has become an urgent global imperative, demanding concerted efforts from individuals, communities, and governments worldwide.
Ecological status and trends
Plastics make up a significant portion of marine litter, with estimates suggesting that more than eight million metric tonnes of plastic enter the oceans every year. Plastic waste, ranging from microplastics to large debris, continues to accumulate in marine environments, posing a severe threat to our ecosystems. From entanglement and ingestion by marine species to the disruption of food chains, plastic pollution wreaks havoc on marine life. The situation is further exacerbated by the persistence of plastics, which can take hundreds of years to degrade, exacerbating the long-term environmental impact. To mitigate these trends, urgent global action is required, including improved waste management, plastic reduction strategies, and enhanced international cooperation to safeguard the health and biodiversity of our planet.
Why does it matter?
Combating plastic pollution including in the marine environment is imperative as it safeguards ecosystems in particular marine from irreversible damage and preserves biodiversity. It also prevents the proliferation of microplastics through the food chain, protecting human health. By addressing plastic pollution and marine litter, we not only ensure the vitality of our oceans but also promote a sustainable future for both the environment and humanity.
Plastics by the numbers
Some key facts:
Half of all plastics ever manufactured have been made in the last 20 years.
Production increased exponentially, from 2.3 million tons in 1950 to 448 million tons by 2015. Production is expected to double by 2050.
Every year, about eight million tons of plastic waste escapes into the oceans from coastal nations. That’s the equivalent of setting five garbage bags full of trash on every foot of coastline around the world.
Plastics often contain additives making them stronger, more flexible, and durable. But many of these additives can extend the life of products if they become litter, with some estimates ranging to at least 400 years to break down.
How plastics move around the world
Most of the plastic trash in the oceans, Earth’s last sink, flows from land. Trash is also carried to sea by major rivers, which act as conveyor belts, picking up more and more trash as they move downstream. Once at sea, much of the plastic trash remains in coastal waters. But once caught up in ocean currents, it can be transported around the world.
On Henderson Island, an uninhabited atoll in the Pitcairn Group isolated halfway between Chile and New Zealand, scientists found plastic items from Russia, the United States, Europe, South America, Japan, and China. They were carried to the South Pacific by the South Pacific gyre, a circular ocean current.
Microplastics—a new health threat
Once at sea, sunlight, wind, and wave action break down plastic waste into small particles, often less than one-fifth of an inch across. These so-called microplastics are spread throughout the water column and have been found in every corner of the globe, from Mount Everest, the highest peak, to the Mariana Trench, the deepest trough.
Microplastics are breaking down further into smaller and smaller pieces. Plastic microfibers, meanwhile, have been found in municipal drinking water systems and drifting through the air.
It’s no surprise then that scientists have found microplastics in people. The tiny particles are in our blood, lungs, and even in feces. Exactly how much microplastics might be harming human health is a question scientists are urgently trying to answer.
The solution is to prevent plastic waste from entering rivers and seas in the first place, many scientists and conservationists—including the National Geographic Society—say. This could be accomplished with improved waste management systems and recycling, better product design that takes into account the short life of disposable packaging, and a reduction in manufacturing of unnecessary single-use plastics.
Mexico has elected its first female president, with preliminary results showing Claudia Sheinbaum, a climate scientist and Mexico City’s former mayor, is on track to win the country’s largest election in history.
Sheinbaum has won between 58.3% and 60.7% of the vote, according to what is known as Quick Count, an exercise that the National Electoral Institute (INE) carries out based on a statistical sample of ballots from polling stations.
The 61-year-old rode the wave of popularity of her longtime political ally, the outgoing leftist Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, and their Morena party.
Sheinbaum is not only set to be Mexico’s first female president, but also the country’s first Jewish leader, although she rarely speaks publicly about her personal background and has governed as a secular leftist.
Sheinbaum said her administration would govern all Mexicans “without distinction.”
“Even though many Mexicans do not fully agree with our project, we will have to walk in peace and harmony to continue building a fair and more prosperous Mexico,” she told crowds of supporters that filled the main square in Mexico City, the Zócalo, in the early hours of Monday.
She spoke about the historical significance of becoming the first female president of the country.
“I am also grateful because, for the first time in 200 years of the republic, I will become the first woman president of Mexico,” she said.
Trailing Sheinbaum is opposition candidate Xóchitl Gálvez, backed by a coalition of the National Action (PAN), Institutional Revolutionary (PRI) and Democratic Revolution (PRD) parties, with between 26.6% and 28.6% of the votes.
In third place is the Citizens’ Movement candidate, Jorge Álvarez Máynez, with between 9.9% and 10.8% of the votes.
According to the quick count results, participation in the presidential election was between 58.9% and 61.7% of the electorate of nearly 100 million people.
Obrador, the outgoing president and Sheinbaum’s political mentor, congratulated Sheinbaum on her win.
“With all my affection and respect I congratulate Claudia Sheinbaum who came out victorious with an ample margin. She will be the first (female) President of Mexico… but also the President, possibly, with most votes obtained in all of the history of our country,” he said in a video posted on X.
Sheinbaum’s projected win is a remarkable moment for a country that is a world leader when it comes to gender equality in elected office, a position it cemented in 2019 with constitutional reform. It outflanks several countries in terms of women’s parliamentary representation.
Yet Mexico remains a dangerous place to be a woman: it has sky-high femicide rates with around 10 women murdered in Mexico every day
Sheinbaum ran Mexico’s most important city for five years until her resignation last June to run for the presidency. She is also the co-author of a Nobel-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report and is married to Jesús María Tarriba Unger.
She is seen as a continuation of the status quo left by López Obrador, whose social welfare programs boosted the Morena party’s popularity and had a positive impact on the lives of poorer Mexicans. Under the Mexican constitution, presidents can only be elected to one term and cannot run again.
Sheinbaum has pledged to continue her predecessor’s policies, including a pension for all senior citizens, scholarships for more than 12 million students and free fertilizers for small farm owners, but has rejected criticism of her close political alignment with López Obrador.
She is set to be replaced as the mayor of Mexico City by another women, Clara Marina Brugada Molina from Scheinbaum’s Morena party. She secured between 49% and 52.8% of the votes, according to the Quick Count, while the opposition Santiago Taboada got 37.2% to 40.5% of the votes.
Largest election
Sunday’s poll was the largest election in the country’s history. More than 98 million voters were registered to cast a ballot, and 1.4 million Mexicans were eligible to vote abroad.
In addition to the presidency, more than 20,000 positions were being contested by an estimated 70,000 candidates vying to become senators, mayors and governors.
But the elections were plagued by immense violence. There have been more than 20 political killings since September, according to the Mexican government. By some estimates though, that number is even higher. According to Mexican consultancy firm Integralia, at least 34 candidates were murdered in the run-up to the vote.
Voting was suspended for several hours on Sunday in the southeastern Mexican town of Coyomeapan due to violence at the polling centers, according to state electoral authorities.
And while the murder rate fell in Mexico between 2019 and 2022, in absolute numbers the country is still reeling from historically high levels of around 30,000 homicides each year. The true number is likely higher, experts say.
The violence appeared to have been a top concern for voters as cartels extend their grip through Mexico.
Sheinbaum has been coy about her security proposals but has pointed to her record as Mexico City mayor, when, according to her team, she improved the police force’s working conditions and intelligence-gathering abilities.
One big challenge for her will be convincing voters that she can end the culture of impunity in Mexico, where around 95% of all crimes nationwide went unsolved in 2022, according to think tank Mexico Evalua.
After the final results come in, the Electoral Tribunal of the Judicial Branch of the Federation (TEPJF) must receive and analyze any possible challenges to the process, as well as qualify the presidential election no later than September 6. If the court validates the election, Sheinbaum will take office on October 1. Her term will last six years, from 2024 to 2030.
One of the most decorated clubs in France, Saint-Étienne, has returned to Ligue 1 after two years. In today’s match against Metz.
