Month: July 2024

PARIS — French voters face a decisive choice Sunday in the runoff of snap parliamentary elections that could produce the country’s first far-right government since the World War II Nazi occupation — or no majority emerging at all. 

Marine Le Pen’s anti-immigration, nationalist party National Rally stands a chance of winning a legislative majority for the first time, but the outcome remains uncertain because of a complex voting system and tactical maneuvers by political parties. 

What’s happening Sunday? 

Voters across France and overseas territories can cast ballots for 501 of the 577 seats in the National Assembly, the lower and most important of France’s two houses of parliament. The other 76 races were won outright in the first round of voting. 

The National Rally and its allies arrived ahead in Round 1 with around one-third of the votes. A coalition of center-left, hard-left and greens parties called the New Popular Front came in second position, well ahead of President Emmanuel Macron’s struggling centrist alliance. 

In the frantic week between the two rounds, more than 200 centrist and left-wing candidates pulled out of races to boost the chances of their moderate rivals and try to keep National Rally candidates from winning. 

Final preelection polls suggest the tactic may have diminished the far right’s chances of an absolute majority. But Le Pen’s party has wider and deeper support than ever before, and it’s up to voters to decide. 

What are the possible outcomes? 

Polling projections suggest the National Rally is likely to have the most seats in the next National Assembly, which would be a first. 

If it wins an absolute majority of 289 seats, Macron would be expected to appoint National Rally President Jordan Bardella as France’s new prime minister. Bardella could then form a government, and he and Macron would share power in a system called cohabitation. 

If the party doesn’t win a majority but still has a large number of seats, Macron could name Bardella anyway, though the National Rally might refuse out of fears that its government could be ejected in a no-confidence vote. 

Or Macron could seek to build a coalition with moderates and possibly choose a prime minister from the center-left. 

If there’s no party with a clear mandate to govern, Macron could name a government of experts unaffiliated with political parties. Such a government would likely deal mostly with day-to-day affairs of keeping France running. 

Complicating matters: Any of those options would require parliamentary approval. 

If political talks take too long amid summer holidays and the July 26-Aug. 11 Olympics in Paris, Macron’s centrist government could keep a transitional government pending further decisions. 

How does cohabitation work? 

If an opposition force wins a majority, Macron would be forced to appoint a prime minister belonging to that new majority. In this cohabitation, the government would implement policies that diverge from the president’s plan. 

France’s modern Republic has experienced three cohabitations, the last one under conservative President Jacques Chirac, with Socialist Prime Minister Lionel Jospin, from 1997 to 2002. 

The prime minister is accountable to the parliament, leads the government and introduces bills. 

The president is weakened at home during cohabitation, but still holds some powers over foreign policy, European affairs and defense and is in charge of negotiating and ratifying international treaties. The president is also the commander-in-chief of the country’s armed forces and holds the nuclear codes. 

What about a hung parliament? 

While not uncommon in other European countries, modern France has never experienced a parliament with no dominant party. 

Such a situation requires lawmakers to build consensus across parties to agree on government positions and legislation. France’s fractious politics and deep divisions over taxes, immigration and Mideast policy make that especially challenging. 

That would likely derail Macron’s promises to overhaul unemployment benefits or legalize life-ending procedures for the terminally ill, among other reforms. It could also make passing a budget more difficult. 

Why is the far right rising? 

While France has one of the world’s biggest economies and is an important diplomatic and military power, many French voters are struggling with inflation and low incomes and a sense that they are being left behind by globalization. 

Le Pen’s party, which blames immigration for many of France’s problems, has tapped into that voter frustration and built wide online support and a grassroots network, notably in small towns and farming communities that see the Paris political class as out of touch. 

Why does it matter? 

The National Assembly is the more powerful of France’s two houses of parliament. It has the final say in the law-making process over the Senate, dominated by conservatives. 

Macron has a presidential mandate until 2027 and said he would not step down before the end of his term. But a weakened French president could complicate many issues on the world stage. 

During previous cohabitations, defense and foreign policies were considered the informal domain of the president, who was usually able to find compromises with the prime minister to allow France to speak with one voice abroad. 

But both the far-right and the leftist coalition’s views in these areas differ radically from Macron’s approach and would likely be a subject of tension during a potential cohabitation. 

Bardella said that as a prime minister, he would oppose sending French troops to Ukraine — a possibility Macron has not ruled out. Bardella also said he would refuse French deliveries of long-range missiles and other weaponry capable of striking targets within Russia itself. 
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HAMBURG, Germany — He has a broken nose that requires him to wear a vision-limiting face mask. He is managing fitness issues stemming from the end of the club season. He has scored only one goal — from the penalty spot. 

