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Tag: France

  • French PM Lecornu Under Immediate Pressure Ahead of Budget Deadline

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    PARIS (Reuters) -Sebastien Lecornu began his second stint as French prime minister under a cloud of uncertainty on Saturday, forced to pick a new cabinet to present a budget by a Monday deadline as rivals pledged to topple his government.

    French President Emmanuel Macron reappointed his staunch supporter late on Friday, just days after Lecornu had resigned from the post, saying there was no way to form a government capable of passing a slimmed-down 2026 budget through a deeply divided parliament. 

    Lecornu’s 27 days in office made him the shortest serving prime minister in modern French history, but there is no guarantee he will last any longer this time round.

    Macron’s decision to reappoint Lecornu enraged some of his fiercest opponents who have argued the only way out of France’s worst political crisis in decades is for the president to call fresh legislative elections or resign. Leftist, hard-left and far-right parties all said they would vote to topple Lecornu, leaving him reliant on the Socialists, whose leaders have so far kept mum on their plans.

    Lecornu’s inbox is pressing. 

    By Monday, he must present a draft budget bill – first to cabinet, and then on the same day to parliament. That means, at a minimum, the ministers responsible for finance, budget, and social security must be appointed by then.

    Neither the Elysee palace nor Lecornu’s office, Matignon, gave immediate indication on when he could name his cabinet, or who could be in it. 

    In an X post on Friday, Lecornu said that whoever joined his government would have to renounce their personal ambitions to succeed Macron in 2027, a contest that has injected instability into France’s weak minority governments and fractious legislature. He pledged a cabinet of “renewal and diversity”.

    Lecornu has not disclosed any details about what is in the draft, but he did say after he resigned that the budget deficit must be reduced to between 4.7% and 5% of economic output next year, a bigger gap than the 4.6% targeted by his predecessor. The deficit is forecast at 5.4% this year.

    It remains to be seen what he will do about repealing Macron’s pensions reform and adding a billionaires’ tax – two measures the Socialists had made their price to support his weak minority government.

    (Reporting by Gabriel Stargardter; Editing by Emelia Sithole-Matarise)

    Copyright 2025 Thomson Reuters.

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  • France’s Macron reappoints Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu days after he quit

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    French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday reappointed Sébastien Lecornu as prime minister, just days after his resignation, asking him to try again to form a government and produce a budget in a bid to end the country’s political deadlock. 

    Lecornu’s reappointment followed days of intense negotiations and came less than a week after he resigned amid infighting in his freshly named government. France is struggling with mounting economic challenges and ballooning debt, and the political crisis is aggravating its troubles and raising alarm across the European Union.

    The appointment is widely seen as Macron’s last chance to reinvigorate his second term, which runs until 2027. Lacking a majority in the National Assembly to push through his agenda, Macron faces mounting criticism — including from within his own ranks — and has little room to maneuver.

    Macron’s office released a one-sentence statement late Friday night announcing the appointment, one month after the statement issued a month ago when Lecornu was initially named and four days after he resigned.

    Lecornu said in a statement on social networks that he accepted the new job offer out of “duty.” He said he was given a mission “to do everything to give France a budget by the end of the year and respond to the daily problems of our compatriots.”

    All those who join his new government will have to renounce ambitions to run for president in 2027, Lecornu said, adding that the new Cabinet will “incarnate renewal and a diversity of skills.”

    “We must put an end to this political crisis that exasperates the French, and to this bad instability for France’s image and its interests,” he wrote.

    Lecornu abruptly resigned on Monday, only hours after unveiling a new Cabinet that drew opposition from a key coalition partner. The shock resignation prompted calls for Macron to step down or dissolve parliament again, as he did in June 2024. But they remained unanswered, with the president instead announcing on Wednesday that he would name a successor to Lecornu within 48 hours.

    Political party leaders met for more than two hours on Friday with Macron, at his request. Some cautioned that another prime minister picked from the ranks of Macron’s fragile centrist camp would risk being disavowed by Parliament’s powerful lower house, prolonging the crisis.

    “How can one expect that all this will end well?” said Marine Tondelier, leader of The Ecologists party. “The impression we get is that the more alone he is, the more rigid he becomes.”

    Over the past year, Macron’s successive minority governments have collapsed in quick succession, leaving the European Union’s second-largest economy mired in political paralysis as France is faced with a debt crisis. At the end of the first quarter of 2025, France’s public debt stood at 3.346 trillion euros ($3.9 trillion), or 114% of gross domestic product. 

    France’s poverty rate also reached 15.4% in 2023, its highest level since records began in 1996, according to the latest data available from the national statistics institute.

    The economic and political struggles are worrying financial markets, ratings agencies and the European Commission, which has been pushing France to comply with EU rules limiting debt.

