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France faces challenges ahead of Paris Olympics

Macron has asked the ambitious 35-year-old to remain at his post “for the time being to ensure the stability of the country”, a statement from the presidency said…reports Asian Lite News

France was plunged into political turmoil on Monday three weeks before hosting the Olympics, while a call for strikes at Paris airports added fresh uncertainty to the already tense build up.

The run-up to the world’s biggest sporting event is usually fraught for host nations, but French President Emmanuel Macron added unexpected complexity last month by calling snap parliamentary elections.

A second round of voting for the National Assembly on Sunday delivered a hung parliament, making it hard to know who will be in key government positions when the Games open on July 26.

“Our country is facing an unprecedented political situation and is getting ready to host the world in a few weeks,” Prime Minister Gabriel Attal stressed on Sunday evening as he offered his resignation.

Macron has asked the ambitious 35-year-old to remain at his post “for the time being to ensure the stability of the country”, a statement from the presidency said.

It is unclear whether the head of state will seek to keep a caretaker government in place until the Paris Games close on August 11, but a left-wing alliance that topped Sunday’s vote is already pushing to name a candidate to replace Attal.

The fate of Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin, who has overseen security preparations for the Games, is also in the balance.

“What organisers worry about the most are things like delinquency and crime, and of course terrorism, as well as traffic conditions,” said Paul Dietschy, a history and sports professor at the Universite of Franche-Comte in France.

“The interior minister is the most important position.”

Darmanin said last week that if the far-right National Rally or hard-left France Unbowed party formed a government, then he would resign immediately.

“The Olympic Games have been very well-prepared. Everyone knows it and everyone welcomes it,” he said.

Elsewhere on Monday, unions representing workers at ADP, which runs the capital’s two main airports, said they had called for a strike next week to demand Olympics bonuses for all staff and a “massive” recruitment plan.

Paris’s airports will be the main gateway into France for foreign visitors to the Olympics, with up to 350,000 people expected to transit there daily, as well as most athletes and their equipment.

The strike on July 17 will occur just before athletes are set to arrive to take up residence in the newly built Olympic village in northern Paris.

ADP has built new temporary over-sized baggage terminal at Charles de Gaulle airport to handle specialised sports equipment such as kayaks and bikes.

Ahead of the 1998 football World Cup in France, the last time the country hosted such a major sporting event, pilots at national carrier Air France went on strike on the eve of kick-off along with taxi drivers and other transport workers.

Police, air traffic controllers, rubbish collectors, central government employees, metro and train drivers as well as firefighters have all made pay demands ahead of the Olympics, seeking to use the leverage.

Chief Olympics organiser Tony Estanguet has called for a “truce” between unions and employers during the competition.

“I want us to welcome the world in the best possible conditions and we don’t want to spoil the party,” he told French television in February.

Estanguet and the International Olympic Committee were both blindsided by Macron’s election gamble so close to the start of the Paris Games — as were most government ministers and voters.

The prospect of the far-right taking power was seen by many observers as a risk that would undermine France’s image — and the themes of diversity and openness stressed by Paris 2024.

Estanguet “must be feeling very happy since last night,” said David Roizen, an Olympics specialist at the left-leaning Jean-Jaures Foundation think-tank in Paris.

Paris 2024 figures have also sought to stress that senior civil servants with responsiblity for Games-related issues like security and transport will remain in place even if the cabinet changes.

The Games can count on “the continuity of the state”, the Paris organising committee said, adding they had worked “night and day in previous weeks to be ready.”

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9 July 2024
Macron rejects PM’s resignation

Germany’s Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck said he is “thoroughly relieved” after the far right failed to win an outright majority in the French National Assembly…reports Asian Lite News

France President Emmanuel Macron, whose centrist alliance came in the second place after the New Popular Front’s Left Wing coalition in the runoff to parliamentary elections, on Monday asked his Prime Minister Gabriel Attal to stay in his post for now, CNN reported citing a source from the Elysee presidential palace.

Attal posted a selfie on his X platform just before heading out to offer his resignation, which was rejected by Macron, “for the time being in order to ensure the country’s stability.”

