Connect with us

News

French parliament votes to oust Michel Barnier’s government

Published

on

French parliament votes to oust Michel Barnier’s government

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free

The French parliament on Wednesday voted to oust Prime Minister Michel Barnier over his proposed deficit-cutting budget, plunging the country into deeper political turmoil.

A motion of no confidence was approved by 331 votes in the 577 member national assembly, as Marine Le Pen’s far-right party teamed up with a leftist bloc to bring down Barnier’s minority government.

Barnier’s administration has collapsed without adopting his contentious 2025 budget that included €60bn in tax increases and spending cuts to reduce France’s deficit, which will reach 6 per cent of GDP this year.

Advertisement

President Emmanuel Macron will now have to select another prime minister, a task made difficult by a raucous parliament divided into three blocs, none of which is close to having a governing majority.

Barnier’s three-month term as prime minister was the shortest of any premier since France’s Fifth Republic was founded in 1958. It is only the second time a government has been voted down since then. 

The political tumult gripping France comes just weeks after German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s coalition collapsed, leaving the EU’s two most powerful states in limbo.

Barnier defended his record as prime minister during a national assembly debate before the confidence vote, telling lawmakers: “I have been and am proud to act to build rather than to destroy.”

He said it was “not for pleasure” that he had presented a difficult budget. France’s fiscal “reality will not disappear by the enchantment of a motion of censure”, he added.

Advertisement

Macron will have to contend with an emboldened Le Pen and her Rassemblement National party, which was decisive in removing Barnier after spurning his last-ditch attempts at a compromise on his budget.

Le Pen said her decision to censure Barnier was prompted by the “necessity to put an end to the chaos, to spare the French people from a dangerous, unfair and punitive budget”.

Macron “is largely responsible for the current situation”, Le Pen told TF1 television shortly after the vote.

When the president appoints a new prime minister, that person would work on a new budget which Rassemblement National “will construct with other forces in the national assembly”, she added.

Mathilde Panot, a leader of the far-left France Unbowed party, slammed Barnier for seeking deals with the Rassemblement National to try to stay in power.

Advertisement

“Barnier tried to escape censure by choosing dishonour, he has gotten dishonour and censure,” she said.

Marie Lebec, a lawmaker from Macron’s centrist alliance and former minister, said her fellow parliamentarians should put aside party squabbling to find a way forward.

The political crisis risks further spooking financial markets. Barnier had previously warned of a financial and economic “storm” should his government fall without adopting the 2025 budget, saying borrowing costs were on track to exceed €60bn next year, more than the French defence budget.

French borrowing costs on its 10-year sovereign bond hit a 12-year high against Germany’s last week, as investors fretted about the likely failure of Barnier’s government.

After the confidence vote on Wednesday, the euro was flat against the dollar at $1.052, reflecting how the result was widely expected.

Advertisement

Barnier may stay on as a caretaker premier for a short time, but it will fall to his successor to craft another 2025 budget, ahead of a year-end deadline.

In the meantime, Macron and parliament have several options to pass emergency measures that would avoid a government shutdown and keep public services funded temporarily.

But unlike previously when he procrastinated on picking premiers, Macron aimed to move quickly this time, said a person familiar with his thinking, and he has drawn up a list of potential candidates to succeed Barnier.

The Elysée said Macron would address the nation on Thursday evening in a televised speech.

Barnier was appointed by Macron in September after the president’s centrist alliance lost snap parliamentary elections, which increased the ranks of the far right and leftist parties.

Advertisement

His departure is a sign of how gridlocked French institutions have become since the elections.

“It feels like a series of impasses in a parliament where no one has a workable majority,” said Bruno Cautrès, political scientist at Sciences Po. “There is a risk that a new government would fall quickly, just as Barnier has done.”

Additional reporting by Ian Smith in London

Continue Reading
Advertisement
Click to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

News

Syrian rebels close in on Homs in latest blow to Assad

Published

on

Syrian rebels close in on Homs in latest blow to Assad

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free

Syrian rebels say they are closing in on the strategic city of Homs as they push ahead with a lightning advance southwards towards President Bashar al-Assad’s remaining strongholds.

“Our forces have liberated the last village on the outskirts of Homs city and are now at its walls,” the rebels said late on Friday evening via their Telegram channel.

Homs is the largest city still controlled by Assad’s regime on the highway that leads south to the capital Damascus. The rebels, led by Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, have already captured Aleppo, Syria’s second city, and Hama, since launching their offensive 11 days ago.

Advertisement

The assault poses the most serious threat to Assad’s rule in a decade, reigniting a 13-year civil war that had been largely frozen since 2020.

State media said that joint Syrian and Russian forces had shelled rebel forces in Homs’s northern suburbs.

Some content could not load. Check your internet connection or browser settings.