Saint-Etienne drew 2-2 at 10-man Metz to win promotion back to the French first division on Sunday, with substitute Ibrahima Wadji scoring the decisive goal deep into extra time for a 4-3 aggregate score
The first match ended with Saint-Étienne’s victory with a score of 2-1, and in the return game, Metz was reduced to ten men as early as the sixth minute. However, by the 25th minute, the hosts were leading 2-0 thanks to efforts from Camara and Mikautadze. The visitors pulled one goal back before halftime, but despite their numerical advantage, they couldn’t break through Metz’s solid defense.
Avoiding a penalty shootout was achieved three minutes before the final whistle. Ibrahim Wadji’s precise strike secured Saint-Étienne’s promotion to the elite level of French football.
A number of workers’ unions are calling for higher pay and bonuses during the Olympic and Paralympic events
Railway workers. They have called to action on May 21, by most of the Sud-Rail and CGT local unions, joined in some areas by Unsa-Ferroviaire.
Binmen and waste collectors in Paris. They have called to strike on May 14, 15, 16, 22, 23 and 24; and then July 1 to September 8. This would cover both the Olympics and Paralympics.
Most are calling for extra pay or bonuses over the Olympic and Paralympics Games periods, to reflect the extra hours and work they are expecting as a result of the event and the influx of visitors over the months.
At the end of April, RATP drivers successfully negotiated an agreement providing for bonuses of up to €1,600 for employees who are absent from work for fewer than four days during the Games.
Similarly, the Paris mairie has said it has been negotiating with Paris binmen, and has determined “five levels of bonus, ranging from €600 to €1,900 [which] will reward effective and exceptional investment in the Olympic Games”, it said.
This bonus “will be awarded to employees whose workload is increased by the preparation, organisation and/or participation in the Olympic Games”. This will apply to “almost 20,000 employees” out of 52,000 city-wide, it said.
Binmen union heads – from the union CGT FTDNEEA – have yet to say if they will accept these terms, as they fall short of their demands.
In contrast, Sud Rail has said that the bonus already suggested by SNCF management is too low (€50 per day of attendance this summer during the Games).
Instead, the union is calling for the bonus to be doubled in net terms, including rest. “We’ve decided to shake things up by setting a date in the landscape,” said Fabien Villedieu of Sud-Rail to AFP.
“What is on the table doesn’t suit us,” he said. “We’d be happy with a fixed bonus [over the entire period] of at least €1,000.”
The CFDT-Cheminots unions has said that it “has not been given any orders to go ahead”, but “has negotiations to conduct”. Yet, general secretary Thomas Cavel said that “strike action will come when negotiations fail”.
SNCF has not yet commented on the content of the current negotiations, although it has said that CEO Jean-Pierre Farandou is aiming to reach an agreement on the subject at the end of May or beginning of June.
Since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russia-China cooperation has grown in all directions. Moscow makes no bones about the fact that it is betting on China in the global confrontation with the West, seeing Beijing as an alternative center of power with similar interests and values to itself.
The trade turnover between the two countries, which reached a record $190 billion last year, increased by another 39 percent in the first quarter of this year compared with the same period in 2022. Russian raw material exports to China and imports of Chinese goods have sharply increased.
Unsurprisingly, all of this has prompted talk that Beijing is using its economic leverage and Russia’s rupture with the West to turn Moscow into a compliant puppet, forcing humiliating, one-sided concessions. These concerns are shared by both the harshest critics of the Russian regime in the West and the pro-war hawks within Russia.
The more than tenfold difference in the size of the two economies has turned the expression “vassal dependence” into something approaching accepted wisdom. Upon closer examination, however, it becomes clear that this dependence is not so one-sided, since Russia still has plenty of leverage itself.
The most commonly cited risk is that of economic dependence, yet even after the record growth since the start of the war, China’s share in Russia’s trade is approximately 22 percent: undoubtedly significant, but not unprecedented. China has an even larger share (26 percent) of Australia’s foreign trade, even as the Australian government actively participates in anti-China alliances such as AUKUS and the Quad.
Australia is not subject to Western sanctions, of course, and is therefore less limited in its choice of trading partners. Yet the importance of China in many global supply chains is such that even without sanctions, it is virtually the only consumer and supplier for a vast range of products and resources.
China is currently the biggest trading partner of about 120 countries, many of which are economically more dependent on it than Russia is. This imbalance does not prevent them from exiting investment agreements, engaging in decades-long border conflicts with Beijing, or becoming allies of the United States or European Union. In Russia’s case, there is a caveat regarding gas exports, where flexibility is limited by infrastructure. When it comes to oil, however, Russia’s choice of partners is much broader. Even now, the volume of Russian oil exports to India (1.7 million barrels per day) and smaller developing countries (1.6 million) is comparable to exports to China (2.2 million).
As for Russian imports, not only China but a number of other countries (Türkiye, UAE, India, and Central Asian states) are becoming hubs for parallel trading, reselling sanctioned goods to Russia. They are quite capable of ensuring at least some inflow of necessary goods to the Russian market if Moscow’s relations with Beijing get sour.
So far, notwithstanding all the talk about “vassal dependence”, Russia has not joined China’s flagship project, the Belt and Road Initiative, or recognized China’s territorial claims in the South China Sea. Nor is Moscow in any hurry to conclude onerous concession agreements with China or even amend legislation to that end.
Moves such as relocating polluting industries to Russian territory, building transit railways through Russia with no stops there (such as the Beijing-Berlin route), unilateral tariff reductions, or even scrapping visa requirements for Chinese nationals would demonstrate that Moscow needs Beijing more than the other way around—but none of these have materialized.
Nearly a year and a half into the full-scale invasion, the relationship between Russia and China is largely following the same rules as before. Chinese investment in Russia increased by 150 percent in 2022, but it remains relatively small, partly because Moscow is not prepared to accept Chinese investment without certain restrictions.
Furthermore, Moscow has indirectly asserted its independence by imprisoning alleged Chinese intelligence assets. The Russian special services have deliberately publicized these cases, though they would have been easy enough to keep quiet to avoid irritating Beijing.
The vassal argument also fails to address the key question of motive: why would Beijing seek to establish unequal relations with Moscow? It is hard to identify areas in which Russia would refuse to cooperate with China on normal terms. The Russian market is open to Chinese goods, and Russia willingly supplies China with as many resources as needed.
Attempts by Beijing to pressure Moscow in a few areas where this could make sense (political statements, individual resource concessions) would be extremely risky. Russian President Vladimir Putin has demonstrated only too starkly the sacrifices he is willing to let Russia endure in order to confront perceived threats to its sovereignty. In the event of a real attempt by China to make Russia its vassal, the Russian leadership would likely prefer to deprive Russians of Chinese goods rather than submit.
Finally, the war has not only strengthened China’s position in its relations with Russia. It has also provided Moscow with several important advantages, most notably information on withstanding sanctions and on fighting a war against Western weaponry, which China cannot obtain from anywhere but Moscow.
Beijing has long viewed the deepening confrontation with the West as an inevitability, and not without reason. Since Beijing has no intention of changing tack, the imposition of new anti-China sanctions appears to be only a matter of time. Close cooperation with the Kremlin and other official Russian bodies allows Beijing to understand how sanctions affect the economy, what methods of circumvention exist, how the financial system will behave, which protective measures are effective, and which are not.
The experience that the Russian army is currently gaining in Ukraine is even more interesting for Beijing. A significant proportion of Chinese weapons are either purchased from Russia or have evolved from Russian and Soviet prototypes. In Ukraine, the durability of this weaponry is being tested on a massive scale against Western analogues, and in real conditions of war.
Certainly, this experience may not be fully applicable in the event of an attack on Taiwan, but even a tenth of this information would have to be obtained by China at the cost of soldiers’ blood if it decided to find it out itself. Instead, the established military cooperation between the two countries gives China access to this information without significant costs.
The relationship between Russia and China is by no means perfect, but the shared interests of both countries’ leaderships and the strategic logic of the confrontation with the West create a solid foundation for reasonably equal cooperation. Within that interaction, China does have a certain opportunity to turn Russia into its vassal—but, crucially, it has no compelling reasons to do so. That situation is unlikely to change in the next five to ten years.