Results from the elections showed New Popular Front emerging winner with 182 seats making it the largest group but well short of the 289 required for an absolute majority. Macron’s Ensemble alliance won 163 seats and took second place while Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally and its allies were relegated to third place with 143 seats.

Also, former French President Francois Hollande, who governed the country for one term from 2012 to 2017, has been elected as the member of the French parliament for Correze, which he represented in the 1980s and 1990s, CNN reported.

“Although the formation of a government will now be very complicated, I think it is very good how the center and center-left parties and the left spectrum have worked together to prevent France from drifting into nationalism and Europe from getting into even more difficult waters,” he said.

According to CNN, Macron is unable to call a new election for at least another year. With three more years left of his term, President Macron looks set to preside over an unruly parliament, as problems mount at home and abroad, the US media channel analysed.

The New Popular Front (NFP) a cluster of several parties including from the far-left France Unbowed party to the more moderate Socialists and the Ecologists — won 182 seats in the National Assembly, making it the largest group but well short of the 289 required for an absolute majority.

The results of the elections were welcomed by other leaders in Europe.

Germany’s Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck said he is “thoroughly relieved” after the far right failed to win an outright majority in the French National Assembly.

Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez hailed the victory. “This week, two of the largest countries in Europe have chosen the same path that Spain chose a year ago: rejection of the extreme right and a decisive commitment to a social left that addresses people’s problems with serious and brave policies,” Sanchez wrote in a post on X.

“The United Kingdom and France have said YES to progress and social advancement and NO to the regression in rights and freedoms. There is no agreement or government with the extreme right,” Sanchez said.

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni had earlier last week congratulated the National Rally’s performance in the first round.

Meanwhile, France’s left-wing leader Jean-Luc Melenchon has said that the Left is “ready to govern” after emerging as the largest political bloc in parliament. The New Popular Front (NFP) coalition is led by Melenchon and its allies. (ANI)

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9 July 2024
French Left trumps far Right with no majority

The political turmoil could rattle markets and the French economy, the EU’s second-largest, and have far-ranging implications for the war in Ukraine, global diplomacy and Europe’s economic stability…reports Asian Lite News

A coalition of the French left won the most seats in high-stakes legislative elections Sunday, beating back a far-right surge but failing to win a majority. The outcome left France, a pillar of the European Union and Olympic host country, facing the stunning prospect of a hung parliament and political paralysis.

The political turmoil could rattle markets and the French economy, the EU’s second-largest, and have far-ranging implications for the war in Ukraine, global diplomacy and Europe’s economic stability.

In calling the election on June 9, after the far right surged in French voting for the European Parliament, President Emmanuel Macron said turning to voters again would provide “clarification.”

On almost every level, that gamble appears to have backfired. According to the official results released early Monday, all three main blocs fell far short of the 289 seats needed to control the 577-seat National Assembly, the more powerful of France’s two legislative chambers.

The results showed just over 180 seats for the New Popular Front leftist coalition, which placed first, ahead of Macron’s centrist alliance, with more than 160 seats. Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally and its allies were restricted to third place, although their more than 140 seats were still way ahead of the party’s previous best showing — 89 seats in 2022.

“Our country is facing an unprecedented political situation and is preparing to welcome the world in a few weeks,” said Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, who plans to offer his resignation later in the day.

With the Paris Olympics looming, Attal said he was ready to stay at his post “as long as duty demands.” Macron has three years remaining on his presidential term.

Attal made clearer than ever his disapproval of Macron’s shock decision to call the election, saying “I didn’t choose this dissolution” of the outgoing National Assembly, where the president’s centrist alliance used to be single biggest group, albeit without an absolute majority. Still, it was able to govern for two years, pulling in lawmakers from other camps to fight off efforts to bring it down.

The new legislature appears shorn of such stability. When Macron flies to Washington for a summit this week of the NATO alliance, he will leave a country with no clear idea who may be its next prime minister and facing the prospect that the president may be obliged to share power with a politician deeply opposed to his policies.

