French political discussion megathread: Yellow Vest Redux

[NewYorkExpress]

Emmanuel Macron has named a new Prime Minister, in Labor Minister Elisabeth Borne.

Centrist politician Elisabeth Borne was appointed France’s new prime minister on Monday, becoming only the second woman in history to hold the post.

Borne, 61, the labor minister in French President Emmanuel Macron’s previous government, succeeds Jean Castex, whose resignation on Monday was expected after Macron’s reelection last month to a second five-year term.

Borne spoke soon after her appointment, noting the emotions she felt at being selected for the highest office a woman has ever held in French political leadership.

“I would like to dedicate this nomination to all the little girls by telling them ‘Go after your dreams!’ Nothing should stop the fight for the place of women in our society,” she said.

Macron and Borne are expected to appoint a new French government in the coming days.

[NewYorkExpress]

The Former President of the Louvre was charged in an artifact trafficking case.

The former president of the Louvre museum in Paris has been charged with conspiring to hide the origin of archaeological treasures that may have been taken out of Egypt during the Arab spring uprisings, in a case that has shocked the world of antiquities.

Jean-Luc Martinez was charged this week after he was taken in by police for questioning, a French judicial source told Agence France-Presse. Martinez ran the Paris Louvre, the most visited museum in the world, from 2013-21.

Martinez, who stepped down as the Louvre’s president last year, serves as an ambassador for international cooperation in the field of heritage. The case threatens to embarrass the French culture ministry and ministry for foreign affairs.

Two French specialists in Egyptian art were also questioned this week but released without charge.

The case was opened in July 2018, two years after the Louvre Abu Dhabi bought a rare pink granite stele depicting the pharaoh Tutankhamun and four other ancient works for €8m (£6.8m).

Martinez has been charged with complicity in fraud and “concealing the origin of criminally obtained works by false endorsement”, a judicial source confirmed to AFP. A report in Le Canard enchaîné (the Chained Duck) investigative weekly said this could have involved turning a blind eye to fake certificates of origin for the pieces, a fraud thought to involve several other art experts.



Martinez has been charged with complicity in fraud and “concealing the origin of criminally obtained works by false endorsement”, a judicial source confirmed to AFP.

[NewYorkExpress]

A climate activist in a wig attempted to throw a cake at the Mona Lisa.

The Mona Lisa was the subject of attempted vandalism on Sunday when a visitor to the world-famous Louvre museum in Paris smeared frosting all over the Renaissance-era painting's protective glass.

The man, who appeared to wear a wig in videos of the incident shared on social media, approached the painting in a wheelchair before throwing a piece of cake at the artwork, according to a statement from the Louvre. Videos of the aftermath show him on foot with a wheelchair nearby.

"A visitor simulated a disability in order to use a wheelchair to approach the work, which was installed in a secure display case. The Louvre applied its usual procedures for people with reduced mobility, allowing them to admire this major work of art," the statement noted.

"While standing near the painting, this individual threw a pastry he had hidden in his personal belongings at the Mona Lisa's glass case. This act had no effect on the painting, which was not damaged in any way."

A spokesperson clarified that visitors in wheelchairs are allowed to move in front of other museum-goers to better see the work.

The man, 36, was arrested and taken to a psychiatric infirmary in the police headquarters, according to the Paris prosecutor's office. An investigation has been opened by the prosecutor for "the attempt of damaging a cultural property." The Louvre has filed a complaint.

In a video published by a museum-goer on Twitter, the man is heard saying in French, "Think of planet Earth, there are people destroying it," while security escorts the man, with rose petals scattered on the floor of the museum.

Another video of the scene shows a staff member cleaning the icing from the glass.

[NewYorkExpress]

French diplomats are going on strike for the first time in twenty years.

French diplomats will go on strike for the first time in 20 years on Thursday in protest against a perceived lack of recognition and reforms pushed by the president that they say could damage France’s global standing.

The action won support from 500 foreign ministry civil servants in a newspaper opinion piece and has seen widespread backing from senior diplomats and ambassadors on social media.

The strike comes at a bad time for President Emmanuel Macron, with France holding the European Union presidency until the end of June, as he seeks to play a leading role in the bloc’s response to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and looks for fresh impetus to his new presidential mandate.

Public sector reforms will see the diplomatic career structure change, including scrapping a special status for senior foreign ministry officials, meaning they would fall into a broader civil service pool.

“The reform of the senior civil service is the latest attack on our professions, our expertise, our future,” said a strike notice for June 2 sent by unions.