The European Championship is hardly going as planned for Kylian Mbappé, and he knows it. 

“These are the vagaries of the footballer,” the France captain said after his latest below-par par performance at Euro 2024. 

He doesn’t really care, though, as long as he is lifting the Henri Delaunay Cup in Berlin on July 14. 

Mbappé was so fatigued, so knocked out of his stride after a couple of bashes to his protective mask, that he asked to come off at halftime of extra time against Portugal in the quarterfinals in Hamburg on Friday. 

It meant giving up a likely penalty in the impending shootout — which France won 5-3 because of Joao Felix’s miss — but Mbappé simply couldn’t continue. 

France coach Didier Deschamps confirmed his captain asked to be replaced, for the good of the team. 

“He is always very honest with me and the team. When he feels he doesn’t have the capacity to accelerate then we can’t risk it, even a player like Kylian,” Deschamps said. 

“With all that has happened to him — the issues he has had, the trauma with his nose — he is hanging in there. He is not in his top form. He felt very tired indeed.” 

Mbappé accepted before the Portugal game that he wasn’t in prime shape and needed a “good pre-season to be at 100%.” That will come at Real Madrid, which he has joined after running down his contract at Paris Saint-Germain. 

Getting his nose broken in France’s opening group game at Euro 2024 threw him off kilter, too, restricting a part of his game because of his lack of peripheral vision. 

His best performances so far might have come in France’s news conferences, where he has been vocal in urging French people to vote in the snap elections while warning about the dangers of the far right getting into power. 

On the field, Mbappé is part of a France team that heads into a semifinal match against Spain on Tuesday having scored three goals this tournament — two own-goals and his penalty against Austria. No France player has scored a goal from open play yet. 

Like Greece in 2004, France is looking to reach the final pretty much entirely based on its mean defense and team structure. Except the talent in this France squad far outweighs what was at Greece’s disposal 20 years ago. 

“In the locker room, we weren’t thinking that we still hadn’t scored a goal in the game,” said Mbappé, who netted a hat trick in the 2022 World Cup final. “But yes, we will look into the question [of France’s lack of efficiency in attack] while maintaining this defensive solidity. 

“I’ve only scored one goal, but we’re in the semifinals and I’m very happy.” 

Mbappé didn’t much like watching the penalty shootout from afar, either. 

“It’s worse than shooting,” he said, laughing. 
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LONDON — British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said Saturday that he is scrapping a controversial Conservative policy to deport asylum-seekers to Rwanda as he vowed to deliver on voters’ mandate for change, though he warned it will not happen quickly.

“The Rwanda scheme was dead and buried before it started,” Starmer said in his first news conference. “It’s never acted as a deterrent. Almost the opposite.”

Starmer told reporters in a wood-paneled room at 10 Downing St. that he was “restless for change,” but would not commit to how soon Britons would feel improvements in their standards of living or public services. His Labour Party delivered the biggest blow to the Conservatives in their two-century history Friday in a landslide victory on a platform of change.

The 30-minute question-and-answer session followed his first Cabinet meeting as his new government takes on the massive challenge of fixing a heap of domestic woes and winning over a public weary from years of austerity, political chaos and a battered economy.

“We have a huge amount of work to do, so now we get on with our work,” Starmer said as he welcomed the new ministers around the table at 10 Downing St. He said it had been the honor of his life to be asked by King Charles III to form a government in a ceremony that officially elevated him to prime minister.

Among a raft of problems they face are boosting a sluggish economy, fixing a broken health care system, and restoring trust in government.

“Just because Labour won a big landslide doesn’t mean all the problems that the Conservative government has faced has gone away,” said Tim Bale, professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London.

In his first remarks as prime minister Friday after the “kissing of hands” ceremony with Charles at Buckingham Palace, Starmer said he would get to work immediately, though he cautioned it would take some time to show results.

“Changing a country is not like flicking a switch,” he said as enthusiastic supporters cheered him outside his new official residence at 10 Downing. “This will take a while. But have no doubt that the work of change begins — immediately.”

He will have a busy schedule following the six-week campaign, heading out Sunday to visit each of the four nations of the U.K. — England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland — that he said had each voted in favor of Labour.

He will then travel to Washington for a NATO meeting Tuesday and will host the European Political Community summit July 18, the day after the state opening of Parliament and the King’s Speech, which sets out the new government’s agenda.