Still, many rejoiced. In Paris’ Stalingrad square, supporters on the left cheered and applauded as projections showing the alliance ahead flashed up on a giant screen. Cries of joy also rang out in Republique plaza in eastern Paris, with people spontaneously hugging strangers and several minutes of nonstop applause after the projections landed.

Even before votes were cast, the election redrew France’s political map. It galvanized parties on the left to put differences aside and join together in the new leftist alliance. It pledges to roll back many of Macron’s headline reforms, embark on a massively costly program of public spending and take a far tougher line against Israel because of the war with Hamas.

Macron described the left’s coalition as “extreme” and warned that its economic program of many tens of billions of euros in public spending, partly financed by tax hikes for high earners and on wealth, could be ruinous for France, already criticized by EU watchdogs for its debt.

Yet, the New Popular Front’s leaders immediately pushed Macron to give the alliance the first chance to form a government and propose a prime minister.

The most prominent of the leftist coalition’s leaders, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, said it “is ready to govern.”

While the National Rally took more seats than ever, the anti-immigration party with historical links to antisemitism and racism fell far short of its hopes of securing an absolute majority that would have given France its first far-right government since World War II.

“Disappointed, disappointed,” said far-right supporter Luc Doumont, 66. “Well, happy to see our progression, because for the past few years we’ve been doing better.”

After the party finished top of the first-round vote last weekend, its rivals worked to dash its hopes of outright victory Sunday, by strategically withdrawing candidates from many districts. That left many far-right candidates in head-to-head contests against just one opponent, making it harder for them to win.

Many voters decided that keeping the far right from power was more important to them than anything else, backing its opponents in the runoff, even if they weren’t from the political camp they usually support.

Still, National Rally leader Le Pen, expected to make a fourth run for the French presidency in 2027, said the elections laid the groundwork for “the victory of tomorrow.”

“The reality is that our victory is only deferred,” she added. But Le Pen’s older sister, Marie-Caroline, was among her party’s losers Sunday, defeated by a leftist candidate and just 225 votes in her district.

Unlike other countries in Europe that are more accustomed to coalition governments, France doesn’t have a tradition of lawmakers from rival political camps coming together to form a majority. France is also more centralized than many other European countries, with many more decisions made in Paris.

The president was hoping that with France’s fate in their hands, voters might shift from the far right and left and return to mainstream parties closer to the center — where Macron found much of the support that won him the presidency in 2017 and again in 2022.

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8 July 2024
French PM urges united front to stop far-right takeover

London-based risk analysis firm Eurasia Group said the RN’s hopes of an absolute majority had been “blunted” by the front against the far right…reports Asian Lite News

France’s prime minister on Wednesday urged voters to form a united front to block the far right in legislative elections, warning that the anti-immigration party of Marine Le Pen was within reach of winning an absolute majority.

With four days to go until the second round in the vote, France’s political future remains up in the air as the far-right National Rally (RN) party seeks to take control of government for the first time.

The RN dominated the first round of voting, presenting the party of Le Pen with the prospect of forming a government and her protege Jordan Bardella, 28, taking the post of premier in a tense “cohabitation” with centrist President Emmanuel Macron.

But a poll by Toluna Harris Interactive published Wednesday forecast the RN winning just 190 to 220 seats in the 577-seat parliament, far less than the 289 needed for the far right to have an absolute majority and form a government on its own.

A left-wing alliance called the New Popular Front looked set to win between 159 and 183 seats, and the centrist presidential camp 110 to 135, it predicted.

The new polling forecast comes after more than 200 candidates from the left and the center this week dropped out of three-way races in the second round of the contest, aiming to prevent the RN winning the seats.

While the formation of this so-called “Republican Front” seems to have generally been a success for the government, the key question now is whether voters will respond to the pleas to block the RN.

“There is one bloc that is able to have an absolute majority and it’s the extreme right,” Prime Minister Gabriel Attal told France Inter radio.

“On Sunday evening, what’s at stake in the second round is to do everything so that the extreme right does not have an absolute majority,” he said.