    The two biggest opposition parties in the National Assembly — the far-right National Rally and the far-left France Unbowed party — weren’t invited to the discussions on Friday. The National Rally wants Macron to hold fresh legislative elections, and France Unbowed wants him to resign.

    Lecornu argued earlier this week that Macron’s centrist bloc, its allies and parts of the opposition could still clump together into a working government. “There’s a majority that can govern,” he said. “I feel that a path is still possible. It is difficult.”

    Lecornu will now have to seek compromises to avoid an immediate vote of no confidence and may even be forced to abandon an extremely unpopular pension reform that was one of Macron’s signature policies in his second presidential term. Rammed through parliament without a vote in 2023 despite mass protests, it gradually raises the retirement age from 62 to 64. Opposition parties want it to be scrapped.

    The political deadlock stems from Macron’s shock decision in June 2024 to dissolve the National Assembly. The snap elections produced a hung parliament, with no bloc able to command a majority in the 577-seat chamber. The gridlock has unnerved investors, infuriated voters, and stalled efforts to curb France’s spiraling deficit and public debt.

    Without stable support, Macron’s governments have stumbled from one crisis to the next, collapsing as they sought backing for unpopular spending cuts. Lecornu’s resignation, just 14 hours after announcing his Cabinet, underscored the fragility of the president’s coalition amid deep political and personal rivalries.

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  • Macron Reappoints Prime Minister Who Just Quit 

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    PARIS—French President Emmanuel Macron has reappointed Sébastien Lecornu as prime minister, a post he quit less than a week ago, ratcheting up fears of continued political paralysis in France.

    In reinstating Lecornu, a close ally, Macron risks deepening the frustration of lawmakers in the fractious National Assembly, particularly leftist members who have demanded a break with the past.

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  • Analysis-How Ukraine’s European Allies Fuel Russia’s War Economy

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    By Marwa Rashad, Kate Abnett and Nerijus Adomaitis

    (Reuters) -European nations, including France, are among the staunchest supporters of Ukraine in its fight against Russia. Several have also stepped up their imports of Russian energy which pump billions of euros into Moscow’s wartime economy.

    Well into the fourth year of Russia’s war against Ukraine, the European Union remains in the precarious position of financing both sides in the conflict. Its large deliveries of military and humanitarian aid to Kyiv are countered by commercial payments to Moscow for oil and gas.

    The bloc has reduced its reliance on once-dominant supplier Russia by roughly 90% since 2022. It nonetheless imported more than 11 billion euros of Russian energy in the first eight months of this year, according to a Reuters analysis of data from the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), an independent research organization based in Helsinki.

    Seven of the EU’s 27 member countries increased the value of their imports versus a year earlier, including five countries that support Ukraine in the war. France, for example, saw purchases of Russian energy rise 40% to 2.2 billion euros while the Netherlands jumped 72% to 498 million euros, the analysis shows.

    While LNG ports in countries like France and Spain serve as entry points for Russian supplies into Europe, the gas is often not consumed in those countries but instead sent onwards to buyers across the bloc.

    Vaibhav Raghunandan, EU-Russia specialist at CREA, described increased flows as “a form of self-sabotage” by some countries, given energy sales are the biggest source of revenue for Russia as it wages war against an European-backed Ukraine.

    “The Kremlin is quite literally getting funding to continue to deploy their armed forces in Ukraine,” he said.

    TRUMP SLAMMED EUROPE’S LEADERS

    EU energy payments to Moscow have come under renewed scrutiny after U.S. President Donald Trump dressed down European leaders in his speech to the U.N General Assembly last month, demanding they cease all such purchases immediately.

    “Europe has to step it up,” Trump said. “They can’t be doing what they’re doing. They’re buying oil and gas from Russia while they’re fighting Russia. It’s embarrassing to them, and it was very embarrassing to them when I found out about it.”

    The French energy ministry told Reuters that France’s value of Russian energy imports rose this year as it served customers in other countries, without naming countries or companies. Gas market data suggest part of France’s Russian imports are sent onwards to Germany, according to Kpler analysts.

    The Dutch government said while it supported EU plans to phase out Russian energy, until these proposals are fixed into EU law, it was powerless to block existing contracts between European energy companies and Russian suppliers.

    The EU, which has already barred most purchases of Russian crude oil and fuel, has announced plans to speed up a ban on Russian liquefied natural gas (LNG) to 2027, from 2028. LNG now represents the biggest EU import of Russian energy, accounting for almost half the value of total purchases, the data shows.

    The European Commission declined to comment on the 2025 imports data. The bloc’s energy chief said last month the phased retreat from Russian fossil fuels was designed to ensure member countries don’t face energy price spikes or supply shortages.

    The proposals, which envisage a total ban on all Russian oil and gas from 2028, mean European cash could be supporting the Kremlin’s war effort for a year or more to come.