“This reform reflects an incomprehensible desire to undermine our ministry and risks permanently weakening our country’s ability to project and defend itself in the world.”


Ministry officials have played down the effect, and in a statement on May 19, Ministry Spokeswoman Anne Claire Legendre said solid guarantees had been obtained to preserve the diplomatic profession and careers.

[NewYorkExpress]

The French Burkini ban was upheld in court.

rance's highest administrative court has upheld a ban on full-body "burkini" swimsuits in public pools, rejecting an appeal by the city of Grenoble.

Last month, Grenoble authorised all swimwear, including burkinis, sparking a legal battle with the government.

Burkinis are worn largely by Muslim women as a way of preserving modesty and upholding their faith.

But the court said it could not allow "selective exceptions to the rules to satisfy religious demands".

The dispute went all the way to the Council of State after a local court in Grenoble suspended the ban on the grounds that it seriously undermined the principle of neutrality in public services.

Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin also weighed in, describing the policy as an "unacceptable provocation" that was contrary to French secular values.

[NewYorkExpress]

Following his party's loss of their parlimentary majority, Macron has rejected the resignation of Elisabeth Borne as Prime Minister.

French President Emmanuel Macron has rejected a resignation offer from Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne before talks with the opposition seeking to end the deadlock sparked by his failure to secure a majority in parliamentary elections.

The development came on Tuesday as Macron was due to host far-right leader Marine Le Pen and other political party chiefs for rare talks at the Elysee Palace as he seeks solutions to an unprecedented situation that risks plunging his second term into crisis two months after it began.

[NewYorkExpress]

Two different Ministers have been accused of rape since the formation of the cabinet. This doesn't count Darmanin, who entered the cabinet already accused of rape.

In a further setback for embattled French President Emmanuel Macron, Paris prosecutors have opened an investigation into allegations of rape against another newly appointed member of government.




Two complaints have been levelled against French Secretary of State for Development and the Francophonie, Chrysoula Zacharopoulou, a former gynaecologist.

A report by news magazine Marianne and later confirmed by AFP said the first complaint was filed on 25 May, which led to the opening of an investigation two days later. The second was filed on 16 June.

Both women said Zacharopoulou, who was appointed Secretary of State last month, raped them as she was carrying out her professional duties "in a medical setting".


.....

The accusations against her come on the back of rape complaints against Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin – which were dismissed – and against Solidarity Minister Damien Abad.
 

[NewYorkExpress]

Parliament is pushing to inscribe abortion rights into the French Constitution.

A group of lawmakers from the French president’s party will propose a bill to inscribe abortion rights into the country’s constitution, according to a statement by two members of parliament on Saturday.

The move comes after the US supreme court overturned a 50-year-old ruling and stripped women’s constitutional protections for abortion.

The right to abortion in France is already inscribed in a 1975 law relating to the voluntary termination of pregnancy within the legal framework that decriminalised abortion.

A constitutional law will cement abortion rights for future generations, said Marie-Pierre Rixain, a member of parliament and of Emmanuel Macron’s The Republic on the Move party.


The bill will include a provision that would make it “impossible to deprive a person of the right to voluntarily terminate a pregnancy”, according to the statement, released by two members of the National Assembly, France’s most powerful house of parliament.

Aurore Berge, the leader of Macron’s party group in the parliament, said the US supreme court’s decision to revoke abortion rights is “catastrophic for women around the world”.

“We must take steps in France today so we do not have any reversal of existing laws tomorrow,” Berge said in an interview with the public radio station France Inter on Saturday.

[NewYorkExpress]

Macron takes a stand against deep sea mining.

Emmanuel Macron, the French president, has called for a legal framework to stop deep-sea mining from going ahead and urged countries to put their money into science to better understand and protect the world’s oceans.

There is growing international interest in deep-sea mining but there is also pressure from some environmental groups and governments to either ban it or ensure it only goes ahead if appropriate regulations are in place.

Deep-sea mining would involve using heavy machinery on the ocean floor to suck up small rocks, known as nodules, that contain cobalt, manganese and other rare metals mostly used in batteries.

“We have … to create the legal framework to stop high-sea mining and to not allow new activities putting in danger these ecosystems,” Macron said on Thursday at an event on the sidelines of the UN ocean conference in Lisbon.


“But at the same time we need to promote our scientists and explorers to better know the high seas,” he added. “We need to better understand in order to protect.”

Although the president expressed concerns about deep-sea mining, France holds an exploration contract through the L’Institut Français de Recherche pour l’Exploitation de la Mer (National Institute for Ocean Science) for a 75,000 sq km (29,000 sq mile) area in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone, an expanse of the north Pacific seabed rich in polymetallic nodules.

