Senegal’s prominent opposition leader, Ousmane Sonko, expressed concerns about potential “unimaginable chaos” if he is prevented from participating in the upcoming February elections.
These remarks came in response to President Macky Sall’s confirmation that he will not seek another term in office.
In a virtual interview with France 24, Sonko warned that if President Sall resorts to legal maneuvers to obstruct his candidacy, it would lead to a state of disorder and jeopardize the conduct of elections in the country.
Sonko, known for his outspoken and confrontational style, recently received a two-year prison sentence on charges of morally corrupting a young woman. This conviction renders him ineligible to run for office.
The ruling triggered significant unrest in Senegal, resulting in clashes that claimed the lives of 16 people, according to official figures, or around 30 people, as claimed by the opposition.
President Sall, who is nearing the end of his second term, announced on Monday in a nationwide address that he would not seek a controversial third term in the forthcoming election. Although some of Sall’s supporters argued that a 2016 constitutional revision reset the term limit to zero, the constitution states that a president cannot serve more than two terms.
In recent months, he had remained coy about a third term, stoking ambiguity exploited by the opposition.
On Thursday, Sonko said the president had made the decision not to run, “not because he is a democrat,” but because of “popular and international pressure.”
He said there is no reason to congratulate him for it.
Though he said those in power are determined to eliminate him from the presidential race, Sonko flagged that he was “ready to forgive” and even to “forget” if permitted to run.
Calling for free, transparent and inclusive elections, Sonko said he hoped Sall ended his term well “and that he and his family will be able to leave in peace.”
Additionally, Sonko mentioned that he is currently not in communication with President Sall.
Since May 28, a few days before the court’s ruling, security forces have maintained a blockade around Sonko’s residence in the capital city of Dakar, effectively confining him to his home.
Jordan Ayew, with no Ghana club experience, has spent most of his career in France and England.
However, the 31-year-old recently reached a significant milestone, scoring his 100th career goal in the recently concluded Premier League season.
Ayew has expressed delight to play in Ghana’s top-flight league and would readily embrace the opportunity.
“The Ghana Premier League is something that I have in mind. One day, I could play for a team in Accra because I base in Accra,” he told GTV Sports Plus.
Jordan Ayew has recently agreed to a contract extension with Crystal Palace, securing his presence at Selhurst Park for the 2023/24 season.
In the future, a potential move to the Premier League would allow him to join the ranks of players like Asamoah Gyan, Sulley Muntari, and Emmanuel Agyemang Badu, who have also embarked on a similar path.
Since the riots in France started a week ago, according to Zartoshte Bakhtiari, he hasn’t gotten more than three hours of sleep each night.
He works as the mayor of Neuilly-sur-Marne, which is located east of Paris in one of the poorest regions of France.
By night, he serves as an early warning system for police battling the riots there by patrolling the streets with a dozen staff members and municipal council members until 4:00 or 5:00.
He tells me, “Within days, we [were] in hell.”
On Tuesday, he’ll head to the Élysée Palace with more than 200 other mayors to discuss the crisis with French President Emmanuel Macron.
His request is for “more toughness” from the state, and permission for the local city police to use drones to monitor activity in the town.
“What’s happening now is the result of years of weakness from politicians, and decisions that have not been taken,” he says.
“It’s a problem of authority because these [rioters] don’t fear justice. [They] may go to court, but they come back home a few hours after trial simply because we don’t have enough places in jail in this district of Paris. We cannot support this kind of weakness from the state.”
Just outside his office in the town hall is the charred wall of the local city police station.
“They jumped over this wall at 1am with a jerrycan of petrol,” Mayor Bakhtiari explains, gesturing to the fleet of seven charred squad cars, their ashen skeletons lined up beneath the blackened façade.
But the building was shared with the public housing department, tasked with finding homes for 2,300 local people.
Inside, the office is a carbonised shell of melted plastic and ash. Not all the paper files were digitised. The details of many of those most desperate for housing here have been wiped from the records by the fire.
Image caption, Laurence Tendron Brunet says the records of many local people in desperate need for housing have been destroyed by fire
The head of the housing department, Laurence Tendron Brunet, stands among the burnt ruins in tears.
“I’m so sad,” she says. “We’re going to rebuild, we’re going to start again. But right now there are people who are so desperate for housing. I know about half of them – when they call, I recognise their voices. They’re not files, they’re human beings.”
Mayor Bakhtiari says the arsonists were caught on a video surveillance camera, and from the footage they appear to be teenagers, perhaps 14-16 years old.
“I find it hard to understand that it’s children who are destroying things,” Laurence says, “because at that age, your parents should be responsible for you.”
Round the back of the building, overlooking the car park with its fleet of charred police vehicles, we find a neighbour who filmed the fire on his mobile phone, and agreed to speak to us anonymously.
“Typical,” he says, when he hears about the suspected age of the arsonists. “Organised thugs launch kids of 11 or 13 into the event, telling them: ‘you’ll never go to prison, so go ahead.’ That’s the norm here; they send the young kids [to] the front line. It’s a gang tactic.”
Image caption, The riots across France were sparked by the fatal shooting by a police officer of 17-year-old Nahel M on 27 June
The worst-hit part of Neuilly-sur-Marne is an area called Les Fauvettes. The public library, shops and a supermarket have all been torched here. Les Fauvettes is also home to many of the rioters themselves.
Aicha, a 23-year-old teaching assistant, lives there too. She says she understands the initial anger that sparked the violence – even if she thinks it has since turned into looting and destruction.
“They’re fed up,” she says. “It always falls on the same people. If you’re black or Arab, a gun is pulled and shots fired without thinking. When it’s a white person, they think twice before shooting or even giving a fine.”
But back in his office at the town hall, Mayor Bakhtiari rejects accusations that there’s a problem with the French police.
“Absolutely not, I cannot hear that kind of argument,” he insists. “Maybe we have people in the police who are racist, but we cannot say the police [itself] is racist. The police behave very well here in France.”
But the actions of individual officers, like the one now facing a charge of voluntary homicide for shooting 17-year-old Nahel M. last week, are only half the story.
The other half is about the divisions these events expose within France.
A public collection for the family of that officer topped a million euros on Monday – dwarfing the amount collected for the family of Nahel.
The situation of unrest in France is showing signs of deescalation, following five days of intense riots triggered by the shooting of teenager Nahel M during a police traffic stop.
On Sunday night, the level of violence significantly decreased, resulting in fewer arrests being made.
Nevertheless, President Emmanuel Macron has instructed the interior ministry to maintain a “massive” police presence on the streets as a precautionary measure.
In response to the unrest, mayors have organized rallies outside town halls on Monday to express their opposition to the violence and looting.
In Nanterre, Nahel’s hometown, mayor Patrick Jarry said he was pleased the violence had subsided, but added that “we shouldn’t lose sight of the incident that sparked this situation and the continuing need for justice”.
The mayor of Reims, a city just over two hours away from Paris, told a crowd of several hundred people that the rioters had “looted the businesses that they visit every day”.
Although Sunday night showed a significant improvement in the level of unrest, authorities exercised caution in declaring a complete return to normalcy on Monday.
To ensure a continued restoration of order, bus and tram services in the Paris region will once again be suspended early on Monday evening. President Macron has instructed the interior ministry to maintain a “massive” police presence throughout France, aiming to guarantee a sustained period of calm.
Over the past three nights, approximately 45,000 officers have been deployed across the country to maintain security.
On Sunday night, the number of arrests decreased to over 150, compared to the previous night’s total of over 700.
There were 297 incidents of cars being set on fire, a significant reduction from Thursday’s count of 1,900. Additionally, 34 buildings were either damaged or set ablaze, a considerable decrease from the 500-plus incidents reported on Thursday.
In a press release shared on Sunday, an association of the country’s mayors noted that “communes everywhere in France are the scene of serious unrest, which targets republican symbols with extreme violence”.
In one act of violence, the home of a suburban Paris mayor was attacked, and rioters fired rockets at his fleeing wife and children, breaking her leg and injuring one of the children. The incident is being treated as attempted murder.
At the weekend, the family of Nahel, the teenager who was killed by police, called for the violence to end.
His grandmother accused rioters of using Nahel’s death as an excuse and urged them to stop destroying public goods.
Another relative told the BBC that the family did not want his death to spark riots, but insisted the law around lethal force at traffic stops must change.
She also said her “heart is in pain” about a GoFundMe page for the family of the police officer who shot Nahel, which as of Monday had raised more than €1m (£859,963), with over 50,000 donations.
The fundraiser, which was set up by a far-right media commentator, has been criticised by several politicians – but the platform told French newspaper Le Parisien that GoFundMe’s terms and conditions were not being broken because the funds are destined for the officer’s family and “not meant for the legal defence of an alleged violent crime”.
On Tuesday, President Macron will meet the mayors of 220 municipal areas that have been affected by the violence.
On Sunday, a 24-year-old fireman was killed while seeking to douse several cars which had been set alight in an underground car park in Seine-Saint-Denis, north of Paris, Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin said.
France has lost a 24-year-old firefighter during a sixth night of unrest.
The firefighter passed away on Sunday night while responding to a multiple-vehicle fire in an underground parking garage in Saint-Denis, according to Interior Minister Gerard Darmanin.
The 24-year-old Corporal-Chief of the Paris Fire Brigade passed away after receiving very quick care from his coworkers, according to his statement, which was translated from French on Twitter.
“All my heartfelt condolences to his family, friends, fellow soldiers, and the BSPP (Paris Fire Brigade).”
The number of people arrested yesterday dropped dramatically after the grandmother of a teenager shot by a police officer called for peace.
There have been riots across France following the shooting of 17-year-old Nahel Merzouk on Tuesday morning.
45,000 police officers have been deployed across Paris and other major cities, with curfews in place and the subway system closing early.
The number of arrests on Sunday has been revised up, from 78 to 150 – which is still a huge decrease compared to the 719 arrests on Saturday and 1,300 on Friday.
Yesterday Nahel’s grandmother Nadia spoke to French news channel BFM and said: ‘I want it to stop everywhere.
‘The people who are destroying, I tell them stop! Let them not destroy the schools, the buses.’
Speaking of the devastating impact of the past week on her family, Nadia said she is ‘tired’, adding: ‘It’s over, my daughter no longer has a life.’
The huge number of officers were once again deployed following the attack on the home of L’Hay-les-Roses mayor Vincent Jeanbrun in the early hours of Sunday morning.
Mr Jeanbrun described the attack as an ‘assassination attempt’, adding that his wife and one of his two children were injured after a burning car was driven into his house.
Skirmishes erupted in the Mediterranean city of Marseille on Sunday, but appeared less intense than the night before, according to the interior ministry.
President Emmanuel Macron chaired a special security meeting yesterday as the protests continued for a sixth day.
An official at the meeting said Mr Macron plans to meet with the leaders of both houses of parliament today, followed by discussions with mayors in the 220 towns and cities affected by the protests.
He also wants to start a detailed, longer-term assessment of the reasons that led to the unrest – which exposed deep-seated discontent in low-income neighbourhoods.
Mr Macron delayed the start of the first state visit to Germany in 23 years due to the ongoing violence.
Following an appeal for peace from the grandmother of a teenager who was shot by a police officer, the number of persons arrested in France on Sunday sharply decreased.
After Nahel Merzouk, 17, was shot on Tuesday morning, there have been riots all throughout France.
There are curfews in effect, the underground system closes early, and there are 45,000 police officers stationed throughout Paris and other large cities.
Yesterday Nahel’s grandmother Nadia spoke to French news channel BFM and said: ‘I want it to stop everywhere.
‘The people who are destroying, I tell them stop! Let them not destroy the schools, the buses.’
Speaking of the devastating impact of the past week on her family, Nadia said she is ‘tired’, adding: ‘It’s over, my daughter no longer has a life.’
It seems Nadia’s plea had the desired effect, as there were only 78 arrests across France on Sunday in relation to rioting – a huge decrease compared to the 719 arrests on Saturday and 1,300 on Friday.
The huge number of officers were once again deployed following the attack on the home of L’Hay-les-Roses mayor Vincent Jeanbrun in the early hours of Sunday morning.
Mr Jeanbrun described the attack as an ‘assassination attempt’, adding that his wife and one of his two children were injured after a burning car was driven into his house.
Skirmishes erupted in the Mediterranean city of Marseille on Sunday, but appeared less intense than the night before, according to the interior ministry.
President Emmanuel Macron chaired a special security meeting yesterday as the protests continued for a sixth day.
An official at the meeting said Mr Macron plans to meet with the leaders of both houses of parliament today, followed by discussions with mayors in the 220 towns and cities affected by the protests.
He also wants to start a detailed, longer-term assessment of the reasons that led to the unrest – which exposed deep-seated discontent in low-income neighbourhoods.
Mr Macron delayed the start of the first state visit to Germany in 23 years due to the ongoing violence.
Kylian Mbappe has made a plea for calm to be restored in France following several days of violent protests that erupted after the fatal shooting of a 17-year-old by a police officer.
The incident occurred during a traffic stop in Nanterre on Tuesday, leading to widespread unrest throughout the country.
According to BBC News, consecutive nights of riots ensued, resulting in acts of vandalism and looting of businesses in various cities, including Paris, Nice, Strasbourg, and Marseille.
Law enforcement authorities arrested numerous protesters, and some semblance of calm began to return on Saturday evening.
The police officer involved in the shooting has been taken into custody while awaiting official charges.Mbappe, as one of the most prominent French athletes, has spoken out against the killing but also called for an end to the violence and destruction caused by the rioters.
Mbappe’s message after Nahel’s death
The Paris Saint-Germain attacker, who was recently appointed as the national team’s captain, took to his Twitter account and said;
“Like all French people, we were marked and shocked by the brutal death of young Nahel. Firstly, our thoughts go out to him and his family, to whom we extend our sincere condolences.
Obviously, we cannot remain insensitive to the circumstances in which this unacceptable death has taken place.
Since this tragic event, we have been witnessing the expression of popular anger whose essence we understand but whose form we cannot endorse.
With many of us coming from working-class neighbourhoods, these feelings of pain and sadness, we also share them.
But to this suffering is added that of assisting the powerless to a real process of self-destruction.
Violence solves nothing, even less when it inevitably and tirelessly turns against those who express it, their families, loved ones and neighbours.
The time of violence must end to make way for that of mourning, dialogue and reconstruction.”
The protests led to the country’s President Emmanuel Macron postponing a scheduled trip to Germany, as reported by the Politico.
As the demonstrations against Nahel Merzouk‘s killing began to die down, there were fewer arrests made yesterday night in France.
In contrast to the 1,300 arrests made on Friday, there were 719 made on Saturday night when large crowds had assembled for the funeral of Nahel, a 17-year-old.
The heaviest of the nocturnal battles occurred in Marseille, a city in southern France. However, in the Paris suburb of L’Ha-les-Roses, assailants struck the residence of the city mayor, injuring his wife as she fled with their two children.