    Trump says U.S. oil and gas could replace lost Russian supplies, and many analysts say such a switch is possible, though it would boost Europe’s dependency on U.S. energy in an era when Washington is using tariffs as a policy tool.

    “The EU has agreed to buy more energy from the U.S to accommodate the very strong U.S. demands to stop Russian imports,” said Anne-Sophie Corbeau, a research scholar at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy. “However, it is an illusion to think that U.S. LNG would replace Russian LNG on a one-to-one basis. U.S. LNG is in the hands of private companies, which do not obey orders from the White House and the European Commission, they optimize their portfolios.”

    HUNGARY, BELGIUM AND OTHERS SEE BILLS RISE

    The EU has come a long way since 2021.

    In that year, before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the bloc imported more than 133 billion euros of Russian energy, according to CREA data.

    In January-August this year, the EU’s bill amounted to 11.4 billion euros – a fraction of per-war levels and a decline of 21% from the same period of 2024, the figures show.

    Hungary and Slovakia – which maintain close ties with the Kremlin and reject any notion of renouncing Russian gas – remain major importers, together accounting for 5 billion euros of that total. They wouldn’t be affected by the planned EU sanctions on LNG, which requires the unanimous backing of member states, as they could still receive Russian pipeline gas until 2028.

    Hungary was among the seven countries to see the value of Russian energy imports rise this year, by 11%, according to the data. France and the Netherlands are joined by four other countries whose governments support Ukraine in the war: Belgium, which saw a 3% increase, Croatia (55%), Romania (57%) and Portugal (167%).

    Belgium’s energy ministry said the country’s increase was down to separate EU sanctions that took effect in March and banned “transshipments”, or re-exporting, of Russian LNG to outside the bloc, meaning arriving LNG had to be unloaded in Belgium – a global hub – rather than being transferred from ship to ship to be transported onwards to a final destination.

    Portugal’s energy ministry said the country only imported modest amounts of Russian gas and that flows over the course of the year would be lower than 2024. The Croatian and Romanian governments didn’t respond to requests for comment on the data.

    The European Union’s total imports of Russian energy since 2022, when Russia invaded Ukraine, have amounted to more than 213 billion euros, the CREA data shows.

    That dwarfs the amount the EU has spent on aid to Ukraine in the same period, even though it has been the country’s biggest benefactor: the bloc has allocated 167 billion euros of financial, military and humanitarian assistance to Kyiv, according to the Kiel Institute, a German economic think-tank.

    ENERGY FIRMS STICK TO LONG-TERM CONTRACTS

    France’s TotalEnergies is among the biggest importers of Russian LNG into Europe, with other major players including Shell, Spain’s Naturgy, Germany’s SEFE, and trading house Gunvor. They all operate long-term contracts that last into the 2030s or 2040s.

    TotalEnergies told Reuters it was continuing deliveries from Russia’s Yamal plant under contracts that could not be suspended without official EU sanctions in place. The company will maintain supplies as long as European governments deem Russian gas necessary for energy security, it added.

    Shell, Naturgy and Gunvor declined to comment on Russian imports.

    Ronald Pinto, gas research principal analyst at Kpler said companies were reluctant to risk incurring fines from breaching contractual commitments without the solid legal cover of an EU ban on Russian LNG.

    “In the end, market players are buying this LNG, not countries, and for the most part, they are sticking to their long-term contracts,” he added.

    Pinto said flow dynamics studies suggested French imports of Russian LNG often flowed via pipeline to Belgium to then reach Germany, where there’s strong demand from industrial users. He cautioned it was “impossible to track exactly the movement of gas molecules within the European gas grid”.

    A spokesperson for SEFE, which operates 10% of Germany’s gas transmission network, confirmed that the company imports Russian gas via France and Belgium.

    The German economy ministry told Reuters that it welcomed EU efforts to phase out imports of Russian fossil fuels, but that SEFE was bound by a long-standing contract to buy LNG from Russia’s Yamal plant with no option to terminate the agreement.

    “Under the contract’s take-or-pay terms, SEFE would have to pay for the agreed quantities, even if no delivery was taken,” a ministry spokesperson said. “Non-acceptance would enable Yamal to resell these quantities, which would then provide double support to the Russian economy.”

    (Reporting by Marwa Rashad in London, Kate Abnett in Brussels and Nerijus Adomaitis in Oslo; Additional reporting by America Hernandez in Paris, Francesca Landini in Milan, Christoph Steitz and Vera Eckert in Frankfurt, Shadia Nasralla in London, Pietro Lombardi in Madrid and Andrey Khalip in Lisbon; Editing by Dmitry Zhdannikov and Pravin Char)

    Copyright 2025 Thomson Reuters.