Starmer singled out several of the big items Friday, such as fixing the revered but hobbled National Health Service and securing its borders, a reference to a larger global problem of absorbing an influx of migrants fleeing war, poverty as well as drought, heat waves and floods attributed to climate change.

Conservatives struggled to stem the flow of migrants arriving across the English Channel, failing to live up to ex-Prime Minister’s Rishi Sunak’s pledge to “stop the boats” that led to the controversial Rwanda plan.

Starmer’s decision on what he called the Rwanda “gimmick” was widely expected because he had said he wouldn’t follow through with the plan that has cost hundreds of millions of dollars and never taken flight.

It’s unclear what Starmer will do differently to tackle the same crisis with a record number of people coming ashore in the first six months of this year.

“Labour is going to need to find a solution to the small boats coming across the channel,” Bale said. “It’s going to have to come up with other solutions to deal with that particular problem.”

Suella Braverman, a Conservative hard liner on immigration who is a possible contender to replace Sunak as party leader, criticized Starmer’s plan to end the Rwanda pact.

“Years of hard work, acts of Parliament, millions of pounds been spent on a scheme which had it been delivered properly would have worked,” she said Saturday. “There are big problems on the horizon which will be I’m afraid caused by Keir Starmer.”

Starmer’s Cabinet is also getting to work.

Foreign Secretary David Lammy was to begin his first international trip Saturday to meet counterparts in Germany, Poland and Sweden to reinforce the importance of their relationship.

Health Secretary Wes Streeting said he would open new negotiations next week with NHS doctors at the start of their career who have staged a series of multi-day strikes. The pay dispute has exacerbated the long wait for appointments that have become a hallmark of the NHS’s problems.
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KYIV, Ukraine — Russia launched an overnight drone attack across Ukraine on Saturday, hitting an energy facility in the Sumy region in the northeast of the country, officials said.

Ukrainian mobile drone hunter groups and air defense units shot down 24 of the 27 Russian drones fired on 12 regions, the air force said.

National grid operator Ukrenergo said the energy facility in the Sumy region was damaged, forcing emergency electricity shut-offs for industrial consumers in the city of Sumy. Repair teams were working to restore supplies, it said.

There were no immediate reports of casualties or other damage details from the regions.

Since March, Russian forces have intensified their bombardments of the Ukrainian power sector, knocking out the bulk of the thermal and hydropower generation and forcing long blackouts across the country.

Ukrenergo planned scheduled cut-offs of electricity throughout the day across the country as domestic generation and electricity imports could not cover the deficit.

Ukraine’s energy system was already hobbled in the first year after Russia’s invasion in February 2022. The power system lost about half of its available generation capacity due to the Russian missile and drone attacks in the past four months.  
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Lausanne, Switzerland — In the battle against drug use at the Paris Olympics, the International Testing Agency plans to deploy a more streamlined, high-tech approach to identify and target potential cheats.

In an interview with Agence France-Presse, Benjamin Cohen, director general of the ITA, said potential tools at its disposal included biological and performance passports as well as a mountain of other data.

Upgraded software, possibly using artificial intelligence, could also help; an investigative unit aided by whistleblowers was making inroads; and increased cooperation with sports bodies and police was bearing fruit.

The ITA, which was founded in 2018, runs the anti-doping program for the Olympics, the Tour de France and “more than 65 international organizations,” said Cohen.

The challenge was to refine the “risk analysis” and identify athletes to monitor using as little time and resources as possible, said Cohen, a Swiss lawyer who has headed the agency since its creation.

The problem is accentuated in the run-up to the Paris Games.

“We still have 30,000 potentially qualifying athletes and we cannot wait to have the final list to focus on the 11,000 participants,” Cohen said.

“Certain doping practices enable athletes to achieve results very quickly,” he said. “Traditionally the pre-Olympic period is high-risk time … the last moment to make a difference. Athletes know that they will be very closely monitored at the Olympics, so I would hope that very few, if any, will be tempted to take drugs in the Olympic Village in Paris.”

At the Games, only medalists are automatically tested, but the ITA wants to find ways to target potential dopers before the finish.

Cohen said the ITA tries to identify patterns. It looks at the demands of each discipline and the substances it might tempt athletes to use. Then the ITA looks at delegations and “the history of doping in that country.” Finally, it scrutinizes each individual athlete and “the development of his or her performances, any suspicious biological passport profiles, suspicious anti-doping tests and so on.”

“That’s hundreds of thousands of pieces of data.”

