PM Bayrou lost the vote, but a deadlock in Parliament means France might struggle to find a replacement who can pass a budget aimed at cutting the deficit.

French Prime Minister François Bayrou has lost a confidence vote of MPs, ending his nine months in office during a period of chaos in the country’s parliament, the National Assembly.

Bayrou, 74, was the fourth prime minister in two years under President Emmanuel Macron, whose second term is office has been overshadowed by political instability.

The outgoing PM’s minority government called for €44bn (£38bn) of budget cuts to tackle France’s mounting public debt. It has now effectively collapsed.

The BBC looks at what led to his removal by MPsand what could happen next.

Ahead of the no-confidence vote, Bayrou spoke on Monday afternoon in the National Assembly, France’s lower house of Parliament, where he told lawmakers that the economy faced serious risks because of its deep indebtedness. He then fielded questions from parliamentarians, before the vote took place.

Here’s what you need to know:

What could happen next?

For several weeks, lawmakers had made it clear they would vote against Bayrou’s state-slashing budget. Opposition parties from the far left to the far right hold 330 seats in the 577-seat National Assembly – so Monday’s ouster was widely expected.

After Monday’s vote, Bayrou’s government has collapsed. However, he will stay in office until President Emmanuel Macron decides what to do next. Unfortunately for the president, France lacks a consensus figure to replace Bayrou.

Macron is faced with uniquely hard choices – appoint another prime minister in the hope that he or she can pass an unpopular budget, call new elections to try to re-establish a parliamentary majority, or stand down himself, something he has refused to do before his term ends in 2027.

With the arithmetic in Parliament unchanged, picking a new premier risks simply repeating the events from last year when Bayrou succeeded Michel Barnier.

A fiscal conservative, Macron is unlikely to appoint a premier who advocates for higher state spending. But after the government recently tried to cut deals on the right of the political spectrum, some wonder if Macron might try something new.

According to Stefano Palombarini, assistant professor of economics at the University of Paris VIII, “the two previous appointments, Barnier and Bayrou, both failed. He [Macron] lost a lot of credibility in that process, and if he tries a similarly centrist approach, he’d lose even more.”

Palombarini told Al Jazeera that “in this context, it would make the scenario of a relative opening towards the left possible. Some Macronist, Socialist and Green politicians say they’re ready for compromises to form a government that lasts until 2027.”

Does this mean there is a clear political path?

Not really.

According to an opinion poll this month for Le Figaro Magazine by the Verian Group, just 15 percent of the electorate has confidence in Macron, down 6 percentage points since July. However, the president has consistently ruled out resigning from office.

Separate surveys by Ifop, Elabe and Toluna Harris Interactive indicated that 56 to 69 percent of French people want snap parliamentary elections, indicating growing dissatisfaction with current party politics in a country run by minority cabinets since 2022.

For Palombarini, “there’s general political malaise [in France] and also dissatisfaction specifically with Macron. So overall, opinion polls are actually quite stable.” Indeed, the latest polls show no material change in voting intentions over the past year.

This means there is no certainty that a new prime minister would be safe from a similar fate as Bayrou.

What are the origins of this crisis?

At the heart of France’s political paralysis is Macron’s risky decision to call snap parliamentary elections last year. That came after he was re-elected in 2022.

Macron’s gamble in June 2024 was an effort to shore up support for the political centre. But French voters edged towards the extremes, leaving Macron with a weakened minority government and limiting his ability to pass legislation.

The vote resulted in a hung Parliament split between three groups. A left alliance won the most seats, but fell far short of a majority. The far-right National Rally won the most votes, but also doesn’t have a majority. Macron’s centrist coalition lost seats, but still forms a significant third bloc.

This parliamentary shake-up has made France hard to govern. Divisions have shown up most clearly around spending.

How does the budget fit into it?

The immediate reason for Bayrou’s fall is his budget proposal for next year. His unpopular 44-billion-euro ($51bn) deficit-reduction plan, including freezing most welfare spending and scrapping two public holidays, has been widely rejected by parliamentarians.

On August 25, Jordan Bardella, head of the National Rally, said his party would “never vote in favour of a government whose decisions are making the French suffer”. Bayrou in effect has announced “the end of his government”, Bardella said.

The French budget deficit is now nearly 169 billion euros ($198bn), or 5.8 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP), well above the 3 percent limit set by the European Union for countries using the euro.