Video shared online shows police using tear gas against people on La Canebière, Marseille’s main avenue, while large numbers of police were seen along the Champs-Élysées in Paris.
Yesterday President Emmanuel Macron to cancel what would have been the first state visit by a French president to Germany in 23 years.
45,000 officers as well as armoured vehicles were deployed on both Friday and Saturday night to tackle the crisis – the worst in Macron’s leadership since the ‘Yellow Vest’ protests which paralysed the country in 2018.
Local authorities all over the country announced bans on demonstrations and ordered public transport to stop running in the evening.
Nahel, a 17-year-old of Algerian and Moroccan descent, was shot by a police officer during a traffic stop on Tuesday in the Paris suburb of Nanterre.
Several hundred people lined the streets for his funeral at Nanterre’s grand mosque, which was guarded by volunteers in yellow vests, while a few dozen bystanders watched from across the street.
Marie, 60, said she had lived in Nanterre for 50 years and there had always been problems with the police. ‘This absolutely needs to stop. The government is completely disconnected from our reality,’ she said.
The shooting of the teenager, caught on video, has reignited longstanding complaints by poor and racially mixed urban communities of police violence and racism.
In France‘s fourth night of unrest brought on by the fatal police shooting of a youngster, young rioters battled with police and looted stores.
The incidents put President Emmanuel Macron under even more pressure after he pleaded with parents to keep their kids off the streets and accused social media of inciting violence.
In order to put an end to the protests, more than 45,000 police officers were stationed around France. While the atmosphere appeared to be slightly calmer than on previous evenings, unrest erupted in various towns throughout the nation.
The ministry of the interior reported 994 arrests were made throughout France overnight, while 79 police and gendarmes were injured, 2,560 fires on public roads were recorded.
Demonstrations in Marseille and Lyon were said to be particularly chaotic, with protesters torching buildings and vehicles and looting nearby stores.
The average age of those arrested is said to be around 17, according to interior minister Gerard Darmanin.
Violence has also erupted in Brussels, which saw 100 arrests last night, and in some of France’s territories overseas.
Some 150 police officers were deployed on Friday night on the small Indian Ocean island of Reunion, authorities said, after protesters set garbage bins ablaze, threw projectiles at police and damaged cars and buildings.
In French Guiana, a 54-year-old was killed by a stray bullet on Thursday night when rioters fired at police in the capital, Cayenne, authorities said.
The UK Foreign Office has updated its travel advice for Brits travelling to France in the wake of the protests.
The Foreign Office urges travellers to ‘monitor the media, avoid protests, check the latest advice with operators when travelling and follow the advice of the authorities’.
Demonstrations first broke out on Tuesday after a 17-year-old boy named only as Nahel M was shot dead during a traffic stop in the suburb of Nanterre.
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French president Emmanuel Macron has cancelled a trip to Germany to meet with Chancellor Olaf Scholz in order to deal with the ongoing situation at home.
‘Given the internal situation, the President of the Republic has indicated that he wishes to be able to stay in France for the next few days. The two presidents have therefore agreed to postpone the visit to Germany to a later date,’ local media reports.
On Friday, Macron was forced to return early from a European Council summit in Brussels in order to chair a crisis meeting in Paris.
Earlier this week, the president drew heavy criticism after he was spotted partying at an Elton John concert while the night’s riots were in full swing.
A gun shop in Marseille was looted last night, French media reports.
30 young people reportedly broke into the store and stole ‘five to eight’ hunting rifles but did not take any ammunition.
One person was later found carrying a firearm and apprehended, authorities confirmed.
A banner reading ‘Justice for Nahel’ has been spotted along the race route at the start of the 1st stage of the 110th edition of the Tour de France, which kicks off in Bilbao, Spain today.
Organisers say they are ready to adapt to any situation when the three-week cycling race enters France on Monday.
The 2,115-mile race finishes in Paris on Sunday, 23 July.
Authorities in Marseille have announced that transport will stopped at 7pm local time in an effort to curb further unrest around the city.
Public events have also been cancelled or postponed, including the city’s Pride festival that was due to take place later today.
‘The police prefecture preferred to disengage from the security system to carry out other missions’, the organizers explained in a press release.
The funeral procession for Nahel M has officially begun.
Although his family wish to have a private service and have requested journalists stay away, people are already flocking to the funeral home to pay their respects
Although no public gatherings are planned to coincide with the funeral, spontaneous ones might occur.
A group of around 30 young men who stood guard at the entrance to the funeral parlour in Nanterre, asked people not to take pictures, a Reuters witness said.
‘We aren’t part of the family and didn’t know Nahel but we were very moved by what has happened in our town. So we wanted to express our condolences,’ one man among the mourners, who declined to give his name, told Reuters.
‘If you have the wrong skin colour, the police are much more dangerous to you,’ said a young man, who also declined to be named, adding that he was a friend of Nahel’s.
In Lille, five adults and a minor have been arrested in connection with an attack on the town hall, which was partly set on fire overnight from Wednesday to Thursday.
The suspects, all male, were arrested at dawn on Saturday, Lille prosecutor Carole Etienne told AFP .
266 buildings, public and private, were damaged overnight, including 26 town halls, 24 schools and 5 justice establishments, French publication Ouest France reports.
The funeral of Nahel, the boy whose death sparked the current unrest after he was killed on Tuesday,, is set to take place early this afternoon.
It will take place in Nanterre, a suburb western Paris where the teenager was from, and will begin with a visitation, followed by a mosque ceremony and then burial, Associated Press reports.
Nahel’s family have urged journalists not to come to the funeral and appealed for calm.
The interior ministry has now confirmed that 1311 people were arrested across France last night.
French footballer Kylian Mbappé has called for an end to the ‘time of violence’ in a message on Twitter posted last night.
‘Violence solves nothing, especially when it inevitably turns against those who are expressing it,’ Mbappe posted on his Instagram story.
The PSG star also called for ‘peaceful and constructive’ protests.
Mbappe’s statement, apparently speaking on behalf of the France team, added: ‘Like all French people we were marked and shocked by the death of young Nahel.’
He added that the France players, many of whom come from working-class neighbourhoods like Nahel, share ‘the feelings of sadness and pain’ whicch have gripped the nation.
Despite the violence, interior minister Gerald Darmanin said last night’s riots were ‘calmer’ than those which had rocked the country in previous nights this week.
Mr Darmanin declared ‘it’s the republic that will win, not the rioters’ as he reported a ‘less intense’ evening in Paris but denounced ‘unacceptable violence in Lyon and Marseille’, which saw many arrests.
The minister also lamented the young age of many rioters, saying ’13-, 14-year-old kids … who obviously had better be at home rather than hanging out in the streets’.
He added that the government is ready to further increase its position of strength if ever things were to deteriorate, which was not the case last night.
Lyon and Grenoble were both subject to widespread looting last night, with a partial report stating 58 and 28 people were arrested in the two respective cities.
Violence was also reported in the Grenoble suburb of Echirolles.
Clashes between police and rioters reportedly continued late into the night, with gangs of young people often moving around or on scooters and firing dozens of mortars towards the police, who responded with tear gas canisters
Several vehicles were set on fire in the Parisian suburb of Nanterre, where 17-year-old Nahel lived and was shot by police this week, triggering the riots.
Nahel’s funeral will take place later today.
The mayor of Nanterre, Patrick Jarry, said there was ‘great sadness and indignation’ at his death.
‘Today, the demand for justice dominates. The thousands of people who have expressed their anger want to be sure that justice will be done fairly,’ Mr Jarry told French outlet Le Monde.
‘We are faced with a particularly dramatic episode, a very difficult moment, which will force us to reflect on the conditions of intervention by the police… such as those which intervened on Tuesday morning by making use of their weapons against a teenager, in total violation of all legal provisions,’ he added.
The left-winger and former French Communist Party member also said ‘we must continue to surround’ Nahel’s mother.
France’s second-biggest city Marseille saw some of the most intense of last night’s action, with protestors and police attacking eachother with fireworks and tear-gas and a number of vehicles being torched.
88 people were arrested in the mediterrenean city and the Minister of the Interior has decided to send reinforcements, including a surveillance plane.
A major fire ‘linked to the riots’ also broke out in a supermarket, according to a police source.
‘In Marseille, the scenes of looting and rioting are unacceptable,’ city mayor Benoit Payan tweeted, calling on the state to send additional law enforcement.
Good morning and welcome to our fourth day of coverage of the rioting in Paris following the fatal shooting of a 17-year-old boy by police. Here is a summary of the night’s events:
Nearly 1000 people were arrested and 80 officers injured following a fourth night of unrest throughout France, although officials claim the situation was calmer than previous nights this week.
45,000 police officers were deployed across the country to clamp down on protestors, with demonstrations in Marseille and Lyon being reported as particularly chaotic.
The riots have spilled over into Belgium and France’s iversea territories, with local media reporting 100 arrests in Brussels and demonstrations in French Guinea.
The government has called on regional authorities to shut down overnight bus and tram services nationwide.
Former coach of Eritrean cyclist Biniam Girmay, Jean-Jacques Henry, has said that Girmay has the potential to promote cycling across every single country in Africa.
Girmay, who made history as the first black African to win a stage in a Grand Tour during the Giro d’Italia last year, has continued to achieve success in his cycling career. In June, he secured a victory in the second stage of the Tour de Suisse.
As an official of the International Cycling Union (UCI), Jean-Jacques Henry, who previously coached Girmay when he first arrived in Europe, holds the belief that further accomplishments await Girmay at the upcoming Tour de France, which is scheduled to begin on July 1st in Bilbao.
“The general classification, I don’t think he can (win) but he has a chance to win a stage,” Henry told BBC World Service.
“The Tour de France will be an even bigger event and he’ll bring (a win) to every single country in Africa.
“He is already very popular everywhere in Africa. All the people who love cycling will watch the tour and, if he wins, I think all Africans people will be proud.”
Giro d’Italia to Tour de France
Girmay, racing for Team Intermarche, beat Dutchman Mathieu van der Poel in a sprint for the line to win stage 10 of the Giro d’Italia – the victory providing an iconic image.
The fact it was his debut year on the Grand Tour increased the magnitude of the achievement.
Indeed foreshadowing the moment, Girmay said that winning a tour stage would be one of cycling’s “best moments”.
“I think he’s opening a lot of people’s eyes,” Maude le Roux, 26, told the BBC. The South African along with Ethiopian, Selam Amha Gerefiel, is part of the UCI’s World Cycling Centre (WCC) team in Aigle, Switzerland, where Girmay first rode in Europe.
“There are cyclists in Africa that need help to come to Europe. Cycling is not just a European sport and, being a rider from Africa, it’s hard to come into Europe.
“Binyam is shedding some light on that. The teams are starting to look for riders in Africa, which is amazing.
“Just the fact that he was on this team, obviously now we have a woman’s team, but that he was in the centre – I think I speak for me and Salaam saying that gives us hope for the future that we can make it and we’re here for a reason.”
Gerefiel, 26, added: “He’s a teacher for us so I’m looking to be better and work hard like him. For me he is a model.”
Girmay became the first black African to win a stage of the Grand Tour when he claimed victory at the Giro de Italia in 2022
Cycling’s World Championships will be held in Africa for the first time in 2025 in Kigali, Rwanda.
Both the east African event in two years and Giray’s prominence mark the rise of the sport on the continent.
“Cycling is Eritrea’s number one sport,” Henry continued. “They have the same potential as Kenyans who are champions in athletics.
“If you transfer this potential – endurance potential on the bicycle – they can be the best in the world.”
So what of the man that Henry coached who would go on to put Eritea and African cycling on the map.
Would he feel the weight of a continent on his shoulders?
“When he was with us he was not stressed at all – quite shy – but the good thing is that he was happy with everybody. Just enjoying life – smiling all the time to everybody,” Henry said.
“This is something very important for high level athletes just to enjoy life and without any stress.
“Many riders are stressed by the results, by not having the right performance at the right moment – not achieving the goals. But for him – he didn’t have that kind of choice.”
Pastries and cobblestones
Among the choices that Girmay did have related to adapting to life in Europe and the new training regimes.
“He was a junior in 2018 when he came here for the first time,” Henry said. “We had him in July, August and September, to prepare for the World Championship in Innsbruck. It was too cold for him. It was 4 July – it was warm – but it was too cold for him.
“So it was quite tough to prepare him because we had to change a lot of things, his lifestyle, his routines. You can eat just vegetables or pastries and ‘OK, it’s good’ but you need to have a great balance between these kinds of foods with some carbohydrates or with some proteins.”
The next challenge for Girmay was the surfaces in Europe, something he would eventually overcome when wining the 78th edition of the Gent-Wevelgem one-day classic on the famous cobbled streets of Belgium.
“He didn’t like the cobblestones,” said Henry. “He always told us: ‘I don’t like that. I don’t want to race on cobblestones.’ Now he can win those races in the world tour.
“Now he has changed his mind. he enjoyed it. To win these kinds of races, you have to enjoy those cobblestone sections.”
Girmay claimed the second stage of June’s Tour de Suisse – this after recovering from a horror crash at the Tour of Flanders which wiped out most of the peloton.
Henry still keeps a close eye on his protege, who he says is a “special rider and sprinter” but is “not a pure climber, he will not be so efficient in big mountains”.
Beyond the rider, however, Henry believes Girmay’s impact on the sport is only just at the start line.
“After his career he can be someone who can help to develop cycling in Africa and in Eritrea, and give his experience.
“He can turn into a symbol, as African athletes can succeed in Europe and in the best races in the world.”
France is bracing for another night of violence after riots erupted in several cities following the fatal shooting of a 17-year-old boy by police in Nanterre, a suburb of Paris.
The boy, identified as Nahel M, was killed on Tuesday morning when he was stopped by two traffic officers in a Mercedes car. According to police, he tried to drive away and hit one of the officers, who then fired at him in self-defence. Nahel died from a gunshot wound to the chest.
His death sparked outrage and grief among his family, friends and community, who accused the police of racism and brutality. Nahel was of North African descent and had Algerian and Moroccan roots. He was an only child raised by his mother Mounia, who described him as her life and best friend. He was working as a takeaway delivery driver and played rugby league as part of an integration programme for teenagers struggling in school.
On Thursday, thousands of people joined a silent march in his honour in Nanterre, where he grew up. His mother led the procession, holding a banner that read “Justice for Nahel”.
Mother mourns Nahel’s killing at a protest in Nanterre, France. The incident, caught on video, amplifies tensions between youth and police in marginalized areas. (Source: AP/MICHEL EULER)
From the bustling streets of Lille in the north to the vibrant city of Marseille in the south, the country witnessed another harrowing night of chaos and destruction. Public buildings, shops, and vehicles fell victim to a wave of attacks that left communities reeling.
In Roubaix, a city fraught with tension, reports emerged of a bed-and-breakfast hotel engulfed in flames, forcing terrified residents to flee onto the streets, seeking refuge from the inferno that consumed their temporary sanctuary.