Géraldine Pailhas (born 8 January 1971) is a French actress. Géraldine Pailhas is married to fellow actor Christopher Thompson and has two children.
She is famous for her roles in the films Snow and Fire, IP5, The Hikers, The Officers’ Room, The Adversary, The Cost of Living, 5×2, Bus Palladium and Jeune & Jolie.
She made her debut in cinema by appearing in Trois Places for the 26th in 1988. Two years later, she played in two films: the Arcandiers and La Neige et le Feu. Her performance in this last film earned her a César for Best Female Newcomer in 1992. The same year, she played alongside Yves Montand in Beineix’s IP5. She also works with American actors such as Johnny Depp and Marlon Brando in 1995 for Don Juan DeMarco. That year, she was also featured in Maurice Pialat’s film Le Garçu. Géraldine Pailhas then distinguished herself in Les Randonneurs and her suite, Les randonneurs à St Tropez and the Enchanted Parenthèse. In 2001, she played in François Dupeyron’s Officers’ Chamber and then played the role of an abandoned wife in Nicole Garcia’s Let ’Adversaire (2002) and Thierry Klifa’s “Une Vie à t’attendre” whose script was written by his companion Christopher Thompson in 2004. It changes register with 5 x 2 of Ozon and the Cost of life. For this last film, she was also nominated for the César for Best Supporting Actor in 2004.
A complete actress, Géraldine Pailhas is able to alternate between auteur cinema (the Revenants) and general public entertainment (Chevaliers du ciel). We could also see her in Pascal Bonitzer’s “Je pense à vous” where she plays the wife of a publisher camped by Édouard Baer and in Thierry Klifa’s Hero of the Family. In 2007, she starred in the film “Le Prix à payer” , by Alexandra Leclère. After being noticed in Didine, Géraldine is featured in the thriller Espion(s) with Guillaume Canet. In 2010, it was in her companion’s first film, Bus Palladium, that the public can find her. Faithful to Klifa, was featured in 2011 in his drama “Les yeux de sa mère” before making a theatrical parenthesis with a role in the play “L’amour, la mort les fringues” directed by her mother-in-law Danièle Thompson. In 2013 she returned to the cinema under the leadership of François Ozon for the film Jeune & Jolie.
2014 : SMS de Gabriel Julien-Laferrière : Stéphane
2014 : Disparue en hiver de Christophe Lamotte : Christine
Transport in the European Union is a shared competence of the Union and its member states. The European Commission includes a Commissioner for Transport, currently Adina Ioana Vălean. Since 2012, the commission also includes a Directorate-General for Mobility and Transport which develops EU policies in the transport sector and manages funding for Trans-European Networks and technological development and innovation, worth €850 million yearly for the period 2000–2006.
Obeida Dabbagh: “I hope that Patrick and Mazen, wherever they are, can see that I never gave up and that I was always there for them. They are the torchbearers, the spokespeople for the hundreds of thousands of Syrians who have disappeared like them.
The trial of three high-ranking Syrian officials, Ali Mamlouk, Jamil Hassan and Abdel Salam Mahmoud, for complicity in crimes against humanity and war crimes will take place from May 21 to 24 before the Paris Criminal Court. Since they are not present, the three defendants will be tried in absentia for the torture, enforced disappearance and murder constituting crimes against humanity, as well as for the confiscation of the property, qualified as war crimes, of Patrick and Mazzen Dabbagh, French-Syrian nationals arrested and then detained at Mezzeh airport in Damascus in November 2013, by Syrian Air Force intelligence agents.
A historic trial will open on May 21 before the Paris Criminal Court. For the first time, French courts will address the crimes of the Syrian authorities, and will try the most senior members of the authorities to ever be prosecuted since the outbreak of the Syrian revolution in March 2011, which resulted in a brutal crackdown orchestrated by Bashar el Assad’s government. In October 2016, Obeida Dabbagh, brother and uncle of the victims, along with the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and La ligue des droits de l’Homme (LDH), had filed a lawsuit in France, with the active support of the Syrian Center for Media and Freedom of Expression (SCM), following the disappearance of Patrick and Mazzen Dabbagh.
“This trial will mark the achievement of a long struggle before French courts to ensure that those responsible for the enforced disappearance of my brother and nephew are punished. Our family was deliberately kept in ignorance of the fate that befell them for so many years, so this is also a trial to establish the truth“, declares Obeida Dabbagh, brother and uncle of the disappeared.
After seven years of investigation carried out by the war crimes unit of the Paris Judicial Court, Ali Mamlouk, close advisor to Bashar al-Assad and former head of the National Security Bureau, Jamil Hassan, former director of the Syrian Air Force intelligence service, and Abdel Salam Mahmoud, former head of investigations for the said service at the Mezzeh military airport in Damascus, were indicted before the Paris Criminal Court in March 2023. In the absence of the defendants on French soil, the trial will be held under the legal rules of trial by default (in absentia).
“The investigating judges’ decision to characterize the crimes committed against Mazzen and Patrick Dabbagh as crimes against humanity is essential, as it implies demonstrating that the acts committed against them were part of a generalized policy implemented by the Syrian State at the highest level to repress the entire Syrian population” explains Clémence Bectarte, lawyer for FIDH, SCM and the Dabbagh family “Hundreds of thousands of Syrians have disappeared and died, often in atrocious circumstances, at the hands of Bashar el Assad’s regime since the beginning of the Syrian conflict.
Their families are still awaiting justice.”
Mazzen and Patrick Dabbagh had been arrested and taken to the Mezzeh military airport detention center in Damascus, renowned for its inhumane detention conditions and brutal torture sessions. The investigative branch of the Syrian Air Force Intelligence Service there was headed by Abdel Salam Mahmoud.
After their arrest, their family had no information as to what had happened to them. It was only in July 2018, when death certificates were issued by the Syrian authorities, that the Dabbagh family was informed that Patrick and Mazzen had respectively died in January 2014 and November 2017.
“It is essential to remember that the crimes that will be addressed during this trial are not crimes of the past, these crimes are still ongoing because the Syrian authorities continue to enjoy total impunity. It is crucial to shed light on the importance of the fight against impunity to ensure sustainable peace, complete defeat of extremism, and the voluntary return of refugees.” declares Mazen Darwish, General Director of SCM and Secretary General of FIDH.
“At a time when certain States are normalizing their diplomatic relations with Bashar al-Assad, France must continue to firmly oppose any attempt at normalization. In view of the scale and gravity of the mass crimes committed in Syria, it must demonstrate its resolute commitment to the fight against impunity, and we hope that this trial will be one of the first steps in this direction” declares Patrick Baudouin, President of LDH and lawyer for FIDH and LDH.
The public trial of Ali Mamlouk, Jamil Hassan and Abdel Salam Mahmoud will take place from 21 to 24 May 2024 before the Paris criminal court.
— Donald Trump became the first former president to be convicted of felony crimes Thursday as a New York jury found him guilty of falsifying business records in a scheme to illegally influence the 2016 election through hush money payments to a porn actor who said the two had sex.
Jurors convicted Trump on all 34 counts after deliberating for 9.5 hours. As the verdict was read, he sat stone-faced in court, looking down.
The verdict is a stunning legal reckoning for Trump and exposes him to potential prison time in the city where his manipulations of the tabloid press helped catapult him from a real estate tycoon to reality television star and ultimately president. As he seeks a return to the White House in this year’s election, the judgment presents voters with another test of their willingness to accept Trump’s boundary-breaking behavior.
Trump is expected to quickly appeal the verdict and will face an awkward dynamic as he seeks to return to the campaign trail as a convicted felon. There are no campaign rallies on the calendar for now, though he’s expected to hold fundraisers next week. It will likely take several months for Judge Juan Merchan, who oversaw the case, to decide whether to sentence Trump to prison.
The French government blocked the social media app after a state of emergency was declared on the island. It is an unprecedented measure in the EU.
Speaking in Paris on the evening of Wednesday, May 15, French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal announced that the high commissioner for the French Pacific territory of New Caledonia had “banned TikTok” across the entire archipelago, in addition to a series of measures aimed at restoring order, including deploying military personnel to protect strategic sites.