Bayrou is trying to lower the government’s borrowing to 4.6 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2026 and to 2.8 percent by 2029. In turn, that would lower the overall debt-to-GDP ratio to 117.2 percent in 2029, compared with 125.3 percent if no changes are made.

Bayrou recently said young people will be saddled with years of debt payments “for the sake of the comfort of boomers” if France fails to tackle its fiscal pressures. Born in 1951, Bayrou himself qualifies as a baby boomer, the generation born in the years soon after World War II.

But any attempt to curtail social benefits is politically difficult in France, as made clear by conflicts in 2023 over Macron’s decision to raise the retirement age to 64 from 62.

Still, investors worry that France’s persistent deficits will cause ever higher debt ratios and undermine its credit score.

Is more gridlock expected?

A series of street demonstrations known as “Block Everything” is expected this week, followed by union-led hospital and rail strikes in the second half of September.

In 2018 and 2023, France witnessed what became known as the “gilets jaunes”, or yellow vest. anti-government protests against various domestic policies overseen by Macron, who will want to avoid a repeat this time, analysts said.

“Macron’s policies since 2017 have been very unpopular. If there were legislative elections tomorrow, a Macronist government would not get elected,” Palombarini said.

But with the president rejecting the idea that he might resign early, “he is likely to continue to enjoy power of the office for a few more years”, Palombarini added.

Beyond that there are also voices – from the far left this time – calling for Macron’s resignation. That is most unlikely to happen.

Who could replace Bayrou?

Pressure will be on Macron to name a successor from the left. The last two prime ministers were from the right and centre, and a left alliance came out numerically top in the 2024 election.

Olivier Faure, the leader of the Socialist Party, would be one possibility. The 57-year-old has a group of 66 deputies in the National Assembly.

Two other possibilities from the left are former PM Bernard Cazeneuve, and the veteran ex-minister Pierre Moscovici, currently head of the Cour des Comptes, the official accounting office.

If Macron decides to stick with the centre and right, his first choice would probably be Sebastien Lecornu, 39, the current defence minister who is a member of Macron’s Renaissance party and said to be close to the president.

Another conservative whose name has been mentioned is the current minister of labour and health, Catherine Vautrin.

Two other possibilities from inside government are Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau, who now leads the Republicans, and Justice Minister Gérald Darmanin.

But with all eyes on the 2027 presidential election, would these heavyweights want the electoral kiss-of-death which is to be Macron’s next PM?

World Opinions – BBC News – Aljazeera

L’article Why has the French PM had to go and what happens next? est apparu en premier sur زوايا ميادين | Mayadin Columns.

A leader of the Muslim community in Jersey has praised the work of volunteers for helping people observe Ramadan in the island.

Organisers said they had seen seen rising numbers of islanders come together at the Jersey Islamic Centre to break fast during the holy month.

Ramadan is the most important time in the Islamic calendar where Muslims fast and refrain from eating or drinking between dawn and sunset.

Muslims also believe it is a time for self-reflection and renewing their faith to Allah.

Manik Ahmed Memon, the Iftar co-ordinator at Jersey Islamic Centre, said “a lot of work goes on in the background” to make sure people were able to break fast together.

“It’s great to see different people from different backgrounds coming together,” he said

“We have got great volunteers here who do the heavy lifting and families come together to cook the food which we serve at the centre.”

The centre is able to serve food to between 50 to 75 people coming to break fast every evening.

Amna Salim and Mohammed Attari were both observing Ramadan in Jersey for the first time.

Ms Salim said: “It’s been great.

“I didn’t know everyone would get together like this when I first came to the island.

“Jersey is very different to Pakistan, where I’m from originally, but it makes the move much easier being around people who celebrate your religion and your culture.”

Mr Attari said: “It’s really important for the community to have something like this because we’re a small community so it’s good to be connected.”

Dr Sarfaraz Jamali, the head of Jersey’s Muslim Community, said more than 75 people had gathered on one night for Iftar.

“We started with very few people maybe four or five,” he said.

“It gives a thought about how we’re going to deal with the increasing numbers of people coming here with the space we’ve got.”

By Chris Craddock – BBC News

L’article Ramadan event helping bring community together est apparu en premier sur زوايا ميادين | Mayadin Columns.

Tensions are rising in France, home to one of Europe’s largest Muslim minorities, ahead of the snap election run-off.

Fatimata, a 22-year-old French Muslim woman, suddenly feels as though many of her compatriots are against her very being.

