French papers divided over PM Bayrou's 'shock treatment' budget

France 24

4 days ago

In France, the newly proposed 2026 budget is dividing right- and left-wing papers. "Bayrou has nothing to lose," says the headline of financial daily Les Echos, pleased to see the prime minister doing what nobody believed he would do. Right-wing Le Figaro calls the budget "shock treatment" that is necessary if France wants to avoid a financial catastrophe. Pro-business paper L'Opinion writes that "Bayrou bets on austerity". The paper praises the prime minister's gamble, saying that it helps make the French aware of the gravity of the financial situation.
Left-wing papers have a different opinion, though. Communist daily L'Humanité calls it "the purge budget", saying that the proposition only spares the richest people and the biggest companies. "Bayrou in debt", reads the headline of left-wing Libération. The paper calls the budget "a bitter prescription", turning all the opposition parties against him. A similar tone is seen in centre-left daily Le Monde which says that the plan, including the proposed elimination of two public holidays, "has been strongly criticised by the left" but also by the far-right National Rally party.
We turn next to the UK, a major data leak has put thousands of Afghans in danger and triggered their evacuation to Britain. British paper The Independent calls it a "catastrophic data breach", adding that the official behind the leak hasn't been fired for his blunder. The Financial Times says this is "one of the gravest security lapses in history". The whole leak had to be kept secret for two years by officials and the media who knew about the case. The Independent explains that this was done because of superjunctions used by the British Ministry of Defence. These are legal or so-called gagging orders that prevent a person or publication from reporting information. This means that anyone who shared any information about the case could be found in contempt of court. The gagging order was without precedent and a first in English legal history. The Telegraph reports that the British government said the secrecy was needed to keep the data from the Taliban. But the paper interviewed a senior Taliban official who said they had the "kill list" shortly after the original leak and they've been "hunting down" the people on it ever since. An analysis in the left-wing paper The Guardian says that the UK "let down Afghans who believed in Britain's promises". Hiding the leak means that they couldn't even make an "informed decision about their security".
Turning to Africa, Doctors Without Borders has accused Ethiopia of brutal violence against humanitarian workers during its civil war. The New York Times reports that three aid workers were "intentionally killed" in 2021. Their bodies pierced by bullets were found on a remote road in June 2021, during the peak of the brutal civil war in the Tigray region. Meanwhile, French centre-left paper Le Monde writes that there's a "silence around the mass rapes" committed during the war in Ethiopia. Between 2020 and 2022, 120,000 women were raped, it says.
Finally, emerging child stars have been making headlines. Vanity Fair gives us a first look at HBO's new Harry Potter. His name is Dominic McLaughlin. The 11-year-old was chosen among 30,000 other children who wanted to become "The Boy Who Lived". Another child star, Owen Cooper from the hit TV show "Adolescence", has been nominated in the outstanding supporting actor category at the Emmys, making him the youngest actor ever nominated in the category, according to The New York Times. He is only 15 years old. The show got 13 nominations in total after it resonated with audiences around the world.