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  • French Chaos Delays Meeting on Future of European Fighter Jet

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    BERLIN (Reuters) -A trilateral ministerial meeting on the future of France, Germany and Spain’s 100-billion-euro project to develop a European fighter jet has been postponed due to the political crisis in France, a German defence ministry spokesperson told Reuters.

    The defence ministers of the three countries had been scheduled to meet mid-October in a bid to resolve obstacles blocking the next phase in the development of the project, known as FCAS, the spokesperson said on Thursday evening.

    But France has been left with just a caretaker government after outgoing Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu tendered his and his government’s resignation on Monday, hours after announcing the cabinet line-up. French President Emmanuel Macron is now searching for his sixth prime minister in under two years.

    “I confirm that the meeting is not taking place mid-October any more,” the spokesperson said. “We would like to schedule it as quickly as possible when there is a new French defense minister.”

    Macron’s office had no immediate comment.

    France’s Dassault Aviation, Airbus and Indra are involved in the scheme to start replacing French Rafale and German and Spanish Eurofighters with a sixth-generation fighter jet from 2040.

    But the project has been plagued by delays and rifts between the companies and governments over workshare and intellectual property rights.

    (Reporting by Andreas Rinke and Sabine Siebold in Berlin; Additional Reporting by Michel Rose in Paris and Aislinn Laing in Madrid; Writing by Sarah Marsh; Editing by Chris Reese and Deepa Babington)

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  • French Court Rejects Appeal of Man Convicted of Raping Gisele Pelicot, Increases Sentence

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    (Reuters) -A French court on Thursday rejected the appeal of a former construction worker found guilty last year of the aggravated rape of Gisele Pelicot, and increased his prison sentence by a year to 10 years, France Info reported.

    (Reporting by Alban Kacher; Editing by Richard Lough)

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  • EU’s Von Der Leyen Survives No-Confidence Votes in Parliament

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    BRUSSELS (Reuters) -European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen comfortably survived two bids to remove her when the European Parliament rejected no-confidence motions from hard-right and left groups on Thursday.

    EU lawmakers rejected the two motions of censure with 378 members of the 720-strong parliament expressing support for von der Leyen in the first vote and 383 in the second.

    Von der Leyen said in a post on X that she deeply appreciated the support and that her team of commissioners would work closely with the parliament to tackle Europe’s challenges.

    The results were slightly better for the EU executive chief than in July, when 360 lawmakers voted against a motion brought by mainly far-right lawmakers, although below the 401 votes for von der Leyen’s re-election for a second term in July 2024.

    Although the motions of censure had almost no chance of reaching the two-thirds majority required to unseat von der Leyen, some lawmakers said they could expose more general disquiet over her leadership and destabilise the EU assembly, whose backing is required to pass legislation.

    Parties outside the mainstream have realised that previously seldom-used censure motions are easy to trigger after the 2024 elections swelled the far right to more than 100 lawmakers, with only 72 required to back one.

    Both censure motions criticised von der Leyen for accepting an unbalanced tariff deal with the United States and proposing a trade agreement with South American bloc Mercosur, which critics say threatens farmers and the environment.

    The U.S. and Mercosur deals will be put to votes in the European Parliament in the coming months, with the outcomes unclear.

    (Reporting by Inti Landauro and Philip Blenkinsop, editing by Bart Meijer and Ros Russell)

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  • France’s Macron to Name New PM, Shelving Threat of Snap Elections

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    PARIS—President Emmanuel Macron is moving to name a new prime minister rather than calling snap elections, an approach that buys time for the country’s political establishment to pull France out of its fiscal disarray.

    Macron had been wielding the unspoken threat of dissolving the National Assembly and holding parliamentary elections after his latest prime minister, Sébastien Lecornu, abruptly resigned Monday amid bickering over his cabinet choices.

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  • Explainer-What the EU’s New Biometric Border Checks Mean for Non-EU Citizens

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    LONDON (Reuters) -How all non-European Union citizens, including British visitors, travel to and from the bloc will start to change from Sunday when its long-delayed new biometric entry-check system starts operations.

    The Entry/Exit System (EES) will require all non-EU citizens to register their personal details, including fingerprints and facial images, when they first enter the Schengen area – all EU nations apart from Ireland and Cyprus, plus Iceland, Norway, Switzerland and Liechtenstein.

    Data collection will be gradually introduced at border crossings with full implementation by April 10, 2026, giving the EU confidence there will not be long queues at the border.

    WHY IS THE EU MAKING THE CHANGES?   

    The new electronic system will remove the requirement to manually stamp passports at the EU’s external border and instead create digital records that link a travel document to a person’s identity using biometrics.

    The EU wants to modernise the management of its external borders, prevent illegal migration, combat identity fraud, and identify overstayers.

    It will monitor whether people who are travelling to the bloc without a visa are sticking to its up-to-90 days stay within any 180-day period rule.