On Sunday, the far right led the first round of parliamentary elections and while it’s not yet clear if Marine Le Pen’s National Rally movement will form a majority after the July 7 run-off, many of France’s six million Muslims are, like Fatimata, paralysed with fear.

“I am feeling betrayed by France. Knowing that 10.6 million people voted for a party promoting the ban of the veil in the public space is hurtful,” she told Al Jazeera.

She represents the kind of French citizen that Le Pen’s party has long demonised.

She wears the hijab, she was born to foreign parents – Mauritanian and Senegalese, and she was raised in one of the banlieues, the impoverished suburbs circling Paris that are home to many immigrant and ethnic minority communities. She’s also a dual citizen.

Le Pen has called for the hijab to be banned in public spaces while Jordan Bardella, her protege who could become France’s next prime minister, has called the veil a “tool of discrimination”. He has railed against the populous banlieue north of Paris that he grew up in – Seine-Saint-Denis – and promised to ban dual nationals from some “the most strategic” state jobs if his party seizes power.

“I’ve experienced to the core the feeling of becoming a foreigner in one’s own country. I’ve experienced the Islamisation of my neighbourhood,” 28-year-old Bardella said in June.

Fatimata, a student, hails from Stains, a commune within Seine-Saint-Denis. It is possible that as a child, she may have walked past Bardella at a market or sat across from him in a cafe.

“I received French nationality when I was 13, and I can’t help to think that somewhere in my banlieue, there is a 13-year-old girl just like I was who won’t be able to achieve things because the first party in France is now the National Rally,” she said.

‘Compromising my future’

President Emmanuel Macron called the snap polls after suffering a humiliating defeat at the hands of the far right in the recent European Parliament elections. But his risky gamble has backfired.

While National Rally secured about a third of Sunday’s vote with 33.15 percent, the New Popular Front, a left-wing alliance, came second with 28.14 percent. Macron was left red-faced again, as his centrist alliance scored just 20.76 percent. Thousands of protesters have taken to the streets since to rally against the far right.

Elias, a 27-year-old who works in marketing, said many Muslims are considering emigrating from France if the National Rally ends up governing – a trend which has already taken hold among some professionals.

Earlier this year, the authors of a study titled La France, tu l’aimes mais tu la quittes (France, loving it but leaving it), conducted a survey of more than 1,000 people, interviewing 140 at length. They cited a “brain drain” of French Muslims quitting the country for jobs abroad because of the “harmful effects of Islamophobia”.

While a “valid” reaction to discrimination or the rise of the far right, Elias said he feels “torn”.

“If we all leave, who will continue to resist? I think it is important to stay, at least for the future generations,” said Elias, who has Algerian ancestry.

“What’s also making me very worried is the potential increase of police violence. There will probably be a surge of racial profiling and of violence, because the officers will feel protected and supported by the National Rally.

“I am scared for my little brother, who is 15 years old and who had his first police check when he was only 13.”

For Tiziri Messaoudene, an 18-year-old student of Algerian descent, it is Bardella’s position on dual nationals that is most frightening.

During a pre-election speech, Bardella justified his stance by evoking Russia’s war on Ukraine, saying, “Can anyone imagine a Franco-Russian working at the armed forces ministry today?”

“The National Rally is saying that dual-nationality holders will not be allowed to work in ‘strategic positions in the state’. This is compromising my future in this country. I am studying political science and would like to work in public affairs, so if this bill passes, would I have studied for nothing?” Tiziri said.

In Carpentras, Tiziri’s hometown in southern France, the National Rally scored 53.51 percent on Sunday.

National Rally was previously known as the National Front, the party founded in 1972 by Marine Le Pen’s father, Jean-Marie Le Pen. The movement has attempted to soften the hard-right image cultivated by Le Pen senior, who was known for, and convicted of, racist hate speech.

Rim-Sarah Alouane, a French legal expert, said it would be “theoretically impossible” for the National Rally to carry out some of its aims.

“The bill on the ban on the veil in the public space would infringe on the laïcité (secularism) principle, while the bill on the dual-nationality holders would infringe on the principle of equality between the citizens,” Alouane told Al Jazeera.

“Nevertheless, the National Rally is a political party like no other, which means that it could do exceptional things if it comes to power.

“So in theory, those bills are against the Constitution. But in practice, we will have to see if the supreme institutions of the country will play their roles as counterweights.”

She believes that a “long process of normalisation” lies behind the far right’s success.

Under Macron’s government, controversial bills such as the abaya ban, the so-called separatism law and recent measures on immigration have rocked marginalised groups.

