PARIS: When veteran centrist Francois Bayrou, France’s new prime minister, was education minister in the 1990s, his plan to increase subsidies for private schools led to nationwide protests. He quickly caved in and would stay in the post for four more years.
Three decades later he will face a different force in the shape of a fractured and fractious parliament where one of his earliest tasks — as President Emmanuel Macron’s fourth prime minister of the year — will be to pass a budget for 2025.
First he must name a government which, like that of his predecessor Michel Barnier, will have minority support in parliament and be vulnerable to attack from far-right and left-wing opponents.
The ouster of Barnier and his cabinet — the first time France’s parliament had voted to remove a government since 1962 — seemed to stun even those behind the move. For now, there is cross-party support for emergency legislation to ensure government funding does not dry up — but then the hard work on a budget for next year will begin.
“The difficulties remain the same as under Michel Barnier,” Arnaud Benedetti, a professor at the Sorbonne university, told Reuters. “At least, a motion of no-confidence doesn’t seem likely in the very short-term.”
A Macron aide said Bayrou was the “most consensual candidate able to bring people together.” Socialists said he represented more of the same.
A career politician, Bayrou, 73, was the torch-bearer of centrism until Macron reshaped the political landscape in 2017, dynamiting the traditional mainstream parties in a campaign Bayrou rallied behind.
Bayrou has in the past talked tough on the risks posed by France’s rising debt pile.
He did so again on Friday, saying the country’s debt was a “moral problem” as much as a financial one. “I hear your warning on the seriousness of the situation and I agree,” he told Barnier.
But he has placed a high value on keeping the peace, whether with the unions, lawmakers or the myriad of powerful vested interests in France.
Keeping the peace in a National Assembly dominated by three warring factions will be nigh-on impossible, however.
Lawmakers’ pushback over the 2025 budget bill led to Barnier’s downfall and left-wing leaders say they may try to topple Bayrou should he also use special constitutional powers to ram through the budget without a vote in parliament.
“Bringing onboard demands from opposition parties may be fiscally costly and the degree of fiscal consolidation may be limited next year as a result,” said JP Morgan’s Raphael Brun-Aguerre in a note.
Far-rights budget red lines endure
Through the week Macron held talks with party chiefs spanning the center-right Republicans to the Communists.
He appealed to all ‘Republican forces’ to unite but opted to resist Socialist Party calls to appoint a premier from within their ranks, unwilling to risk unwinding reforms that liberalized the euro zone’s second-largest economy and placed the pension system on a more financially sound footing.
Even so, the president’s 2023 pension reform will remain in his opponents’ crosshairs.
“Our red lines remain,” Jordan Bardella, leader of the far-right National Rally told reporters shortly after Bayrou was named. Those red lines include indexing pensions to inflation throughout 2025.
One opinion poll this week showed that 35 percent-38 percent of voters intended to support Bardella’s boss, Marine Le Pen, in the next presidential election due in 2027 — a level not seen before for the far-right leader and putting her in the lead.
Furthermore, even if Bayrou’s political opponents do not get in the way, the challenges for his future government will be immense.
It will need to reduce the budget deficit from a projected 6.1 percent for 2024 whilst keeping protest-prone trade unions at bay, increasing military spending for Ukraine and finding ways to support an ailing industrial sector.
Barnier had promised to bring the deficit down with tax rises for the wealthy and for big companies, as well as a curbs on the planned rise in pension payments. But these measures fell by the wayside when his government was toppled.
Former finance minister Bruno Le Maire, who has been grilled by lawmakers investigating his role in France’s failure to curb its deficit, gave a scathing indictment of parliament.
“This assembly taxes, spends, censors,” he said. “It has long lost any sense of economic and budget realities.”
Macron has a new prime minister but the same old problems
https://arab.news/ghbsm
Macron has a new prime minister but the same old problems
- Bayrou, 73, named prime minister to replace Michel Barnier
- Analysts expect little progress on reducing deficit
Germany warns Assad supporters involved in atrocities in Syria against trying to flee there
- Germany has been a major destination for Syrian refugees over the past decade, and several hundred thousand Syrian nationals live there
BERLIN: Germany’s foreign minister is warning anyone involved in atrocities for the ousted Syrian government against seeking refuge in her country, saying they would face “the full force of the law.”
Germany has been a major destination for Syrian refugees over the past decade, and several hundred thousand Syrian nationals live there. In rulings since 2021, former Syrian secret police officers already have been convicted in Germany for overseeing or facilitating the abuse of detainees.
“To any of (former President Bashar) Assad’s torturers who might be considering fleeing to Germany now, I can only say clearly: We will bring all the regime’s henchmen to account for their terrible crimes with the full force of the law,” Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock told Sunday’s edition of the Bild am Sonntag newspaper.
