PARIS: Voting has begun in mainland France on Sunday in pivotal runoff elections that could hand a historic victory to Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally and its inward-looking, anti-immigrant vision — or produce a hung parliament and political deadlock.
French President Emmanuel Macron took a huge gamble in dissolving parliament and calling for the elections after his centrists were trounced in European elections on June 9.
The snap elections in this nuclear-armed nation will influence the war in Ukraine, global diplomacy and Europe’s economic stability, and they’re almost certain to undercut President Emmanuel Macron for the remaining three years of his presidency.
The first round on June 30 saw the largest gains ever for the anti-immigration, nationalist National Rally, led by Marine Le Pen.
A bit over 49 million people are registered to vote in the elections, which will determine which party controls the 577-member National Assembly, France’s influential lower house of parliament, and who will be prime minister. If support is further eroded for Macron’s weak centrist majority, he will be forced to share power with parties opposed to most of his pro-business, pro-European Union policies.
Voters at a Paris polling station were acutely aware of the the far-reaching consequences for France and beyond.
“The individual freedoms, tolerance and respect for others is what at stake today,” said Thomas Bertrand, a 45-year-old voter who works in advertising.
Racism and antisemitism have marred the electoral campaign, along with Russian cybercampaigns, and more than 50 candidates reported being physically attacked — highly unusual for France. The government is deploying 30,000 police on voting day.
The heightened tensions come while France is celebrating a very special summer: Paris is about to host exceptionally ambitious Olympic Games, the national soccer team reached the semifinal of the Euro 2024 championship, and the Tour de France is racing around the country alongside the Olympic torch.
As of noon local time, turnout was at 26.63 percent, according to France’s interior ministry, slightly higher than the 25.90 percent reported at the same time during the first round last Sunday.
Prime Minister Gabriel Attal cast his ballot in the Paris suburb of Vanves Sunday morning.
Macron is expected to vote later Sunday morning in the seaside town of La Touquet. Le Pen is not voting, because her district in northern France is not holding a second round after she won the seat outright last week. Across France, 76 other candidates secured seats in the first round, including 39 from her National Rally and 32 from the leftist New Popular Front alliance. Two candidates from Macron’s centrists list also won their seats in the first round.
The elections wrap up Sunday at 8 p.m. (1800 GMT) in mainland France and on the island of Corsica. Initial polling projections are expected Sunday night, with early official results expected late Sunday and early Monday.
Voters residing in the Americas and in France’s overseas territories of Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon, Saint-Barthélemy, Saint-Martin, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Guyana and French Polynesia voted on Saturday.
The elections could leave France with its first far-right government since the Nazi occupation in World War II if the National Rally wins an absolute majority and its 28-year-old leader Jordan Bardella becomes prime minister. The party came out on top in the previous week’s first-round voting, followed by a coalition of center-left, hard-left and Green parties, and Macron’s centrist alliance.
Pierre Lubin, a 45-year-old business manager, was worried about whether the elections would produce an effective government.
“This is a concern for us,” Lubin said. “Will it be a technical government or a coalition government made up of (various) political forces?”
The outcome remains highly uncertain. Polls between the two rounds suggest that the National Rally may win the most seats in the 577-seat National Assembly but fall short of the 289 seats needed for a majority. That would still make history, if a party with historic links to xenophobia and downplaying the Holocaust, and long seen as a pariah, becomes France’s biggest political force.
If it wins the majority, Macron would be forced to share power with a prime minister who deeply disagrees with the president’s domestic and foreign policies, in an awkward arrangement known in France as “cohabitation.”
Another possibility is that no party has a majority, resulting in a hung parliament. That could prompt Macron to pursue coalition negotiations with the center-left or name a technocratic government with no political affiliations.
No matter what happens, Macron’s centrist camp will be forced to share power. Many of his alliances’ candidates lost in the first round or withdrew, meaning it doesn’t have enough people running to come anywhere close to the majority he had in 2017 when he was was first elected president, or the plurality he got in the 2022 legislative vote.