“It’s an important thing to remember,” said Tiziri. “Even under Macron, we lived in a nauseating Islamophobic and racist climate, where scapegoats were the Muslims and the people from foreign origin.”

According to Benjamin Tainturier, a doctoral student at Sciences Po Paris who researches far-right discourse in the media, the National Rally’s rise can be linked to the “demonisation of the radical left”, especially of Jean-Luc Melenchon’s France Unbowed party, as well as shifting theories on racism.

“After 15 years, the National Rally has succeeded in changing the definition of what racism is, through replacing a colonial and essentialist racism by a more subtle form,” he told Al Jazeera.

Macron’s Renaissance party also “stigmatised its left-wing opponents, by using the same demonising tactics that were used against the far-right before”, he said.

While campaigning, centrist politicians adopted the slogan “Ni RN, ni LFI” (Neither National Rally, nor France Unbowed).

Looking ahead, Tainturier shares Elias’s concern that police-led discrimination could surge if the far right dominates the parliament.

“If the ruling power conveys the idea that it is acceptable to discriminate against people according to their origins, it could legitimise police violence and thus increase it,” he warned.

Meanwhile, Macron, who faces the prospect of awkwardly cohabiting with a far-right premier, is urging voters to get behind the centre, ominously warning of “civil war” if the hard right – or left – triumphs.

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA

L’article Elections. France’s Muslims fear for their futures as Le Pen’s far right party surges est apparu en premier sur زوايا ميادين | Mayadin Columns.

French President Emmanuel Macron has postponed a trip to Germany due to begin on Sunday after a fourth night of rioting in cities across France, as family and friends buried the teenager whose killing by police unleashed the unrest.

The killing of 17-year-old Nahel M. during a police traffic stop this week was a depressingly familiar addition to France’s list of police brutality cases. But when the UN called on the government to address racial discrimination in its police force, the official reaction was just as familiar and depressing for France’s minorities.

The family of Nahel M, a 17-year-old of Algerian and Moroccan descent who was shot by a police officer during a traffic stop on Tuesday, held a private funeral at a mosque in Nanterre, a Paris suburb.

We are concerned by the killing of a 17-year-old of North African descent by police in France,” UN human rights office spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani told a press briefing in Geneva.

“This is a moment for the country to seriously address the deep issues of racism and discrimination in law enforcement,” she added.

Shamdasani’s comments echoed innumerable statements released over the past few years by international rights groups, such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, calling on the French state to address “systematic discrimination” particularly “the use of ethnic profiling” during identity checks.

If the UN human rights office believed the police killing of the teenager of Algerian descent, named Nahel M., could be the “moment” for an official French reckoning, it proved to be mistaken.

Shortly after the press conference in Geneva, the French foreign ministry released a statement rejecting the UN’s accusation of racism among its police. “Any accusation of racism or systemic discrimination in the police force in France is totally unfounded,” the foreign ministry said.

Race is a thorny issue in France, a nation that has become multi-ethnic since World War II and the subsequent decolonisation of several African and Asian countries.

The atrocities committed during World War II – including the complicity of the Vichy regime in deporting French Jews to Nazi concentration camps – continue to haunt the issue of ethnic and racial identity in France. The post-war state that emerged from the ashes of World War II is officially colour blind, grants equality to all its citizens, and tends to address social inequalities using class or geographic criteria.

But in the geographic neighbourhoods that experience the worst of police brutality and discrimination, that argument fails to persuade ethnically diverse residents.

Violent clashes continued on Friday night, despite the deployment of some 45,000 police officers backed by light armoured vehicles, and a similar number of police will again be on the street on Saturday night, according to the interior ministry.

The ministry said on Twitter that 1,311 people had been arrested overnight, compared with 875 the previous night, although it added the violence was “lower in intensity”.

Justice Minister Eric Dupont-Moretti said 30 percent of detainees were under 18.

Looting and rioting took place in the cities of Lyon, Marseille and Grenoble with bands of youths pillaging shops, setting fires and pelting officers with projectiles.

Finance minister Bruno Le Maire said more than 700 shops supermarkets, restaurants and bank branches had been “ransacked, looted and sometimes even burnt to the ground since Tuesday”.

Rioters in Marseille, France’s second-largest city, looted a gun store and stole hunting rifles but no ammunition, police said.

Marseille’s Mayor Benoit Payan called on the government to send extra troops to tackle “pillaging and violence” after three police officers were slightly wounded on Saturday.

