Watch live: Macron, Starmer tackle Channel migrants issue on final day of UK visit
Europe
President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer speak to the press on the final day of the French leader's state visit to the UK. London has been pushing for a "one in, one out" deal to send small boat migrants back to the continent in exchange for the UK accepting asylum seekers in Europe who have British links.
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France 24
an hour ago
- France 24
Russian forces advance in Ukraine's east in lead-up to Trump-Putin talks
Russian forces have rapidly advanced in a narrow but important sector of the front line in eastern Ukraine, Kyiv and analysts said Tuesday, before talks between the Russian and US presidents. Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky said ahead of the Friday meeting in Alaska between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin that Moscow was laying the groundwork for further attacks, not peace. The Ukrainian army said there had been fighting around the village of Kucheriv Yar in the Donetsk region, acknowledging new and speedy Russian gains. Ukraine's borders must not be changed by force, EU leaders say 03:07 The Ukrainian DeepState blog, which retains close connections with the military, showed Russian advances around 10 kilometres over around two days, punching deep into a narrow sliver of Ukraine on the front. The corridor now apparently under Russian control threatens the town of Dobropillia, a mining hub that civilians are fleeing and that has been coming under Russian drone attacks. It also further isolates the embattled and destroyed town of Kostiantynivka, which is one of the last large urban areas in the Donetsk region still held by Ukraine. The Institute for the Study of War, a US-based observatory, said Russia was dispatching small sabotage groups forwards. It said it was "premature" to call the Russian advances in the Dobropillia area "an operational-level breakthrough". The Operational-Tactical Group Donetsk, which oversees parts of the front in the industrial region, also said Russia was probing Ukrainian lines with small sabotage groups, describing battles as "complex, unpleasant and dynamic". Tatarigami_UA, a former Ukrainian army officer whose Frontelligence Insight analysis tracks the conflict, posted: "In both 2014 and 2015, Russia launched major offensives ahead of negotiations to gain leverage. The current situation is serious, but far from the collapse some suggest." Kyiv's military said earlier on Tuesday that Ukraine has retaken two villages in its eastern region of Sumy. "It's tough. But we are holding back the enemy," Ukraine's top commander, Oleksandr Syrskyi, wrote on Facebook following a meeting on Tuesday with Zelensky and Ukraine's top brass. "In the Sumy direction, we are conducting active operations and have some success advancing forward, liberating Ukrainian land." 'New offensive operations' Sergei Markov, a former Kremlin adviser, said the Russians had been able to advance due to what he called "a partial collapse in the front" due to Ukraine's shortage of soldiers. He said, without citing evidence, that Ukraine had redeployed elite forces to try to thwart the advance. Russia's Interfax news agency and Ukrainian war bloggers reported the same. "This breakthrough is like a gift to Putin and Trump during the negotiations," Markov added, suggesting it could increase pressure on Kyiv to cede some land to prevent the Russian army eventually taking the rest of Donetsk by force. Trump, who is scheduled to meet Putin on Friday, has described the summit as a "feel-out meeting" to gauge the Russian leader's ideas for ending the war in Ukraine. Russian strikes pound Ukraine, Kyiv targets Moscow 01:35 Unconfirmed media reports say Putin has told Trump he wants Ukraine to hand over the part of the Donetsk region that Russia does not control. European leaders meanwhile are rushing to ensure respect for Kyiv's interests. "We see that the Russian army is not preparing to end the war. On the contrary, they are making movements that indicate preparations for new offensive operations," Zelensky said in a statement on social media. Moscow's army, which invaded Ukraine in 2022, has made costly but incremental gains across the sprawling front in recent months and claims to have annexed four Ukrainian regions while still fighting to control them. Ukrainian police meanwhile said Tuesday that Russian attacks in the past hours had killed three people and wounded 12 others, including a child.
LeMonde
3 hours ago
- LeMonde
France adopts the Duplomb Law, upholding ban on controversial insecticide
French President Emmanuel Macron signed into law a modified bill that bars a bee-killing pesticide from being reintroduced after a petition signed by more than two million people. The legislation has been at the heart of a major debate in France and sparked a student-initiated petition that was wildly successful. Critics of the bill, adopted in July in a fractured lower house of parliament, say it was rushed through without proper debate. The law was published in the government's official journal on Tuesday, August 12 after the Constitutional Council, the country's highest court, struck down the contested provision about the reintroduction of acetamiprid. The court said that the insecticides known as neonicotinoids posed "risks to human health" and was unconstitutional as it undermined the right to live in a balanced and healthy environment as guaranteed in the country's environmental charter. Banned in France since 2018, acetamiprid is legal in the European Union and proponents say French farmers need it to help them compete with their European counterparts. The main farmers' union has railed against the court ruling. Supporters of the petition said their frustration with the legislation went beyond environmental concerns. Commentators have said it may be a sign of exasperation with deadlock in a hung parliament and a desire to have a greater say in political matters. After the ruling, Macron had said he intended to quickly enact the law and rejected further parliamentary debate. The controversial legislation has been dubbed the Duplomb law, after its author, Laurent Duplomb, a senator for the right-wing Republicans party. French Health Minister Yannick Neuder has called for a European reassessment of the impact of acetamiprid on human health.
France 24
3 hours ago
- France 24
New Caledonia: ‘The Kanak people want full sovereignty to decide their own future'
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