    Anyone arriving in the Schengen area for the first time will have to scan their passports, register their fingerprints and provide a facial scan.

    On departure, travellers’ details will be checked against the EES database to confirm compliance with existing rules on time limits of stay and register departure.

    Subsequent journeys will only require facial biometric verification.

    Children under 12 will need to be registered under EES but will just have their photograph taken. Travellers do not have to pay for EES.

    WHERE WILL THE CHECKS HAPPEN?

    On arrival at international airports, ports, train terminals and road border crossings in the Schengen area.

    But at the Port of Dover, Eurotunnel terminal in Folkestone and Eurostar terminal at London St Pancras – EES registration will be required on departure from the UK, overseen by French border officials. Travellers arriving at their destination won’t need to do the check again until their departure.

    WILL EES’S INTRODUCTION MEAN DELAYS AT THE BORDER?

    Because EES is being gradually introduced, the EU is confident there will not be significant disruption.

    Border officials will be able to suspend checks for short periods if processing times become excessively long.

    At both the Port of Dover and Eurotunnel terminal in Folkestone only freight and coach traffic will be subject to EES checks from October 12.

    Passenger vehicle checks will follow in November at Dover and by the end of the year at Eurotunnel. Eurostar has said it will gradually introduce the new border procedures.

    The British government has, however, advised travellers to allow more time for their journeys as the new EU systems bed in, while Britain’s Road Haulage Association has said there may be longer waits at busy times.

    The big test will be holiday traffic at Easter 2026 and the following summer when many families travel for the first time after EES’ introduction.

    MORE CHANGE COMING IN 2026   

    EES is a precursor to another system that is slated to become operational in late 2026 – the European Travel Information and Authorisation System (ETIAS).

    Non-Schengen area citizens will then need to apply for an ETIAS authorisation, provide personal information and details about their trip and pay a 20 euro fee before they travel.

    The authorisation will be valid for three years or until a passport expires, whichever comes first.

    Since April, European visitors to Britain have had to purchase an electronic permit in advance for trips.

    (Reporting by James Davey; Editing by Alexandra Hudson)

    Copyright 2025 Thomson Reuters.

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  • An Isolated Macron Is Pushing the Limits of France’s Political System

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    PARIS—French democracy wasn’t built for the crisis that’s enveloping the presidency of Emmanuel Macron.

    In an effort to pull France out of its fiscal spiral, Macron is exhausting a battery of tools available to him under the constitution as guarantor of France’s modern Fifth Republic. He dissolved a rowdy National Assembly last year only to see voters elect an even more divided lower house of parliament. Since then, he has appointed one prime minister after another, only to see them felled in confidence votes or resign.

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  • Russia Says It Awaits Clarity on Possible US Supply of Tomahawks to Ukraine

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    MOSCOW (Reuters) -Russia said on Tuesday it was waiting for clarity from the United States about the possible supply of Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine, saying such weapons could theoretically carry nuclear warheads.

    U.S. President Donald Trump said on Monday he would want to know what Ukraine planned to do with Tomahawks before agreeing to provide them because he did not want to escalate the war between Russia and Ukraine. He said, however, that he had “sort of made a decision” on the matter.

    Asked about the comments, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: “We understand that we need to wait, probably, for clearer statements, if any come.”

    Peskov said that under Trump’s predecessor Joe Biden, U.S. practice had been to announce supplies of new weapons only once they had been delivered to Ukraine.

    Russian President Vladimir Putin said in comments published on Sunday that if Washington supplied Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine for long-range strikes deep into Russia, it would lead to the destruction of Moscow’s relationship with the U.S.

    Peskov said it was important to realise that “if we abstract from various nuances, we’re talking about missiles that could also be nuclear-capable. Therefore, this is truly a serious round of escalation.”

    Tomahawk missiles have a range of 2,500 km (1,550 miles), so Ukraine would be able to use them to strike targets anywhere in European Russia, including Moscow, if Trump gave the go-ahead to supply them.

    (Reporting by Reuters, Writing by Felix Light and Mark Trevelyan; editing by Guy Faulconbridge)

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  • Former French PM Philippe in Favour of Early Presidential Election

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    PARIS (Reuters) -Former French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe said on Tuesday that he was in favour of an early presidential election, due to the current political crisis engulfing the country.

    Philippe, once a close ally of President Emmanuel Macron, said he favoured new presidential elections in an interview with radio station RTL, following the Monday resignation of outgoing Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu, whose government was rejected by both allies and opponents.

    Philippe’s comments were echoed by Jordan Bardella, the leader of the far-right party National Rally, who said in a separate interview on BFM TV that he supported first a dissolution of the parliament, followed by parliamentary elections or early presidential elections.