[NewYorkExpress]

Cabinet reshuffle.

Oliver Veran has become a Government Spokesperson.

Marlene Schiappa is now Secretary of State of Social and Solidarity Economy and Associative Life.

Damian Abad and Chrysoula Zacharopoulou both lost their positions.

Clement Beaune was named Transport Minister. Laurence Boone was named to replace him as Europe Minister.

Francios Braun was named Health Minister.

[NewYorkExpress]

Now on the agenda, the nationalization of electricity giant EDF.

France is to renationalise its indebted electricity giant EDF in response to the energy crisis aggravated by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the country’s prime minister, Élisabeth Borne, has said.

Borne vowed to limit the impact of rising energy prices despite the political turmoil of Emmanuel Macron losing control of parliament in recent legislative elections.

“We must have full control over our electricity production and performance,” Borne told parliament in her first state-of-the-nation speech to parliament on Wednesday, as she tried to court opposition parties to avoid parliamentary deadlock.

“We must ensure our sovereignty in the face of the consequences of the war and the colossal challenges to come … That’s why I confirm to you the state’s intention to own 100% of EDF’s capital.”

The French state holds an 84% stake in EDF, one of the world’s biggest electricity producers, but the company is facing delays and budget overruns on new nuclear plants in France and Britain, and corrosion problems at some of its ageing reactors, which have heavily hit its shares price in recent months.

Macron, who was re-elected for a second term as president in April, wants massive investment in new nuclear reactors as a pillar of France’s push for carbon neutrality. Nationalising EDF is an idea that had also been recently promoted by the left, and Borne’s speech was seen as an attempt to appeal to different corners of a deeply divided parliament.

[NewYorkExpress]

Climate Change protestors interrupted stage 10 of the Tour De France.

Senior officials from the Tour de France organisation were seen dragging climate change protestors into a ditch during the tenth stage of this year’s race from Morzine to Megeve altiport.

Despite being chained together around the neck, a small group of young protesters were dragged off the race route by tour officials. At around 36 kilometres from the finish, on a section of straight road, the protesters sat on the course and set off red flares. The stage breakaway and peloton were both halted until the road was cleared.

Climate activists from the Derniere Renovation movement said: “Since the government doesn’t care about the climate crisis, we need to come and take over the Tour de France to refocus attention on what matters for our survival. We need to make our government react as they lead us to the slaughterhouse. Non-violent disruption is our last chance to be heard and avoid the worst consequences of global warming,” the group said.

[NewYorkExpress]

Pressure is mounting on Minister for Relations with Local Authorities Caroline Cayeux to resign over old homophobic remarks.

Pressure is mounting on a French government minister to quit over comments stigmatizing homosexuality and LGBTQ people, in the latest challenge to President Emmanuel Macron’s leadership.

Caroline Cayeux’ remarks have hurt and angered many – including her colleagues — and prompted broader discussion around persistent discriminatory attitudes by people in power.

More than 100 prominent figures published an appeal Sunday in the newspaper Journal du dimanche questioning why she's still in government. Signatories included parliament members, senior officials, an Olympic medalist, doctors, artists, an ex-prime minister, a former top Macron adviser and others from within Macron's centrist political camp.

Cayeux was asked in an interview this week about her opposition to France’s 2013 law authorizing gay marriage and adoption, and comments at the time saying they were “against nature.” Speaking Tuesday to broadcaster Public Senat, she said she was being wrongly painted as prejudiced.

“I maintain my remarks. I always said that if the law were voted, I would apply it," she said. "I have a lot of friends among all those people, and I’m being targeted by an unfair trial. This upsets me.”

[NewYorkExpress]

Macron vows to stamp out Holocaust Denial.

French President Emmanuel Macron decried his Nazi-collaborator predecessors and rising antisemitism, vigorously vowing to stamp out Holocaust denial as he paid homage Sunday to thousands of French children sent to death camps 80 years ago for one reason alone: because they were Jewish.

Family by family, house by house, French police rounded up 13,000 people on two terrifying days in July 1942, wresting children from their mothers’ arms and dispatching everyone to Nazi death camps. France honored those victims this weekend, as it tries to keep their memory alive.


For the dwindling number of survivors of France’s wartime crimes, a series of commemoration ceremonies Sunday were especially important. At a time of rising antisemitism and far-right discourse sugarcoating France’s role in the Holocaust, they worry that history’s lessons are being forgotten.

A week of ceremonies marking 80 years since the Vel d’Hiv police roundup on July 16-17, 1942 culminated Sunday with an event led by Macron, who pledged that wouldn’t happen ever again.