Neither Attal nor High Commissioner Louis Le Franc specified why TikTok had been targeted in particular. However, according to messages from local government representatives shared by New Caledonians on Facebook, the app had been targeted because “messages of hatred and calls for violence” had been shared on it. For the past three days, New Caledonia has been gripped by intense clashes, which have left four people dead, including two gendarmes, amid opposition from Kanak pro-independence groups to a contested reform of the local electorate. (The Kanak are New Caledonia’s indigenous people.)
The ban was made possible by the declaration of a state of emergency, on Wednesday evening (Paris time). This temporary measure enables French authorities to take exceptional measures and restrict certain public freedoms to deal with a particularly serious situation. In particular, it empowers the prime minister to request that access to an online public communication service that is “provoking the commission of acts of terrorism or advocating them” be blocked within the country.
The authorities have other legal means at their disposal for blocking access to applications or websites in France, but the state of emergency provides the most expedient response in this respect. An administrative ban on terrorist or child pornography websites, for example, requires a timeframe of at least 24 hours.
Technically speaking, how can authorities block access to a social media app?
The main method used by the French authorities to block access to a site or application is based on the use of the domain name system (DNS), the routing system that sends internet users to the correct server when they attempt to access a domain name. Each network operator has its own registry which matches Tiktok.com to the address of the social media platform’s servers. In the event of a ban, the authorities ask operators to make their DNS “lie” to their users, and redirect them to an incorrect address.
This simple method works just as well for blocking web browsing via a computer as it does for the TikTok app, which needs to communicate with the social media platform’s servers to update users’ feeds and load videos. It is nevertheless considered to be a fragile solution, as it can be bypassed on both computers and smartphones, where it is possible for users to change their DNS, so as not to use those of their operator or internet service provider.
According to online posts by residents of the archipelago, only the TikTok mobile app has been affected by the blockage, as the prime minister’s office has confirmed, in a statement to news channel BFM-TV. New Caledonia’s mobile phone network infrastructure is, in fact, managed entirely by a single operator, Mobilis, which belongs to the New Caledonia Post and Telecommunications Office (OPT-NC). This makes implementing widespread bans much simpler and quicker than if the measure had concerned mainland France and its plethora of operators.
Are there any precedents for such a ban?
No. In France, and more widely in the European Union, this appears to be a first. In the summer of 2023, during the riots that affected many towns in mainland France, President Emmanuel Macron had raised the idea of “cutting off social media” when “things get out of hand.” In particular, the Interior Ministry had singled out Snapchat’s “map” feature, believing that this tool, which displays in real time the locations where large quantities of messages are posted, could have played a role in gathering rioters together, although this has not been proven.
What do the main stakeholders have to say about this?
TikTok has not responded to a request for comment on the ban. The measure has been criticized, on other social media platforms, by supporters of the New Caledonian pro-independence movement, human rights activists who have considered it to be a repressive measure to curb freedom, and leading figures from the decolonial and the pro-Russian movements. On Wednesday, government-aligned MP Eric Bothorel (from Macron’s Renaissance party), an expert on digital affairs, publicly questioned whether this measure could be “counter-productive by helping to fuel the narrative of those who seek to harm us by portraying the French state as repressive.”
29/05/2014 : In New Caledonia, TikTok is accessible again after a 15-day ban
“Following the end of the state of emergency measures in the territory since Tuesday, May 28, 2024, the ban on the TikTok platform has been lifted,” says the Office of the High Commission of the Republic in a statement, which specifies, however, that the curfew remains in force.
500 neo-Nazis and fascists parade in the heart of Paris.
Recent polls show the far-right National Rally winning about 32% of the vote, the highest of any party. Experts argue this is largely a vote of dissatisfaction with Macron.
France’s extreme-right National Rally party is gaining ground in the run-up to the European elections on June 9. Recent polls project the so-called RN will win around 32% of the vote; in comparison, French President Emmanuel Macron’s party, Renaissance, is expected to take second place with 17%.
Jordan Bardella is the head of the list of the RN, meaning he will certainly earn a seat. He has remained largely silent on the campaign trail, but this hasn’t seemed to negatively impact the group’s numbers. Experts argue that while multiple factors are at play — a general feeling of insecurity amid the Russia-Ukraine war on the continent, unpopular reforms and controversial immigration policy— this vote ultimately reflects voters’ displeasure with Macron.
“It’s basically a choice against Macron, against Macronism,” Luc Rouban, a researcher specializing in the transformations of democracy in France and Europe with CEVIPOF-Sciences Po, told Courthouse News. “It’s a way to signal their dissatisfaction after the retirement reforms, a certain number of reforms, unemployment benefits, or a certain number of positions regarding Ukraine.”
Every five years, European Union countries hold elections to determine who will act as one of the 720 members of the European Parliament, or MEPs. France elects 81, the second-highest number after Germany. Ahead of the elections, political parties assemble a list of members that will be sent to parliament in order of preference. Turnout decides how many delegates will be sent proportionally from each list.
The 28-year-old Bardella is credited with polishing the image of a party that has suffered from scandals tied to the Le Pen family, which has led the party since its founding in 1972. The family has been widely criticized as promoting xenophobic policies, and the RN is officially classified as extreme right, a label it has fought to shed. Bardella, who is young and charismatic, has helped to normalize the party.
Not everyone is convinced that the RN has evolved. Sylvianne S. was having a coffee in central Marseille on Wednesday, reflecting on Bardella and the party.
“I’m opposed, anti-fascist, to Bardella and Le Pen,” she told Courthouse News. “There’s a lot of insecurity at the moment.”
But Bardella is one of the most popular politicians in France. With over 1 million followers on TikTok, he is the third most-followed French politician on the platform, underscoring his connection to younger voters.
Despite being the face of his party’s campaign, Bardella has been noticeably silent as elections draw near. As someone with a reputation for punchlines — the sharp jabs that have drawn comparisons to Donald Trump — his silence is palpable. In April, he left a news conference without taking questions from journalists; he has also avoided debates, although he’s scheduled to debate Prime Minister Gabriel Attal on May 23.
“It’s certainly a tactic that consists of avoiding embarrassing questions because the weak point of the RN is still the technical mastery of issues, European issues, agricultural issues, financial and economic issues, international issues” Rouban said.
“They’re relatively weak because they don’t necessarily have well-constructed arguments that are supported with real expertise and social resources and experts behind them,” he went on. “So they prefer to say nothing, which allows them to avoid saying nonsense, so they’re less vulnerable to criticism and attacks … . They live in this space of having a favorable image in the public opinion, even if their program is pretty vague.”
Pierre-Stéphane Fort is an investigative journalist who has spent years researching Bardella, and will release a book on him, Le grand remplaçant, on May 17. His theory on the recent silence follows a similar line of thinking.
“He has 30% to lose by participating in debates or responding to the media … . When we look at the public debate, it gives off a bit of a bizarre image of his campaign, because we don’t hear a lot from him, we have the impression that he’s not actually campaigning,” Fort explained. “Despite everything, he’s doing well in the polls, so I imagine that he’ll continue to do this.”
Traditionally, the RN has been against the idea of the European Union; Bardella and Le Pen were once for Frexit, the campaign for France to leave the bloc, according to Fort. He argues that the European elections are an opportunity for the party to assert dominance ahead of the 2027 French presidential elections more than a chance to put forth a comprehensive plan for European action.
“For Jordan Bardella, it’s not an issue of European construction at all, they’re against Europe, always have been,” Fort said. “I really think the challenge for the French electoral landscape is for the RN to achieve the best possible score to launch a political and electoral dynamic for 2027, and for Jordan Bardella in particular, it’s getting a good score to assert his status as leader of the RN.”
As far as the impact goes at the European level, opinions differ. While Sylvianne S. thinks the effects will be big, Rouban argues the election outcome will have more of a psychological impact on domestic French politics. People are taking this as an opportunity to express discontent with Macron, he says, and since the EU is a relatively distant institution that the average person doesn’t know well, they’ll vote to make their unhappiness known.