Although much of the rebels’ advance has been met with little resistance by forces loyal to Assad, there are signs that the fighting may be more intense around Homs.

If the government were to lose Homs, analysts said, it would cut off Damascus from Assad’s other big support base in the coastal Latakia and Tartus governorates. Assad comes from the minority Alawite sect, whose population is concentrated on the coast.

Advertisement

The area is also crucial to Russia, which intervened in Syria’s war in 2015 to support Assad, giving Moscow access to the Mediterranean.  

HTS, which is supported by Turkish-backed factions, has taken advantage of Assad’s supporters Iran, Iranian-backed Lebanese movement Hizbollah and Russia being weakened and distracted by other conflicts. 

Russian jets have responded to the rebels’ advance with air strikes but in a sign of the crisis’ severity, Moscow warned its citizens on Friday to flee Syria. On Saturday, the New York Times reported that Iranian military commanders were being evacuated. 

Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei told the state news agency IRNA that its embassy in Damascus had not been evacuated. “The embassy of the Islamic republic of Iran continues its activities as usual,” he said.

Homs is close to the Syrian-Lebanese border, where Hizbollah has a large presence. Iran and Hizbollah’s support of Assad a decade ago helped shore up the dictator’s rule, but a year of war with Israel has left it weakened.

Advertisement

Local media reported roads were jammed with people fleeing the offensive, and HTS issued a statement addressed to the Lebanese asking them not to get drawn into the conflict.

Only one border crossing remained open between Lebanon and Syria, on the Beirut-Damascus road, after Lebanese security forces on Friday closed other entry points, citing “repeated Israeli attacks targeting land border crossings”.

The Israeli military has repeatedly targeted the crossings, and said it had struck sites close to the border on Thursday night, as it aims to cut off Hizbollah’s resupply routes from Syria.  

In Deraa, the birthplace of the Syrian revolution in 2011, Reuters reported that the rebels had reached an agreement with regime forces to withdraw. HTS said Deraa had been “liberated from the grip of the criminal regime and its militias”.

Several towns near the Jordanian border have also been claimed by opposition factions, with minimal fighting. 

Advertisement

State media downplayed the rapid realignment of the south, saying the army was repositioning and establishing a “security cordon” after “terrorist elements attacked the army’s scattered checkpoints with the aim of distracting our armed forces”.

But Assad has also lost ground in eastern Syria, where US-backed Kurdish fighters have taken control of Deir Ezzor city, the capital of the oil-rich province. The area was where jihadist militants Isis had been at their most expansive in Syria.

Additional reporting from Najmeh Bozorgmehr in Tehran

Continue Reading

News

USDA orders testing across nation's milk supply amid rising bird flu cases

Published

on

USDA orders testing across nation's milk supply amid rising bird flu cases

Raw milk from Raw Farm is displayed for sale at a grocery store in Torrance, Calif., on Nov. 29.

Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images


hide caption

toggle caption

Advertisement

Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images

The U.S. Department of Agriculture issued a federal order requiring the testing of the nation’s milk supply amid increasing concerns over bird flu.

The influenza virus has been raising alarm since it was detected in a Texas cow back in March. Since then, the virus has spread to over 710 dairy herds across 15 states, with California reporting the highest number of infections. At least 58 people have been infected with bird flu, including one child living in the San Francisco Bay area.

The new federal order will give regulators the power to test samples from dairy farms or when milk is being transported or processed. Private labs will also be required to report any positive cases. The testing program is launching first in California, Colorado, Michigan, Mississippi, Oregon and Pennsylvania.

Advertisement

USDA said Friday the purpose of the federal order is to “identify where the disease is present, monitor trends, and help states identify potentially affected herds.”

“Among many outcomes, this will give farmers and farmworkers better confidence in the safety of their animals and ability to protect themselves, and it will put us on a path to quickly controlling and stopping the virus’ spread nationwide,” Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said in a statement.

Growing evidence suggests that the virus is spreading through dairy operations. Milk with high concentrations of the virus can easily spread within the milking parlor; through rodents and other animals; or via humans carrying infectious material on their clothing or farm equipment.

Earlier this week, California health officials detected possible bird flu contamination in raw milk and cream products from the company Raw Farm based in Fresno. Several of its products are under a recall and the farm has been placed under quarantine.

While the risks aren’t entirely clear, scientists say it’s possible consuming infected milk could lead to an infection. Meanwhile, federal health officials say pasteurized milk remains safe to drink.

Advertisement

The federal order will complement one issued in April which required testing of lactating dairy cows before they were shipped across state lines.

NPR’s Will Stone contributed reporting.

Continue Reading

News

TikTok fails to halt law that could lead to US ban

Published

on

TikTok fails to halt law that could lead to US ban

A US appeals court on Friday upheld a law requiring TikTok’s owner ByteDance to sell the platform or face a ban next year, dealing a major blow to the Chinese company behind the video app.