“Risk analysis”

“Today we have our own software, and the next stage” will involve “programming computers to extract this data, because we still do a lot of this work manually.”

After that, the ITA hopes to “seize all the opportunities offered by artificial intelligence,” provided “we use these new tools ethically.”

“If it’s done properly,” he said, “AI will enable us to go much further in risk analysis and prediction.”

The ITA is developing a “performance passport” as a counterpart to the long-established biological passport.

The objective is to “predict results on the basis of what an athlete has done over the last four years,” said Cohen.

“Artificial intelligence will enable us to say: ‘This is really an unusual result, which could suggest doping,'” he said. “It could help us flag them.”

The performance passport project was initially tested in swimming and weightlifting, two indoor sports in which athletes compete in identical environments each time.

Weightlifting also is one of the sports that have returned a vast number of positive tests at Summer Olympics.

In 2021, the ITA carried out “a major investigation into weightlifting,” and that enabled them to set up a specialized unit in cooperation with the sport.

Focus on cycling

It now has more than 10 such units. “Cycling is a particular focus,” but “other sports are beginning to understand the benefits of gathering intelligence, having anonymous sources and promoting whistleblowers.”

“It’s a new method that complements traditional testing.”

Cohen said the ITA has been working to build links with law enforcement and exploit “synergies.”

“They are bearing fruit,” he said, referring to the case of 23-year-old Italian cyclist Andrea Piccolo, arrested on June 21 by the Italian Carabinieri who caught him returning to the country with growth hormones.

“ITA asked the Italian authorities to open his luggage, which would not have been possible six years ago,” Cohen said.

“We carry out the controls, we monitor the performances of these athletes, we know the networks, the doctors involved and the drugs they are taking. And they can seize and open suitcases and enter hotel rooms.”
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BUCHAREST, Romania — A court in Romania’s capital ruled Friday that social media influencer Andrew Tate can leave Romania but must remain within the European Union as he awaits trial on charges of human trafficking, rape and forming a criminal gang to sexually exploit women.

The Bucharest Tribunal’s decision to allow Tate, 37, to leave the country was hailed by his spokesperson, Mateea Petrescu, as a “significant victory and a major step forward” in the case. It is not clear whether prosecutors can or will appeal the court’s decision.

Tate, a former professional kickboxer and dual British U.S. citizen, was initially arrested in December 2022 near Bucharest along with his brother Tristan and two Romanian women. Romanian prosecutors formally indicted all four in June last year and all four have denied the allegations.

After Friday’s decision, Tate wrote on the social media platform X: “I AM FREE. FOR THE FIRST TIME IN 3 YEARS I CAN LEAVE ROMANIA. THE SHAM CASE IS FALLING APART.”

“We embrace and applaud the decision of the court today, I consider it a reflection of the exemplary behavior and assistance of my clients,” said Eugen Vidineac, one of Tate’s lawyers, adding that the Tates are “still determined to clear their name and reputation.”

On April 26, the Bucharest Tribunal ruled that the prosecutors’ case file against Tate met the legal criteria and that a trial could start but did not set a date for it to begin. That ruling came after the legal case had been discussed for months in the preliminary chamber stages, a process in which the defendants can challenge prosecutors’ evidence and case file.

After the Tate brothers’ arrest, they were held for three months in police detention before being moved to house arrest. They were later restricted to Bucharest municipality and nearby Ilfov county, and then to Romania.

Vidineac said the ability to travel within the 27-nation EU bloc will allow the Tates to “pursue professional opportunities without restriction.”

Andrew Tate, who has amassed 9.5 million followers on the social media platform X, has repeatedly claimed that prosecutors have no evidence against him and that there is a political conspiracy to silence him. He was previously banned from various social media platforms for allegedly expressing misogynistic views and using hate speech.

In a separate case, Andrew Tate was served at his home in Romania with a civil lawsuit lodged by four British women after a claim was issued by the High Court in London, according to a statement released in May by McCue Jury & Partners, the law firm representing the four women.

The four allege Tate sexually and physically assaulted them and they reported him to British authorities in 2014 and 2015. After a four-year investigation, the Crown Prosecution Service decided in 2019 not to prosecute him. The alleged victims then turned to crowdfunding to pursue a civil case against him.

In a separate third case, the Tate brothers also appeared in March at the Bucharest Court of Appeal after British authorities issued arrest warrants over allegations of sexual aggression in a U.K. case dating back to 2012-15.

The appeals court granted the British request to extradite the Tates to the U.K., but only after legal proceedings in Romania have concluded.
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