“It’s not nice for many French to have to block (the RN)… by casting a vote they did not want to,” he added, but “it’s our responsibility to do this.”

In one extreme example of how the united front works, in a constituency in northern France the hard-left candidate pulled out to leave a straight contest between the far right and the tough-talking Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin — long a hated figure for some on the left.

Former prime minister Edouard Philippe, still an influential voice in the pro-Macron camp, told TF1 television he would be voting for a Communist candidate to stop the far right in his constituency.

Le Pen has said the RN would try to form a government, if it gets more than 270 seats, by winning over other lawmakers.

London-based risk analysis firm Eurasia Group said the RN’s hopes of an absolute majority had been “blunted” by the front against the far right.

But it added: “Sunday is an almost completely new election, with dynamics of its own. The turnout will be crucial.”

Janine Mossuz-Lavau, emeritus research director at the Cevipof institute in Paris, said that voters would “do what they liked” irrespective of the calls from politicians, and that turnout risked being lower than the 66.7 percent of the first round.

“There are those who will say ‘I will not choose between cholera and plague and I won’t vote’,” she said.

One option that is the subject of increasing media attention is the possibility that rather than a far-right government, France could be ruled by a broad coalition of pro-Macron centrists, the traditional right, Socialists and Greens.

Philippe said that after the election he would support a new parliamentary majority that could span “the conservative right to the social democrats” but not include the hard-left France Unbowed (LFI).

His comments were also echoed by Xavier Bertrand, a heavyweight right-winger who served as a minister under president Nicolas Sarkozy. He called for a “provisional government” focused on “rebuilding our country.”

Le Pen meanwhile denounced the tactical moves and talk of alliances.

“The political class is giving an increasingly grotesque image of itself,” she wrote on X.

After controversy over some of the RN’s candidates, including one who withdrew after a photo emerged of her wearing a Nazi Luftwaffe cap, Bardella acknowledged there could be some “black sheep” but insisted he was not worried.

Macron has kept his distance from the final phase of voting, which will reveal the outcome of his election gamble that baffled even close colleagues.

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4 July 2024
French far right eyes power after election win

With the French facing their most polarizing choices in recent history, turnout soared to 65%, way above the turnout in 2022 polls of just 47.5%…reports Asian Lite News

France’s far right was on Sunday eyeing a historic chance to form a government and claim the post of prime minister after winning the first round of legislative elections with the centrist forces of President Emmanuel Macron coming in only third.

But it remained unclear if the far-right National Rally (RN) party of Marine Le Pen would win the absolute majority of seats in the new National Assembly in the July 7 second round. That is what it would need to be certain of taking power and for Le Pen’s protege Jordan Bardella, 28, to become prime minister.

Macron had stunned the nation and baffled even some allies by calling snap polls after the RN trounced his centrist forces in European Parliament elections this month.

But that gamble risks backfiring, with Macron’s alliance now expected to win a far smaller minority contingent in parliament. That would make the president a far less powerful figure for the remaining three years of his term.

Projections from prominent French polling firms gave the RN 33.2-33.5 percent of the vote, compared to 28.1-28.5 percent for the left-wing New Popular Front alliance, and 21.0-22.1 percent for Macron’s centrist camp.

The polling agencies projected this would give the RN a majority of seats in the 577-seat National Assembly after the second round. But it was far from clear the party would garner the 289 seats needed for an absolute majority.

The projections varied sharply, with Ipsos forecasting 230-280 seats, Ifop 240-270 and Elabe the only organization to put it in the range of an absolute majority on 260-310 seats.

In a statement, Macron called for a “broad” alliance against the far right in the second round, which will see run-off votes where there was no outright winner in the first round.

The leftwing alliance and the president’s camp will be hoping that tactical voting to prevent RN candidates winning seats will leave it short of the absolute majority.

French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, who is likely to be forced to resign after the second round, warned the far right was now at the “gates of power.” The RN should not get a “single vote” in the second round, he said.

“We have seven days to spare France from catastrophe,” said Raphael Glucksmann, a key figure in the left-wing alliance.