However, it is the Paris region that once again bore the brunt of the turmoil. Disturbing scenes unfolded in Nanterre and surrounding suburbs as groups clashed fiercely with law enforcement, engulfing the streets in an unsettling air of confrontation and volatility. Startling reports from the scene indicate that some rioters resorted to using homemade grenades, amplifying the threat to public safety and highlighting the gravity of the situation.
Mourners march in tribute to Nahel, a teenager slain by French police during a traffic stop in Nanterre, France. Slogan: ‘Police kill’ [Source: Sarah Meyssonnier/Reuters]
Just hours before this eruption of violence, thousands had gathered for a peaceful march in Nanterre, commemorating the tragic loss of Nahel. The untimely demise of this young individual has resonated deeply within the hearts of many, serving as a catalyst for outrage and discontent towards the police, politicians, and the state itself.
France’s leaders are acutely aware of the potential consequences that Nahel’s death may have on the nation. Fear looms large as they grapple with the ominous prospect of a broader rebellion, one that could jeopardize the delicate balance between the people and those entrusted with their protection.
Despite concerted efforts to quell the unrest, deploying elite police units and bolstering officer numbers, the government’s grasp on the situation remains tenuous. The nation awaits a sense of stability and reassurance, yearning for a resolution that will restore peace to the streets and heal the wounds of a fractured society.
As the sun sets on yet another tumultuous day, the future of France hangs in the balance, uncertain and unsettled. It is a pivotal moment that will test the resolve and resilience of the nation, demanding decisive action and effective measures to regain control. Only time will tell if the authorities can rise to the challenge and bring an end to this troubling chapter in France’s history.
The mother of a 17-year-old who was slain by French police claimed that she solely holds the officer responsible for her son’s death accountable. This tragedy has caused three nights of violent unrest and reignited a contentious discussion about prejudice and policing in low-income, multiethnic areas.
Tuesday morning during a traffic stop in the Nanterre neighbourhood of Paris, the kid, Nahel, was fatally shot. Two officers were standing on the driver’s side of the vehicle, according to bystander video of the incident, and one of them discharged his gun at the driver even though he didn’t appear to be in immediate danger.
According to Nanterre prosecutor, the officer said that he shot his weapon out of concern that the youngster would run someone over with the vehicle.
“I don’t blame the police, I blame one person, the one who took my son’s life,” Nahel’s mother, Mounia, told television station France 5 in an on-camera interview.
Prache said that it is believed the officer acted illegally in using his weapon. He is currently facing a formal investigation for voluntary homicide and has been placed in preliminary detention, CNN affiliate BFMTV reported Thursday.
Despite calls from top officials for patience to allow time for the justice system to run its course, a sizable number of people across France remain shocked and angry, especially young men and women of color who have been victims of discrimination by police.
That anger has, for three nights in a row, given way to violent protests across the nation.
Ahead of an expected night of unrest, France deployed nearly 40,000 officers Thursday and sent its elite police force, the RAID, to the cities of Bordeaux, Lyon, Roubaix, Marseille and Lille to help contain the protests, which saw 667 people arrested across the country, Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said Friday morning. The Interior Ministry said 249 police officers and gendarmes were injured.
Confrontations flared between protesters and police in Nanterre, where a bank was set on fire and graffiti saying “vengeance pour Nael” (using an alternative spelling of his name) was spray painted on a wall nearby, according to footage from the suburb.
A mall in central Paris was also damaged, while several other suburbs were rocked by violence, including Montreuil and Aubervilliers, where 12 city buses were charred in a parking lot.
Protesters threw fireworks at police officers in Marseille, according to CNN affiliate BFMTV, while footage from the northern city of Lille showed fires burning on streets and riot police officers running. Six people were taken in for questioning after participating in a protest banned by authorities in Lille, the regional authority said in a Facebook post.
The violence has prompted President Emmanuel Macron to hold a crisis meeting the second day in a row, BFMTV reported, as his government tries to avoid a repeat of 2005. The deaths of two teenage boys hiding from police that year sparked three weeks of rioting and prompted the government to call a state of emergency.
Continued unrest would be a major blow to the government’s agenda. Macron and his ministers have spent much of the year dealing with the fallout of pushing through extremely unpopular pension reforms that were divisive enough that the government felt it necessary to launch a 100-day plan to heal and unite the country.
That deadline is up on July 14, France’s national day.
If Macron’s government is to address allegations of institutional racism in response to Nahel’s death, it will be a tough balancing act.
Race and discrimination are always tricky political issues, but in France they are particularly challenging due to the country’s unique brand of secularism, which seeks to ensure equality for all by removing markers of difference, rendering all citizens French first.
In practice, however, that vigorous adherence to French Republicanism often prevents the government from doing anything that would appear to differentiate French citizens on the basis of race, including collecting statistics.
Mounia, like other activists, believes her son’s race was a factor in his killing. French media have reported that Nahel was of Algerian descent, and the country’s Foreign Ministry on Thursday issued a statement extending its condolences to Nahel’s family.
“He saw an Arab face, a little kid, and wanted to take his life,” she said, referring to the police officer who fired their weapon.
“Killing youngsters like this, how long is this going to last?” she added. “How many mothers are going to be like me? What are they waiting for?”
While the government’s approach has so far been cautious, left-wing politicians and some activists have called for police reform, including abolishing a 2017 law that allowed police greater leeway in when they can use firearms.
Laurent-Franck Lienard, the lawyer of the officer accused of shooting Nahel, told French radio station RTL that his client acted in “compliance of the law.” He claimed his client’s prosecution was “political” and being used as a way to calm the violent tensions.
He added that his client was “devastated” by Nahel’s death and he did not want to kill him.
“He committed an act in a second, in a fraction of a second. Perhaps he made a mistake, justice will tell,” Lienard said.
On Thursday, more than 400 people were detained across France as a wave of protests swept the nation for a third night in response to the deadly police shooting of a teenage boy that was seen on camera.
The RAID, France’s top-tier police squad, was sent to Bordeaux, Lyon, Roubaix, Marseille, and Lille to assist in controlling the demonstrations.
Amid burning debris, “vengeance pour Nael” appeared to be spray painted on a wall in Nanterre, which translates to “revenge for Nael” in reference to the slain teenager and using an alternative spelling of his name, according to footage from the suburb.
A bank was set on fire in Nanterre, according to photographs from the scene, and 15 people have been taken in for questioning by police after a march held in memory of the teenager turned violent.
Protesters threw fireworks at police officers in Marseille, according to CNN affiliate BFMTV, while footage from the northern city of Lille showed fires burning on streets and running riot police officers. Six people were taken in for questioning after participating in a protest banned by authorities in Lille, the regional authority said in a Facebook post.
At least 421 people were arrested in the protests across France from Thursday night into Friday morning, French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin told BFMTV.
More than half of those arrests took place in the Paris region, in the departments of Hauts-de-Seine, Seine-Saint-Denis and Val-de-Marne, BFMTV reported, citing Paris police.
Earlier, Darmanin said police were instructed to “intervene systematically” and expressed support for the police officers and firefighters who “are doing a courageous job.”
President Emmanuel Macron will hold a crisis meeting Friday for the second day in a row following Thursday night’s violence, BFMTV reported.
Authorities had hoped to avoid a repeat of the scenes that played out Wednesday night, when police stations, town halls and schools were set alight in various cities and about 150 people were arrested. The Interior Ministry earlier said it planned on deploying 40,000 police officers across the country Thursday – including 5,000 in Paris – to quell any potential unrest.
The unrest broke out Tuesday, hours after a police traffic stop in Nanterre resulted in the killing of Nahel. Over the course of a chaotic night, 40 cars were burned and 24 police officers injured, French authorities claimed. The police officer was put under formal investigation for voluntary homicide and placed in preliminary detention, BFMTV reported Thursday.
On Thursday, an estimated 6,000 people, according to BFMTV, joined a march to honor Nahel led by his mother in Nanterre.
Many wore shirts emblazoned with “justice for Nahel,” while others shouted the slogan. Some were seen holding signs saying “the police kill.” A lawyer for the family on Thursday confirmed the spelling of the boy’s name as Nahel; he was initially identified as Naël.
Buses and tramways in Lille shut down after 8 p.m. local time, according to BFMTV, and a couple of Parisian suburbs have installed curfews.
Bus and tram services were also suspended in the Île-de-France region, which includes Paris, from Thursday night, the local transport authority said. Government ministers were asked to postpone non-urgent travel and remain in Paris due to the protests, a government source told CNN on Thursday, speaking on condition of anonymity citing French professional norms.
The violent scenes seen over the past two days have raised concerns that Nahel’s death could lead to a level of unrest and rioting not seen since 2005, when the deaths of two teenage boys hiding from police sparked three weeks of rioting and prompted the government to call a state of emergency.
The video of Nahel’s killing has sparked a similar level of shock and anger across France, touching a particular nerve among young men and women of color who feel that they have been discriminated against by police. A 2017 study by the Rights Defenders, an independent human rights watchdog in France, found that young men perceived to be Black or Arab were 20 times more likely to be stopped by police than their peers.
Many of these individuals are simply “tired,” journalist and racial equality activist Rokhaya Diallo told CNN.
“People know and have been speaking about police brutality and have not been heard,” she said.
The Algerian Foreign Ministry on Thursday extended its condolences to Nahel’s family, saying in a statement their “grief and sorrow are widely shared in our country” and that it will “closely follow the developments of this tragic case.”
The ministry said it trusts the French government to “carry out their duty to protect, assure peace of mind and security which Algerian nationals are entitled to in their host country.”
French media have reported that the teenager was of Algerian descent.
Video of the shooting in Nanterre surfaced on social media shortly after the incident took place Tuesday morning. The clip shows two police officers standing on the driver’s side of a yellow Mercedes AMG, one near the door and another near the left front fender. As the car attempts to drive away, one officer is seen firing his sidearm.
The bullet that hit Nahel pierced his arm and chest. After fleeing the scene, the car crashed into a stationary object at a nearby plaza. Nahel was in the car with two others at the time of the incident. One passenger in the vehicle was taken into custody and later released, while another, who is believed to have fled the scene, is missing, authorities said.
The local Nanterre prosecutor, Pascal Prache, said Thursday that the officers testified both drew their weapons and pointed them at the driver to dissuade him from restarting the engine. The officer who fired his weapon said, according to the prosecutor, that he was scared the boy would run someone over with the car. However, Prache said it is believed the officer accused of shooting and killing Nahel may have acted illegally in doing so.
Lawyers for Nahel’s family slammed the decision not to pursue charges over alleged false statements, claiming the officer said in his initial declaration that “young Nahel had tried to run him over with the vehicle.” CNN has asked the French national police for a response to the allegations against the unnamed officer.
Prache said that Nahel had been known to authorities for a previous “breach of rules,” but it is not clear what law or orders that pertains to. The teen was expected to appear before a juvenile court in September.
Laurent-Franck Lienard, the lawyer of the officer accused of shooting Nahel, told French radio station RTL that his client acted in “compliance of the law.”
In another interview with BFMTV, he said that any accusations his client lied in a statement were false as he had never made a written statement and that his verbal testimony did not contradict the facts.
He claimed his client’s prosecution was “political” and being used as a way to calm the violent tensions.
As to the deadly incident, Lienard said police officers had “struggled for 30 seconds” to detain the driver while the car had stopped. He added that his client feared for the safety of the public as the car had nearly hit pedestrians before the start of the video.
Lienard said his client was not the person in the video who shouted, “I’ll put a bullet in your head,” while also suggesting that might not have been what was said.
He added that his client was “devastated” by Nahel’s death and he did not want to kill him. “He committed an act in a second, in a fraction of a second. Perhaps he made a mistake, justice will tell,” Liénard said.
Macron and other government officials, including Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne, have called for patience to allow the criminal justice system to run its course.
“We need calm for justice to carry out its work,” Macron said Wednesday. “We can’t allow the situation to worsen.”
Rallying public support and goodwill, however, is likely to be difficult for Macron’s government given how much political capital it spent in the first half of 2023 pushing through unpopular pension reforms, which sparked months of mostly peaceful mass protests.
Acknowledging the government’s massive unpopularity, Macron gave himself 100 days to heal and unite the country. That deadline is up on July 14, France’s national day.
Addressing allegations of institutional racism in France is particularly challenging given the country’s unique brand of secularism, which seeks to ensure equality for all by removing markers of difference, rendering all citizens French first. In practice, however, the vigorous adherence to French Republicanism often prevents the government from doing anything that would appear to differentiate French citizens on the basis of race, including collecting statistics.
Racial and religious data, where available, typically comes from private institutions, and extra care is typically taken by politicians to avoid circumscribing racial motives to state institutions.
“On a general level, people tend to think there is no racism in France. And it’s one of the reasons people are so angry, because they feel and experience racism on a daily basis,” said Diallo, the anti-racism activist. “Despite that, they still face institutions, public discourse, and media which still say that there is no racism and that the race debate does not belong in France. And that’s the reason people are so angry and so outraged.”
Government officials have so far not broached questions of racism in the police. Leaders of opposition left-wing parties have focused their criticisms on police violence rather than racism. Government spokesman Olivier Veran told BFMTV that anger against the state itself, however, is unjustified.
“It is not the republic that killed this young man,” Veran said. “It is one man who must be judged if the justice system deems it necessary.”
Following the deadly police shooting of a teen, France has been rocked by yet another night of riots, with violence escalating around Europe.
Several French cities have experienced rioting that resulted in bus stops being completely demolished, houses and cars being set on fire, and an increasing number of arrests.
After three nights of protests, at least 667 individuals have been detained, according to Gerald Darmanin, France’s interior minister.
There are reports in local media that violence has spread to the Belgian capital of Brussels.
Yesterday several authorities havecurfews in place, stopped public transport services earlier than usual and banned the sale of flammable products.
Earlier, the government said it was set to deploy 40,000 police officers and gendarmes to try and calm the chaos.
Demonstrations first broke out on Tuesday after a 17-year-old boy named only as Nahel M was shot dead during a traffic stop in the suburb of Nanterre.
President Emmanuel Macron said the attacks on officers and burning of buildings and vehicles were ‘unjustifiable’.
Nahel’s devastated mother Mounia said: ‘I lost a 17-year-old, I was alone with him, and they took my baby away from me. He was still a child, he needed his mother.’
The police officer who killed the boy was detained and has now been charged with voluntary homicide.
Live Feed
Speaking of Macron, the French President came under heavy criticism for attending an Elton John concert last night while the country was engulfed by rioting and chaos.
French President Emmanuel Macron will hold another emergency crisis meeting today following another night of unrest, AFP reports.
Good morning and welcome to our continued coverage of the riots in France as the country experiences a third successive night of looting and unrest following the killing of 17-year-old Nahel M by police.
if you’re just joining us, here’s a summary of last night’s key events:
Over 40,000 officers have been deployed across France quell further clashes with protesters, with around 5,000 incidents reproted in Paris alone.
Over 180 arrests were made last night, bringing the total to 667.