Baerbock called for international security authorities and intelligence services to work closely together.
Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said Germany is “extremely vigilant” and pointed to border checks that the country already has put in place on its frontiers as it tries to reduce irregular migration.
She told Bild am Sonntag that “no one who participated in atrocities is safe from prosecution here.” She said the convictions already handed down show that Germany pursues such crimes rigorously and should act as a deterrent against people involved in them going there.
More broadly, German officials have stressed that many well-integrated arrivals of recent years will be welcome to stay after the removal of Assad. That was followed by some talk of Syrians going home, which Chancellor Olaf Scholz acknowledged in a video released Friday “deeply unsettled” them.
“Anyone who is working here, who is well integrated, is and remains welcome in Germany,” he said. “That goes without saying.”
“Some of the refugees hope they can soon return to their homeland. We will support that as soon as the situation allows,” he added. But “only the coming days, weeks and months will show what direction Syria takes after Assad.”
Francis makes first visit by a pope to Corsica
- Tens of thousands of people are expected to welcome Pope Francis in Ajaccio
- Around 90 percent of Corsica’s 350,000 inhabitants are Catholic
AJACCIO, France: Pope Francis arrived in Corsica, a stronghold of the Catholic faith, on Sunday, with locals hotly anticipating the first-ever trip by a pontiff to the French Mediterranean island.
Sitting in a wheelchair and wearing his white vestments and skullcap, a smiling Francis was greeted on the tarmac by French Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau and a military band as he emerged from the papal plane.
Television images showed him handing local children small gifts after they brought him flowers.
In a packed timetable for the 87-year-old pope, Francis will speak at a congress on religion in the Mediterranean, hold an Angelus prayer and celebrate an open-air mass during the one-day visit.
He will also meet President Emmanuel Macron before his departure around 6:00 p.m. (1700 GMT).
Tens of thousands of people are expected to welcome Francis in Ajaccio, capital of what is popularly known as the “Ile de Beaute” (Island of Beauty).
The city was decked out in decorations in the papal colors, yellow and white, while cars had been banished from central streets with parking bans.
Around 2,000 police reinforcements were sent to Ajaccio to beef up security.
Francis’s short trip, based around a congress on faith in the Mediterranean region, comes just a week after he snubbed the re-opening of Notre Dame cathedral in Paris five years after a devastating fire.
The relaunch was attended by a long list of bigwigs, royalty and world leaders, including US President-elect Donald Trump and Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Francis declined the French government’s invitation to attend.
But he agreed to the Corsica trip hosted by the island’s popular, media-savvy cardinal, 56-year-old Francois-Xavier Bustillo.
“Corsica has been preparing to host (Francis) for a long time,” Bustillo told AFP this week.
Although “it’s a poor diocese... we’ll manage a welcome worthy of the pope” thanks to donations from businesses and individual churchgoers, he added.
Corsica’s prefect Jerome Filippini said that the visit would also cost the French state “several million euros” over its few hours.
Workers have repainted the facade of Ajaccio’s Notre-Dame de l’Assomption cathedral and built a wheelchair ramp for Francis, who has limited mobility, to enter by its main door.
New pews have been delivered and yellow-and-white flags hung behind the altar.
Near the cathedral, a colorful street-art style fresco by Ajaccio artists shows Francis in front of stained-glass windows and a map of Corsica.
Francis, who will turn 88 two days after his trip, will make two speeches and celebrate mass at an open-air theater.
He is also expected to greet the crowds from his popemobile in Ajaccio’s streets.
“We’re proud, it’s a privilege for (the pope) to come here rather than Paris,” said Paule Negroni, a 52-year-old bookshop owner.
Around 90 percent of Corsica’s 350,000 inhabitants are Catholic, according to the local Church.
Francis “comes to see poor people and children, he’s very popular,” said Helene Politi, who will be one of 250 people singing for Francis at mass.
The pope has made several visits around the Mediterranean, from the Greek island of Lesbos to Malta and Sicily.
But this is the first visit by a pope to Corsica, a French region with a distinctive identity, fierce independence movement and a special constitutional status currently under discussion between Paris and local elected officials.
It is Francis’s third visit to France as pope, after eastern city Strasbourg in 2014 and Mediterranean port Marseille last year — although none has been an official state visit to the country.
Some have seen that as a sign of his disapproval of French policy changes away from Church doctrine during his papacy, including on gay marriage and an ongoing public debate about assisted dying.
Some French Catholics have expressed disappointment that the pope stayed away from Notre Dame’s grand reopening.
Francis’s defenders highlight that the pontiff, concerned with the world’s marginalized people, largely shuns capital cities and sumptuous receptions.
Born in Argentina, he has never visited Spain, Britain or Germany as pope.
Even in the Vatican, he prefers closed-door audiences with pilgrims, homeless people or migrants to meetings with the powerful.