Events including two concerts at the Stade de France on the outskirts of Paris were cancelled, while LVMH-owned fashion house Celine cancelled its 2024 menswear show on Sunday, according to Women’s Wear Daily.

Tour de France organisers said they were ready to adapt to any situation when the cycle race enters the country on Monday from Spain.

Violence also erupted in some French overseas territories, where a 54-year-old died late Thursday after being hit by a stray bullet in French Guiana.

On the small Indian Ocean island of Reunion, protesters set rubbish bins ablaze, threw projectiles at police, and damaged cars and buildings, officials said. Some 150 police officers were deployed there on Friday night.

World Opinions + Agencies

L’article Teen’s killing raises a French policing issue that dare not be named.. Video est apparu en premier sur زوايا ميادين | Mayadin Columns.

Afew months before sweeping to power in the 2017 presidential election, Emmanuel Macron published a memoir-cum-personal manifesto, Revolution. In it, he made the case for rebellion against allegedly outmoded institutions and ideas that were holding back France. Six years on, it is the popular revolts against Mr Macron’s own policies which have taken centre-stage.

Recent months have seen some of the largest protests in the history of the Fifth Republic, as Mr Macron has sought to push through a deeply unpopular plan to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64. On Monday, his government survived a related parliamentary motion of no confidence by the skin of its teeth. This followed the president’s controversial – though constitutional – decision to use executive powers to get his way, bypassing a vote in the national assembly that he thought he might lose.

Among his own MPs, the manoeuvre provoked public misgivings. Elsewhere, even allowing for the usual political game-playing, the response was authentically furious. One MP from the centre-right party Les Républicains – which Mr Macron’s minority government needs onside to achieve majorities – accused the president of acting in an “isolated, narcissistic way, impervious to French people’s lives”.

President Macron’s decision to force through his pension reforms without a vote damages French democracy

In this respect, the president could be said to have form. In 2018, his high-handed approach helped transform provincial protests against a fuel tax into the wider gilets jaunes revolt against elites. A penitent Mr Macron embarked on a nationwide “listening tour”. Then, when his Renaissance party lost its majority last June, he again promised a more consensual approach. But less than a year into his second term – amid widespread anxiety about falling living standards – he has reverted to Jupiterean type, defying the wishes of the two-thirds of the French population who oppose his reforms, and circumventing the democratic niceties of winning a debate in parliament.

For a smart president, this seems like strangely dumb politics. The protests and strikes may eventually fade, although more are planned and the sense of popular outrage is real. But Mr Macron’s reputation as an arrogant technocrat with little regard for social movements or civic sentiment is surely sealed. His prime minister, Élisabeth Borne, now appears to be a busted flush along with her government, but seems determined to stay in post. The president’s second term risks becoming a long and acrimonious goodbye, with little achieved.

An independent government body has judged that the pension system’s deficits are manageable for the foreseeable future, making it hard to understand why Mr Macron decided to take such a confrontational approach. Amid record levels of abstention at elections, the rise of online conspiracy theories and the all but accomplished normalisation of the far right, Mr Macron’s resort to government by decree has done nothing to ease the trust deficit in French politics. Marine Le Pen and the far right may well be the principal beneficiaries of that. Having presented himself as the right man to modernise the country, Mr Macron increasingly looks like a politician out of touch with the needs of the times.

World Opinions – The Guardian view

L’article  View on ruling by decree in France: deepening the trust deficit est apparu en premier sur زوايا ميادين | Mayadin Columns.

French President Emmanuel Macron’s move to force through his deeply unpopular pension reform, without a vote in parliament, could rekindle social unrest reminiscent of the Yellow Vest movement, union leaders and analysts have warned as protests continue to sweep the country.

Demonstrations against the government’s use of a special constitutional provision, known as article 49.3, to sweep aside parliamentary opposition to the reform have been angrier than anything seen over the past two months.

Unions, united in coordinating their protests, called for a ninth strike day next Thursday, but many expressed fears they could lose control of the protests as more radical demonstrators set the tone.

“Yes, we are worried,” Cyril Chabanier, the head of the moderate CFTC union, told AFP.

Commentators have begun to wonder whether the hardening of fronts could herald the return of the Yellow Vests, a grassroots movement that started in 2018 as a protest against rising fuel prices and snowballed into the biggest social action against Macron in his first term.

“It’s a social law of physics,” said Jean-Marie Pernot, a political scientist specialising in trade unions.