The officer involved in the shooting of Nahel M has been arrested and is facing preliminary charges of voluntary homicide. His lawyer has issued an apology to the teenager’s family and says the officer is ‘devastated’.
Widespread looting has been reported throughout the country. In Paris, the central shopping street of Rue de Rivoli has been ransacked, whereas looters in Roubaix, near the Belgian border, targeted a mini supermarket before setting fire to it.
A library in Marseille has been burned and vandalised, local officials claim, and police used tear gas to disperse up to 150 people who tried to set up barricades.
Local media has reported the unrest hs spread to Brussels, the capital of Belgium.
A memorial march for Nahel attracted thousands of protestors and was attended by Nahel mother, Mounia. In a TV interview, Mounia said she didn’t blame the whole police force for what happened to her son- just the officer who fired the lethal shot.
A march held in honour of a teen died in a police shot in Paris has reportedly seen clashes between demonstrators and police.
As the crisis worsens, over 40,000 police and gendarmes will be sent on the streets of the nation tonight.
The first riots started on Tuesday after a 17-year-old teenager only known as Nahel M was shot and killed during a traffic stop in the Nanterre district.
President Emmanuel Macron said the attacks on officers and burning of buildings and vehicles were ‘unjustifiable’.
Nahel’s devastated mother Mounia said: ‘I lost a 17-year-old, I was alone with him, and they took my baby away from me.
‘He was still a child, he needed his mother.’
The police officer who killed the boy has been detained on homicide charges as an investigation is carried out.
Live Feed
French President Emmanuel Macron told ministers during an emergency cabinet meeting that the violence seen on the streets of France last night was ‘unjustifiable’.
His comments come a day after Macron described the shooting of Naël M by a police officer as ‘unexplainable and inexcusable’.
Footage posted overnight appears to show a group of protesters ransacking a town hall in Lille and setting fire to chairs and documents within.
Additional footage shows masked protesters launching fireworks at the building’s exterior.
Good morning and welcome back to our coverage of the unrest in Paris following the shooting of a 17-year-old boy by traffic police.
Here is a recap of last night’s developments:
At least 150 people have been arrested following a second night of protests as unrest over the killing of Nahel M spreads throughout France.
French President Emmanuel Macron and footballer Kylian Mbappe are among those to have condemned the killing as an outpuring and anger and grief sweeps the nation.
Over 2,000 riot police have been deployed in and around Paris as protesters launched fireworks at police and set cars ablaze in the suburb of Nanterre, where the killing took place.
A 17-year-old driver, identified as Nahel M., was initially pulled over by two policemen in France on Tuesday for violating traffic regulations, according to prosecutors’ statement.
Initially, the police claimed that one officer had fired at the teenager because the car was being driven towards him. However, this narrative was contradicted by a video that surfaced on social media and was authenticated by AFP.
The video shows the two policemen standing next to the stationary car, with one officer pointing a weapon at the driver. A voice can be heard saying, “You are going to get a bullet in the head.”
At point-blank range, the police officer appears to shoot at the driver as the car abruptly drives off, moving a few dozen meters before crashing.
On voit bien qu’ils lui ont administré des coups de crosse au ralenti tu m’étonnes qu’il fuit face à la violence des actes + paroles #Nahel#nanterrepic.twitter.com/ed3iKer2Ea
The driver succumbed to his injuries shortly thereafter. The 38-year-old policeman responsible for the fatal shot has been placed in custody and is currently under investigation for voluntary manslaughter.
Regarding the incident, French President Emmanuel Macron expressed on Wednesday that the shooting was “inexplicable” and “unforgivable.”
“Nothing can justify the death of a young person,” said Macron on the third day of a visit to Marseille.
Macron said the incident had “moved the entire nation”.
Nahel M.’s lawyer, Yassine Bouzrou, said he would file a legal complaint against the policeman for voluntary manslaughter and against his colleague for complicity in the shooting.
Bouzrou also said he would file a complaint against the policemen for giving false testimony for claiming that Nahel M. had tried to run them over.
There were two passengers in the car at the time of the shooting. One ran off and the other, also a teenager, was briefly detained.
Protests erupt
News of the incident sparked protests in Nanterre, a western Paris suburb. Bins were set alight and a fire broke out at a music school while police tried to disperse the protesters with teargas. Protests then spread to neighbouring suburbs.
Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin said Wednesday that 31 people had been arrested overnight, 24 police were slightly injured and around 40 cars torched.
Celebrities and politicians voiced outrage at the shooting. Initial reports referred to the victim as Naël.
“I am hurting for my France,” tweeted Kylian Mbappé, captain of the French men’s national football team and star player at Paris Saint-Germain.
“An unacceptable situation. All my thoughts go to the friends and family of Naël, that little angel who left us far too soon,” Mbappé said.
J’ai mal à ma France. 💙🤍💔💔💔 Une situation inacceptable. Tout mes pensées vont pour la famille et les proches de Naël, ce petit ange parti beaucoup trop tôt.
Actor Omar Sy, famous for his role in the film “The Intouchables” and the “Lupin” TV show, said on Twitter: “I hope that justice worthy of the name will honour the memory of this child.”
Interior Minister Darmanin – who has previously backed the police in similar situations – called the video footage “extremely shocking” in parliament.
He said Wednesday that the officer would be suspended “if the charges against him are upheld”.
He also announced that 2,000 police would be deployed to deal with any further violence later in the day.
A former Rwandan police officer, Philippe Hategekimana, has been sentenced to life imprisonment by a court in France.
He was found guilty of genocide and crimes against humanity committed during the 1994 Rwandan genocide, where Hutu militias massacred hundreds of thousands of Tutsis and moderate Hutus.
Prosecutors presented evidence showing Hategekimana’s significant involvement in the killings, both through direct acts of murder and by inciting others to commit atrocities.
After the genocide, Hategekimana, who held a senior position as a gendarme in Nyanza, a town in southern Rwanda, fled to France. He obtained refugee status and later acquired French nationality under the name Philippe Manier.
He worked as a security guard at a university in France until 2017 when he fled to Cameroon upon learning that a complaint had been filed against him. He was arrested in Yaoundé and extradited to France the following year to face trial.
This trial marked the fifth instance in France where an alleged participant in the Rwandan genocide was prosecuted.
The genocide, which lasted for 100 days in 1994, resulted in the killings of approximately 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus.
Under new plans, cannabis users in France who are found in possession of even a tiny amount of the drug might soon be subject to immediate fines of up to €2,500 (£2,150).
Police will receive 5,000 portable bank card readers so they may promptly demand €150 for a first offence from those who lack the necessary funds.
It is “unacceptable,” according to French President Emmanual Macron, since just 35% of the cannabis fines issued since September 2020 have been paid.
He said the new policy, to be rolled out in the summer, is his latest bid to stamp out drug rings and gang violence.
‘People who have the means to consume drugs, because for them it’s recreational, must understand that they’re sustaining criminal networks,’ he said.
‘They are effectively complicit.’
The lump sum will apply for cannabis and other drugs, though he did not specify which, and see fines from €200 – if paid on time – to €2,500.
Macron has asked Interior Minister Gerard Darmanin to ‘prepare a decree by the end of the summer, so that fines can be paid immediately, by bank card or in cash.’
Since 2016, being caught with cannabis for the first time can wind someone up with a fine between €200 and €450 – not paying can lead to a court summons.
As much as France has among the strictest drug laws in Europe, 11% of French people have smoked the drug in the past 12 months – the highest in Europe.
According to the French Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (OFDT), nearly one in two French people have tried the drug at least once.
Macron once again toughening the country’s drug-busting laws reignited a debate over how the measures will impact those who take medical cannabis and may even curdle into further gang violence.
Arié Alimi, a human rights lawyer, said France should follow in the footsteps of Canada, dozens of US states and even their neighbour Germany in legalising recreational marijuana.
‘When it’s illegal, when there’s prohibition, you create criminality and mafias,’ he told the BFM television network on Monday.
Police handling cash could also lead to corruption, Alimi warned, while stressing that distinguishing between illegal cannabis and legal CBD would be tricky.
Macron’s measure even found critics from police officials.
Grégory Joron, head of the police union UNITÉ SGP Police FO, tweeted: ‘The police are not debt collectors!’
Rudy Manna, a spokesman for the police union Alliance Police nationale, told BFM said becoming ‘debt collectors’ adds to the already long list of responsibilities a typical police officer has.
Julien Bayou, an MP for Europe Ecology, France’s Green party, accused Macron of ‘hypocrisy’ as he poked holes in how the measure would be enforced.
‘We must legalise it,’ he tweeted, ‘it’s a matter of public health.’
France’s ambassador for LGBTQ rights, Jean-Marc Berthon, revealed the abandonment of a scheduled visit to Cameroon due to the host country’s objections.
The Cameroon government formally objected to the visit stressing in a Foreign Ministry statement that homosexuality was criminalized under existing laws.
Jean-Marc Berthon was due to visit the Central African country from 27 June until 1 July to discuss gender rights, multiple media channels reported earlier this week.
But Cameroon’s foreign minister Lejeune Mbella Mbella in a French language circular sighted by GhanaWeb noted that the government disapproves of the planned visit.
Homosexuality the statement said “qualified as a crime of common law” in Cameroon.
Recently Cameroon’s National Communication Council warned the media against promoting homosexual content, the BBC Africa LIVE report added.
On Tuesday, France demanded a halt to Rwanda’s “ongoing military support” for the M23 rebels in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC)’s east and denounced the crimes committed by the many terror organizations terrorizing the area.
“France is concerned by reports confirming the continued presence of the M23 in territories in the east of the DRC, Rwanda’s ongoing military support for this armed group and the presence of Rwandan soldiers on Congolese territory. This support, which we condemn, must cease”, according to a statement from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
A mainly Tutsi rebellion, the M23, accused by the UN of numerous crimes in the east of the DRC, took up arms again at the end of 2021 after ten years of dormancy and has seized vast swathes of territory in the Congolese province of North Kivu, bordering Rwanda and Uganda.
“The commitments made by the various regional players must now be put into practice in order to speed up the withdrawal of the M23 from the occupied territories, to confine this group and to encourage all armed groups to commit to the national demobilization and disarmament process”, continues the Quai d’Orsay, which raises the possibility of “sanctions against those who obstruct peace”.
During his trip to the DRC in March, French President Emmanuel Macron issued a warning to Kigali, without however clearly condemning Rwanda.
In its statement, the Quai d’Orsay also condemned “the many abuses committed by the armed groups cited in the latest report by the UN group of experts”. In addition to the M23, other groups such as the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), the Mai Mai and the Forces Démocratiques de Libération du Rwanda (FDLR) are terrorizing the region.
These violations “cannot go unpunished”, emphasizes the Quai d’Orsay, calling for an end to “the support given by the Congolese armed forces to certain armed groups such as the FDLR”.
In a report published on Monday, UN experts sounded the alarm over the “galloping violence” and “growing humanitarian needs” in the east of the DRC. They also established that the ADF rebels were receiving financial support from the Islamic State (ISIS) group.
On Monday, president Akufo-Addo, has left Ghana for a six-day working trip to Spain, France, and the United Kingdom (UK).
At the joint invitation of the King of Spain, His Majesty Felipe Juan Pablo Alfonso VI, and the King of Jordan, His Majesty Abdullah II Bin Al-Hussein, President Akufo-Addo will on Tuesday, 20th June 2023, participate in the Aqaba Process meeting of West Africa and the Sahel in Cordoba, Spain.
He will travel to Paris, France, at the invitation of the French President, H. E. Emmanuel Macron, to participate in the Summit for a New Global Financial Pact, to be held from 22nd to 23rd June, 2023 and proceed to the United Kingdom on 23d June, 2023 for a private visit.
He was accompanied by the Minister for Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation, Hon. Dr Kwaku Afriyie, and officials of the Presidency.
President Akufo-Addo will return to Ghana on Saturday, 24th June, 2023 and in his absence, the Vice President, Alhaji Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, shall, in accordance with Afticle 60 (8) of the Constitution, act in his stead.
Pictured is an 11-year-old British girl who was shot and killed in France while having fun on a swing.
On Saturday night, as her family was enjoying a BBQ at their Saint-Herbot, Brittany, home, Solaine Thornton was shot and killed in front of her sister.
Rachael Thornton, 49, and Adrian Thornton, 52, her parents, were also hurt, and the father is still in critical condition.
A Dutch national, 71, who lived next door to the family and was regarded by locals as a recluse was detained with his wife and is still being held.
Investigators said on Monday he had tested positive for a narcotic substance.
They have not publicly confirmed the drug involved, though a source close to the investigation told the AFP news agency a large amount of cannabis was found at his home when it was searched by police.
Local officials and neighbours suggested the Dutch couple had feuded with Solaine’s parents over issues including a plot of land which borders both their properties.
Solaine is believed to have been killed in front of her sister, who escaped
Local resident Yannick told Le Télégramme de Brest: ‘We heard the bangs and we thought it was children playing with firecrackers.
‘Then the kid ran into a neighbour’s house saying: “My sister is dead, my sister is dead.”’
Marguerite Bleuzen, Mayor of Plonévez-du-Faou, which covers Saint-Herbot, said officials had intervened in the ongoing dispute in 2020 but that no major issues had arisen since.
Quimper prosecutor Carine Halley said: ‘An investigation has been opened into the murder of a minor under 15, and two attempted murders.’
A spokesperson for the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office said: ‘We are providing consular assistance to a British family following a shooting in France and are in contact with the local authorities.’
The local prosecutor claims that an 11-year-old British girl was killed by gunfire on Saturday in Saint-Herbot, a hamlet in western France’s Brittany.
The shooting left the girl’s parents with significant injuries. She managed to get away, and her 8-year-old sister was discovered “unharmed but in a state of shock,” according to a statement made by Quimper prosecutor Carine Halley on Sunday.
Authorities claim that the family was in their garden when their 71-year-old Dutch neighbour came over carrying a gun and began firing several times in their general direction before locking himself and his wife inside their home.
Police intervened at 10 p.m. local time. The 11-year-old was found dead and her father sustained a life-threatening head injury, while her mother was also injured but is not in critical condition, Halley said.
An hour later the Dutch man and his wife surrendered and were taken into custody.
“We thought they were playing with firecrackers,” Yannick, a neighbor who heard the gunfire, told CNN affiliate BFMTV.
“The youngest girl came running to the neighbors shouting: ‘My sister is dead, my sister is dead,’” Yannick said.
Halley said Sunday “the motives for the tragedy are not yet known.” But, according to the initial investigation, “it appears there had been a dispute between the two neighbors for several years over a piece of land adjoining the two properties.”
The Quimper prosecutor’s office has opened an investigation on charges of voluntary manslaughter of a minor and attempted murder.
Marguerite Bleuzen, the mayor of Plonévez-du-Faou, a town bordering Saint-Herbot, told BFMTV Sunday she had been made aware of a dispute between neighbors several years ago.
“I intervened with my deputies when we were elected. There was a problem with the land, noise complaints,” Bleuzen said.
