Today’s news summary – Paper Talk 

Friday’s front pages lead heavily on the stabbings in a park in Annecy, in France’s south-east, on Thursday. Four children and 2 adults were stabbed by a man in a park in the French Alps. 

The PM has met with President Joe Biden and has launched a tech alliance as hopes of a Brexit free trade deal are officially dead. The leaders also agreed on a new civil nuclear partnership to lock out Russia.

French stabbing park

Amongst the very young children stabbed in France is a three-year-old British girl. 

The Daily Mirror uses its front page to praise a woman who attempted to stop the “knife maniac.” 

The Sun says the suspect has been named as a 31-year-old Syrian migrant Abdalmasih. The paper says his application for asylum is thought to have been declined four days before the attack. 

According to the Daily Express, he had refugee status in Sweden. The knifeman told police he was a Christin and authorities say he had no criminal record or history of psychiatric illness. 

Atlantic Declaration 

The Times calls the new Atlantic Declaration – announced by Sunak and Biden – an economic alliance to close ranks against China. The paper says the deal, in effect, proclaims the end of the era of unfettered globalisation.

The Guardian also leads with the alliance. The paper describes the Declaration as little more than a series of economic mini-deals, with few details and no attempt to estimate any overall economic benefit. 

According to the Financial Times, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt is to scale back the windfall tax on oil and gas producers, in order to boost investment in the North Sea. The paper says that under the plan, the levy will apply only if oil and gas prices are above a certain level.

“Ukraine begins counter-offensive, as Western tanks hit the front line” is the Daily Telegraph’s main front page headline. The article quotes unnamed Ukrainian officials saying that the deployment of Leopard Two tanks in the southern Zaporizhzhia region meant the operation was under way.