Both would be unprecedented for modern France, and make it more difficult for the European Union’s No. 2 economy to make bold decisions on arming Ukraine, reforming labor laws or reducing its huge deficit. Financial markets have been jittery since Macron surprised even his closest allies in June by announcing snap elections after the National Rally won the most seats for France in European Parliament elections.
Regardless of what happens, Macron said he won’t step down and will stay president until his term ends in 2027.
Many French voters, especially in small towns and rural areas, are frustrated with low incomes and a Paris political leadership seen as elitist and unconcerned with workers’ day-to-day struggles. National Rally has connected with those voters, often by blaming immigration for France’s problems, and has built up broad and deep support over the past decade.
Le Pen has softened many of the party’s positions — she no longer calls for quitting NATO and the EU — to make it more electable. But the party’s core far-right values remain. It wants a referendum on whether being born in France is enough to merit citizenship, to curb rights of dual citizens, and give police more freedom to use weapons.
With the uncertain outcome looming over the high-stakes elections, Valerie Dodeman, 55-year-old legal expert said she is pessimistic about the future of France.
“No matter what happens, I think this election will leave people disgruntled on all sides,” Dodeman said.
France is voting in key elections that could see a historic far-right win or a hung parliament
https://arab.news/mj4sn
France is voting in key elections that could see a historic far-right win or a hung parliament
- Sunday’s snap elections in this nuclear-armed nation have potential impact on the war in Ukraine and Europe’s economic stability
Millions of Filipino Catholics join Black Nazarene procession in Manila
- Original black wooden statue of Jesus Christ was brought from Mexico in 1606
- About 80% of the Philippines’ 110 million population are Catholics
MANILA: Millions of Filipino Catholics joined an annual procession of a centuries-old statue of Jesus Christ in Manila on Thursday in one of the world’s largest displays of devotion.
Clad in maroon and yellow, devotees flooded the streets of the Philippine capital to swarm the Black Nazarene, the black wooden statue of Jesus Christ bearing down a cross, as people jostled for a chance to pull the thick rope towing the carriage across the city.
In Asia’s largest Christian-majority country, about 80 percent of the Philippines’ 110 million population identify as Catholic, a key legacy of Spanish colonization of the archipelago for more than 300 years.
The 6.5 km-long procession, known as Traslacion, or “transfer,” commemorates the 1787 relocation of the Black Nazarene from a church inside the colonial Spanish capital of Intramuros in Manila’s center to its present location in Quiapo Church.
“Quiapo’s site of devotion, located outside the Spanish colonial center of Intramuros, showcases ordinary Filipinos’ appropriation of this faith. Moreover, the tradition of making and keeping panata (pledges) to the Black Nazarene has been passed down through many generations of Filipinos,” Wilson Espiritu, assistant professor of theology at the Ateneo de Manila University, told Arab News.
The original statue, created by an unknown Mexican sculptor, was brought to the Philippines from Mexico in 1606, first staying in the Church of San Juan Bautista in Bagumbayan before it was moved to Intramuros in 1608.
Many devotees believe the statue is miraculous, and that touching it or the ropes attached to its float can heal illness or turn around misfortune.
Part of its miraculous lore derived from the statue surviving multiple earthquakes, fires, floods and even the bombing of Manila in the Second World War.
The annual procession celebrating the statue, also known as the Feast of the Black Nazarene, has parallels in other Catholic-dominant countries, such as the Festival of Cristo Negro of Portobelo in Panama.
“To me, this shows the ‘Catholicity’ of this popular Filipino devotion. Nevertheless, what distinguishes this devotion is its historical background and cultural integration in Filipino society,” Espiritu said.
Manila police have estimated that at least 6 million people will join the procession. This year marks the first time that the feast will be observed nationwide, with churches across the country also expected to hold various celebrations.
Preparations have been underway since Monday evening and as enthusiasm buzzed among thousands of devotees in the lead-up to the procession, church officials had to allow the ritual of pahalik — the kissing of the statue — hours ahead of schedule.
For many Filipinos, religious traditions like this provide an opportunity “to rekindle the sense of collective hope, in aspiring for a better life,” said Robbin Dagle, a lecturer at Ateneo de Manila University who has researched religion and society in the Philippines.