    (Reporting by Inti Landauro, Bertrand Boucey and Nicolas Delame;Editing by Sudip Kar-Gupta)

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  • Opinion | The World’s Worst Job Is in France

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    Where do they think they are—Italy? France on Monday lost another Prime Minister—the fifth in two years—as Paris burns through senior political leaders at the pace you used to see in Rome. Don’t expect the revolving door to slow down any time soon.

    The latest victim of political dysfunction à la française is Sébastien Lecornu, who quit after less than a month as PM. He’d come into office promising a “profound break” with the gridlock of the recent past. Then this weekend he introduced a new cabinet stacked with politicians associated with unpopular President Emmanuel Macron. The backlash in the obstreperous legislature prompted his resignation a day later.

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  • Le Maire withdraws from defence post to ease French political crisis

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    Former French economy and finance minister Bruno Le Maire has withdrawn from his planned appointment as defence minister in an effort to help resolve France’s deepening political crisis.

    Le Maire said on Monday that he had offered President Emmanuel Macron his immediate resignation and that the president had accepted.

    “I hope that this decision will allow discussions to resume with a view to forming a new government, which France needs,” he wrote on X.

    The announcement followed the surprise resignation earlier in the day of Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu, who stepped down after just a month in office.

    Lecornu, who unveiled his partial Cabinet line-up on Sunday night, quit after the conservative Républicains party threatened to withdraw from the governing coalition.

    Party leader Bruno Retailleau reacted angrily to Le Maire’s planned appointment, saying it fell short of the change he had been promised and expressing frustration over the limited influence conservatives had been given in the new government.

    According to media reports, Retailleau also accused Lecornu of failing to inform him in advance about Le Maire’s nomination.

    Criticism over soaring national debt

    Le Maire served as economy and finance minister from 2017 to 2024, steering France through the Covid-19 pandemic and the energy crisis with policies aimed at shielding businesses and households from severe hardship.

    However, during his tenure, France’s public debt rose by €1 trillion ($1.1 trillion), a fact that drew heavy criticism — including from within the conservative ranks — over his new appointment to the senior post of defence minister.

    Uncertain path forward for Macron

    It remains unclear whether Le Maire’s withdrawal will ease the crisis. President Macron met the outgoing Prime Minister Lecornu again at the Élysée Palace on Monday afternoon, though no details of their talks were made public.

    French media speculated that Macron may be seeking to persuade Lecornu, one of the president’s closest allies, to stay in office to stabilize the government.

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  • France’s prime minister resigns, again, sparking call from far-right for new national elections

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    France’s government collapsed Monday after the country’s Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu tendered his resignation less than a day after appointing his cabinet. The resignation of the country’s second-highest-ranking public official plunged France further into a political crisis that has seen a rotating cast of five different prime ministers in less than two years.

    France has been mired in political paralysis since President Emmanuel Macron, who appoints the prime minister, called snap national elections last year that left no political party with an outright majority in the parliament, which is called the National Assembly.

    “The political parties continue to adopt a posture as if they all had an absolute majority in the National Assembly. And basically, I found myself in a situation where I was ready to compromise, but each political party wants the other political party to adopt its entire program,” Lecornu said in his resignation speech on Monday.

    French outgoing Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu, who presented his government’s resignation to the French president, delivers a statement at the Hotel Matignon in Paris, France, Oct. 6, 2025.

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    The leader of France’s far-right movement, Marine Le Pen, called on Monday for new snap parliamentary elections in the aftermath of the government’s collapse. Le Pen’s anti-immigration, nationalist National Rally (RN) party was previously relegated to the fringes of national politics, but it has captured a considerable number of seats in the fragmented parliament in recent years.

    “There is no solution, there won’t be one tomorrow: I call on the President of the Republic to dissolve the National Assembly,” Le Pen said in a social media post.

    Lecornu, a political ally of the increasingly embattled Macron, held the position of prime minister for just less than a month, but only announced a new cabinet to govern the country on Sunday. Lecornu’s decision to step down makes him the shortest-serving prime minister in the history of the Fifth French Republic. 

    Fearing an ascendant far-right, which also swept up many seats in European Union parliamentary elections in June 2024, Macron gambled on his party and its allies winning the surprise election for seats in the National Assembly that he called soon after. But his bet did not pay off, and his centrist coalition lost a huge number of seats to both Le Pen’s party and an alliance of far-left parties.

    Marine Le Pen delivers a speech prior to a confidence vote over the government's austerity budget at the National Assembly in Paris on Sept. 8, 2025.

    Marine Le Pen delivers a speech prior to a confidence vote over the government’s austerity budget at the National Assembly in Paris on Sept. 8, 2025.

    Bertrand Guay/AFP/Getty


    Political instability has followed ever since, with successive governments folding after coming up against a deadlocked National Assembly. The instability has been amplified by a growing national debt crisis and a ballooning budget deficit which have knocked confidence in the EU’s second largest economy. 