Following a vicious stabbing attack on Thursday in Annecy, France, which sent the Alpine town into a frenzy, four kids were admitted to the hospital.
According to Annecy mayor François Astorg, two adults were also hurt in the incident, at least one of whom required surgery. According to Astorg, the injured were treated at hospitals in Geneva and Grenoble, and some of the kids had stable conditions after leaving the operating room.
Witnesses recounted the perpetrator walking into a playground and going after the kids.
“He jumped (in the playground), started shouting and then went towards the strollers, repeatedly hitting the little ones with a knife,” one eyewitness told CNN affiliate BFMTV.
“Mothers were crying, everybody was running,” another eyewitness told Reuters.
All of the children injured are under the age of 3 years old,Annecy prosecutor Line Bonnet-Mathis said in a press conference Thursday. One child is a Dutch national, according to Bonnet-Mathis, and another is a British national, per UK authorities.
A Syrian asylum-seeker has been detained on suspicion of carrying out the attack, Bonnet-Mathis also said. The suspect was not under the influence of alcohol or other substances at the time of the attack, and there was no apparent terrorist motive.
French media and BFMTV reported that the man was 31 year old, citing police sources. The suspect had legally applied for asylum late last year and on his application described himself to be a “Christian from Syria,” BFMTV also said. He had lived in Sweden for 10 years and applied for asylum status in France, but his request was rejected.
French President Emmanuel Macron said “the nation is in shock,” following the attack.
“Absolute cowardice this morning in a park in Annecy. Children and an adult are between life and death. The nation is in shock. Our thoughts are with them, their families and the emergency services,” Macron tweeted
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said the attack was “a truly cowardly act.”
“My thoughts are with all of those affected by the shocking attack in Annecy this morning,” he tweeted. “The UK and France have always stood together against acts of violence, and we do so again today.”
Health Minister François Braun tweeted that his thoughts were with the victims of the knife attack. “All my thoughts go immediately to the people injured by an individual armed with a knife in Annecy, and to their loved ones,” Braun tweeted.
“I salute the rapid mobilization of the emergency services to take care of the victims, and notably the Urgent Medical Aid Service (SAMU).”
Lawmakers in the French National Assembly observed a minute’s silence for those injured in the attack.
French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne will travel to Annecy with Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin on Thursday, according to the interior ministry.
Officials have revealed that the four young children who were stabbed in a park in Annecy, France, are now in a stable condition.
The children, aged between one and three, are currently receiving treatment at a hospital.
The knifeman was apprehended by police after entering a children’s playground to carry out the attack. Among the injured are a three-year-old British child and another child of Dutch nationality. Two adults were also harmed, with one in critical condition.
According to police, the suspect is a 31-year-old Syrian who had refugee status in Sweden.
Regional deputy Antoine Armand condemned the attack as “abominable” and stated that authorities had limited information as they launched an investigation.
In a graphic video shared on social media, the assault is captured in a playground where children and their caregivers are present. Suddenly, a man wielding a knife enters, prompting immediate screams. He specifically targets children, including one in a pushchair.
French Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne and Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin visited the scene of the attack.
During a news conference, Ms. Borne stated that the attacker had “no criminal or psychiatric record.”
Annecy prosecutor Line Bonnet-Mathis informed reporters that the young victims ranged from 22 months to three years old. She added that there appears to be no indication of a terrorist motive.
The suspect, who has refugee status in Sweden and recently arrived in France, left behind a wife and a three-year-old daughter. In an unsuccessful asylum application last year in France, he claimed to be a Syrian Christian.
During the incident, the attacker invoked the name of Jesus Christ.
A woman identified as the suspect’s ex-wife, speaking to BFM TV, affirmed that her former partner was a Christian.
“He does not call me for four months. [Our relationship] stopped because we lived in Sweden and he did not want to live in Sweden anymore,” she said, adding that he had not previously shown a violent streak.
In recent years, France has become accustomed to knife attacks, often carried out by solitary young men with backgrounds in petty crime and some Islamist connection. It is clear that this attack is of a different nature.
So far, most politicians are being careful not to leap to conclusions, but it is inevitable that the attack will feed into the debate on immigration.
French President Emmanuel Macron stated “the nation is in shock,” following the incident.
“Absolute cowardice this morning in a park in Annecy. Children and an adult are between life and death. The nation is in shock. Our thoughts are with them, their families and the emergency services,” Macron tweeted.
Health Minister François Braun tweeted that his thoughts were with the victims of the knife attack. “All my thoughts go immediately to the people injured by an individual armed with a knife in Annecy, and to their loved ones,” Braun tweeted.
“I salute the rapid mobilization of the emergency services to take care of the victims, and notably the Urgent Medical Aid Service (SAMU).”
Lawmakers in the French National Assembly observed a minute’s silence for those injured in the attack.
Reports indicate that children are currently in critical condition after a knife attack occurred in the alpine town of Annecy, located in southeastern France.
Police have stated that the attack took place in a park at around 09:45 local time and was perpetrated by a 45-year-old Syrian man who was seeking refugee status.
According to French media, the injured children, approximately three years old, include two in critical condition.
Per reports, the suspect is thought to be a Syrian asylum seeker.
The attack has left the nation in shock, as stated by French President Emmanuel Macron.
“Our thoughts are with [those hurt] as well as their families and the emergency services,” he added.
Attaque d’une lâcheté absolue ce matin dans un parc à Annecy. Des enfants et un adulte sont entre la vie et la mort. La Nation est sous le choc. Nos pensées les accompagnent ainsi que leurs familles et les secours mobilisés.
Over the past year, strikes have been a common occurrence on UK soil, with train drivers, Passport office employees, teachers, nurses, and more walking out due to disagreements over wages and working conditions.
Numerous strikes have also occurred in other parts of Europe. On June 6, a statewide strike in France is still going on, disrupting trains, the Paris Metro, and air traffic control at airports.
Since the French Civil Aviation Authority (DGAC) has requested that all airlines cut flights to and from various French airports, it is understandable that many people with travel plans to France are concerned about how the strike action at the airports would affect their trip.
Here’s what you need to know about the current air traffic controller strike taking place across the Channel…
How long will the French air traffic control strike last in June?
French air traffic controllers have been on strike from 6pm on June 5, with the strike expected to last until 6am on June 7.
If you are planning on travelling to France during this time, then you’ll need to double-check your flight status and expect there to be disruptions or even last-minute cancellations.
How will travel be affected?
The DGAC has advised all airlines to cancel up to 30% of flights on strike days at some airports in France, with walkouts affecting Paris’ Orly and Beauvais airports, plus Marseille, Lyon, Toulouse, Bordeaux, Nantes and Nice.
Flights from Roissy Charles de Gaulle airport are not affected, however.
Flights that cross French airspace may also be affected by the air traffic controller strike.
If you are flying to or from one of the affected airports – or know your flight may enter French airspace -it is recommended you check your journey prior to departure, to see if any delays or cancellations have been announced.
Air France has said it will operate all long-haul flights and all flights to and from Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris, but three out of every 10 flights from Paris-Orly Airport and some other airports are likely to be cancelled.
In their statement, Air France said: ‘Delays and last-minute cancellations cannot be ruled out. The flight schedule is up to date and customers affected by cancelled flights have been notified individually by SMS, e-mail or via the Air France application.
‘For customers whose flight is cancelled, a voucher or a full refund in the event that they no longer travel. Air France regrets this strike action and is doing everything possible to limit the impact on its customers.’
Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary has called on President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen to take action and protect flights as a result of French air traffic control strikes, with over 400 flights already cancelled today – June 6.
Speaking from Ryanair’s Dublin operation centre, Mr O’Leary said only domestic flights in France should be cancelled and that it is ‘absolutely indefensible’ that other flights across Europe are disrupted.
‘(During the strike days) Our flights are full and we’re being forced to cancel flights. There is a simple solution for this. Other [EU] member states (Greece, Italy, and Spain) have laws that protect overflights.’
Eurostar however has said that today’s strike will not affect their timetable and that trains will run as normal amid walkouts at airports.
Why are the French air traffic controllers striking?
Air traffic controllers are protesting against President Emmanuel Macron’s plans to increase the retirement age from 62 to 64, which is the main reason strikes have hit other industries across the country.
President Macron pushed through the bill raising the retirement age without a vote in the National Assembly, which has seen widespread strike action take place in the country since the start of 2023.
The June 6 national strike date was chosen as the National Assembly is set to meet on June 8 to discuss a number of motions, one of which includes keeping the retirement age fixed at 62.
The unions are therefore marching two days before to show their support and unity to parliament, demonstrating that they have not budged on their stance regarding the retirement age bill.
France has become the first nation to outlaw short-distance, domestic flights to locations where rail transport is an alternative.
In 2021, lawmakers decided to eliminate train routes that could transport travellers there in under 2.5 hours.
However, a few airlines formally requested that the European Commission examine the decision’s legality, and as a result, it has only now been effective.
However, connecting flights using these airports won’t be impacted by the new law, which will eliminate services between Paris, Nantes, Lyon, and Bordeaux.
The law specifies that train services serving the same route must be frequent, timely and well-connected enough to meet the needs of people who would otherwise travel by air.
Critics have called the enforcement of the ban merely ‘symbolic’, especially as these routes have not been served by any airlines since 2020, when the pandemic devastated the travel industry.
However, more journeys could be included in the future, with the EU having stipulated that the law should reviewed after three years.
A group created by president Emmanuel Macron originally put forward a harsher ban (Picture: Shutterstock)
The interim head of industry group Airlines for Europe, Laurent Donceel, told AFP governments should rather support ‘real and significant solutions’ to combat the effect of carbon emissions.
He added that Brussels found ‘banning these trips will only have minimal effects’ on CO2 output.
And yet, some environmentalists feel the measures do not go far enough, including France’s Citizens’ Convention on Climate.
The group, which was created by French president Emmanuel Macron in 2019, had originally called for the government to scrap plane routes where train journeys under four hours existed.
But this limit was reduced to the current one of two and a half hours, after objections from some of the regions affected and at least one airline.
French consumer group UFC-Que Choisir, who backed the four-hour plan, said: ‘On average, the plane emits 77 times more CO2 per passenger than the train on these routes, even though the train is cheaper and the time lost is limited to 40 minutes.’
Conversely, the UK government seems to be moving in the opposite direction – halving domestic air duty (APD) to £6.50 from April 1.
When the then-chancellor Rishi Sunak announced the change in October 2021, he said: ‘Right now, people pay more for return flights within and between the four nations of the United Kingdom than they do when flying home from abroad.’
Short haul flights are seen as one of the worst offenders for CO2 because take-off and landing uses the most fuel.
But Mr Sunak previously argued that most emissions come from international, rather than domestic trips.
French politicians are also currently debating how to reduce emissions from private jets.
Nicolas Sarkozy, the former president of France, was found guilty of corruption and influence peddling in 2021 and attempted to appeal the decision but was unsuccessful.
His first sentence of three years in jail with two years suspended was affirmed by the court on Wednesday. The court also ruled that he can serve the third year of his sentence while wearing an electronic bracelet under home arrest.
President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has stated that the Paris Club’s creation of the Creditor Committee, which is co-chaired by China and France, and the subsequent granting of financing assurances are significant steps in securing Ghana’s eagerly awaited IMF facility.
Describing it as the last hurdle, President Akufo-Addo said this means that “the sacrifices that the country has had to make this last year and the difficulties that we are going through, may be that at long last, we are going to see the beginning of the recovery, as with the approval of the IMF, we will be in a strong position to make other arrangements that will help our economy get back into a strong place.”
Speaking about it barely a few hours after the announcement was made in Paris, the President told the delegation of the Catholic Bishops Conference who were on a courtesy visit to the Jubilee House, on Friday, 12th May, 2023, that the feat suggests “that hopefully, next Wednesday, the board itself will meet and may find an approval to the Ghanaian demand.”
“So it is fortuitous, that of all the people who should be the first to hear this announcement directly from me, it is the delegation from the Catholic Bishops Conference.”
Following tons of commendation of President for shepherding the nation dutifully despite challenging times globally, President Akufo-Addo appealed to the Bishops Conference to continue “this relationship of confidence and of trust between the Church and government.”
Such hallowed endeavour, he added, “inures to the benefit of the Ghanaian people; that we continue to work together from our different angles and our different constituencies, having in mind the welfare of the people of this country.”
He said “I’m very grateful for this visit and for the words of encouragement that you’ve given, the reason, apart from the fact that I’m a practicing Christian, I think that anybody who sits in this seat, has to recognise the immense that the Catholic Church and the Christian community is doing for the country, in so many areas. Talking about education, or health or the spiritual narrative of our population.
Concluding on the substance of ensuring cordial ties with the church President Akufo_Addo stated that “the selfless work you are doing is so enormous for the welfare of our country and it is very important that the President should be very solicitous of whatever goes on in the Catholic Church even if he wasn’t a Christian, because the work that you are doing is immense for the country. So that’s been more than anything else the reason why I continue to forge relations of confidence and of intimacy with the church.”
Sources say Ghana’s official creditors are close to granting financial assurance to enable the West African country obtain a credit facility worth $3 billion from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Reports from Reuters indicate that a committee which will be co-chaired by France and China as bilateral lenders are expected to officially grant financing assurances as soon as Friday.
In a news briefing on Thursday, IMF spokesperson Julie Kozack said the Fund is hopeful its executive board can quickly consider the Ghana program once enough official bilateral creditor assurances have been secured.
“We have seen strong progress toward creditors delivering on these financing assurances and we’re hopeful that they can be delivered very rapidly,” Kozack said.
Earlier in April, Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta revealed that Ghana was likely to receive the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) Board approval for a $3 billion bailout by the close of May 2023.
As Ghana struggles through its economic crisis, defaulting on its debt in December and completing a debt restructuring in February, the IMF bailout is expected to ease her economic burdens.
Ghana is also in talks to rework $14.6 billion of debt to private overseas creditors.
A scaled-up corporation and funding to the tune of about €4.1 million will be provided for two flagship projects led by the Ghana Health Service (GHS) and Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research as part of a special joint mission by the conducted by the French government’s L’Initiative together with international partners – Global Fund.
According to a statement issued by the French Embassy in Ghana, the action is intended to increase access to healthcare for the most vulnerable or marginalized individuals and to make sure that the Ghana Health Service (GHS), under the Ministry of Health, deploys national and regional interventions that will meet the population’s healthcare needs.
“To date, the grant awarded for a period of 4 years of an amount of €2,830,258.83 represents the largest envelope ever allocated to a project by Initiative since its creation in 2011,” the statement noted.
The L’Initiative-funded project aids GHS in developing the systems that will scale up the community scorecards, which have been in place since 2018, with a renewed goal of enabling the system’s spread to the entire nation.
“This project aims to enhance the role of patients within the healthcare system and improve the quality of services provided to them”. The statement added while explaining further that the beneficiaries are members of the Community Health Management Committees (CHMC) and District/Sub-District Health Committees, and indirectly all users of the Ghana health system.