Fort thinks Europe’s position on the Russia-Ukraine war could be affected if the French and European far right make big gains in the parliament.
“We know the votes of the far right, French and European in general, are pretty favorable toward Putin,” Fort said. “In any case, the RN has always been favorable toward Putin and Russia. For example, Bardella and the RN deputies never voted on resolutions that condemned the conditions of [Alexei] Navalny’s detention, so there’s still an issue in the European Parliament, I think, regarding Russia and Ukraine and a potential conflict in years to come.”
The contested law would require news media and non-governmental organizations that get more than 20% of their budget from abroad to register as ‘carrying out the interests of a foreign power.’
A Georgian parliament committee on Monday, May 27, rejected the president’s veto of the “foreign agents” legislation that has sparked massive protests for weeks. The move by the parliament’s judiciary committee sets up the possibility of a vote of the full legislature on Tuesday to override President Salome Zourabichvili’s veto of the measure, which she and other critics say will restrict media freedom and obstruct Georgia’s chances of joining the European Union.
The law would require news media and non-governmental organizations that get more than 20% of their budget from abroad to register as “carrying out the interests of a foreign power.” Opponents denounce it as “the Russian law” because it resembles measures pushed through by the Kremlin.
Zourabichvili vetoed the law on May 18 after it was passed in parliament by deputies from the governing Georgian Dream party and its allies. That bloc has sufficient votes in parliament to override the veto. Large protests have repeatedly gripped the capital, Tbilisi, as the measure made its way through parliament.
On Sunday, Zourabichvili and Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze decried each other in speeches at a ceremony marking Georgia’s Independence Day. “As the specter of Russia looms over us, partnership and rapprochement with Europe are the true path to preserving and strengthening our independence and peace. Those who sabotage and undermine this path trample upon and damage the peaceful and secure future of our country, hindering the path towards becoming a full member of the free and democratic world,” Zourabichvili said.
But Kobakhidze sharply criticized Zourabichvili. “It was the unity and reasonable steps of the people and their elected government that gave us the opportunity to maintain peace in the country for the past two years despite existential threats and multiple betrayals, including the betrayal of the president of Georgia,” he said.
The European Union’s foreign policy arm has said adoption of the law “negatively impacts Georgia’s progress on the EU path.” Critics say it may have been driven by Russia to thwart Georgia’s chances of further integrating with the West.
Rafael Nadal crashed out of the French Open on Monday after losing his opening-round tie against Alexander Zverev (6-3, 7-6, 6-3).
The 22-time Grand Slam champion showed flashes of his old self as he mounted a spirited challenge on Court Philippe Chatrier, carried by a raucous crowd that included his old rival Novak Djokovic. But his towering opponent was too steep a mountain to climb for the ageing Spaniard, whose career twilight has been blighted by injury.
Fears of an equally undignified exit at Roland Garros appeared to materialise when Nadal lost his opening serve game to love. But the Spaniard quickly recovered, throwing his heart into a close-fought battle that did justice to his extraordinary career.
Nadal had played only four tournaments since January 2023 after undergoing hip surgery and then suffering a muscle tear. He arrived in Paris ranked a lowly 276th in the world, on the back of a straight sets humbling in Rome at the hands of Poland’s Hubert Hurkacz.
Earlier on, there was a deafening roar as the players walked onto court and the master of ceremonies gave a rundown of Nadal’s 14 French Open titles, starting with his maiden win in 2005 as a long-haired, sleeveless teenager.
The hair thinned out over the years, and the outfits got tamer, but “Rafa” remained the undisputed ‘King of Clay’ for close to two decades.
‘I didn’t want to play Rafa’
The unenviable task of drawing the curtain on Nadal’s French Open career fell to Zverev, the German 4th seed who left this same court in a wheelchair after twisting his ankle when they last met in the semi-finals two years ago.
“I can guarantee you Novak (Djokovic) didn’t want to play Rafa in the first round and (Carlos) Alcaraz didn’t want to play, Jannik (Sinner) didn’t want to play him,” Zverev said ahead of the match. “I don’t want to play him in the first round, but it is how it is.”
Zverev arrived in Paris as one of the favourites for the title after winning the Rome Open earlier this month. The 27-year-old has long been touted as a future Grand Slam champion but remains without one of tennis’s four biggest titles.
With the likes of Djokovic, Sinner and Alcaraz all recovering from injuries, this may be Zverev’s best chance yet, and on his preferred surface too.
The lanky German was in ruthless form as he stormed to an early lead against Nadal, saving two break points at 3-1 in the opening set. The Spaniard saved two set points on his own serve at 3-5 but gave up the opener on the third when he buried a loose forehand into the net.
Tellingly, Zverev had hit 15 winners to Nadal’s five.
A tighter contest, the second set saw Nadal save two break points to go to 2-2, celebrating his winning forehand with a leap, punch and scream of “Vamos”. He then broke for the first time to lead 3-2 courtesy of a pinpoint drop shot with Zverev stranded at the back of the court.
But Nadal was broken to love in the 10th game as he served for the set. He then saved one set point in a tense tie-break, which saw Zverev prevail in a 19-shot rally and his opponent then net a service return.
Nadal broke once more at the start of the third set, again undoing his hard work in the third game. He then saved four break points in a marathon 13-minute fifth game. But the effort was proving too much for the veteran Spaniard, just days shy of his 38th birthday.
The 14-time champion was broken again as Zverev moved to 4-3 before sealing the match when Nadal fired a weary forehand long and wide.
‘Forever the greatest’
Nadal’s fans had descended en masse on a chilly and damp Roland Garros, hoping to carry their hero to an unlikely win. Many lined up for a selfie at the “Rafa monument”, a stainless steel sculpture three metres high and almost five metres wide, located near the entrance to the stadium.
“I wouldn’t have missed this day for the world,” said 45-year-old Andrès, posing for a picture with his friends from Alicante in Spain, each of them sporting a “Gracias Rafa” (“Thank you Rafa”) T-shirt.
“Rafa is a model to us, an example of modesty, of courage and fighting spirit,” he added. “He is forever the greatest, whatever happens today.”
Andrès still harboured hopes of seeing Nadal back in Paris next year. He added: “A part of Roland Garros will be missing once he is gone.”
his was expected to be Nadal’s final appearance at the French Open, but the Spaniard has been more cryptic about his future since arriving in Paris, telling reporters he could not confirm “100 percent” this would be his farewell to Roland Garros.
“Maybe the last one, maybe not,” he told a packed press conference on Saturday. “I hope to be clear. I don’t want to create a big confusion, but I’m enjoying what I am doing.”
French Open organisers were prepared to stage a tribute ceremony to Nadal to honour his career, but the Spaniard was reluctant to endorse such a celebration.
“We were ready to press the button on it,” admitted tournament director Amélie Mauresmo. “But it’s Rafa who manages his timing, we follow what he wants.”
When the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape of Donald Trump sharing his horrifying thoughts about sexual assault became public in October of 2016, I reassured a van full of colleagues from the Hillary Clinton campaign that it would surely be the end.
“Don’t worry,” I told them. “It’s fatal.”
As it turned out, I was wrong. Trump not only survived the worst campaign scandal in modern history but also went on to escape consequences for a range of misbehavior in the Oval Office, including a damning special counsel investigation, two impeachments, and an attempted insurrection.
So it’s tempting to play it safe and argue that his latest scrape — the first criminal trial of a former president — will be just another speed bump. That it won’t matter to voters.
For the last eight years, Trump’s hold on a chunk of Republican voters has seemed unshakeable, allowing him to weather all kinds of scandals. But as he sits in a courtroom in the coming weeks, with his wife conspicuously absent, he may finally face a political penalty. At long last, the Teflon may be wearing off; this time, it could be politically fatal.
As it turned out, I was wrong. Trump not only survived the worst campaign scandal in modern history but also went on to escape consequences for a range of misbehavior in the Oval Office, including a damning special counsel investigation, two impeachments, and an attempted insurrection.
