French lawmakers to vote on assisted dying bill
The Assemblée Nationale has debated the measure for a week, though even if it passes, it will need to be approved by France's upper house.
Britain, too, is considering its own assisted dying bill, while various forms of the practice are now legal in at least six other European countries.
France took an unusual approach to devising its bill, randomly selecting a diverse array of 184 citizens for a four-month nationwide convention: 'Rather than creating division, the range of backgrounds became a strength,' RFI noted.
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The Hill
7 minutes ago
- The Hill
Trump tells Europe he won't negotiate territory with Putin, say leaders
European leaders said President Trump on Wednesday said he would not negotiate territorial issues with Russian President Vladimir Putin at their summit in Alaska this week, saying it is an issue that must be discussed between Ukraine and Russia. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and French President Emanuel Macron both said Trump made the comments during a virtual meeting with European leaders and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Wednesday. Merz made the remarks alongside Zelensky, who came to Berlin for the call. The German leader said Trump told them that he wouldn't negotiate territorial issues and pledged to ask for an immediate ceasefire in the meeting, the Wall Street Journal reported citing two sources on the call. Macron similarly told reporters that Trump agreed with European leaders during the call that any talks on territorial concessions must involve Ukraine. Trump described the call with European leaders as 'very good, I would rate it a 10' when speaking to reporters at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday. He said there will be consequences for Putin if he does not agree to stop the war after their meeting in Alaska on Friday. Trump also sought to set expectations for the meeting, saying he didn't believe he has the power to get Putin stop attacking Ukrainian civilians. 'I've had that conversation with him, I've had a lot of good conversations with him and then I go home and I see that a rocket hit a nursing home, or a rocket hit an apartment building and people are laying dead in the street… but I guess the answer to that is probably no.' While Trump set an Aug 8 deadline for Putin to stop the war or face sanctions, the president allowed that deadline to pass in exchange for the face-to-face summit. Trump said the first meeting with Putin is an attempt to feel out the Russian leader's commitment to negotiations to end the war, but that the goal is to move toward a second summit with Zelensky, and possibly Trump too. 'There's a good chance we'll have a second meeting that will be more productive than the first – because the first I'll find out where we are and what we're doing,' he said.
Yahoo
16 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Putin faces ‘very severe consequences' if no Ukraine truce agreed, Trump says
Vladimir Putin will face 'very severe consequences' if he does not agree a ceasefire in the war in Ukraine at his summit with Donald Trump in Alaska, the US president said on Wednesday. Speaking after a call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy and other European leaders, including Britain's Keir Starmer, Trump also suggested he would push for a second summit if his meeting with Putin goes well – this time including his Ukrainian counterpart. 'If the first one goes OK, we'll have a quick second one,' Trump told reporters in Washington. 'I would like to do it almost immediately, and we'll have a quick second meeting between President Putin and President Zelenskyy and myself, if they'd like to have me there.' Trump did not provide a timeframe for a second meeting. He is to meet Putin in Anchorage, Alaska, on Friday. Asked if Russia would face consequences if Putin did not agree to stop the war after the Alaska meeting, Trump said: 'Yes, they will … very severe consequences.' The president's remarks followed what he described as a very good call with European leaders in which he consulted about the goal and strategy for his summit. He pleased Europe's leadership by giving reassurances that a ceasefire was his priority and he would not make any territorial concessions without Kyiv's full involvement. Trump's approach at the video conference, as described by France's Emmanuel Macron, appeared to reassure some of the leaders, who were making a final collective plea to the unpredictable US president that he had a duty to protect Ukraine's sovereignty – and European security – at the talks in Alaska. The European leaders spoke to Trump and his vice-president, JD Vance, in a hastily convened one-hour meeting in an effort to shape Trump's negotiating strategy. Zelenskyy and European leaders have been excluded from the Alaska summit and fear that Trump, intent on fulfilling his election campaign guarantee that he could easily end the bloodshed in Ukraine, will make concessions that compromise Ukraine's future sovereignty. But Trump underlined his promise that the summit was not in itself a substantive negotiation and was what he described as a 'feel-out' to test Putin's terms to sign a