With the French facing their most polarizing choices in recent history, turnout soared to 65 percent, way above the turnout in 2022 polls of just 47.5 percent.

Macron said the high turnout in the first round spoke of “the importance of this vote for all our compatriots and the desire to clarify the political situation.”

The arrival of anti-immigration and euroskeptic RN in government would be a turning point in French modern history and be the first time a far-right force has taken power in the country since World War II when it was occupied by Nazi Germany.

“Nothing is won and the second round is decisive,” Le Pen, who has long worked to distance the party from its extremist origins, told supporters.

“We need an absolute majority so that Jordan Bardella is in eight days named prime minister by Emmanuel Macron.”

Bardella said he wanted to be the “prime minister of all French.”

This would create a tense period of “cohabitation” with Macron, who has vowed to serve out his term until 2027.

Bardella has said he will only form a government if the RN wins an absolute majority in the elections.

The alternative is months of political paralysis and negotiations to find a solution for a sustainable government that can survive no-confidence votes.

Hard-left leader Jean-Luc Melenchon said Macron’s centrist alliance had suffered a “heavy and undisputable” defeat in the snap polls.

Risk analysis firm Eurasia Group said the RN now looked “likely” to fall short of an absolute majority. France was facing “at least 12 months with a rancorously blocked National Assembly and — at best — a technocratic government of ‘national unity’ with limited capacity to govern,” it added.

Macron’s decision to call the snap vote sparked uncertainty in Europe’s second-biggest economy. The Paris stock exchange suffered its biggest monthly decline in two years in June, dropping by 6.4 percent, according to figures released on Friday.

The turmoil also risks undermining Macron’s stature as an international leader taking a prime role in helping Ukraine fight the Russian invasion. In the immediate aftermath of the second round he is due to attend the NATO summit in Washington.

French daily Liberation urged voters to unite to halt the march of the far-right. “After the shock, form a block,” the newspaper said on its Monday front page.

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1 July 2024
Former French president says Macron ascendency ‘is over’

Re-elected in 2022 for a second five-year term, Macron lost his absolute majority in parliament in legislative polls the same year….reports Asian Lite News

French President Emmanuel Macron’s ascendancy is “over,” former head of state Francois Hollande said, after his former protege called a snap election likely to hand massive gains to the far right.

“I have no scores to settle at all. That’s all in the past,” Hollande said on the campaign trail in his native Correze department in central France, where he is standing to be an MP. Suffering at the time from abysmal poll ratings, Socialist Hollande did not himself stand for a second term at the 2017 election.

Running as a pro-business centrist, his former economy minister Macron pulled off a surprise win that shattered traditional governing parties on the left and the right.

Now just two years into the younger man’s second term, “Macronism is over, if indeed it ever existed. But it’s over, I say it with no special hostility,” Hollande said. “I don’t mean that his presidential term is coming to an end, that’s something different. But what he may have represented for a time is over,” he added.

Re-elected in 2022 for a second five-year term, Macron lost his absolute majority in parliament in legislative polls the same year.

His party has limped on in minority government, passing hard-fought and controversial reforms including raising the pension age and toughening immigration law.But a heavy defeat at June 9’s European Parliament election prompted Macron to dissolve parliament in hopes of breaking the deadlock. A new chamber will be elected on June 30 and July 7 with the far-right National Rally (RN) looking set to win the most seats.

France’s two-round electoral system makes predicting outcomes tricky, but it is highly unlikely that Macron’s gamble will pay off by winning a new majority. Instead, he could find himself presiding over a government run by an ideological opponent. Macron’s rule has “had a heavy political cost,” Hollande said.

“The parties were heavily damaged and public morale was too. The far right has never been so strong.” Hollande’s Socialist party has formed an electoral alliance with other left parties including Greens, Communists and hard-left France Unbowed (LFI). Their New Popular Front (NFP) is currently running second to the RN in the polls, both well ahead of Macron’s Renaissance outfit.

“It’s time for a political realignment,” Hollande said. “I didn’t plan to stand for any election in my position, something very serious had to happen” in the shape of the RN’s more than 31 percent in the European election, he added.