So it’s tempting to play it safe and argue that his latest scrape — the first criminal trial of a former president — will be just another speed bump. That it won’t matter to voters.
But I don’t think that’s the case. In a close election, everything matters. Given Trump’s continued problems in fully uniting Republicans around his campaign, there’s reason to believe that reminding voters of his immoral and possibly illegal behavior will turn off the Republican and swing voters he needs to win.
Here are the three biggest reasons:
Voters take the charges in the Daniels case seriously. Fifty-eight percent of respondents in a recent New York Times/Siena Poll said the charges were serious. That means even Republican voters who have supported Trump in the past are concerned by the charges. Trump was able to avoid political damage in the past by casting the special counsel investigation and impeachments as political. Still, the criminal charges may prove more challenging to explain away.
Rule-of-law Republicans are a growing force. A new group of anti-Trump voters has emerged on the right—those who supported Trump in 2020 and 2016 but are concerned by his role in the Jan. 6 attack and his lack of respect for the rule of law. If Trump is convicted of breaking the law by a jury of his peers, that could prove another mark against him among Republican voters who care about law and order, as polling during the Republican primary showed.
Evangelical voters may be on the edge. Evangelical Christians made an implicit deal with Trump in 2016: They would overlook his bad behavior if he gave them a Supreme Court that would overturn Roe v. Wade. That is done, and it’s not clear whether Trump has anything sufficient to offer this time around, especially as he struggles with the issue of an abortion ban. And the hush-money case involves claims about the kind of behavior — cheating on your pregnant wife with a porn star and then lying about it — that most troubles them. In fact, after a “60 Minutes” interview on CBS with Stormy Daniels in 2018, more white evangelicals believed her side of the story.
For the last eight years, Trump’s hold on a chunk of Republican voters has seemed unshakeable, allowing him to weather all kinds of scandals. But as he sits in a courtroom in the coming weeks, with his wife conspicuously absent, he may finally face a political penalty. At long last, the Teflon may be wearing off; this time, it could be politically fatal.
“Post-strike and post-pandemic, the business is still sorting itself out,”
“It’s been an enormously disruptive time and the industry is still trying to find its footing” said John Sloss, a veteran sales agent and the founder of Cinetic Media
But others feel that the European Film Market in Berlin was an unexpectedly robust marketplace, where movies like Celine Song’s “Big Bold Beautiful Journey” and the Will Smith action film “Sugar Bandits” scored impressive sales.
“We’re on an upswing,” said AGC Studios’ Stuart Ford. “I see the independent sector as a beacon. There’s a resilience and a continued willingness to back creativity and originality while the rest of the film and TV sector is still creaking and groaning under the strain of the strikes, changing business models and pressure from Wall Street.”
Will that optimism carry over to Cannes? On paper, there’s plenty of compelling projects for buyers, even if the crop of movies are lower-budgeted than ones that inspired bidding wars at past festivals.
“It might change Monday, Tuesday, but right now there are fewer [bigger] commercial projects,” Oliver Berben, at Germany’s Constantin, said last Friday.
The situation in international markets is brighter than the darker one facing the domestic film industry. After all, European companies like Constantin weren’t hit hard by the Hollywood strikes. They’ve been able to remain active as their American competitors labored to get their films completed.
Among the projects looking to find a home are action-thriller “Bear Country,” which finds Russell Crowe re-teaming with “Unhinged” director Derrick Borte, and “Flesh of the Gods,” which brings together the high wattage of stars Kristen Stewart and Oscar Isaac. Elsewhere, Ben Stiller and Colin Farrell headline “Belly of the Beast,” a true crime drama from Andrew Haigh (“All of Us Strangers”). The companies behind many of these movies are confident that the market in Cannes will build on the momentum from Berlin.
“Buyers have recovered a great energy and have appetite for quality,” said Marie Laure Montironi at Pathé, which is introducing Antonin Baudry’s “De Gaulle” as well as “In the Hell of Kabul,” directed by Martin Bourboulon (“The Three Musketeers”).
Since horror films have delivered at the box office, companies are leaning into the spooks and scares. It helps that these movies don’t need pricey stars or extensive CGI. “Genre films are often modestly budgeted and are more reliant on concept and execution than major talent involvement,” explained Ford.
Some titles carry production pedigree, others are made by genre auteurs. Ford’s AGC Studios is bringing “The Menace,” from “Last Night With the Devil” producers Image Nation/Spooky Pictures; Neon is selling “It Follows” sequel “They Follow” and “Keeper,” from “Longlegs” director Osgood Perkins. Starring Hassie Harrison and Jai Courtney, “Dangerous Animals” helmer Sean Byrne is one of Rotten Tomatoes’ highest-rated horror directors of all time.
For the executives who hit the Croisette each year, the week and change spent in the South of France is a blur of pitching and glad-handing.
“Your days start early and you’re in nonstop meetings in 30-minute increments until the evening,” said Janina Vilsmaier, senior VP of sales and distribution at Protagonist Pictures. “Then you get a little bit of sleep and do it again. We’re all running on adrenaline. By the time you get home, you just collapse.”
President Emmanuel Macron says he will not force through a controversial voting reform in the French Pacific territory of New Caledonia following deadly rioting.
Speaking on a visit to the main island, Mr Macron said local leaders should engage in dialogue to find an alternative agreement for the archipelago’s future.
Six people including two police officers have been killed and hundreds more wounded in riots, looting and arson.
Currently, voting in the territory is restricted to indigenous Kanaks and those who arrived from France before 1998.
The planned reform would see more French residents – including any who have been in New Caledonia for at least 10 years – able to vote.
Many Kanaks – who make up about 40% of the population – fear this would dilute their political voice and make any future independence referendum harder to achieve.
“I have pledged that this reform will not pass today in the current context,” Mr Macron said.
“We will allow some weeks to allow a calming of tensions and resumption of of dialogue to find a broad accord” among all parties, he added, saying he would review the situation in a month.
However Mr Macron insisted that the result of the last independence referendum, in which residents voted to remain part of France, could not be called into question.
New Caledonia has held four referendums on independence. The first two showed slim majorities for remaining part of France. The third was boycotted by pro-independence parties after the authorities refused to postpone the vote due to the Covid epidemic.
During his trip, Mr Macron had meetings with New Caledonian pro- and anti-independence leaders.
If the two sides were able to reach a new deal, the territory could then vote to adopt it in a referendum, he said.
Under the 1998 Nouméa Accord, France agreed to give New Caledonia – a group of islands between Australia and Fiji that became a French territory in the 19th Century – more political autonomy and to limit voting in provincial and assembly elections to those who were residents then.
More than 40,000 French nationals have moved to New Caledonia since.
Last week, the National Assembly in Paris proposed granting voting rights to French residents who had lived in the territory for 10 years, sparking a violent reaction.
The unrest has caused hundreds of millions of dollars worth of damage. None of the six people killed were shot by French security forces, French prosecutors say.
A state of emergency would be lifted when all the protesters’ barricades had been dismantled, Mr Macron added. He described the violence as an “unprecedented insurrection movement” that no-one saw coming.
A 3,000-strong force deployed from France would remain in the territory including during the Paris Summer Olympics if needed, he said.
The airport in Nouméa, New Caledonia’s capital, remains closed to commercial flights.
Military flights airlifted about 300 Australian and 50 New Zealand holidaymakers out of the territory. They reported witnessing arson and looting and experiencing food shortages.
he International Criminal Court is seeking arrest warrants for Hamas leader in Gaza Yahya Sinwar and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity over the October 7 attacks on Israel and the subsequent war in Gaza, the court’s prosecutor Karim Khan told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour in an exclusive interview on Monday.
Khan said the ICC’s prosecution team is also seeking warrants for Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, as well as two other top Hamas leaders — Mohammed Diab Ibrahim al-Masri, the leader of the Al Qassem Brigades who is better known as Mohammed Deif, and Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’ political leader.
