Latest news with #EmanuelMacron
Daily Mail
07-07-2025
- Politics
- Daily Mail
Hand back our £771MILLION Mr Macron.. s'il vous plait: French President to face questions over his country's failure to dent small boat crisis as he arrives in Britain
Emanuel Macron flies into Britain tomorrow under huge pressure to finally crack the escalating small-boats crisis. The French president will face questions over his country's failure to make a dent in illegal Channel crossings – despite being handed more than three quarters of a billion pounds of British taxpayers' money. Arrival numbers are up 56 per cent so far this year compared with the same period in 2024, with 2,599 last week alone. And a total of 172,255 small-boat migrants have reached Britain since the crisis began in 2018 – entirely under Mr Macron's presidency – with the vast majority departing from French beaches. Only 4 per cent have been deported. Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp said: 'We've paid France £771 million and they've stopped very few migrants on land and none at sea. 'This is in contrast to Belgium where embarkations have dropped 90 per cent because they do intercept at sea. We should be asking France for a refund.' Sir Keir Starmer and Mr Macron are due to hold a bilateral summit on Thursday at the end of the president's three-day state visit, which begins tomorrow morning with a royal welcome. Downing Street declined to say whether the Prime Minister was ready to pay France tens of millions more to step up patrols, saying only that the Government 'will only ever provide funding that delivers for the priorities of the British public'. The two leaders are likely to announce details of new measures, including moves which will finally allow gendarmes to intercept dinghies already in the water. There may also be pledges for wider 'dragnet' tactics in French rivers and canals, installing floating barriers to prevent traffickers using them to launch so-called 'taxi boats' into the Channel. A report by the House of Commons Library, published this week, set out how £657 million has been given to France by the UK since 2018. A further £114 million was handed over in the previous four years for other security measures, making a total of more than £770 million over 12 years. The report added: 'There is little publicly available information about how funding is spent and monitored. 'UK authorities have refused Freedom of Information requests seeking detailed information.' In 2023, it emerged some of the UK's money had been used to buy equipment for French police operating on the French-Italian border – not the Channel coast. It was also revealed that most of the funds had been spent on helicopters, cars, motorbikes, e-scooters and quad bikes, plus surveillance equipment such as binoculars, drones and dash cams. British taxpayers' cash was also used to microwaves and car vacuums, and to support a horse brigade in the Somme Bay. Tony Smith, former director general of UK Border Force, told the Mail: 'Throwing more money at it – when the track record is so poor – is not a good investment. There is a lot of evidence it isn't really working despite the money we have given them. Over time, that £800 million we have spent has been a net loss. 'If more money is to be given to the French it should be a performance-related system, so if there is a reduction in the numbers crossing they get a percentage of the money that we would have otherwise spent on asylum support.' Mr Smith added: 'My view is there's a lot more the French could be doing. They need to step up their game considerably. 'I don't understand why they can't find the dinghies before they set off, given they have drone and satellite surveillance. Until now the French have never been prepared to get their feet wet, so if interventions at sea now go ahead, that could make a difference. 'The Government's 'smash the gangs' policy isn't working and the British people are losing patience.' He added that it was a 'grave error' by Sir Keir to abolish the previous Conservative government's Rwanda asylum scheme when it was finally ready to get off the ground. Nigel Farage described the French approach to the crisis as an 'insult' and urged the PM to block French trawlers from British fishing grounds unless Mr Macron agrees to step up cooperation dramatically. The Reform UK leader said: 'We have given the French £800 million in the last ten years in return for virtually nothing. 'Yet the Government now wants to give them access to our fishing waters for another 11 years. They simply cannot have both. Starmer has got to get much tougher and tell Macron he can't have the fish if he won't stop the boats. 'Their efforts at the moment are derisory. We see the French navy day after day escorting them to the halfway line. It is just an insult.' Boris Johnson has accused Mr Macron of 'weaponising' the small-boats crisis as revenge for Brexit. In his autobiography last year, the former PM said the French leader was so alarmed by the threat to his beloved EU project that there were 'a host of issues where, given the chance, he would not hesitate to put his Cuban-heeled bootee into Brexit Britain'. He added: 'It seemed at least possible to me that he was weaponising the problem.' A No 10 spokesman said Sir Keir's efforts at 'resetting relationships and partnerships' with EU leaders were leading to greater cooperation with the French. The spokesman said the UK's 'joint work with the French is stronger than it has ever been', adding: 'That relationship is key to a number of issues, and we expect to make good progress on a wide range of priorities, including migration, growth, defence and security.'