temporary ceasefire that would then lead to talks with Kyiv. Trump said it had been a very good call, and that he rated it at a 10 out of 10. Britain, France and Germany, co-chairs of the so-called 'coalition of the willing', later laid out their position on the talks, reiterating that international borders must not be changed by force, and insisting that Ukraine must have 'robust and credible security guarantees to effectively defend its sovereignty and territorial integrity'. The three countries repeated that meaningful negotiations can happen only with a ceasefire in place, and called for Russia to face further economic sanctions if it does not agree to cease hostilities at the Alaska summit. Speaking alongside Zelenskyy in Berlin, the German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, said Europe wanted Trump to be successful in Alaska but that it had made clear to the US president that Ukrainian and European interests had to be protected at the summit. Merz called for a 30-day ceasefire, and then substantive talks. Putin has resisted a ceasefire for months. Setting out the key principles on which Europe is united he said: 'Negotiations must be part of a common transatlantic strategy. Then they can ultimately be most likely to succeed. This strategy must continue to rely on strong support for Ukraine and necessary pressure against Russia. This also means, if there is no movement on the Russian side in Alaska, then the United States and we Europeans should … increase the pressure.' He added there cannot be any Russian legal ownership of Ukrainian territory. 'President Trump knows this position, he shares it very extensively and therefore I can say: We have had a really exceptionally constructive and good conversation with each other.' Macron said no serious discussions had taken place about Russian-Ukrainian land swaps involving the ceding of Ukrainian territory, and Trump had anyway underlined that any such discussions could only be negotiated with Kyiv. He said Trump would fight for a trilateral meeting between Ukraine, the US and Russia and that such a meeting would be held in Europe. One European diplomat said: 'Overall the meeting was reassuring in that our points came across, but the question remains whether Trump will stick to the agreed script when he gets into the room with Putin.' Trump met heads of state and government leaders from Germany, the UK, France, Italy, Poland and Finland, as well as the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen. The issue of security guarantees for Ukraine was raised in the call with Trump, but no breakthrough was made in the US offering to provide practical support to the coalition. But the Europeans' main objective had been to seek reassurances from the notoriously fickle Trump that he would not be lured into making irretrievable pledges requiring Ukraine to make concessions of land as the price for securing Putin's agreement to a ceasefire. They also tried to extract assurances that Trump was still prepared to deploy as yet unused economic levers that could damage Russian revenues. Related: Trump alone in a room with Putin is a recipe for disaster – just look to their last meeting European leaders have been careful in public to welcome Trump's summit but in private fear Trump is bent on improving US-Russia relations and sees a loss of Ukrainian sovereignty as a necessary and unavoidable price to secure that objective. Trump has been vague about his strategy, including the terms he will offer to induce Putin to agree to a ceasefire. Zelenskyy has vowed that the Ukrainian military will not voluntarily surrender territory in Donetsk and Luhansk, but Russia is insisting at least four Ukrainian regions will become Russian either at the negotiating table or through force. Earlier on Wednesday, Trump vented his fury at media reporting of his meeting with Putin, writing on Truth Social: 'The media is being really, really unfair about my meeting with Putin. They keep quoting fired losers and really stupid people like John Bolton, who just said that even though the meeting is on US soil, 'Putin has already won'. What the hell is this? We win EVERYTHING.' The treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, said further sanctions or secondary tariffs could yet be placed on Russia's trading partners if the Alaska meeting did not go well. A confident Moscow dismissed the importance of Europe's consultation with Trump. The foreign ministry spokesperson Alexei Fadeyev said: 'We consider the consultations requested by the Europeans to be politically and practically insignificant actions. Verbally, the Europeans support the diplomatic efforts of Washington and Moscow to resolve the Ukrainian crisis, but in reality the European Union is sabotaging them.' Russia says the Alaska meeting is likely to address the full gamut of Russian-American bilateral relations, and not just Ukraine. 'We hope that this meeting will allow the leaders to focus on the full range of issues, from the crisis in Ukraine to the obstacles that hinder normal and constructive dialogue, which is crucial to ensuring international peace and stability,' the spokesperson said. The veteran Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, will be present at the Alaska talks.