L’ Initiative says it will continue to conduct a joint mission with the Global Fund and France Team to support Ghana in its fight against pandemics and strengthen its ties with civil society organizations and local partners.
At the end of April, L’ Initiative organized a joint mission with the Regional Health Adviser and the Global Fund’s country team in order to further develop its portfolio in the country in synergy with other French actors, the French Embassy, AFD and IRD.
The focus is on the French finance minister. The government’s dreaded retirement age raise and the country’s reduced credit rating aren’t what have people talking, though.
Even in France, where a politician penning erotica is nothing unusual, his work “Fugue Americaine,” which contains a passage with a memorable remark about an anus, has drawn ridicule.
The controversial passage has brought the colourful past of French politicians‘ dalliances with literary professions into sharp relief.
Le Maire’s fourth book in five years, the release of “Fugue Americaine” saw the minister face questions about his moonlighting as a writer.
“10 lines on 480 pages – you should read the book,” he said Wednesday to French broadcaster France Info, his exasperation evident at being questioned on the book’s most erotic scene a week after its publication.
“It is about music, my passion for music,” Le Maire insisted of the novel, whose central character is a piano virtuoso.
For France’s finance chief, politics and prose go hand in hand.
“If there were only politics – without the freedom that literary and romantic creation gives – politics would not be enough,” he said in an interview last week.
“A lot of civil servants, senior civil servants like to take on an intellectual dimension especially, I would say, a literary one,” Luc Rouban, the head of the Centre for National Scientific Research attached to Science Po, France’s political sciences university, told CNN.
“It’s a bit of provocation,” the researcher added, “that’s largely part of the culture of the grande bourgeoisie.”
Le Maire is no stranger to harsh critiques, or steamy lines. His first book – “Le Ministre”, a memoir of his early years in the foreign ministry – describes an intimate scene with his wife in a Venetian bath.
And after years of rumors, the finance minister finally admitted to his pseudonym ‘Duc William’, the name he used as a student to write a passionate erotic novel about a doctor and a married woman.
Le Maire has been stoic on his infamy. “Who cares?” he told France Info, when asked if he was worried about being mocked.
He’s far from the first to feel similar heat.
Marie Minelli, known in her day job as junior social affairs minister Marlène Schiappa, has written titles including “Dare to Have a Female Orgasm” and “Letter to my Uterus.”
She ruffled feathers recently by appearing fully clothed on the cover of Playboy magazine.
The crime novel of Macron’s former prime minister, Edouard Phillipe, also came with a few titillating passages, including one detailing the perfect bosom.
“A real chest is round, it’s comfortable, it’s welcoming and you have to be able to put your nose in the middle with jubilation,” he wrote.
The aristocratic President Giscard d’Estaing wrote a bestseller in office and infamously, later in life, the novel “La Princess et le President,” about a fling with the Princess of Wales, thought to represent Princess Diana.
It is common for French men of state to write, Rouban said. During his mandate, President Georges Pompidou edited a collection of poetry while the retired President Charles De Gaulle wrote his memoirs.
Times may have changed.
While the corner of erotica in Le Maire’s latest literary offering may have provoked sniggers, it’s not so much the content as the time commitment to his writing that has annoyed parts of the French public.
Some in France chastized the finance minister for devoting time to writing, especially as the country weathers economic headwinds.
Rising inflation has challenged the French economy since 2021, reaching a peak in early 2023 of 7.2%. That figure, while historically high for France, still remains low for parts of Europe today.
The French finance ministry confirmed to CNN that Le Maire had warned the French presidency of the book before its release.
And the finance minister seemed unabashed on Twitter.
“Literature allows me to escape my everyday life, to take a step back, to think differently,” he said in a statement. “It is a need that is worth waking up early for, worth going to bed late for, to spend one’s weekends and one’s holidays.”
At the ATP Challenger Tour 175 event in Aix-en-Provence, Andy Murray defeated Laurent Lokoli in three sets despite the Frenchman having saved five match points.
Murray won 6-4 5-7 6-3 as the second round tie at the Open Aix Provence Credit Agricole turned into a marathon affair lasting two hours and 42 minutes
The 35-year-old three-time major champion – ranked 52 in the world and 135 places higher than Lokoli – shaded a tight first set on the French clay.
It looked as if the fifth seed would make short work of the contest in the second set when he broke serve for a 5-2 lead.
But Murray failed to take two match points and Lokoli, who was animated and waved his arms in the air to rev up the home crowd, battled back to make it 5-4.
Ghana andFrance have reached an agreement to boost the country’s health sector.
Under the agreement, additional support will be offered to the country for scientific research into the most appropriate way to implement secondary prevention of cervical cancer among women living with HIV.
The €2.8 million grant, which was made possible through Expertise France to the Ghana Health Service (GHS) and the Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research (NMIMR), will also support the country’s response against diseases such as malaria, tuberculosis and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).
The agreement was signed between the two countries at the Residence of the France Ambassador to Ghana in Accra last Thursday.
The Director-General of the GHS,Dr Patrick Kuma-Aboagye, initialled on behalf of the beneficiaries, while the Head of Cooperation at the French Embassy in Ghana, Julien Lecas, signed for his country. Investment
Mr Lecas, who represented his ambassador, said Ghana had received support from the Global Fund for over 20 years, with significant investment on HIV, tuberculosis and malaria pandemics.
“And as you may know, France is a major donor to the Global Fund. This week, the team of L’Initiative from Expertise France is here in Accra, together with the Global Fund country team.
“It is our hope that this visit will trigger further development of L’Initiative’s portfolio in Ghana.
“We at the French Embassy in Ghana are very pleased to be able to officially launch the two programmes funded by L’Initiative to strengthen and evaluate the quality of health services by the GHS on one hand.
“And on the other hand, it is also aimed at supporting the secondary prevention of cervical cancer among women living with HIV through the NMIMR,” he said.
The Technical Director at Expertise France Groupe, Eric Fleutelot, said his outfit was pleased to support Ghana improve on its health care.
“And I know that we are already making progress”, however, more efforts were needed to reduce vertical transmission of HIV, he added. Community scorecard
Dr Kuma-Aboagye said the grant was offered through a community scorecard initiative by the GHS.
He said the initiative, which was introduced in 2018, was aimed at strengthening community participation in health care and also improving accountability in service delivery.
According to him, the grant would help extend the scorecard implemented to include HIV and tuberculosis.
An Associate Professor in charge of Medicine, Molecular, Microbiology and Virology at NMIMR, Prof. George Kyei, said there was the need for a national policy to integrate cervical cancer screening into routine HIV care.
As France prepared for another day of large-scale protests, a number of states raised concerns about about police violence, particularly against protestors.
Attacks on migrants, racial profiling and religious intolerance were also raised during the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) – which all 193 UN countries must undergo every four years.
France must “take measures to, in a transparent manner, address allegations regarding excessive use of force by police and gendarmerie against protesters during demonstrations”, Sweden’s representative told the Human Rights Council in Geneva
Other countries raised similar concerns, including Denmark, Liechtenstein and Norway, but also Russia, Venezuela and Iran – three countries that themselves regularly face accusations of police violence and other serious and widespread human rights violations.
“We are concerned about the harsh and sometimes violent measures aimed at dispersing peaceful citizens,” Russia’s representative Kristina Sukacheva, told the council.
The criticism came as France braced for up to 1.5 million protesters to fill its streets to mark the May 1 labour day, even as President Emmanuel Macron tries to steer the country on from a divisive pension law that has sparked anger, pan-bashing and social unrest.
It echoed growing outcry in France of the police for disproportionate use of force in dealing with the crowds, amid the months of protests over the move to raise France’s pension age from 62 to 64.
A placard reading “64 years, it’s no” with a structure representing the face of the French President Emmanuel Macron with a pan on his head during a demonstration. Photo: AFP
During Monday’s review, several countries including the United States and China called on France to do more to battle racial and religious discrimination.
Hong Kong Politics Newsletter
US representative Kelly Billingsley said her country urged Paris to “expand efforts to counter crimes and threats of violence motivated by religious hatred such as antisemitism and anti-Muslim hate, including cases of harassment, vandalism, and assault”.
A demonstrator fires fireworks towards the police during the traditional May Day labour march. Photo: Reuters
The Chinese representative decried “a rise of racism and xenophobia” in France, urging it to “stop … measures that violate rights of migrants”.
Brazil and Japan decried “racial profiling by security forces”.
Sabrine Balim, a judicial adviser with the French interior ministry, told the council the use of force was “strictly supervised, controlled, and in the case of erroneous use, sanctioned”.
She also stressed that “France condemns any form of racial profiling”.
Nine extremely elderly riflemen who served France in Algeria and Indochina arrived in Senegal on Friday to gently end their lives after a protracted legal battle with the French government to get their “sacrifices” recognized.
When the first of them walked through the doors of the plane at Blaise Diagne airport, installed in his wheelchair, white beard, dressed in a traditional brown boubou, families and veterans have launched the first applause.
It was time for a reunion. Some smiled, others cried, all marked by the emotion of returning to their country of origin in the twilight of their lives.
This moment was made possible thanks to a derogatory measure decided by the French government, which allows them to live permanently in Senegal without losing their minimum old-age allowance of 950 euros per month.
“I am very happy to be back with my family, my brothers, my children,” said 91-year-old Oumar Diémé on his arrival.
A few minutes before, his brother Sidi introduced him to AFP as “the patriarch”, “the baobab of the family”, who was sorely missed. His relatives prepared a mafé, his favourite dish, for his return.
“The measure may have come a little late, but today the prevailing feeling is one of joy,” he said, saying his only regret is that his eldest child “will not be able to benefit from the same medical care as in France.
The nine soldiers were then received at the presidential palace by President Macky Sall, who decorated them.
– Injustice repaired” –
“Today we celebrate an injustice repaired. You can finally live at home, with your families and receive your full pensions,” said President Sall.
“This ceremony is an exercise in memory in recognition of the sacrifices. It is also a reminder of the long series of injustices against the infantrymen who have been in all the battles,” he added.
“All the Senegalese infantrymen have given their full satisfaction to France. It is a debt that France has paid us,” reacted Yoro Diao, their spokesman.
All elegant in impeccable suits or traditional tunics, wearing their military medals with poise, these Senegalese riflemen had left at dawn their 15-square-metre studios in a hostel in Bondy, near Paris, where they had lived for years.
“Long live our fathers!” and “Long live France and Senegal!” were the words heard during the moving moments of group photos and exchanges with the French Secretary of State for Veterans and Remembrance, Patricia Mirallès, before their departure. “We will miss you! but the family is waiting for you there…”, the Secretary of State told them, moved.
“I am very happy to return to Senegal and to continue to benefit from the rights I had in France; for the past 25 or 20 years, it was hard for our relatives to commute, and for our age too.
N’Dongo Dieng, 87, wearing his military medals on a mustard tunic, told AFP.
This comes “late”, because “many comrades died before benefiting from this measure…”, lamented the veteran.
Exceptional aid also finances their removal, their return flight and their resettlement.
– Relief” –
“I am extremely moved,” Aïssata Seck, president of the Association for the Memory and History of Senegalese Tirailleurs, told AFP before taking the plane.
The granddaughter of a rifleman, she was the linchpin who for 10 years worked for their recognition, until the decision of French President Emmanuel Macron in early 2023 to announce this derogatory measure for their allowance.
“The fact that they can finally return home is a real relief and the culmination of a very long struggle” for them to have “a dignified end to their lives”, according to Ms Seck, who believes that the French state “did what was necessary”.
For Claire Miot, a lecturer in history at the Institute of Political Studies in Aix-en-Provence (France), “it is a recognition of their sacrifices in the service of France that is extremely late because these are men who are 90 years old.
The French “Senegalese Riflemen” corps, created under the Second Empire (1852-1870) and disbanded in the 1960s, brought together soldiers from the former African colonies. The term came to designate all African soldiers who fought under the French flag.
After Friday’s departures, there are still 28 Tirailleurs in France – all of Senegalese origin -, many of whom are likely to return permanently soon.
Yoro Diao, 95, who volunteered for the French army as part of his family’s tradition, is wearing the Legion of Honour and wants to “rest” in Kaolack, in central Senegal.
“It’s a very important day for us, and memorable,” he told AFP before boarding the plane. “Our children and grandchildren will always remember… that grandpa came back from France that day very happy.
Nigeria’s president-elect, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, has expressed readiness to kick start work ahead of the May 29th handing-over date.
The President-elect returned to Nigeria on Monday evening after about a month trip to Paris, France.
He was received by a mammoth crowd of enthusiastic associates and supporters who thronged the Presidential Wing of the Nnamdi Azikwe International Airport, Abuja where his plane touched down.
The President-elect was in the company of his wife, Senator Remi, and son, Seyi.
Among those at the airport to receive him were Vice President-elect Kashim Shettima, House of Representatives Speaker Femi Gbajabiamila, as well as Governors Simon Lalong (Plateau) and Abubakar Sani-Bello (Niger), former Borno State Governor Ali Modu Sheriff.
Also at the airport were former Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, the All Progressives Congress, APC Deputy National Chairman, North, Senator Abubakar Kyari, Deputy National Chairman, South, Barrister Emma Enekwu, and National Woman Leader, Dr. Betta Edu.
There were also Senators Barau Jibril, Adeola Olamilekan Yahyi, Opeyemi Bamidele, Dayo Adeyeye, Sabi Abdullahi and Adelere Oriolowo as well as Secretary of the recently-dissolved Presidential Campaign Council, Hon. James Faleke, Hon. Babajimi Benson and Mr. Bayo Onanuga, Director of media and publicity in the dissolved Presidential Campaign Council.
http://tigpost.co/tinubu-resting-in-paris-london/
Speaking to the tumultuous crowd who followed him home, the President-elect said: “I’m happy to be back. I have rested, I’m refreshed and I’m ready for the task ahead.
“Forget about what the rumour mill may have told you. I’m strong, very strong.”
Asked about about his plans for the country, he said he had been consulting and planning with a view to putting together a strong team so he could hit the ground running once he assumes office on May 29.
The President-elect left the country on March 21 for Paris on a vacation after a hectic campaign and election season.
In protest of the government’s plans to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64, hundreds of thousands of people demonstrated once more across France on Thursday, just one day before a vital court decision on the validity of the contentious law.
On the day that shares in the business, which owns brands including Louis Vuitton and Mot, rose to a record high, protesters in Paris forced their way into the offices of the luxury conglomerate LVMH.
A union official, Fabien Villedieu, told CNN affiliate BFMTV outside the LVMH headquarters, “If Macron wants to find money to finance the pension system, he should come here to find it.”
Multiple flare ups have taken place throughout the day.
Police halted a protest in front of the Constitutional Council, France’s equivalent of the US supreme court, which will hand down a long-awaited ruling on the validity of the pension reform law on Friday. A ban on protests in the area is in place from Thursday evening until Saturday morning local time.
CNN teams on the ground witnessed protesters engaging in intense scuffles with police as smoke bombs, projectiles and tear gas were fired, before a group set off red flares outside the court building.