Some Socialist voters have struggled with the idea of backing an alliance with LFI and its fiery leader Jean-Luc Melenchon, with some party figures accused of anti-Semitism and a history of Euroskeptic statements. “I’m in the framework of an alliance because it has to be done, but there’s no kind of confusion” between his positions and Melenchon’s, Hollande said.

If elected, “I’ll be an MP who will call for responsibility whatever happens… vigilant and committed to finding solutions,” he added.

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23 June 2024
Macron urges French to make ‘right choice’ in election gamble

Analysts say the French leader has taken the extremely risky gamble of calling for snap polls in a bid to keep the far-right National Rally (RN) out of power when his second term ends in 2027…reports Asian Lite News

President Emmanuel Macron said Monday he was confident the French would make the “right choice” in snap elections he called after the far right inflicted a crushing defeat on his centrist alliance in EU elections.

His surprise move came after mainstream centrist parties kept an overall majority in the European Parliament in Sunday’s poll, but the far right notched up a string of high-profile victories in Italy, Austria and France.

In Germany, where the three ruling coalition parties also performed dismally, centre-left Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s spokesman on Monday ruled out a snap poll.

Analysts say the French leader has taken the extremely risky gamble of calling for snap polls in a bid to keep the far-right National Rally (RN) out of power when his second term ends in 2027.

“I am confident in the capacity of the French people to make the right choice for themselves and for future generations,” Macron wrote on X on Monday morning.

“My sole ambition is to be useful to our country that I love so much.”

Macron’s announcement of elections for a new National Assembly on June 30, with a second round on July 7 in France, has sparked widespread alarm, even from within the ranks of his own party.

“By playing with fire, the head of state could end up by burning himself and dragging the entire country into the fire,” Le Monde wrote in an editorial.

Lower house speaker Yael Braun-Pivet, a senior figure within Macron’s party, on Monday morning appeared to express some dissent, indicating that forming a coalition with other parties could have been a better “path”.

“The president believed that this path did not exist… I take note of the decision,” she told the France 2 television channel.

Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo, a Socialist, described the prospect of elections just weeks before the start of the Paris Olympics as “extremely unsettling”. But the International Olympic Committee chief Thomas Bach played down any direct impact on the event.

In a televised address late Sunday, Macron warned of the danger of “the rise of nationalists and demagogues” for France and its place in Europe.

Macron noted that, including the RN, far-right parties in France had managed to take almost 40 percent of the EU vote.

He hopes to win back the majority he lost in the lower house after winning a second term in 2022 legislative elections. But some fear the anti-immigration RN could instead win, forcing Macron to work in an uncomfortable coalition with a far-right prime minister.

RN vice-president Sebastien Chenu on Monday said the party’s 28-year-old leader Jordan Bardella would be its contender for the post. His mentor Marine Le Pen, who was runner-up in the last two presidential elections, has remained party leader in parliament and is largely expected to run again in 2027.

The far right scored big in France, Italy and Austria, and also came second in Germany and the Netherlands. The Kremlin, which hopes the far-right would have a softer line on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine, said it was “attentively observing” the gains.

“While pro-Europeans so far retain their leadership positions, in time, based on what we see, the right-wing parties will be treading on their heels,” spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists.

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11 June 2024
‘Europe No Longer A Continent Of Peace: Zelensky Tells French Parliament

The Ukrainian President said that “Russian regime does not see any limits, and even Europe is no longer enough.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday told the French parliament that Europe was a continent at war and that Russia would not stop its aggression at the borders of his country.
“We live in a time when Europe is no longer a continent of peace, unfortunately,” Zelensky said in an address to French lawmakers.
“Again, Europe’s cities are being destroyed, and villages are burned,” he said of Russia’s bombing of Ukraine. He also decried the abduction of Ukrainian children in occupied territories.
“This is against Ukraine now. But this can be aimed at other countries tomorrow, and we already see clearly the direction of the aggression – the Baltic countries, Poland, the Balkans,” he said.