Japan Times
28-05-2025
- Business
- Japan Times
Hegseth to face questions on U.S. commitment at top Asian defense conference
U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth will make his second visit to Asia later this week for a key regional security conference in Singapore, the Pentagon has announced, where he is expected to reiterate the Trump administration's commitment to the region despite growing anxiety over Washington's tariff program and uncertainties about defense policy. Hegseth will join defense ministers, top military brass, security officials and diplomats from across the globe at the annual Shangri-La Dialogue, which runs from Friday to Sunday, according to the U.S. Defense Department. The forum, which will feature French President Emanuel Macron as the keynote speaker this year, is often punctuated by speeches and, at times, fiery back-and-forths rarely seen in public. This year is unlikely to prove different. Held as tensions continue to surge in the U.S.-China rivalry, the conference will feature separate speeches by Hegseth and a representative from the Chinese government. China's defense chief, however, is not expected to attend the event, the Financial Times reported earlier this month. A lower-level official will likely attend in Defense Minister Dong Jun's place. While a representative from China is expected to deliver a speech, it's unclear how much weight any retort by Beijing might carry if Dong is not the one doing the speaking. His absence would be a departure from recent precedent, which has seen the country's defense chief in attendance for a number of years. Dong's possible absence would come as Chinese leader Xi Jinping has continued to purge high-level officers from the Central Military Commission, the country's highest-level military command body. Dong was reportedly investigated over alleged corruption last year but cleared. Observers say it is unclear what Dong's potential absence could mean. 'It could be a matter of domestic politics, given Xi's ongoing purge of the senior ranks of the military. It could be to signal that Beijing does not believe there is not much point to further engagement with Hegseth. It could also be that Beijing has decided that the Shangri-La Dialogue is a less important platform for it to lay out its position as compared to say, the Xiangshan Forum,' said Ian Chong, a professor at the National University of Singapore and expert on Chinese security issues, referring to China's biggest annual show of military diplomacy. Chinese Defense Minister Dong Jun attends the Beijing Xiangshan Forum last September. | REUTERS The Pentagon said in a statement Tuesday that the trip 'comes as the Department of Defense continues to strengthen U.S. relationships with allies and partners in support of a shared regional vision for peace, stability, and deterrence.' Hegseth is set to meet with Singapore's prime minister and other senior officials from the county, convene a multilateral meeting of his counterparts from Southeast Asia, and participate in 'several trilateral and multilateral meetings' with his counterparts 'from several Asian countries,' according to the Pentagon. Although specific details have yet to be released, the Pentagon chief is also expected to meet with his counterparts from U.S. allies, including Japanese Defense Minister Gen Nakatani. A meeting between the defense chiefs of Japan, Australia, the U.S. and the Philippines — the first under the second Trump White House — may also be on the agenda. The countries' four defense chiefs last met in Hawaii in May 2024 for talks widely seen as intended to strengthen multilateral cooperation to counter China. China's military modernization, as well as its moves in the East and South China Seas — and near democratic Taiwan — are just some of the issues involving Beijing that Hegseth is expected to broach on Saturday. At the 2024 event, then-U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin hailed Washington's deepening network of security partnerships as defining a 'new era of security' in the Indo-Pacific, while Dong used his speech to denounce the formation of 'exclusive military alliances' and attempts to create 'bloc confrontation' to rein in China. In his speech, Austin also attempted to reassure U.S. security allies and partners of Washington's focus on the Indo-Pacific amid the still-raging conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza. Hegseth will look to follow suit and ameliorate concerns that the Trump administration's seemingly chaotic policies will dampen Washington's resolve to defend its interests in the region — and by extension those of its allies. But experts say Hegseth, who has retained Trump's approval despite grappling with multiple scandals — will have his work cut out for him. 'Trump's across-the-board tariffs are likely to make regional actors more skeptical of U.S. assertions of commitment, since they suggest that the Trump administration is less interested in good faith cooperation,' Chong said. 'Even if audiences are able to separate economic and security considerations, the apparent turmoil in Washington — including at the U.S. Department of Defense — may make them wonder about the U.S. ability to back up its commitments going forward.'
Yahoo
12-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Opinion - Can the US stop the brewing nuclear arms race before it erupts?