Violence also broke out at Paris’ Place de la Bastille as riot police clashed with angry protestors.
“At least a thousand radical individuals present at the forefront of the demonstration area tried on several occasions to commit acts of violence along the route and to hinder the smooth progress of the demonstration,” a spokesman for the Paris police said.
The police were also seen protecting the BHV department store by charging at protesters in the Rue de Rivoli in central Paris.
The police arrested 47 people in Paris and at least ten police officers were injured, according to Paris police prefecture.
Around 380,000 people attended the protests across France on Thursday, 42,000 of whom were in Paris, according to the latest figures from the French interior ministry.
The figure is down from last week’s 11th round of demonstrations which drew in crowds of approximately 570,000.
Police had been expecting further violent attacks that have been a visible, if minor, feature of the protests across France over the past two and a half months, with particular attention on so-called “black bloc” protesters, part of a radical fringe that has been present from the start of the country’s social upheaval.
France’s President Emmanuel Macron argues reforms are essential to rein in public finances, and has been standing firm, this week saying “the country must continue to move forward.”
Speaking at an incinerator picket line near Paris on Thursday morning, Sophie Binet, the new head of the GGT, one of France’s main unions, insisted: “As long as the pension reform is not withdrawn, the mobilization will continue one way or another.”
French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire defended his government’s contested pension reform plans to CNN on Thursday as “vital”, saying “we need to ensure to French citizens that there is a financial balance by 2030. This is the purpose of the reform.”
Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo voiced her support for the demonstrators before the new round of protests.
“On the eve of the decision of the constitutional council, I am once again supporting the mobilisations in Paris and everywhere in France,” Hidalgo tweeted.
“This reform is unjust and violent. The French have been asking for it to be withdrawn for months, the government has to hear them,” she wrote.
Friday’s ruling will be decisive on whether the protests will continue. The CFDT, France’s other main union, has been more amenable to a negotiated settlement.
Garbage is meanwhile also set to fill the streets of Paris once more as collectors and incinerator workers are on strike again, according to the CGT union.
This will be a rolling strike, the general secretary of the CGT union branch confirmed in a letter to the Paris mayor.
The previous near month-long strike, up until the end of March, had seen 10,000 tonnes of rubbish piled up across the capital at its worst.
The extremely unpopular pension reforms which raise the state pension age from 62 to 64, have been signed into law by French President Emmanuel Macron.
It took place hours after France’s highest constitutional council approved the modification.
The Constitutional Council rejected calls for a referendum from the opposition, but it also ruled that key portions of the amendments were invalid due to legal issues.
After the council made its decision, demonstrators set fire to Paris, and 112 people were detained.
Since January, there have been twelve days of protests opposing the reforms.
The measures will continue to be opposed, and on May 1st, unions are urging workers all over France to go to the streets once more.
President Macron argues the reforms are essential to prevent the pension system collapsing. In March, the government used a special constitutional power to force through the changes without a vote.
He signed the reforms into law in the early hours of Saturday morning.
The Labour Minister Olivier Dussopt has said he expects the reforms to come into effect by the start of September.
After the Friday ruling of the Constitutional Court, trade unions made an unsuccessful last-ditch appeal to the president not to sign the pension-age increase into law.
The unions pointed out that six concessions that had been added to the reforms were rejected by the court, so what was already unfair was now “even more unbalanced”.
Among the reforms struck down by the nine members of the Constitutional Council was a so-called “senior index” aimed at urging companies with more than 1,000 workers to take on employees over 55.
Mr Dussopt has vowed to improve the employment rates of those aged over 50 in an effort to ease concerns about the financial impacts of the raised retirement age.
The authorities had banned demonstrations in front of the Constitutional Council building in Paris until Saturday morning, but crowds of protesters had gathered nearby on Friday and the ruling was met with jeers.
Some demonstrators chanted they would continue protesting until the changes were withdrawn.
Later, several fires were set across the city as riot police tried to contain the situation, sometimes using tear gas. A Paris police official said 112 people have been arrested.
Fires were also lit during demonstrations in Rennes and Nantes, while there were tense standoffs at times between protesters and police in Lyon.
Information coming in is that France’s top constitutional body has approved President Emmanuel Macron’s contested plan to raise the retirement age.
The decision taken on Friday is in line with the French Constitution. The retirement age in France is 64 years. Macron can enact the bill within 15 days.
All eyes were on the heavily guarded Constitutional Council, which can nix all or parts of a complex pension reform plan that Macron pushed through without a vote by the lower house of parliament.
Security forces stood behind a metal fence erected in front of the edifice where the decision was being made.
As tensions mounted hours before the decision, Macron invited labor unions to meet with him on Tuesday “whatever the decision by the Constitutional Council,” his office said.
The president did not grant a request last month by unions for a meeting.
The president’s drive to increase the retirement age has provoked months of labor strikes and protests.
Violence by pockets of ultra-left radicals marked the 12 otherwise peaceful nationwide marches that unions organized since January.
Paris has increased security as the nation prepares for a major decision on the legitimacy of disputed changes to France’s pension system.
Before the verdict, which might raise France’s retirement age from 62 to 64, the Constitutional Council in Paris, which is similar to the US Supreme Court, has been barricaded.
An authority on French constitutional law told CNN that this is the first time police had protected a court. Laureline Fontaine remarked, “As far back as I can remember, I’ve never seen images like this before.”
Sweeping protests have paralyzed major services across the country this year over French President Emmanuel Macron’s proposal, a move that has also riled opposition lawmakers and unions. Uncollected garbage has mounted in the streets of Paris.
There are several possible outcomes to Friday’s ruling. If the law is green-lit, it will go into effect in September. The first retirees will have to wait an additional three months for their state pensions. With regular, incremental increases, by 2030 the retirement age will have reached 64.
There could also be a partial strike down of the law. If only part of it is deemed unconstitutional, the court can opt to pass the remainder of the legislation into law. This would likely still be seen as a win for Macron, who would then be able to offer dialogue to trade unions.
If the court finds that the law in unconstitutional, it cannot be enacted. This is unlikely and would be a political earthquake for Macron, whose government pushed through the legislation without a direct vote by using special constitutional powers.
The council will also decide Friday whether to allow a referendum on the law, called for by the opposition.
Macron has argued that the reforms are essential to rein in public finances, and has been standing firm, this week saying “the country must continue to move forward.”
Thursday marked the 12th nationwide day of protests against the proposals. Hundreds of thousands took to the streets but the interior ministry’s turnout figure – 380,000 – is nearly 200,000 less than the previous round of protests.
Some protesters in Paris forced their way into the headquarters of luxury giant LVMH, with one union leader telling CNN, “if Macron wants to find money to finance the pension system, he should come here to find it.”
The protests have for the most part been peaceful but they have also seen violent clashes.
The higher pension age will still keep France below the norm in Europe and in many other developed economies, where the age at which full pension benefits apply is 65 and is increasingly moving towards 67.
In the United States and the United Kingdom, the retirement age is between 66 and 67, depending on the year you were born. Current legislation envisages a further rise from 67 to 68 in Britain between 2044 and 2046 (although the timing of this increase is being reviewed and could change).
State pensions in France are also more generous than elsewhere. At nearly 14% of GDP in 2018, the country’s spending on state pensions is larger than in most other countries, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
In protest of the government‘s plans to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64, hundreds of thousands of people demonstrated once more across France on Thursday, just one day before a vital court decision on the validity of the contentious law.
On the day that shares in the business, which owns brands including Louis Vuitton and Mot, rose to a record high, protesters in Paris forced their way into the offices of the luxury conglomerate LVMH.
A union official, Fabien Villedieu, told CNN affiliate BFMTV outside the LVMH headquarters, “If Macron wants to find money to finance the pension system, he should come here to find it.”
Multiple flare ups have taken place throughout the day.
Police halted a protest in front of the Constitutional Council, France’s equivalent of the US supreme court, which will hand down a long-awaited ruling on the validity of the pension reform law on Friday. A ban on protests in the area is in place from Thursday evening until Saturday morning local time.
CNN teams on the ground witnessed protesters engaging in intense scuffles with police as smoke bombs, projectiles and tear gas were fired, before a group set off red flares outside the court building.
Violence also broke out at Paris’ Place de la Bastille as riot police clashed with angry protestors.
“At least a thousand radical individuals present at the forefront of the demonstration area tried on several occasions to commit acts of violence along the route and to hinder the smooth progress of the demonstration,” a spokesman for the Paris police said.
The police were also seen protecting the BHV department store by charging at protesters in the Rue de Rivoli in central Paris.
The police arrested 47 people in Paris and at least ten police officers were injured, according to Paris police prefecture.
Around 380,000 people attended the protests across France on Thursday, 42,000 of whom were in Paris, according to the latest figures from the French interior ministry.
The figure is down from last week’s 11th round of demonstrations which drew in crowds of approximately 570,000.
Police had been expecting further violent attacks that have been a visible, if minor, feature of the protests across France over the past two and a half months, with particular attention on so-called “black bloc” protesters, part of a radical fringe that has been present from the start of the country’s social upheaval.
France’s President Emmanuel Macron argues reforms are essential to rein in public finances, and has been standing firm, this week saying “the country must continue to move forward.”
Speaking at an incinerator picket line near Paris on Thursday morning, Sophie Binet, the new head of the GGT, one of France’s main unions, insisted: “As long as the pension reform is not withdrawn, the mobilization will continue one way or another.”
French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire defended his government’s contested pension reform plans to CNN on Thursday as “vital”, saying “we need to ensure to French citizens that there is a financial balance by 2030. This is the purpose of the reform.”
Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo voiced her support for the demonstrators before the new round of protests.
“On the eve of the decision of the constitutional council, I am once again supporting the mobilisations in Paris and everywhere in France,” Hidalgo tweeted.
“This reform is unjust and violent. The French have been asking for it to be withdrawn for months, the government has to hear them,” she wrote.
Friday’s ruling will be decisive on whether the protests will continue. The CFDT, France’s other main union, has been more amenable to a negotiated settlement.
Garbage is meanwhile also set to fill the streets of Paris once more as collectors and incinerator workers are on strike again, according to the CGT union.
This will be a rolling strike, the general secretary of the CGT union branch confirmed in a letter to the Paris mayor.
The previous near month-long strike, up until the end of March, had seen 10,000 tonnes of rubbish piled up across the capital at its worst.
Since late last month the Chinese leader has hosted heads of state and government chiefs from Spain, Singapore, Malaysia, France and the European Union – an unusual pace of diplomatic activity that comes as countries look to Beijing as the global economy sputters in the wake of the pandemic and war in Ukraine.
On Friday, that list grew to include Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who is expected to sign a host of bilateral deals with Xi – and, like several of the leaders before him, arrives with hopes of making progress toward ending Russia’s war in Ukraine.
But for Xi, this revolving door of visiting leaders – making the trip even as China has refused to condemn the Russian invasion – is also an opportunity to assert his vision for a global order not dictated by American rules – and push back against perceived threats.
That’s especially urgent for the Chinese leader now, observers say.
Three years of scaled-back diplomacy due to China’s strict Covid-19 controls coupled with economic challenges, entrenched competition with the United States and rising European concerns about Beijing’s foreign policy have left Xi under pressure to act.
“(Chinese leaders) believe it’s time now for China to make its strategic plans,” said Li Mingjiang, an associate professor of international relations at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University.
“A potentially good outcome is to weaken American alliances … so that’s why we’re seeing quite strenuous efforts made by Beijing to try to stabilize and improve relations with European countries, and also to try to improve and strengthen cooperation with emerging economies,” he said.
As world leaders return to Beijing despite international concerns over the growing China-Russia relationship and Beijing’s intimidation of Taiwan, Xi has used the opportunity to thread his conversations with veiled criticism of the US and keywords that signal Xi’s own view for how to reshape global power.
Speaking to Singapore’s Lee Hsien Loong late last month, Xi stressed that Asian countries together should “firmly oppose bullying, decoupling or severing industrial and supply chains,”while he urged Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim to “resolutely resist the Cold War mentality and bloc confrontation.”
To Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez that same day, he warned that the “sound development of China-EU relations requires the EU to uphold strategic independence,” according to readouts from the Chinese side.
Beijing has watched uneasily as the war in Ukraine has driven the US and its European allies closer. Now, analysts say playing up its economic partnerships and exploiting differences between countries on the two sides of the Atlantic is key.
When French President Emmanuel Macron arrived in Beijing last week, Xi drew comparisons between China and France: both “major countries with a tradition of independence,” Xi said, and “firm advocates for a multi-polar world” – or a world without a dominant superpower.
After a day of meetings in Beijing, Xi met Macron in the southern commercial hub of Guangzhou to continue an “informal” conversation – sipping tea and listening to the plucked melodies of traditional Chinese music before a state dinner.
Macron, who has long advocated for Europe to develop an independent geopolitical policy and defense capabilities that needn’t rely on Washington, appeared receptive.
He released a 51-point joint statement with China outlining cooperation on areas from nuclear energy to food security and told reporters traveling with him that when it comes to the US-China rivalry Europe must not be “caught up in crises that are not ours, which prevents it from building its strategic autonomy,” according to a Politico interview.
Macron’s comments have sparked backlash in Europe and the US, but analysts say they were likely seen as a triumph in Beijing.
“Everything that can weaken the US, divide the West and move countries closer to China is good for Xi,” said Jean-Pierre Cabestan, a professor of political science at Hong Kong Baptist University. “Hence, Macron’s trip is seen in Beijing as a major victory.”
Xi may be preparing for another potential diplomatic win when he meets Lula on Friday.
The leftist Brazilian leader, who ushered in a boom in China-Brazil trade ties during his first stint in power some two decades ago, is traveling with a delegation of business leaders, state governors, congressmen and ministers, and expected to close a raft of bilateral deals from agriculture and livestock to technology.
Lula’s return to power already shifts the dynamics of the China-Brazil relationship, which saw tense moments under former leader Jair Bolsonaro, who embraced anti-China rhetoric.
Lula has already started out his state visit in Shanghai with a nod to Brazil and China cooperation, attending the former Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff’s inauguration as head of the New Development Bank of BRICS, the bloc of emerging economies of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa that offers an alternative power grouping to the Western-centric G7.
“Xi will find in Lula a BRICS enthusiast, openness to reforms in the global governance system and the desire to avoid automatic alignment with the US,” said Luiza Duarte, a research fellow at American University’s Center for Latin American and Latino Studies in Washington.
Meanwhile, Lula’s expected warm welcome in Beijing “raises comparison with his frustrating less than 24-hour visit to Washington,” she said, referring to the Brazilian leader’s February 10 visit to the White House.
The meeting was seen at the time as a key outreach from the newly inaugurated Lula to the US.
But Beijing may use the “lack of deliverables” from that meeting “to position itself as a more appealing alternative for bilateral cooperation,” said Duarte.
Looming over diplomacy in Beijing is the Russian assault in Ukraine.