“We will continue to teach against ignorance. We will continue to cry out against indifference,” Macron said. “And we will fight, I promise you, at every dawn, because France’s story is written by a combat of resistance and justice that will never be extinguished.”

He denounced former French leaders for their roles in the Holocaust and the Vel d’Hiv raids, among the most shameful acts undertaken by France during World War II.

[NewYorkExpress]

Following wildfires in southwest France, Macron vows to rebuild.

Vast swathes of blackened pine forest in south-west France are to be replanted and homes and businesses rebuilt “according to different rules” dictated by the climate crisis, Emmanuel Macron has said, as he called for a European fleet of planes to fight wildfires.

A week of 40C-plus heat – part of a global trend of rising temperatures that is attributed by scientists largely to human activity – has caused misery from Portugal to the UK, smashing records and fuelling fires that have ravaged tens of thousands of hectares of land.

In France and Spain six times as much forest and heathland has been ravaged by fire this year, and in Portugal three times as much, as the average over the past 15 years, figures show. In Hungary the area burned, though much smaller, is almost 50 times greater than usual.

The French president hailed as heroes some of the nearly 2,000 firefighters who battled two huge blazes in south-west France that since last week have destroyed more than 20,000 hectares of forest, forcing the evacuation of 37,000 people from their homes.

Visiting the Gironde département, Macron praised the “tremendous chain of human solidarity assembled to beat the beast that is these wildfires” and he promised a “major national project” of reconstruction.

[NewYorkExpress]

Air Conditioned shops must keep their doors shut or pay a fine of 750 Euros.

Air-conditioned shops throughout France will have to keep their doors shut or risk a fine of €750 (£635), a French minister has announced, after the mayors of several major cities unveiled a similar rule during the country’s heatwave last week.

Agnès Pannier-Runacher, the minister for ecological transition, said leaving doors open with air conditioning on led to “20% more energy consumption and … is absurd”. A decree confirming the decision will be issued in the coming days.

It follows recent announcements by the mayors of Paris, Lyon and other cities. Anne Hidalgo, the Socialist mayor of Paris, last week denounced “an aberration that must cease in the context of the climate emergency and energy crisis”.

[NewYorkExpress]

Saint-Gervaix-les-Baines Mayor Jean-Marc Pellex wants climbers of Mont Blanc to pay a 15,000 Euro deposit to cover their rescues/funerals.

https://twitter.com/PEILLEX/status/1554770779719573504

Anyone wanting to summit Europe's tallest peak, Mont Blanc, may soon have to put up a €15,000 (about $15,300) deposit to cover possible rescue and funeral costs under plans announced by a local mayor fed up with the "contempt" of risk-taking climbers.

Jean-Marc Peillex, mayor of Saint-Gervais-les-Bains, a town on the French side, says too many unqualified climbers are gambling with their lives on the mountain, where recent hot weather has made conditions more treacherous.

[NewYorkExpress]

Climate Activists in Southern France filled golf holes with cement in protest of golf courses's exemption from watering restrictions

Climate activists affiliated with Extinction Rebellion have targeted golf courses in southern France, filling holes with concrete in protest over exemptions from water restrictions during one of the worst droughts on record.

France has told residents to avoid non-essential water usage like car-washing and watering gardens. However, activists complain that golf courses are allowed to continue watering greens.


The protest action took place at the Vieille-Toulouse club and also at the Garonne des Sept Deniers course.

[NewYorkExpress]

Macron asks for a 10% reduction in energy usage.

French President Emmanuel Macron on Monday pleaded for the country to sharply reduce its energy usage over the coming weeks in an effort to avoid rationing and cuts this winter as tensions with Russia remain.


Macron asked for a 10% reduction, which included asking French businesses and households to tamp down their heating and air conditioning usage.

However, if these efforts aren't sufficient, the French leader warned that forced energy savings might have to be considered.

[NewYorkExpress]

Apparently being President of France isn't enough for Macron, he also has to be Kylian Mpabbe's agent too.

Kylian Mbappe has said French president Emmanuel Macron told him to stay at Paris Saint-Germain rather than move to Real Madrid this summer.

Mbappe, 23, was on the brink of joining Madrid on a free transfer before a last-minute change of heart in May saw him sign a new three-year deal at PSG.


The decision ended -- for the time being -- one of the most high-profile, long-running transfer sagas of recent years, with Mbappe having been Madrid's long-term top target.

"I never imagined I'm gonna talk with the president [Macron] about my future," Mbappe told the New York Times. "It's something crazy, really something crazy."