“Little acts, such as sharing food and water among devotees, highlight how religious events reinforce community ties. Here, Filipinos place their faith on each other and to Jesus, who knew and went through suffering himself, rather than on earthly leaders who are distant from them, and have failed them time and time again,” he told Arab News.
“Filipinos continue to find meaning in religious traditions because of what it represents: Community and unceasing hope. Both of these are increasingly challenging to find in urban life.”
In their final meeting, Zelensky and Austin say military aid to Ukraine must continue under Trump
- Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin: US to send another $500 million in security assistance to Ukraine
- The US has provided about $66 billion of the total aid to Kyiv since February 2022
RAMSTEIN AIR BASE, Germany: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin used their final meeting Thursday to press the incoming Trump administration to not give up on Kyiv’s fight, warning that to cease military support now “will only invite more aggression, chaos and war.”
“We’ve come such a long way that it would honestly be crazy to drop the ball now and not keep building on the defense coalitions we’ve created,” Zelensky said. “No matter what’s going on in the world, everyone wants to feel sure that their country will not just be erased of the map.”
Austin also announced the US would send another $500 million in security assistance to Ukraine, including missiles for fighter jets, sustainment equipment for F-16s, armored bridging systems and small arms and ammunition.
The weapons are funded through presidential drawdown authority, meaning they can be pulled directly from US stockpiles, and the Pentagon is pushing to get them into Ukraine before the end of the month.
This latest package leaves about $3.85 billion in funding to provide future arms shipments to Ukraine; if the Biden administration makes no further announcements, that balance will be available to President-elect Donald Trump to send if he chooses.
“If Putin swallows Ukraine, his appetite will only grow,” Austin told the approximately 50 member nations who have been meeting over the last three years to coordinate weapons and military support for Ukraine. “If autocrats conclude that democracies will lose their nerve, surrender their interests, and forget their principles, we will only see more land grabs. If tyrants learn that aggression pays, we will only invite even more aggression, chaos, and war.”
Austin leaves a consortium that now has more than a half dozen independent coalitions of those countries who are focused on Ukraine’s longer-term security capabilities and who have committed to continuing to stand up those needs through 2027.
Globally, countries including the US have ramped up domestic weapons production as the Ukraine war exposed that all of those stockpiles were woefully unprepared for a major conventional land war.
The US has provided about $66 billion of the total aid since February 2022 and has been able to deliver most of that total — between 80 percent and 90 percent — already to Ukraine.
“Retreat will only provide incentives for more imperial aggression,” Austin told the group. “And if we flinch, you can count on Putin to push further and punch harder. Ukraine’s survival is on the line. But so is the security of Europe, the United States, and the world.”
Kremlin declines to accept responsibility for plane crash
- Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has said the Azerbaijani Airlines passenger jet was shot at ‘from the ground’ over the Russian city of Grozny where it had been due to land
MOSCOW: The Kremlin on Thursday declined to say Russian forces accidentally shot at an Azerbaijani plane which crashed last month, despite Baku repeatedly urging it to accept responsibility for the fatal disaster.
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has said the Azerbaijani Airlines passenger jet, which crashed in Kazakhstan on December 25, killing 38 people, was shot at “from the ground” over the Russian city of Grozny where it had been due to land.
Russia has said its air defenses were working at the time repelling Ukrainian drones but has stopped short of saying it shot at the plane.
Aliyev, a close ally of Moscow, this week repeated that “guilt” lay with Russia and accused it of “concealment” of the real causes.
“We are interested in an absolutely objective and impartial investigation in order to establish the causes of this catastrophe,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Thursday.
“We are waiting for the results of the commission,” he added, saying Russian “specialists are giving their full cooperation.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin called Aliyev twice since the disaster.
The Kremlin said he had apologized for the fact the incident took place over Russian airspace but its account of the phone calls do not say Putin accepted responsibility.
Aliyev has expressed anger over Moscow’s handling of the crash.
He issued fierce criticism and demanded an apology earlier this week, calling on Moscow to punish those responsible for the “criminal” shooting of the plane.
Aliyev said air defense measures for Grozny – the capital of Russia’s Chechnya republic – were only announced after the plane had been “shot from the ground.”