Just a few months after the U.S. dropped nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, it began trying to abolish these horrifying new weapons. In 1946, the U.S. government proposed decommissioning all of its atomic bombs and putting the related technology under international control if other states would do the same. (The Soviets refused.) A few years later, President Dwight Eisenhower went to the United Nations to deliver his famous his 'Atoms for Peace' speech, imploring other countries not to go down the nuclear road. To strengthen its case, the United States offered its Cold War allies a deal: it would use its arsenal to deter their shared enemies, so that other members of what was then called the Free World wouldn't need to build their own bombs. To sweeten the bargain, the U.S. offered to help friendly states develop civilian nuclear energy programs. This arrangement was formalized in 1970 with the creation of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Under that agreement, countries that already had nuclear weapons — the U.S., the USSR, the United Kingdom, France and China — got to keep them, but all other signatories pledged to give up their pursuit. This U.S.-led system for preventing proliferation worked remarkably well. In the last six decades, only four additional countries (Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea) have developed full-fledged nuclear weapons, although a few others (notably Iran) have come close. Even more importantly, in the 80 years since the U.S. attacks on Japan, no other country has used a nuclear weapon in war. Yet that remarkable record could soon be broken and all progress lost. With the U.S. pausing assistance to Ukraine, threatening to abandon NATO unless other members raise their defense spending to 5 percent of GDP (the current U.S. level is 3.5 percent), and walking back its pledges to protect other allies, countries around the world are suddenly scrambling to come up with alternatives. It may be only a matter of time before some of them decide to pursue the ultimate defense. The signs of this shift are already appearing. Last week, French President Emanuel Macron — declaring, 'I want to believe that the United States will remain by our side, but we need to be ready if that were no longer the case' — offered to extend France's nuclear umbrella over its neighbors. While Macron's desire to dissuade other European states from going nuclear is laudable, he is unlikely to succeed. For one thing, Paris has proposed this before, in 2020, and it didn't go anywhere. The other, more fundamental problem is that recent developments highlight the danger of relying on any another country, be it the U.S. or France, for one's own security. That is, after all, exactly what Ukraine did in 1994. In exchange for security guarantees from Washington, London and Moscow, Kyiv gave up the nukes it had inherited from the Soviet Union. We all know how that turned out — following one invasion in 2014 and another in 2022, Russia now controls about 18 percent of Ukraine's territory, and Washington has just suspended military and intelligence support to Ukraine. Imagine you're watching this from Japan or South Korea, which have aggressive, nuclear-armed neighbors and are themselves 'threshold nuclear powers' — meaning they lack the bomb but have the technology, know-how and material to assemble one quickly if they choose to. Or pretend you're another country with a less-advanced domestic nuclear program but the bad luck to live in a very dangerous neighborhood — Eastern Europe, say. Why wouldn't you decide that now is the time to quickly start building a bomb of your own? Indeed, that's just what Poland's President Donald Tusk suggested doing in a speech to his parliament on Friday. For most countries, the calculus is not be simple. Nuclear weapons are incredibly dangerous and very unpopular. There's a powerful taboo against acquiring them, let alone contemplating their use. Getting caught developing them can trigger international pressure, sanctions and ostracization. Some countries, like Germany, have the capacity to quickly build a bomb but probably never will for historical reasons. And some scholars question whether nukes are even that effective at protecting the states that possess them. It's true that in a few cases (Israel and Pakistan) nuclear weapons haven't discouraged enemies from attacking and even invading. But it's also true that no nuclear-armed government has ever been overthrown by outsiders. This is why many countries around the world continue to view these weapons as the ultimate deterrent and security guarantee. Can anything stop the outbreak of a new nuclear arms race in the coming months? The best hope would be for the U.S. to reverse course immediately and renew its defense guarantees to its allies around the world. President Trump should clearly reaffirm Washington's commitment to NATO's Article V (which obligates all members to treat an attack on one as an attack against them all) and to America's non-NATO allies like Japan and South Korea. He should also quickly resume robust military and intelligence support for embattled Ukraine. But even these moves — unlikely as they may be — might not be enough to prevent the world from going nuclear. After all, the U.S. has now made and broken such promises at least once before. Can it be relied on to keep them the next time? Jonathan Tepperman is the editor-in-chief of The Catalyst and a senior fellow at the George W. Bush Institute. He is the former editor-in-chief of Foreign Policy, the former managing editor of Foreign Affairs, and author of 'The Fix: How Countries Use Crises to Solve the World's Worst Problems.' Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
The Hill
12-03-2025
- Politics
- The Hill
Can the US stop the brewing nuclear arms race before it erupts?