“If you don’t respect any of the channels meant for the expression of dissent, it will find a way to express itself directly,” he told AFP.

Early Yellow Vest action was marked by strikes, weekly demonstrations, the blocking of roads and fuel depots, and the worst clashes with riot police in decades.

It was only with the imposition of restrictions on movement brought about by the Covid crisis that the movement’s actions were brought to a halt.

‘Tougher action ahead’

“There may be tougher action ahead, more serious and further-reaching,” warned Fabrice Coudour, a leading energy sector representative for the hard-left CGT Union.

“It may well escape our collective decision-making,” he said.

The Yellow Vests prided themselves on having no designated leaders. They resisted attempts by left-wing politicians and unions to harness the movement’s energy for their own ends.

One of their more prominent spokesmen was Jerome Rodrigues, who lost an eye to a police rubber bullet during clashes at one demo.

Within hours of Macron’s pensions move on Thursday, Rodrigues told an angry, cheering crowd outside the National Assembly that the objective was now nothing less than “the defeat” of the president.

At the same time, protests erupted in many parts of France, some demonstrators destroying street furniture, smashing windows and setting bins on fire.

In the central French city of Dijon, protesters burned effigies of Macron.

The CGT announced that it would force the shutdown of energy giant TotalEnergies’ refinery in Normandy in France’s northwest as of this weekend.

Picket lines at power utility Electricite de France would also be extended, the CGT said. And early on Friday, CGT activists blocked Paris’s busy ringroad, the Boulevard Périphérique.

‘Government’s fault’

The unions have already put the responsibility for any future trouble at the government’s doorstep.

“Obviously, when there is this much anger and so many French people on the streets, the more radical elements take the floor,” said Laurent Escure, boss of the UNSA trade union federation. 

“This is not what we want, but it’s going to happen. And it will be entirely the government’s fault,” he told AFP.

For weeks, Laurent Berger, head of the moderate CFDT union, has been warning the government that there could be more trouble if protesters got the idea that the Yellow Vests achieved more with violence than established unions with their peaceful, mass demonstrations.

“What is the democratic outlook for a country that fails to respond to 1.5 or 2 million people in the streets on three occasions, but that did respond to a violent movement with a fifth of that number in the street?” he asked in an interview last month.

Macron made a number of concessions to the Yellow Vest movement.

Among other measures, he scrapped a planned carbon tax and boosted salaries for minimum wage earners, for a total estimated cost to public finances of 10 billion euros ($10.7 billion).

World Opinions – FRANCE 24 – AFP

L’article French unions see threat of Yellow Vest rerun over Macron’s retirement push.. Video est apparu en premier sur زوايا ميادين | Mayadin Columns.

More than 250 protests have been staged in the French capital Paris and around the country against President Emmanuel Macron’s pension reforms with rubbish collectors, utility workers, train drivers and others walking off the job against the proposed legislation.

An estimated 1.28 million people demonstrated nationwide on Tuesday against Macron’s plans to push back the retirement age to 64, the interior ministry said. The protests come weeks after an estimated 1.27 million people participated during the previous round of protests.

Big crowds took to the streets in Paris, Marseille, Nice and other cities. Some minor clashes with police broke out in Nantes, Rennes and Lyon.

In the French capital, workers, families and activists gathered in a joyful atmosphere, chanting slogans.

Despite the Paris march being largely peaceful, some scuffles sporadically broke out on the sidelines, with some people throwing projectiles at police who responded with tear gas.

Unions threatened to freeze up the French economy with work stoppages across multiple sectors, most visibly an open-ended strike at the SNCF national rail authority.

More than 1.28 million people took to the streets in France as unions intensify fight against Macron’s pension reform.

Some unions have called for open-ended strikes in sectors from refineries and oil depots to electricity and gas facilities. Workers in each sector will decided locally in the evening on that, Martinez said.

All oil shipments in the country were halted on Tuesday amid strikes at the refineries of TotalEnergies, Esso-ExxonMobil and Petroineos groups, according to the CGT.

Truckers have sporadically blocked major highway arteries and interchanges in go-slow actions near several cities in French regions.

A fifth of flights were cancelled at Paris’s Charles de Gaulle Airport and about a third of flights at Orly Airport. Trains to Germany and Spain were expected to come to a halt, and those to and from the United Kingdom and Belgium will be reduced by a third, according to the SNCF rail authority.

Most high-speed trains and regional trains have been cancelled.