"He told me: 'I want you to stay," Mbappe said. "I don't want you to leave now. You are so important for the country... Of course when the president says that to you, that counts."

[NewYorkExpress]

The Government is cracking down on food depots being used for instant deliveries.

France has taken steps to outlaw so-called dark stores - city-centre food depots used for instant home deliveries ordered over the internet.

Faced by growing protests from local people as well as city authorities, President Emmanuel Macron's government has decreed that the stores be classified as warehouses, rather than as shops - meaning that in Paris and other cities most will probably be forced to close.

Run by half a dozen competing companies such as Gorillas, Cajoo, Getir, Flink and Gopuff, "dark stores" have proliferated in France as elsewhere over the last two years after Covid confinement popularised internet food shopping.

Advertising in Paris urges householders to get their food delivered in less than 10 minutes - or "quicker than a double by Benzema", referring to the French football star. A campaign by Cajoo shows "Alex" doing his shopping by smartphone while sitting on the lavatory.

But residents of buildings where "dark stores" have replaced pre-existing grocery shops are angry about noise from early morning lorries and the disruption caused by squads of deliverers on electric bicycles and scooters.

City officials - who spent millions to safeguard the high street against out-of-town shopping centres - are worried that the new threat from "quick commerce" will drain life from public spaces and hasten the trend to an "atomised" society of solitary consumers.

[NewYorkExpress]

Former Danish Prime Minister and NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen attacked Macron for his response to Russia's invasion to Ukraine.

Diplomatic efforts by French President Emmanuel Macron in response to the war in Ukraine were a failure and "deeply harmful" for Kyiv, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the former NATO secretary-general, said in an interview published on Friday.

"It was not a success", Rasmussen, a former Danish prime minister who was one of the world's most-senior diplomats until he left the transatlantic defence alliance in 2014, told French magazine Le Point.

His comments come after criticism, especially in eastern Europe, about how Macron kept an open line with Russian President Vladimir Putin with direct phone calls even after the invasion of Ukraine and has warned against 'humiliating' Russia.

"Macron astonished us at the beginning of the crisis with his, to say the least, unique and critical statement that Putin should not be humiliated and offered an exit ramp. Such statements were disastrous and deeply harmful", he added.

[NewYorkExpress]

The Government has now been hit with multiple conflict of interest scandals.

The top official in Emmanuel Macron’s office has been charged with a conflict of interest.

The move against Alexis Kohler, who holds one of France’s most powerful jobs as Élysée secretary general, came hours after another ally of the French president, the justice minister, Éric Dupond-Moretti, was ordered to stand trial in a separate case, also over a conflict of interest.

Kohler is accused over his professional and family links with the Italian-Swiss shipping firm Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC), which is run by his mother’s cousins, prosecutor Jean-François Bohnert said in a statement.

[NewYorkExpress]

Grégoire de Fournas has been suspended from the National Assembly for fifteen days for racist remarks while a fellow black MP talked about immigration from Africa.

A far-right MP has been given a 15-day ban from France's National Assembly for shouting "they should go back to Africa" as a black colleague talked about immigration.

Grégoire de Fournas of National Rally (RN) said his remark had not been aimed at Carlos Martens Bilongo but at migrants trying to reach Europe by sea.

Mr Bilongo said he had been born in France and the remark was "shameful".

MPs voted on Friday to suspend him and dock half his allowance.

The decision is described as the harshest sanction available to the Assembly.

Mr Bilongo had been questioning the government about a request by the SOS Méditerranée non-governmental organisation for help in finding a port for 234 migrants rescued at sea in recent days.

The exact meaning of the National Rally MP's remark is disputed, because theoretically he could have referred to more than one person. The official account of the session recorded his off-microphone remark as Qu'il retourne en Afrique - "he should go back to Africa" - but the plural Qu'ils retournent en Afrique sounds exactly the same.

[NewYorkExpress]

The National Assembly voted to include abortion rights in the constitution.

Lawmakers in France's lower house of parliament voted to include abortion rights in the country's constitution, the first step in a lengthy legislative process.

The National Assembly voted with 337 lawmakers in favour and 32 against.

The measure was proposed in reaction to the United States' recent Supreme Court ruling to overturn Roe v Wade, a case dating back to 1973 that legalised abortion nationwide.


"This terrible regression demonstrates that when it comes to the right of women to dispose of their bodies, nothing is ever certain," the French proposal says, referring to the US case.

While abortion was decriminalised in France in 1975, there is nothing in the constitution that guarantees abortion rights.