Just a few months after the U.S. dropped nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, it began trying to abolish these horrifying new weapons. In 1946, the U.S. government proposed decommissioning all of its atomic bombs and putting the related technology under international control if other states would do the same. (The Soviets refused.) A few years later, President Dwight Eisenhower went to the United Nations to deliver his famous his 'Atoms for Peace' speech, imploring other countries not to go down the nuclear road. To strengthen its case, the United States offered its Cold War allies a deal: it would use its arsenal to deter their shared enemies, so that other members of what was then called the Free World wouldn't need to build their own bombs. To sweeten the bargain, the U.S. offered to help friendly states develop civilian nuclear energy programs. This arrangement was formalized in 1970 with the creation of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Under that agreement, countries that already had nuclear weapons — the U.S., the USSR, the United Kingdom, France and China — got to keep them, but all other signatories pledged to give up their pursuit. This U.S.-led system for preventing proliferation worked remarkably well. In the last six decades, only four additional countries (Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea) have developed full-fledged nuclear weapons, although a few others (notably Iran) have come close. Even more importantly, in the 80 years since the U.S. attacks on Japan, no other country has used a nuclear weapon in war. Yet that remarkable record could soon be broken and all progress lost. With the U.S. pausing assistance to Ukraine, threatening to abandon NATO unless other members raise their defense spending to 5 percent of GDP (the current U.S. level is 3.5 percent), and walking back its pledges to protect other allies, countries around the world are suddenly scrambling to come up with alternatives. It may be only a matter of time before some of them decide to pursue the ultimate defense. The signs of this shift are already appearing. Last week, French President Emanuel Macron — declaring, 'I want to believe that the United States will remain by our side, but we need to be ready if that were no longer the case' — offered to extend France's nuclear umbrella over its neighbors. While Macron's desire to dissuade other European states from going nuclear is laudable, he is unlikely to succeed. For one thing, Paris has proposed this before, in 2020, and it didn't go anywhere. The other, more fundamental problem is that recent developments highlight the danger of relying on any another country, be it the U.S. or France, for one's own security. That is, after all, exactly what Ukraine did in 1994. In exchange for security guarantees from Washington, London and Moscow, Kyiv gave up the nukes it had inherited from the Soviet Union. We all know how that turned out — following one invasion in 2014 and another in 2022, Russia now controls about 18 percent of Ukraine's territory, and Washington has just suspended military and intelligence support to Ukraine. Imagine you're watching this from Japan or South Korea, which have aggressive, nuclear-armed neighbors and are themselves 'threshold nuclear powers' — meaning they lack the bomb but have the technology, know-how and material to assemble one quickly if they choose to. Or pretend you're another country with a less-advanced domestic nuclear program but the bad luck to live in a very dangerous neighborhood — Eastern Europe, say. Why wouldn't you decide that now is the time to quickly start building a bomb of your own? Indeed, that's just what Poland's President Donald Tusk suggested doing in a speech to his parliament on Friday. For most countries, the calculus is not be simple. Nuclear weapons are incredibly dangerous and very unpopular. There's a powerful taboo against acquiring them, let alone contemplating their use. Getting caught developing them can trigger international pressure, sanctions and ostracization. Some countries, like Germany, have the capacity to quickly build a bomb but probably never will for historical reasons. And some scholars question whether nukes are even that effective at protecting the states that possess them. It's true that in a few cases (Israel and Pakistan) nuclear weapons haven't discouraged enemies from attacking and even invading. But it's also true that no nuclear-armed government has ever been overthrown by outsiders. This is why many countries around the world continue to view these weapons as the ultimate deterrent and security guarantee. Can anything stop the outbreak of a new nuclear arms race in the coming months? The best hope would be for the U.S. to reverse course immediately and renew its defense guarantees to its allies around the world. President Trump should clearly reaffirm Washington's commitment to NATO's Article V (which obligates all members to treat an attack on one as an attack against them all) and to America's non-NATO allies like Japan and South Korea. He should also quickly resume robust military and intelligence support for embattled Ukraine. But even these moves — unlikely as they may be — might not be enough to prevent the world from going nuclear. After all, the U.S. has now made and broken such promises at least once before. Can it be relied on to keep them the next time? Jonathan Tepperman is the editor-in-chief of The Catalyst and a senior fellow at the George W. Bush Institute. He is the former editor-in-chief of Foreign Policy, the former managing editor of Foreign Affairs, and author of '.'