“The Russian regime does not see any limits, and even Europe is no longer enough,” Zelensky said, pointing to Russian military actions in Syria and Moscow’s growing footprint in the Sahel region of Africa.
Zelensky said Russian President Vladimir Putin was also trying to “weaken” countries through food and energy insecurity.
He said the world has been too “afraid” to forcefully respond to Putin.

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8 June 2024
France to supply Mirage warplanes to Ukraine, says Macron

The French president also announced plans for Ukrainian pilots to be trained by France from the summer. A brigade of 4,500 Ukrainian soldiers would also be trained…reports Asian Lite News

French President Emmanuel Macron has promised Ukraine Mirage fighter jets, though he did not initially say how many.

In a television interview in the northern city of Caen on Thursday evening, Macron said a coalition with partners was in the process of being formed to provide Mirage 2000-5 fighter jets to the country defending itself from Russia.

The fighter jets should enable Ukraine to protect its soil and airspace, Macron told broadcasters TF1 and France 2.

The French president also announced plans for Ukrainian pilots to be trained by France from the summer. A brigade of 4,500 Ukrainian soldiers would also be trained.

When asked whether France would send military trainers to Ukraine, Macron answered evasively. Ukraine is asking for training in their country and this would not constitute an escalation of the war, he said.

“We are in the process of working with all our partners and will decide on the basis of a collective decision at this moment as a coalition,” Macron said. At the same time, the French president made it clear that training would not take place in the combat zone.

Macron had announced last week that he would comment on the issue of a possible deployment of French military trainers to Ukraine during the visit of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to France, saying he would make a “very precise statement at that time.”

Macron plans to welcome Zelensky to his official residence, the Élysée Palace in Paris, on Friday afternoon.

Production of the Mirage jets began in the early 1980s, followed by various versions of the aircraft. The Mirage 2000-5, the aircraft now to be delivered to Ukraine, was considered one of the best multi-role combat aircraft of the 1990s.

In future, Mirage jets are to be gradually replaced by the newer Rafale jets.

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7 June 2024
‘France, Germany, Poland facing Russian disinformation attacks’

Jourova pointed out the role of the Telegram messaging app in spreading disinformation, especially in countries like Slovakia, Bulgaria, and the Baltic states…reports Asian Lite News

France, Germany, and Poland have become continuous targets for Russian disinformation attacks ahead of the European Parliament elections, according to EU commissioner Vera Jourova.

The European Union has issued multiple warnings about potential Russian disinformation campaigns in the 27-member bloc leading up to the June 6-9 vote, AFP reported.

Jourova, the commissioner for values and transparency, highlighted the work of the European Digital Media Observatory in identifying these targeted attacks.

She noted that Russia tailors its propaganda to exploit specific national concerns: in France, the focus is on the upcoming Paris Olympic Games; in Germany, the narratives center on migration and security issues; and in Poland, disinformation has portrayed Ukrainian refugees as a burden, according to AFP report.

A recent example of such disinformation is a false report on the Polish state news agency claiming that Poles would be mobilized to fight in Ukraine, which authorities attributed to a likely Russian cyberattack.

Jourova emphasized that Russian propaganda is highly sophisticated, targeting countries based on their unique vulnerabilities.

Additionally, Jourova pointed out the role of the Telegram messaging app in spreading disinformation, especially in countries like Slovakia, Bulgaria, and the Baltic states.

elegram currently does not have to adhere to the stringent rules of the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA), which applies to platforms with at least 45 million monthly active users.

However, Telegram has reported having 42 million users, and the EU is closely monitoring this number.

Speaking to journalists in Brussels after a visit to the United States, where she met with executives from major tech companies like X and YouTube, Jourova called for heightened vigilance in the final days before the elections.

She reminded these companies of their obligations under the DSA to prevent the spread of disinformation.

Her comments coincided with a report from Microsoft’s Threat Analysis Center, which also noted an aggressive Russian disinformation campaign.

Microsoft President Brad Smith echoed Jourova’s concerns, highlighting the risk of deepfake technology being used by foreign governments to influence elections, it was reported.

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5 June 2024