The law, signed by President Joe Biden this year, orders TikTok to be banned in the country if the app does not divest from its parent by January 19 2025 — the day before Donald Trump is inaugurated as president.

The unanimous ruling from the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit said the law — which hits at the core of a hot-button national security issue involving China and received strong bipartisan support in Congress — was constitutional and did not violate First Amendment protections for free speech, as TikTok had claimed.

The “government acted solely to protect that freedom from a foreign adversary nation and to limit that adversary’s ability to gather data on people in the United States,” the panel wrote.

The decision puts TikTok in a precarious position in one of its biggest markets, although the law’s political future is uncertain. On the campaign trail before his re-election, Trump said he opposed the platform’s ban and promised to “save” the app.

Advertisement

In an email to staff, TikTok chief executive Shou Zi Chew wrote that the next step would be to “seek an injunction of the ban, pending review by the US Supreme Court”, according to a person familiar with the matter. 

The law requires Apple and Google to remove the social media app, which is wildly popular among younger Generation Z users, from their app stores if a divestiture does not take place before the January deadline. It also bans the app from web-hosting services.

TikTok said after the ruling: “The Supreme Court has an established historical record of protecting Americans’ right to free speech, and we expect they will do just that on this important constitutional issue.

“Unfortunately, the TikTok ban was conceived and pushed through based upon inaccurate, flawed and hypothetical information, resulting in outright censorship of the American people.”

US attorney-general Merrick Garland called the ruling “an important step in blocking the Chinese government from weaponising TikTok to collect sensitive information about millions of Americans, to covertly manipulate the content delivered to American audiences, and to undermine our national security”.

Advertisement

The Chinese embassy in Washington said the law would have “a serious impact on the online social platform used by half of Americans” and was a “blatant act of commercial robbery”.

The Trump transition team did not respond to a request for comment. But Mike Waltz, the Florida lawmaker and incoming US national security adviser, told Fox Business Network that Trump “wants to save TikTok”.

“We absolutely need to allow the American people to have access to that app, but we have to protect our data as well,” said Waltz, who has in the past called for TikTok to be banned.

Waltz added that Trump’s stance was to “allow the American people to have full access to what is a great product, but at the same time protect their data”. Marco Rubio, the Florida senator and China hawk who Trump has nominated as his secretary of state, has also supported banning TikTok.

In May, TikTok and ByteDance sued the US government to block the bill, claiming it was unconstitutional and violated First Amendment protections for free speech. TikTok has denied China’s government has any control over the app or that it has handed over any data to Beijing. Its lawyers also argued concerns about propaganda on the app should be handled by requiring disclosures, rather than a blanket divest-or-ban law.

Advertisement

US officials have argued ByteDance could be compelled to share the personal information of the 170mn US TikTok users with officials in Beijing under Chinese law, and wield the app’s algorithms and moderation to spread propaganda and misinformation. The DoJ earlier this year alleged some of TikTok’s US user data had been stored in China.

The court on Friday said the government’s national security “justifications” for the law were “compelling”. China “poses a particularly significant hybrid commercial threat” because of the statutes governing Chinese companies, the judges said, adding Beijing also “uses its cyber capabilities to support its influence campaigns around the world”.

China has “positioned itself to manipulate public discourse on TikTok in order to serve its own ends”, the judges wrote. Its “ability to do so is at odds with free speech fundamentals”.

The judges recognised their ruling “has significant implications” for the app and its users. But they argued that “burden is attributable to [China’s] hybrid commercial threat to US national security”, rather than the US government, which “engaged with TikTok through a multiyear process in an effort to find an alternative solution”.

TikTok has complained that much of the US government’s evidence is classified, meaning it has not had the opportunity to rebuff the claims about it, and argued a sale would be “unfeasible”.

Advertisement

Beijing has publicly said it would not allow the divestiture of the platform’s recommendations algorithm by ByteDance, and has export control laws that would block such a spin-off. Biden could also extend the ban-or-sale deadline by 90 days.

Before his re-election, Trump said he would not ban TikTok upon his return to the White House, in an attempt to preserve “competition” in a market dominated by Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta, which the president-elect has described as an “enemy of the people”.

It is unclear exactly how he could save the app. Experts suggested he could tell Congress to repeal the law, or press the DoJ not to enforce it.

Any move would represent a U-turn from 2020, when then-president Trump issued an executive order to block the app in the US and gave ByteDance 90 days to divest from its American assets and any data that TikTok had collected in the US. That order was blocked by the courts and ultimately revoked by Biden.

Shares in TikTok rivals Meta and Snap, whose revenues have been threatened by the app’s rapid rise in recent years, both rose about 2 per cent on the news.

Advertisement
Continue Reading
Advertisement

Trending