The move against the Israeli politicians mark the first time the ICC has targeted the top leader of a close ally of the United States. The decision puts Netanyahu in the company of the Russian President Vladimir Putin, for whom the ICC issued an arrest warrant over Moscow’s war on Ukraine, and the Libyan strongman Moammar Gadhafi, who was facing an arrest warrant from the ICC for alleged crimes against humanity at the time of his capture and killing in October 2011.
The ICC announcement on Monday is separate from the case that is currently being heard by the the International Court of Justice (ICJ) over an accusation from South Africa that Israel was committing genocide in its war against Hamas following the October 7 attacks.
While the ICJ considers cases that involve countries and nations, and the ICC is a criminal court, which brings cases against individuals for war crimes or crimes against humanity.
Monday’s announcement is not the first time that the ICC acted in relation to Israel. In March 2021, Khan’s office launched an investigation into possible crimes committed in the Palestinian territories since June 2014 in Gaza and the West Bank.
Located in The Hague, Netherlands, and created by a treaty called the Rome Statute first brought before the United Nations, the ICC operates independently. Most countries – 124 of them – are parties to the treaty, but there are notable exceptions, including Israel, the US and Russia.
That means that if the court grants Khan’s application and issues arrest warrants for the five men, any country that is a member would have to arrest them and extradite them to The Hague.
Under the rules of the court, all signatories of the Rome Statute have the obligation to cooperate fully with its decisions. This would make it extremely difficult for Netanyahu and Gallant to travel internationally, including to many countries that are among Israel’s closest allies – including Germany and the United Kingdom.
Sinwar, Haniyeh and al-Masri have been officially designated as global terrorists by the US, meaning they are under travel bans, asset freezes and sanctions. The US, the UK, Japan, Canada as well as the European Union and others have designated Hamas as a terror group and imposed sanctions on its leaders.
Since 2018, the Choose France Summit, launched at the initiative of the President of the Republic, has become the flagship event for France’s economic attractiveness. Each year, the Summit, convened by the President and members of the Government, brings together hundreds of leaders from the largest multinational corporations at the Château de Versailles. It seeks to promote France’s economic attractiveness and encourage international investment across the country. The Choose France Summit has now found its place on the international business community’s agenda, and is set apart by the central role of direct discussions between business and political leaders.
The fourth Choose France Summit was held on 18 June 2021, in the first international business event since the outbreak of the pandemic. It brought together more than 200 major business leaders, 120 of whom from abroad. The Summit also received high-ranking guests including European Commissioner Thierry Breton and, alongside Minister Delegate Franck Riester, the Director-General of the WTO, Ms Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, and Prof. Schwab, founder of the World Economic Forum. Their participation illustrates how well the Summit has taken root in the landscape of major economic events since 2018.
The 2021 Summit focused on resilience and the economic recovery in France and Europe. Three workshops were led by the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) on the themes of bringing back European industry and ensuring its resilience, disruptive innovation, and logistical issues. The ecological transition and decarbonization of the economy were discussed in all debates.
Lastly, more than 400 bilateral meetings were held with the President of the Republic, members of the Government, and leaders of foreign and French companies, so as to discuss the detail of investment projects in France and raise awareness of the benefits of the French economy.
The first three Choose France Summits saw the announcement of 35 investment projects totalling €6.5 billion. To date, 20 projects have been completed, totalling €2.3 billion, 14 are underway, totalling €4.2 billion, and a single, small-scale project (€9 million) has been abandoned.
The 2021 Summit confirmed these trends, with the announcement of 22 new investment projects representing €3.5 billion and 7,000 jobs across France. These projects include the Envision battery “gigafactory” at the Renault site in Douai (Hauts-de-France), involving €2 billion in investment and 2,500 new jobs by 2030.
The Summit was the culmination of several years of increased economic attractiveness for France, as the leading global destination for foreign investments for the second year running, ahead of the United Kingdom and Germany (annual EY Attractiveness Survey). France has also been the leading European destination for industrial projects for more than 15 years, and for strategic R&D projects since 2018.
The party has won in the Spanish northeastern region for the first time, while pro-independence groups lost their majority. But Salvador Illa lacks enough lawmakers to form a government and faces tough negotiations.
For the first time, the Catalan Socialist Party (PSC) secured a victory both in terms of votes and seats. Collectively, independence parties lost the majority they’d held since the separatist movement known as the procès surged over a decade ago. And the political shift to the right seen elsewhere in Europe was reflected in Catalonia as well, with much stronger results for the center-right Popular Party (PP), the far-right Vox holding its own, and a new far-right, pro-independence party called Aliança Catalana claiming two seats for the first time in the regional parliament.
The debate over Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s push to grant amnesty to leaders of the 2017 unilateral secession attempt in Catalonia, in exchange for their parliamentary support following inconclusive national elections in July, proved very polarizing in Spain as a whole, but seems to have had the opposite effect in Catalonia: it has deactivated separatism and ended what was left of the procès, yet without granting the political right enough power to play the role of kingmaker in the formation of a new government.
But putting together a new Catalan executive will be no easy task. The winner of the night, Salvador Illa, secured 42 seats for his PSC, up from 33 in 2021. In his victory speech, he said that Catalonia is “opening a new era” that, he insisted, will be one “for all Catalans, whatever they think, whatever language they speak and wherever they come from.”
But it takes 68 seats for a majority in the 135-member chamber. The party that earned the second-highest number of lawmakers (35) is Junts, led by Carles Puigdemont, who also headed the failed 2017 secession attempt and later fled to Belgium to avoid prosecution.
A joint government with Junts in Catalonia seems unlikely. Instead, the challenge for Illa in the weeks ahead will be to achieve support from other leftist groups, most notably Esquerra Republicana (down to 20 seats from 33) and Comuns (6). Another option would be a stable deal with Comuns, supplemented by negotiations with other parties for abstentions and support on a case-by-case basis.
If everything fails, Catalans could be facing a repeat election in October.
But Illa made a point of saying that he will submit his name to lead a new executive in Catalonia. The statement was meant as a signal that he will not yield to pressure from separatist sectors to give up his chance at a regional premiership in exchange for Junts continuing to support Pedro Sánchez’s administration in the national parliament.
Their report advises against exposing under-threes to screens and suggests waiting until the age of 11 for a cellphone and 13 for a smartphone with internet access.
The report by the expert committee appointed by President Emmanuel Macron in January to assess the impact of young people’s screen exposure was eagerly awaited. The committee presented its findings on Tuesday, April 30, after more than three months of work. The omnipresence of screens and their effects on health are causing concern, even at the highest level of government, and the French president gave the government one month, on Wednesday, May 1, in a message on X, to “review these recommendations and translate them into action.”
In the 142-page report, entitled “A la recherche du temps perdu” (In Search of Lost Time), the 10 specialists reviewed the scientific literature, interviewed around a hundred experts and practitioners, and met 150 young people. While acknowledging “the advantages of these tools, which are capable of emancipating children, giving them easier access to knowledge,” they express concern and issue a warning from the outset: “We must adopt a truthful discourse to describe the reality of children’s excessive online connections and the consequences for their health, development, future, and also for our own future.”
They said that time spent on screens has “consequences for children’s health, development, future, as well as the future of our society and civilisation.”
The experts focused on the ways social media can be a ‘risk factor’ for depression and anxiety, especially if there is a pre-existing vulnerability, and they noted the “alarming” level of exposure children have to pornographic and violent content.
While they specified that screens do not cause neuro-developmental disorders, they did call for vigilance.
Screen access – They advised no screens at all – including TV – for children under three years old, and then ‘highly limited’ access between three to six years old, which would involve educational content and the supervision and involvement of an adult.
Mobile phones and social media – The commission recommended only authorising mobile phones from the age of 11 – and even so – phones that do not have access to the internet. They suggested that smartphones only be given from age 13 and onward, without access to social media.
Then, at age 15, they said ‘ethical’ (ie Mastadon or Bluesky) social media consumption could be allowed. They recommended avoiding apps such as Instagram and TikTok before age 18.
Schools and nurseries – The experts recommended that secondary schools create ‘mobile-free’ areas, or even experiment with ‘smartphone-free’ schools in order to assess the impact on school life and bullying.
They also recommended that computers and televisions are banned in nurseries (crèches).