The Hill
37 minutes ago
- The Hill
White House lowers expectations for Trump-Putin summit
The White House is lowering expectations for any breakthrough from President Trump's summit on Friday with Russian President Vladimir Putin, using terms like 'listening session' and 'feel-out meeting' to describe the planned discussion about the war in Ukraine. Trump and other administration officials have indicated Friday's summit in Alaska is not meant to be one that will bring an end to the fighting in Ukraine, which began in 2022 when Russian forces invaded the country. The president and his team have also largely avoided predicting any deliverables that might come out of the meeting and noted that it will likely take a follow-up summit involving both Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for any concrete progress to be made on a ceasefire. 'There's a very good chance that we're going to have a second meeting that will be more productive than the first,' Trump said Wednesday. 'Because the first is I'm going to find out where we are and what we're doing.' The White House has steered clear of making any firm commitments about what will come out of Friday's gathering in Anchorage, and details have been scarce as officials work to rapidly pull the event together on one week's notice. The president himself as offered mixed signals about what will happen. Trump is expected to meet one-on-one with Putin, press secretary Karoline Leavitt said, and the event will take place at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson. But other logistics were still being sorted out as the summit approached. 'This is a listening exercise for this president,' Leavitt told reporters on Tuesday. 'Look, only one party that's involved in this war is going to be present. And so this is for the president to go and to get, again, a more firm and better understanding of how we can hopefully bring this war to an end.' Trump is a wild card in Friday's meeting. He has avoided setting expectations for the event, telling reporters earlier this week that the conversation with Putin 'will be good, but it might be bad.' Trump on Wednesday threatened 'severe consequences' if Russia did not stop the fighting after this week's summit, then minutes later acknowledged that he is unlikely to be able to get Putin to stop targeting Ukrainian civilians. And he said he hoped to arrange a second meeting quickly involving Putin and Zelensky, or that perhaps a second meeting would not happen at all. 'If the first one goes OK, we'll have a quick second one. I would like to do it almost immediately,' Trump said. 'I think the second meeting – if the second meeting takes place. Now there may be no second meeting, because if I feel it's not appropriate to have it because I didn't get the answers that we have to have, then we're not going to have a second meeting.' Some critics have bemoaned that Trump is giving Putin a win simply by holding the meeting on U.S. soil without Zelensky or leadership from Ukraine present. And European allies have approached Friday's meeting with caution, expressing appreciation for Trump's efforts while bracing for the possibility that he may go off script. Trump has in recent days suggested Ukraine may have to give up land to Russia as part of a peace agreement, something Ukrainian leaders have said is a non-starter. 'Pressure on Russia works. Peace has no alternative. Clear results are needed. Together, we can deliver them,' Zelensky said in a statement after a Wednesday call with Trump and European leaders. Trump has said he intends to call Zelensky and European leaders upon the conclusion of his meeting with Putin on Friday. The president and his allies have long argued there is little harm in holding a meeting or bettering relations with another country, and officials have made the case that this president takes a different approach to diplomacy. 'People have to understand, for President Trump, a meeting is not a concession,' Secretary of State Marco Rubio told radio host Sid Rosenberg. 'If you watch some of the news…these people are going nuts. Oh, this is – what a win for Putin; he gets a meeting. He doesn't view it that way,' Rubio said. 'A meeting is what you do to kind of figure out and make your decision. I want to have all the facts. I want to look this guy in the eye. And that's what the president wants to do.'