Some leaders – like Macron – have viewed Xi, a close friend and diplomatic partner of Russian President Vladimir Putin, as a potential ally that could help push Putin toward peace.
But their relationship has also raised concern, with US officials earlier this year warning that China was considering providing the Kremlin with lethal aid – a claim Beijing has denied.
While France and China agreed to several points related to the war in their meeting – including opposition to attacks on nuclear power plants and the protection of women and children – Macron did not ultimately push Xi to commit on paper to any position China has not already publicly said.
Brazil, in advance of Lula’s trip, has offered another view: creating – as the country’s foreign minister put it – “a group of mediator countries” including China.
But how Beijing navigates these initiatives, observers say, comes down to a bottom line that’s integrally related to Xi’s global ambitions and world view.
“It will be difficult for China to respond positively to some of the requests made by either the Americans or Europeans, because doing this would produce the risk of making the Russians upset,” said Li in Singapore.
“Russia is the only major power that shares a lot of (China’s) views on how the world and the global system should look and how various political issues should be handled. Russia is irreplaceable for China,” he said.
That point was highlighted in another moment on Xi’s recent diplomatic agenda: his travel to Moscow in March for his own state visit – the first since he stepped into a third presidential term that same month.
And while China’s diplomacy – and deals – in the past week may not have been heavily impacted by the optics of that relationship, analysts say how Beijing handles the conflict will continue to affect views on China globally.
Perceptions about Xi’s potential influence over Putin have provided “leverage that allows (Xi) to get a lot of attention, and perhaps get mileage and support that he would otherwise not have,” said Chong Ja Ian, an associate professor at the National University of Singapore.
“Ultimately, the test will come down to whether Xi is actually able to exert any real influence on Putin, especially in terms of ceasing the war,” he said.
French President Emmanuel Macron might have wanted to concentrate this week on what could end up being the largest domestic test of his leadership, as France’s Constitutional Council gets ready to decide on Friday whether or not he can move through with contentious pension reforms.
Instead, he is now dealing with the international fallout from his recent goodwill visit to China, particularly from remarks that have made him unpopular in both Washington, DC, and with some of his European friends.
Macron spoke with POLITICO Europe on the plane back from Beijing. In it, he responded to a question concerning the possibility of China occupying Taiwan by saying that Europe must not turn into “just America’s followers.”
“The question Europeans need to answer … is it in our interest to accelerate [a crisis] on Taiwan? No. The worse thing would be to think that we Europeans must become followers on this topic and take our cue from the US agenda and a Chinese overreaction,” Macron said, adding that Europe must not get “caught up in crises that are not ours, which prevents it from building its strategic autonomy.”
Strategic autonomy is a Brussels term that refers to the EU having an independent geopolitical policy, which relies in part on the bloc being able to become a third power and not get squashed between the US and China. However, the China hawks, typically in Eastern Europe, have always been skeptical of anything that puts clear water between Europe and the US, who they see as the ultimate protectors of European territory through NATO.
Macron has since attempted to downplay his comments, saying on Wednesday that France was “for the status quo in Taiwan” and that position “has not changed.” But the hawks have already hit back.
Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said: “Instead of building strategic autonomy from the United States, I propose a strategic partnership with the United States.” Lithuania’s foreign minister tweeted “We are capable of defending Europe without Chinese help. Instead of requesting assistance we should be projecting our strengths.”
Eastern European diplomats have been less subtle. One said that Macron is “simply tone deaf to everything happening in the world. No wonder Macroning has become a synonym of bullshitting without any result.” Another said they “cannot understand” Macron, that his visit to Beijing and remarks on Taiwan were “not helpful” and that Europe should engage with countries that “value democracy and the rule of law” over China.
Macron’s trip was further undermined when Beijing performed military rehearses encircling Taiwan the day after he left China.
European diplomats and officials say that while Macron doesn’t speak for Europe and that the 27 EU member states have all agreed on an approach to China, they are aware that his comments – and, they believe, attempts to present himself as the EU’s leader – could cause Europe real problems with the US, particularly in terms of European security.
And they’d be correct. Multiple US government sources told CNN that while they are aware that Macron indeed doesn’t speak for all of Europe, they are concerned that his words make it much harder to make the case for a strong transatlantic alliance to lawmakers in DC.
Case in point: Florida Senator Marco Rubio posted on Twitter shortly after Macron’s comments were published, suggesting that if Macron “speaks for Europe” then maybe the US should focus on its objectives and let “you guys handle Ukraine and Europe.”
The US government sources said Macron’s comments would only add to the skepticism some Republican lawmakers have about open-ended financial support to Ukraine, and fear the remarks could even contribute to a decision to block or curtail such funding. Worse, the sources also fear it could disrupt NATO unity – which has been remarkably strong since the start of the Ukraine crisis – if countries start unilaterally undermining the priorities of others.
A European government official who was at NATO headquarters for a meeting last week said there was broad agreement among the allies, including France, that Taiwan and security in the Indo-Pacific region was of crucial importance to the alliance. They were surprised to see Macron’s comments so soon after that meeting.
For all that Macron’s comments could be put down to a president under pressure at home doing things on the world stage to create a distraction, his comments on Taiwan have done real damage to the fragile transatlantic relationship.
It might not have been his intention, but Macron’s comments have come at a yet unknown cost. And meanwhile, at home, he still faces a serious political crisis.
His proposal to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64, which was pushed through parliament without a vote, caused violent protests and nationwide strikes.
The reforms include other cost-cutting measures and are, Macron’s government says, essential in preventing the pension system from collapsing. Social reforms like this were central to his 2022 re-election campaign. If they are blocked by the Constitutional Council, it will be a huge embarrassment for Macron.
“Even if he gets his way, even if he sacks his prime minister, Macron has taken a huge political hit and it’s hard to see how there won’t be even more protests,” says Aurelien Mondon, senior lecturer in politics at the University of Bath. “He has always wanted to lead as the all-powerful, sole leader of France. Whatever goes wrong, it’s on him.”
Will France on April 25, still be able to export grains to Africa? The government wants to instill confidence, but producers and merchants are worried that they won’t be able to apply an insecticide (phosphine) in direct contact with the grains, which would force them to lose access to their longtime clients.
“There is nothing to worry about for our exports,” French Foreign Trade Minister Olivier Becht said on Tuesday, while his Agriculture counterpart, Marc Fesneau, underlined the major role that France would continue. to stand for global “food security”.
The government was questioned by several deputies on the consequences of a decision by the French Health Security Agency (Anses), dating from October 2022, which does not authorize, from April 25, the use of PH3 insecticide (or phosphine ) in the fumigation of the holds of ships only on condition that it is not “in direct contact with cereals”.
“If no decision is taken, on April 25, we will no longer be able to export to countries such as Togo, Cameroon, Algeria, or Egypt, which require in their specifications fumigation in direct contact with grains,” Eric Thirouin, president of the Association of French Grain Producers (AGPB), told AFP.
Food Safety
“We are up against the wall. Belgium, Germany, and all the other European countries have reauthorized the use of direct fumigation, except France. This means that the 4th largest wheat exporter in the world may no longer be able to deliver to its customers. , which would have a serious impact on food security, and on the trade balance of France” where cereals weighed “11.5 billion euros” in 2022, he underlined.
Well aware of the issues, the government explained that it was seeking a “legal” solution to circumvent this constraint. “France will continue to export cereals. It does so within the framework of European law which allows derogation from the ban (…) at the request of importing countries”, indicated Marc Fesneau.
“There are still legal clarifications to be made, but I can guarantee you that by April 25, decisions will be made so that exports can continue,” said Olivier Becht.
Fumigation
Until now, insecticide tablets have been placed directly on grain shipments. Although it is technically possible to perform the fumigation indirectly by placing the tablets in a box or pierced pocket, this process is refused by certain third countries, which consider that they do not have the capacity to reprocess packaging considered to be toxic waste.
For Synacomex, the exporters’ union, it was ANSES’s decision that caused this deadlock, because the agency “restricted” the marketing authorization (MA) requested by the Dutch company UPL Holdings Coöperatief UA which markets PH3.
Contacted by AFP, ANSES said it had only responded to the file sent by the company UPL.
“We have not banned phosphine (a gas that can be dangerous for humans in the event of inhalation of massive doses, editor’s note). We have deemed the files submitted by UPL to be compliant. But all the tests on the residues ( of insecticide) sent by the applicant related to a protocol where the product is never put directly into the grain. We have therefore only validated these protocols, “ said Charlotte Grastilleur, deputy general manager of the pole, to AFP. ANSES-regulated products.
European law
“On February 21, the company UPL even explained to us that it was not claiming the use at the heart of the grain (direct fumigation, editor’s note) because its results of analyzes concerning (pesticide) residues would be non-compliant. European regulations,” she added.
ANSES explains that it can only review its decision in the event of “new scientific fact”, which is not the case here.
In this situation, estimates ANSES, one of the avenues would be to rely on European law which authorizes exceeding maximum residue limits in certain cases for export, independently of the MAs issued at the national level.
Ghanaian singer-songwriter Gyakie is set for her upcoming tour in the United Kingdom and France, expected to commence on May 18 at Gorilla Manchester.
The tour will continue on May 19 at LaFayette London, May 20 at O2 Institute Birmingham, and conclude on May 26 in Paris.
Gyakie, whose real name is Jackline Acheampong, has been making waves in the music industry with her unique blend of Afrobeats, R&B, and Pop. Her music has been praised for its catchy melodies, relatable lyrics, and infectious beats, and she has garnered a large following both in Ghana and internationally.
The upcoming tour is a significant milestone for Gyakie, who has been steadily building her career over the past few years. She recently released her debut EP “Seed” in August 2020, which features collaborations with Nigerian artists Omah Lay and Bisa Kdei.
Powered by LiveNation, Flip the music, and Smade, the tour promises to be an exciting showcase of Gyakie’s talent and musical style. Fans can expect to hear hits such as “Forever” and “Something,” as well as other songs from the artist.
Gyakie’s breakout single “Forever” has been a massive hit, garnering over 30 million views on YouTube and earning her a spot on Billboard’s “Next Big Sound” chart. The song has also been remixed by Nigerian artist Omah Lay, further cementing Gyakie’s status as a rising star in the African music scene.
Herve Renard, who is expected to be approved as the head coach of France’s women’s team, has announced his resignation to Saudi Arabia.
Before the Women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand later this year, Renard, whose contract as the coach of Saudi Arabia would have expired in 2027, will take command of the French team.
The 54-year-old will take over as Les Bleues coach in place of Corinne Diacre. She has previously won the Africa Cup of Nations as a coach.
Diacre resigned from her position amid a player exodus regarding her leadership style and team dynamics.
In a statement on social media, the Saudi national team said: “The Saudi Arabian Football Federation Board of Directors has agreed on the contract termination of the Head Coach of the Saudi National Team Mr Herve Renard upon his request.
“A legal settlement has been reached to end the contract between the two parties.
“The President and Board of Directors of SAFF wish for Mr Renard every success in his future career.”
Renard took the post in 2019 and guided Saudi Arabia to their second successive World Cup finals, becoming the foreign-born manager with the most wins in the nation’s history.
He led Saudi Arabia to a shock 2-1 win over eventual champions Argentina in their first group game in Qatar, but defeats to Poland and Mexico meant they failed to reach the knock-out rounds.
Renard oversaw a 2-1 friendly defeat to Bolivia on Tuesday and later posted on social media: “Having been the coach of the national team of Saudi Arabia is a great pride for me.
“Since August 2019, I had the chance to be an integral part of the life of this beautiful country. I have seen this team grow alongside me and achieve a fabulous World Cup and this fantastic and unforgettable win against Argentina.
“Very proud to have been able to show to the world the progress and a good image of Saudi football. It’s time for me to fly to another horizon but with these memories engraved in me.”
A lovely goal from Benjamin Pavard gave World Cup champions France a slim advantage in Dublin’s Euro 2024 qualifying match, making the Republic of Ireland pay for one crucial mistake.
Together with Friday’s 4-0 thrashing of the Netherlands, Pavard’s 50th-minute contribution gave Group B victory by a score of 1-0. Before to that, he had intercepted Josh Cullen’s foolish pass over the edge of his own box.
Yet in a thrilling conclusion, Mike Maignan’s outstanding stop in the 90th minute prevented Nathan Collins from tying the score.
The world’s third-ranked side were made to work desperately hard for the points by an Ireland team sitting 48th in FIFA’s table two years to the day since they suffered the humiliation of a 1-0 World Cup qualifying defeat by Luxembourg at the Aviva Stadium.
France dominated possession for much of the game, but were unable to trouble keeper Gavin Bazunu until Cullen’s rare slip let Pavard in as Stephen Kenny’s men, who handled superstar Kylian Mbappe well, defended diligently and tried to hit them on the break.
Ireland’s fate in this campaign was never likely to be decided on their results against France, and their trip to Greece in June before Gibraltar head for the Aviva will be far more indicative, but Kenny will take heart from the way his young team committed to his game-plan in the face of the sternest of tests.
With wide frontmen Chiedozie Ogbene and Jason Knight dropping in when they were out of possession, the home side were compact, although they were breached with nine minutes gone when Randal Kolo Muani was played in over the top and rounded Bazunu, only for his back-heeled pass to Olivier Giroud as he was driven wide to be cut out by Collins.
The Republic were squeezed ever deeper as France turned the screw with Antoine Griezmann orchestrating, and it took a good 16th-minute block by John Egan to keep Mbappe at bay.
With what little share of the ball they were afforded, Ireland did their best to fulfil Kenny’s instructions to take risks without ever really threatening to pierce the French defence, but they needed Bazunu to spring from his line to prevent any damage after Griezmann’s 24th-minute corner had ricocheted across his six-yard box.
Griezmann instinctively stabbed wide as he attempted to turn Theo Hernandez’s 32nd-minute drive past Bazunu and then missed the target with a header from Pavard’s cross as French frustration mounted.
In the event, a team which had scored three times inside the opening 21 minutes against the Dutch left the pitch at half-time locked in a stalemate having been unable to break down a stubborn and disciplined Irish rearguard.
However, the home side faltered within five minutes of the restart to hand the visitors the lead.
Cullen intercepted Adrien Rabiot’s misplaced pass on the edge of his own penalty area, but then played the ball square, where Pavard pounced before smashing a shot past the helpless Bazunu off the underside of the crossbar.
It might have been 2-0 had Evan Ferguson in the defensive wall not got his head to Griezmann’s 55th-minute free-kick, although the Atletico Madrid star turned up on the edge of his box to block Knight’s goal-bound strike after Ogbene had burst clear down the right three minutes later.
Moussa Diaby tested Bazunu’s resolve with a swerving 69th-minute effort and the Southampton keeper repelled Rabiot’s attempt from distance six minutes later, but Molumby and substitutes James McClean and Alan Browne all went close to an equaliser in a tense conclusion.
But for Maignan, who had seconds earlier clawed the ball from underneath his crossbar, Collins would have snatched a famous draw at the death.