‘Predatory’ practices by tech companies – The experts also called attention to the way tech industries try to hold onto children’s attention, and they recommended efforts to “combat predatory practices such as infinite scrolling or automatic video launch”.
They said that companies’ algorithms generate addictive behaviour among minors.
European scale – The experts also said that these recommendations should be taken on board on a European scale, which President Macron has echoed previously, including during his speech last week at the Sorbonne where he argued in favour of instituting an online minimum age of 15 (‘digital majority’).
What could legislation entail?
Legislation may or may not cover the above topics, but the concept of regulating childhood screen-time has already been on the minds of French lawmakers.
Last year, in 2023, members of Macron’s Renaissance party tabled a bill that would create more training on screen time for health professionals and people who work with children, more regulation on the use of screens in nursery and primary schools.
They also sought the creation of a ‘prevention message’ on computers, tablets and phones to warn consumers, in a similar manner to tobacco products, about the dangers for young children. However, this bill still needs to be examined and debated by the Senate.
The right-wing Les Républicains party also tabled a bill at the beginning of April calling for a ban on screen usage in nurseries for children under the age of three.
What about other steps taken by the French government?
Aside from proposed legislation, lawmakers and health authorities have already taken some steps to regulate screen access and internet usage.
Recommendations from health authorities – French public health authorities had previously issued some recommendations about screen time (PDF).
Their parental guide recommends: No TV before three years old, no video games before six years old, no internet before nine years old and no internet alone (unsupervised) before 12 years old.
On top of that, at the end of May, there will be a national meeting for paediatricians, and according to Le Parisien, some topics on the table will be introducing a mental health check before collège (lower secondary school) and tools to help children sleep better. Both of these will reportedly have screen-related recommendations.
Parental control defaults – Starting in July 2024, all devices that can access the internet will need to have a default parental control. This includes smartphones, computers, TVs and game consoles, and it was part of a 2022 law for protecting children on the internet.
In practical terms, this will mean that manufacturers looking to sell their internet-enabled devices in France will need to abide by the new rules. The parental controls must be free of charge and available on the device as soon as they are put into service.
The goal is to help protect kids from pornographic content on the internet by facilitating the use of parental controls.
Manufacturers that fail to comply will risk administrative fines.
Phones in school – Technically, French law already prohibits mobile phones in nursery, primary and lower secondary school. The country’s Education Code stipulates that pupils are not allowed to use mobile phones “during any teaching activity or any other locations specified in school rules”.
As a result, kids cannot use their phones during class, but depending on the school they might be able to use their phone during recess on the playground.
Government recommended site – The French government also created the online tools to help both parents and children understand the risks online and with screen-time.
The website jeprotegemonenfant.gouv.fr has a quiz to help parents understand if they are paying close enough attention to their children’s time on screens. It also has a list of technology and social networks that allow parental controls, as well as tips on how to use them.
Social media privacy law – In February, France adopted a law to protect children’s right to privacy on the internet before they are of legal age to access social media. This created the concept of a ‘private life’ for children, requiring that parents protect their children’s ‘image rights’ by taking into account the opinion of the second parent, as well as their child’s feelings depending on their age or maturity.
arents who ‘violate the child’s dignity’ can lose the right to share photos and videos on social media, with the power to protect the child’s privacy handed off to a third party or a judge. This was provoked by issues with ‘influencer’ parents who use images and videos of their children to make money or gain fame online.
There are also concerns around images of children being taken off of social media accounts and sent around on pornographic websites.
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and his foreign minister were killed in a helicopter crash in mountainous terrain and icy weather, an Iranian official said on Monday, after search teams located the wreckage in East Azerbaijan province.
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, a hardliner long seen as a potential successor to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was killed in a helicopter crash in mountainous terrain near the Azerbaijan border, officials and state media said on Monday.
The charred wreckage of the helicopter which crashed on Sunday carrying Raisi and Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian was found early on Monday after an overnight search in blizzard conditions.
“President Raisi, the foreign minister and all the passengers in the helicopter were killed in the crash,” a senior Iranian official told Reuters, asking not to be named because of the sensitivity of the matter.
Raisi’s death was later confirmed in a statement on social media by Vice President Mohsen Mansouri and on state television.
The crash comes as the Middle East remains unsettled by the Israel-Hamas war, during which Raisi under Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei launched an unprecedented drone-and-missile attack on Israel just last month. Under Raisi, Iran enriched uranium closer than ever to weapons-grade levels, further escalating tensions with the West as Tehran also supplied bomb-carrying drones to Russia for its war in Ukraine and armed militia groups across the region.
Meanwhile, Iran has faced years of mass protests against its Shiite theocracy over its ailing economy and women’s rights — making the moment that much more sensitive for Tehran and the future of the country.
Khamenei himself had urged the public to pray Sunday night.
“We hope that God the Almighty returns the dear president and his colleagues in full health to the arms of the nation,” Khamenei said, drawing an “amen” from the worshipers he was addressing.
However, the supreme leader also stressed the business of Iran’s government would continue no matter what. Under the Iranian constitution, Iran’s vice first president takes over if the president dies, with Khamenei’s assent, and a new presidential election would be called within 50 days.
First Vice President Mohammad Mokhber already had begun receiving calls from officials and foreign governments in Raisi’s absence, state media reported. An emergency meeting of Iran’s Cabinet was ongoing as state media made the announcement Monday morning.
Raisi, 63, a hard-liner who formerly led the country’s judiciary, was viewed as a protégé of Khamenei and some analysts had suggested he could replace the 85-year-old leader after Khamenei’s death or resignation.
With Raisi’s death, the only other person so far suggested has been Mojtaba Khameini, the 55-year-old son to the supreme leader. However, some have raised concerns over the position being taken only for the third time since 1979 to a family member, particularly after the Islamic Revolution overthrew the hereditary Pahlavi monarchy of the shah.
Raisi won Iran’s 2021 presidential election, a vote that saw the lowest turnout in the Islamic Republic’s history. Raisi is sanctioned by the U.S. in part over his involvement in the mass execution of thousands of political prisoners in 1988 at the end of the bloody Iran-Iraq war.
Under Raisi, Iran now enriches uranium at nearly weapons-grade levels and hampers international inspections. Iran has armed Russia in its war on Ukraine, as well as launched a massive drone-and-missile attack on Israel amid its war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. It also has continued arming proxy groups in the Mideast, like Yemen’s Houthi rebels and Lebanon’s Hezbollah.
Meanwhile, mass protests in the country have raged for years. The most recent involved the 2022 death of Mahsa Amini, a woman who had been earlier detained over allegedly not wearing a hijab, or headscarf, to the liking of authorities. The monthslong security crackdown that followed the demonstrations killed more than 500 people and saw over 22,000 detained.
In March, a United Nations investigative panel found that Iran was responsible for the “physical violence” that led to Amini’s death.
Raisi is the second Iranian president to die in office. In 1981, a bomb blast killed President Mohammad Ali Rajai in the chaotic days after the revolution.
Mathilde Panot and Rima Hassan summoned by the police, Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s press conferences cancelled, blocked universities where law enforcement intervene… Is freedom of expression threatened?
Since Hamas’ attack on Israel, the Paris prosecutor’s office has been the subject of 386 referrals for this offence included in the Criminal Code since 2014, and which, for example, has earned a CGT activist a few days ago to a one-year suspended prison sentence.
Willingness to silence or intimidate the defenders of the Palestinian cause?
Judicialization of political speech? French McCarthyism?
Many express their concern about the multiplication of these procedures and their consequences on freedom of expression.
Especially since these are added: the recent cancellation of a conference by Jean-Luc Mélenchon on Palestine, first by the University of Lille and then by the Prefecture of the North; and university occupations such as at Sciences Po or the Sorbonne, with sometimes evacuations, and again, the hindered possibility of serenely debating an eruptive subject.
Cannes, Transmania, New Caledonia, Trump, Transports in the UE, French far right, Socialist in Catalonia, Jimmy energy, crook, Tunisia, Des chiffres et de lettres,
Le journal du peintre 2 