Public transportation and other services were disrupted in most French cities. In Paris, the Eiffel Tower was closed, as was the Palace of Versailles, west of the capital.

According to the education ministry, about one-third of teachers were on strike nationwide.

The reform would raise the minimum pension age from 62 to 64 and require 43 years of work by 2030 to earn a full pension, amid other measures. The government has argued that the system is expected to dive into deficit within a decade as France’s population ages and life expectancy lengthens.

The bill is under debate in the French Senate this week.

World Opinions – agencies

L’article French workers stage massive strike against pension reform.. Pictures est apparu en premier sur زوايا ميادين | Mayadin Columns.

A huge fire that has devastated swathes of southwestern France was largely contained, but firefighters face another “complicated” day, local authorities said on Friday.

The 40-kilometre (25-mile) active fire front in the Gironde and Landes departments around Bordeaux “has not developed, but the weather conditions are pushing us towards extreme vigilance,” deputy prefect Ronan Leaustic told reporters.

No new evacuations had been ordered on top of the 10,000 people already asked to leave, he added.

But “today is likely to be complicated, since temperatures continue to rise and the water table keeps falling,” Leaustic said.

The roughly 1,100 French firefighters on the ground were reinforced on Thursday by 361 comrades drawn from European neighbours including Germany, Poland, Austria and Romania, along with several water-bombing planes from the European Union fleet.

In the hard-hit area around the village of Hostens, the thick smoke seen on Thursday had given way by Friday morning to blue skies and occasional clouds, an AFP journalist saw.

France has been buffeted this summer by the historic drought that has forced water use restrictions nationwide, as well as a series of heatwaves that experts say are being driven by climate change.

The blaze near Bordeaux erupted in July — the driest month seen in France since 1961 — destroying 14,000 hectares and forcing thousands of people to evacuate before it was contained.

But it continued to smoulder in the tinder-dry pine forests and peat-rich soil.

Officials suspect arson may have played a role in the latest flare-up, which has burned 7,400 hectares (18,000 acres) since Tuesday. 

World Opinions / AFP

L’article ‘Extreme vigilance’ as vast southwestern France fire slows est apparu en premier sur زوايا ميادين | Mayadin Columns.

A beluga whale that became stranded in France’s Seine river had to be put down, ending a dramatic rescue mission that captivated world audiences.

Officials say vets took the decision as the four-metre (13ft) mammal was being moved in a refrigerated truck.

Overnight, rescuers spent nearly six hours lifting the 800kg (1,763lb) whale from the river using a crane and nets.

They had planned to release the animal in the sea but its health deteriorated after failing to eat.

“It is with heavy hearts we announce that the beluga did not survive,” Sea Shepherd France conservation group wrote in a Twitter post on Wednesday.

“We are devastated by this tragic outcome that we knew was very likely,” it added.

Meanwhile, Florence Ollivet-Courtois, a vet for the local emergency services, was quoted by the AFP news agency as saying that “the animal was not getting enough air and [was] suffering visibly.”

“We therefore decided that it made no sense to set it free and proceeded to euthanasia,” the vet added.

Experts are still puzzled as to how the whale – who had been trapped more than 100km (62 miles) inland – managed to stray so far south, away from its natural habitat.

On Wednesday, crowds were seen gathering on the banks of the river in the northern town of Saint-Pierre-La-Garenne to watch the rescue.

But interest in the whale’s survival spread far beyond France, and conservation groups and a number of individuals have made financial donations to help the rescue operation.

Belugas occasionally venture south in the autumn to feed as ice forms, but it is rare for them to travel so far from their native home.

According to France’s Pelagis Observatory which specialises in sea mammals, the nearest beluga population is off the Svalbard archipelago, north of Norway, 3,000km (1,870 miles) from the Seine.

But similar stories are not unheard of. In May, a killer whale was found dead after swimming up the River Seine in Normandy. And in 2019, a dead whale was found in the River Thames near Gravesend, UK officials said.

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L’article Analysis. France whale: Beluga put down during dramatic rescue mission.. Video est apparu en premier sur زوايا ميادين | Mayadin Columns.

French President Emmanuel Macron addressed the nation for the first time on Wednesday since his centrist coalition lost control of parliament in Sunday elections. “We must learn to govern and legislate differently,” Macron acknowledged in his first public comments following the election setback.

Adresse aux Français. https://t.co/IJwAeHv9Lu

— Emmanuel Macron (@EmmanuelMacron) June 22, 2022

The president said the opposition was ready to work with him on “major” issues and promised measures on inflation, climate change and unemployment sometime this summer.