Azerbaijan says the plane was riddled with holes and that preliminary results of its investigation show it was accidentally hit by a Russian air defense missile.
Pope Francis, ramping up criticism of Israel, calls situation in Gaza ‘shameful’
- Pope Francis: ‘We cannot in any way accept the bombing of civilians’
- ‘We cannot accept that children are freezing to death because hospitals have been destroyed or a country’s energy network has been hit’
VATICAN CITY: Pope Francis on Thursday stepped up his recent criticism of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, calling the humanitarian situation in the Palestinian enclave “very serious and shameful.”
In a yearly address to diplomats delivered on his behalf by an aide, Francis appeared to reference deaths caused by winter cold in Gaza, where there is almost no electricity.
“We cannot in any way accept the bombing of civilians,” the text said.
“We cannot accept that children are freezing to death because hospitals have been destroyed or a country’s energy network has been hit.”
The pope, 88, who was present for the address but asked an aide to read it as he is recovering from a cold, also condemned anti-Semitism; called for an end to the war in Ukraine and other conflicts around the world; and expressed concern over climate change.
The comments were part of an address to Vatican-accredited envoys from some 184 countries that is sometimes called the pope’s “state of the world” speech. The Israeli ambassador to the Holy See was among those present for the event.
Francis, leader of the 1.4-billion-member Roman Catholic Church, is usually careful about taking sides in conflicts.
But he has recently been more outspoken about Israel’s military campaign against Palestinian militant group Hamas, and has suggested the global community should study whether the offensive constitutes a genocide of the Palestinian people.
An Israeli government minister publicly denounced the pontiff in December for that suggestion.
The pope’s text said he condemns anti-Semitism, and called the growth of anti-Semitic groups “a source of deep concern.”
Francis also called for an end to the war between Ukraine and Russia, which has killed tens of thousands.
“My wish for the year 2025 is that the entire international community will work above all to end the conflict that, for almost three years now, has caused so much bloodshed,” he said.
The pope also addressed conflicts in places including Sudan, Mozambique, Myanmar, and Nicaragua and reiterated his frequent calls for action to confront the impacts of global climate change, and the spread of misinformation on social media.
Russia battles Kyiv drone strike blaze for second day
- Kyiv hit the depot in the city of Engels, some 500 kilometers from the two countries’ border
- Hours after the drone strike, Russia bombed the Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia
MOSCOW: Russian firefighters on Thursday battled for a second day to put out a blaze caused by a Ukrainian drone strike on an oil depot.
Kyiv hit the depot in the city of Engels, some 500 kilometers from the two countries’ border, in Russia’s southern Saratov region on Wednesday.
Moscow has said that two fire firefighters died trying to extinguish the blaze.
Hours after the drone strike, Russia bombed the Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia, killing at least 13 people and wounding more than 100.
“Emergency services are continuing to put out the consequences of the drone attack,” Saratov governor Roman Busargin said on Telegram.
“Specialists say that it will take some time to complete the burnout process,” he added.
Busargin said there was “no threat” to residential buildings.
Russia declared an emergency situation in Engels on Wednesday.
Images on social media showed a giant plume of smoke rising over the city, which has a population of around 220,000.
Ukraine has hit Russian infrastructure – sometimes deep behind the front lines – throughout Moscow’s offensive.
It has said that hitting the depot will cause “serious logistical problems” for Moscow’s air force.
Hours after the drone strike, Russia struck Zaporizhzhia, a southern Ukrainian city close to Moscow-occupied territory, killing 13 people.
Kyiv on Thursday said that 113 people were also wounded in the Zaporizhzhia strike, in an updated toll.
Russian attacks on the southern Kherson region killed two people on Thursday, Ukrainian officials said.
Prosecutors said the attacks killed a 54-year-old man in the village of Beryslav – on the Dnipro river that marks the front line – and a 60-year-old woman in Nezlamne, west of the city of Kherson.
The conflict in Ukraine – nearing its three-year mark – has escalated in recent months, with both sides seeking to gain an advantage ahead of Donald Trump returning to the US presidency.