    Last month, the U.S. credit ratings agency Fitch downgraded France’s credit rating, citing “increased fragmentation and polarization of domestic politics,” and a deterioration of the nation’s public finances. 

    Lecornu’s predecessor François Bayrou was ousted from power in September by a no confidence vote in the parliament after he failed to push through a budget program that would have cut public spending in an effort to address the country’s mounting debt. 

    Nationwide strikes over potential austerity measures in the looming French government budget for 2026 have also caused chaos across the country in recent weeks. 

    On Thursday, thousands of protesters, led by students, trade unions and retirees, took to the streets of more than 200 towns and cities across France to denounce proposed spending cuts and demand higher taxes on the rich.

    Emmet Lyons

    Emmet Lyons is a news desk editor at the CBS News London bureau, coordinating and producing stories for all CBS News platforms. Prior to joining CBS News, Emmet worked as a producer at CNN for four years.

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  • Build Defences, but Avoid Putin’s ‘Escalation Trap’, Says German Defence Minister

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    BERLIN (Reuters) -Germany must improve its anti-drone defences, its defence minister said, but warned against a hasty response to airspace incursions by Russia which would risk falling into “Putin’s escalation trap”.

    Boris Pistorius’ remarks in an interview with Handelsblatt newspaper followed drone sightings at Munich Airport that cancelled dozens of flights and stranded over 10,000 passengers this weekend.

    Authorities have yet to attribute blame, but officials have said Russia was responsible for dozens of recent aircraft incursions and sightings in the airspace of Ukraine’s European allies.

    “Putin knows Germany very, very well,” Pistorius said of the Russian President, who was a KGB agent in East Germany in the 1980s.

    “We mustn’t fall into Putin’s escalation trap,” he added. “If we shot an aeroplane down, he would claim the airspace violation was just pilot error and we had shot down an innocent young man,” he told Handelsblatt.

    STATE ROLE IN DEFENCE COMPANIES

    Germany needed to take an overview of all relevant threats, not just drone incursions, in order to draw links between seemingly unrelated events, he said.

    “Say there are lots of forest fires or power cuts in several regions at the same time,” he said. “All relevant data for assessing Germany’s security situation must flow to a single point.”

    Germany should follow France in taking active state stewardship of important defence companies.

    “Firms with key technologies need to be preserved,” he said. “We need the state shares, I’m convinced of it: also to ensure that know-how and jobs are kept in Germany.”

    DECISION ON FCAS NEEDS TO COME SOON

    Pistorius also warned that without a clear commitment by all three governments to the joint Franco-German-Spanish warplane project FCAS, Germany would withdraw.

    “I’ll talk with my counterparts as soon as there is a French government,” he said. “The Chancellor and I are in full agreement that there needs to be a decision by the end of the year… Otherwise we will pull the plug.”

    He issued a pointed warning to Washington with respect to rumours of a “kill switch” in its F-35 warplane that would control how customers used it.

    “If there were such limitations – of which there is no sign – U.S. industry would immediately look unreliable, and nobody would buy from them,” he said.

    (Reporting by Thomas EscrittEditing by Ros Russell)

    Copyright 2025 Thomson Reuters.

    Photos You Should See – Sept. 2025

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  • Opinion | The Global Intifada Has Arrived in England

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    London

    It was Yom Kippur when Jihad al-Shamie, a Syrian-born British citizen, attacked a synagogue in Manchester. According to the Guardian, al-Shamie was out on bail for an alleged rape and is believed to have a previous criminal history. Two Jews, Melvin Cravitz, 66, and Adrian Daulby, 53, were killed before police shot al-Shamie dead. Three other people are in serious condition. Al-Shamie’s method, car-ramming and a knife, is frequently used by Palestinian terrorists against Israelis. As the left-Islamist mobs say, “Globalize the intifada.”

    Copyright ©2025 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8

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    Dominic Green

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  • Russian Drone Kills French Photojournalist in Eastern Ukraine, Military Says

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    (Reuters) -A Russian drone attack killed a French photojournalist on Friday in eastern Ukraine on the frontline of the 3-1/2-year-old war with Russia, the Ukrainian military said.

    The Fourth Separate Mechanised Brigade, writing on Facebook, said photojournalist Antoni Lallican was killed in a drone strike. A Ukrainian photographer accompanying him, Hryhory Ivanchenko, was injured in the incident.

    Both were wearing protective equipment and armoured vests clearly indicating that they were journalists, the statement said.

    The head of the Ukrainian Union of Journalists, Serhiy Tomilenko, told Ukrainian media that Lallican had been killed near the town of Druzhkivka, one of the hottest sectors of the 1,250-km (780-mile) front line in Ukraine’s Donbas region.