🔴🇫🇷 In his first public comments since the election setback, Macron said the opposition was ready to work with him on "major" issues.

How could reaching parliament majority on a case-by-case basis be beneficial for Macron? French Politics Expert @RenaudFoucart explains ⤵️ pic.twitter.com/saHYQ00D0K

— FRANCE 24 English (@France24_en) June 22, 2022

He went on to call on legislative groups to be clear in indicating “how far they are ready to go”.

Macron acknowledged that the parliamentary elections had highlighted social problems in France, but he called on the opposition parties to “leave in-fighting behind” and to move “beyond politics”. The current political impasse should not lead to “stagnation” but to renewed dialogue and a new “willingness to listen to each other”.

🔴🇫🇷 "In April and in June you made two very clear choices. And I recognise this. Now I have to make these decisions a reality to make sure that France is stronger."

"Together we will be able to find the root of collective success," says Macron, ending his speech ⤵️ pic.twitter.com/frq5q3FFs1

— FRANCE 24 English (@France24_en) June 22, 2022

He added that he had been re-elected in April on a platform of “ambitious reform”, which he said he plans to carry out.

Ahead of Sunday’s legislative elections, Emmanuel Macron asked voters to deliver his parliamentary grouping a solid mandate at a time of multiple crises. The alternative, said the recently re-elected president, would be to add “disorder in France to the disorder in the world”.

This plea was resoundingly rejected. In a stunning set of results, which added up to a terrible night for Mr Macron, his centrist alliance lost more than 100 seats in the National Assembly. Though it remains the largest force, the president’s Ensemble (Together) party fell far short of achieving an absolute majority, and a number of high-profile heavy-hitters were defeated at the polls.

Arguably, this was not the biggest shock of an election where the turnout was depressingly low. Outstripping its wildest expectations, the French far right achieved easily its best-ever parliamentary result. Upping its number of deputies from eight to 89, Rassemblement National won swathes of new territory as supporters turned out in the north and south-east. Marine Le Pen’s party will now enjoy unprecedented visibility on the national stage and gain access to significant constitutional rights in the Assembly. Meanwhile, on the left, a new alliance led by the hard-left veteran Jean-Luc Mélenchon became the main opposition force to Mr Macron’s centrist grouping. The controversial uniting of France’s fragmented left, under Mr Mélenchon’s charismatic but divisive leadership, proved a tactical triumph. The alliance more than doubled the number of seats its constituent parts won in 2017.

Mr Macron oversaw a lacklustre, complacent campaign that unsuccessfully relied on momentum generated by his presidential victory in April. The seismic consequence is a parliament reflecting a country where political affiliation is divided between three camps: the social democratic and socialist left; the liberal centre and centre right, and the radical right. The deeply unwelcome breakthrough by Ms Le Pen must in part be put down to Mr Macron’s unwise decision to demonise the united left as an equally “extreme” force. This contributed to a collapse of anti far-right solidarity, as many centrist and left-wing voters abstained in contests where their own candidate failed to make the run-off. The door was thus opened wide for some of Ms Le Pen’s candidates.

For the president, the main take-out is that the dynamics of his second term will be utterly different from those of his first. Across-the-board successes in the elections of 2017 meant that Mr Macron could indulge in a sometimes high-handed, “hyper-presidential” political style. This alienated much of the electorate, which has now dramatically clipped his wings. These results mean Mr Macron will need to work to make new allies and to accept compromises. The fate of his proposals to raise the retirement age and introduce welfare reforms will probably depend on an ability to woo deputies from the centre-right Républicains party.

From being a mere sideshow rubber-stamping the Élysée’s decisions, the National Assembly has been transformed overnight into an institution that matters. This is, broadly speaking, a good thing for French democracy. But the risk of fractious paralysis is real, at a time when urgent challenges need to be addressed on issues such as the cost of living crisis, the war in Ukraine and the climate emergency. A rocky road lies ahead for a chastened Mr Macron, and a parliament that must find a way to act in the national interest in treacherous times.

🔴🇫🇷 "In April and in June you made two very clear choices. And I recognise this. Now I have to make these decisions a reality to make sure that France is stronger."

"Together we will be able to find the root of collective success," says Macron, ending his speech ⤵️ pic.twitter.com/frq5q3FFs1

— FRANCE 24 English (@France24_en) June 22, 2022

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