Recent health problems have not kept the pope from looking in good form in recent months.
The Corsica visit will be his 47th overseas visit since his 2013 election and the third in 2024.
Cyclone kills 14 people in France's Mayotte: security source
PARIS: Cyclone Chido killed at least 14 people on the French Indian Ocean island territory of Mayotte, a security source told AFP Sunday in an updated provisional toll.
The storm headed for the coast of Mozambique after sweeping through Mayotte's shantytowns, with French Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau warning the final toll was feared to be heavy.
Bangladesh inquiry recommends feared police unit shut
DHAKA: A Bangladesh commission probing abuses during the rule of toppled leader Sheikh Hasina has recommended a much-feared armed police unit be disbanded, a senior inquiry member said Sunday.
Hasina, 77, fled by helicopter to neighboring India on August 5 as a student-led uprising stormed the prime minister’s palace in Dhaka.
Her government was accused of widespread human rights abuses, including the extrajudicial killing of hundreds of political opponents and the unlawful abduction and disappearance of hundreds more.
The Commission of Inquiry into Enforced Disappearances, set up by the caretaker government, said it found initial evidence that Hasina and other ex-senior officials were involved in the enforced disappearances alleged to have been carried out by the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB).
The RAB paramilitary police force was sanctioned by the United States in 2021, alongside seven of its senior officers, in response to reports of its culpability in some of the worst rights abuses committed during Hasina’s 15-year-long rule.
“RAB has never abided by the law and was seldom held accountable for its atrocities, which include enforced disappearances, extrajudicial killings, and abductions,” Nur Khan Liton, a member of the commission, told AFP.
The commission handed its preliminary report to the leader of the interim government Muhammad Yunus late Saturday.
The Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), one of the country’s largest political parties, also called for RAB’s abolition.
Senior BNP leader M. Hafizuddin Ahmed told reporters that the force was too rotten to be reformed.
“When a patient suffers from gangrene, according to medical studies, the only solution is to amputate the affected organ,” he said.
The elite police unit was launched in 2004, billed as a way to provide rapid results in a country where the judicial system was notoriously slow.
But the unit earned a grim reputation for extrajudicial killings and was accused of supporting Hasina’s political ambitions by suppressing dissent through abductions and murders.
Australia says ‘Bali Nine’ prisoners have returned home
SYDNEY: The five remaining members of the Australian “Bali Nine” drug ring have returned home after 19 years in jail in Indonesia, the Australian government said Sunday.
Indonesian police arrested the nine Australians in 2005, convicting them of attempting to smuggle more than eight kilograms (18 pounds) of heroin off the holiday island of Bali.
In a case that drew global attention to Indonesia’s unforgiving drug laws, two of the gang would eventually be executed by firing squad, while others served hefty prison sentences.
“The Australian Government can confirm that Australian citizens, Matthew Norman, Scott Rush, Martin Stephens, Si Yi Chen, and Michael Czugaj have returned to Australia,” Canberra said in a statement.
“The men will have the opportunity to continue their personal rehabilitation and reintegration in Australia.”
Accused ringleaders Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran were executed by firing squad in 2015 despite repeated pleas from the Australian government.
Tan Duc Thanh Nguyen died of cancer in 2018, months before Renae Lawrence was released after her sentence was commuted.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said he had thanked Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto for his government’s cooperation on the men’s return.
“Australia shares Indonesia’s concern about the serious problem illicit drugs represents,” Albanese said in a statement.
“The Government will continue to cooperate with Indonesia to counter narcotics trafficking and transnational crime.”
The Australian government did not give further details on the agreement with Jakarta, including whether they would need to continue to serve their sentences following their return home.
The Indonesian government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Australian government said it had consistently advocated for the men and provided consular support to them and their families during their incarceration.
It asked the media to respect their privacy following their return.
Muslim-majority Indonesia has some of the world’s toughest drug laws, including the death penalty for traffickers.
It is not uncommon for foreigners to be arrested for drug offenses in Bali, which attracts millions of visitors to its palm-fringed beaches every year.
The release of the Australians follows weeks of speculation that a deal for their return was in the works.
In November, a senior Indonesian minister said Jakarta aimed to return prisoners from Australia, France and the Philippines by the end of this year.
Earlier this month, Indonesia signed an agreement with the Philippines for the return of mother of two Mary Jane Veloso, who was arrested in 2010 after the suitcase she was carrying was found to be lined with 2.6 kilograms (5.7 pounds) of heroin.
Her supporters claim she was duped by an international drug syndicate, and in 2015, she narrowly escaped execution after her suspected recruiter was arrested.
France last month requested the return of its citizen, Serge Atlaoui, a welder arrested in 2005 in a drugs factory outside Jakarta, according to a senior Indonesian minister.