    The European Federation of Journalists said it was the first time a journalist had been killed by a drone in the conflict. It said 17 journalists had died in the combat zone since Russia invaded its smaller neighbour in February 2022.

    The federation said Lallican, who was based in Paris, was on assignment for France’s Hans Lucas photo agency and had his work published in various European media outlets. French media said he had also worked in the Middle East.

    “By targeting journalists, the Russian army is deliberately hunting those trying to document war crimes,” Tomilenko said in a statement. 

    “For journalists, every trip to the frontline zone is a deadly risk. Antoni Lallican took this risk again and again, coming to Ukraine, travelling to Donbas, documenting what many prefer not to see.” 

    French President Emmanuel Macron, in a post on X, expressed condolences to his family and to journalists placing themselves in danger while on assignment.

    (Reporting by Ron Popeski; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

    Copyright 2025 Thomson Reuters.

    Photos You Should See – Sept. 2025

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  • Social Media Star Fontenoy Breaks World Record Cycling up Eiffel Tower

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    PARIS (Reuters) -Cyclist and social media sensation Aurelien Fontenoy became the fastest athlete ever to climb to the second floor of France’s Eiffel Tower on an all-terrain bike, the monument’s operator said on Friday.

    Fontenoy on Thursday climbed 686 steps of the monument to reach the second-floor platform, the last accessible by stairs, in 12 minutes and 30 seconds, the Societe d’Exploitation de la Tour Eiffel said in a statement.

    He broke the previous record by almost seven minutes. In order to claim the title, Fontenoy’s feet were not allowed to touch the ground.

    “I did not expect to take this little time,” Fontenoy said after the feat. The Eiffel Tower “is really a symbol, it is really the monument that I wanted to climb,” he added.

    As part of his project “The Climb”, Fontenoy cycled in 2021 to the top of the 140-metre high Trinity Tower, also in Paris, and this year he climbed Tallinn’s TV Tower in Estonia.

    (Reporting by Alessandro Parodi and Manuel Ausloos, editing by Ken Ferris)

    Copyright 2025 Thomson Reuters.

    Photos You Should See – Sept. 2025

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  • Cleveland’s Bread Olympics Connection and 10 Weird Games Worldwide

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    Source: Canva / Radio-One

    Cleveland is about to take center stage on an international level, but not for basketball or baseball.

    Instead, On the Rise Artisan Breads in Cleveland Heights will represent the United States at the Bread Olympics in France, an event celebrating the craft of baking and the artistry of bread. The competition brings together the best bakers from around the world to showcase their skills. For Cleveland, it is a point of pride that highlights the city’s growing role in culinary culture.

    Events like the Bread Olympics remind us that competition does not always mean touchdowns, goals, or medals. Sometimes it is about a baguette or a perfectly baked loaf. But the Bread Olympics is not the only quirky competition with global buzz. Around the world, other strange “Olympics” test everything from wheelbarrow pushing to synchronized swimming… solo.

    We pulled together 10 of the most unusual Olympic-style contests ever created. Keep scrolling to check them out!

    Bread Olympics (France, 2025)

    Bakers from across the globe gather to showcase artisan bread-making in the “mondial du pain”, or Bread Olympics. Competitors are judged on technique, creativity, and tradition. Cleveland Heights’ On the Rise bakery will represent the U.S., adding a local connection to this international event.

    Wheelbarrow Olympics (Hungary)

    Teams race, maneuver, and perform stunts with wheelbarrows. Events include obstacle courses and strength challenges, blending humor with physical skill.

    Plunge for Distance (1904 St. Louis Olympics)

    Swimmers dove into the water and glided as far as possible without moving arms or legs. The event lasted only one Olympic cycle.

    Hot Air Balloon Racing (1900 Paris Olympics)

    Competitors raced balloons for altitude, distance, and even aerial photography. It marked one of the earliest experiments in aviation competition.

    Live Pigeon Shooting (1900 Paris Olympics)

    A controversial event where athletes shot live pigeons. More than 300 birds were killed before officials removed the event permanently.

    Tug of War (1900–1920 Olympics)

    Two teams of eight competed in the classic pulling contest. It was a crowd favorite before being removed from the Games.

    Pistol Dueling (1906 and 1908 Olympics)

    Athletes fired wax bullets at dummies in mock duels. Competitors wore protective gear to avoid serious injuries.

    Obstacle Swimming (1900 Paris Olympics)

    Swimmers navigated a river course that required climbing over boats and diving under barriers. It was physically demanding and chaotic.

    Poodle Clipping (1900 Paris Exposition)

    Competitors had 2 hours to trim 17 poodles. Spectators reportedly loved it, though historians debate if it was officially Olympic.

    Solo Synchronized Swimming (1984–1992 Olympics)

    Swimmers performed choreographed routines… alone. Judges rated their ability to stay on rhythm with music without a partner.

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    Matty Willz

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