Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his evening address on Saturday that Russia has started deploying North Korean soldiers in its operations in the Kursk region.
Author: Frank Deux
The Shire is now located in western Spain. It has private houses with brightly colored round doors, surrounded by forests and a stream and impressive mountains in the background. Obviously, neither Bilbo, Frodo or Sam live there, but everything has been built in such a way that anyone familiar with these characters through books or movies will be reminded of them, and perhaps even feel like them. “In a hole in the ground there lived…
It was just past 5:00 pm on Friday, December 13, when France’s new prime minister, François Bayrou, walked alone across the courtyard of the Hôtel de Matignon, the prime minister’s official residence, one hand in his coat pocket. He had just returned from the funeral of his friend Jean-Pierre Rioux, historian and member of the Bayrou’s MoDem party since its creation, who was buried earlier in the day at Saint-Jean de Montmartre church in Paris.…
Gaëlle Fasciaux, nursery assistant, baptized in the spring in the Saint-Léger church in Lens (northeastern France) on October 28, 2024. BENJAMIN GIRETTE FOR THE WORLD The scene is engraved in Gaëlle Fasciaux’s memory: Her arms crossed, she sat down in the large basin set up in the middle of the Saint-Léger church in Lens, northern France. Then she fell backward and let herself be submerged. Yet no one could have predicted that the 37-year-old nursery…
The new president of ERC, Oriol Junqueras, during the central event of the candidacy, last Wednesday.Alejandro Garcia (EFE)Oriol Junqueras will repeat as president of the Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC). Militancy We decidethe list headed by the former vice president of the Generalitat, has repeated victory this Saturday in the second round of the vote against Xavier Godàs, from Nova Esquerra Nacional and which grouped together those close to Marta Rovira. He former vice president…
Leer Sánchez’s trick: condone Catalonia’s waste by forcing Madrid to raise taxes
Thousands of Israelis staged a protest on Saturday to demand that the remaining hostages still being held in Gaza be released. There has been guarded optimism in recent days that a ceasefire and hostage release deal for Gaza might finally be within reach after more than 14 months of war between Israel and Hamas in the Palestinian enclave. Thousands of Israelis protest in Tel Aviv for Gaza hostage deal
In rocky circumstances, a name finally came out of the hat on Friday, December 13: François Bayrou, the president of the Macron-aligned MoDem party, became France’s new prime minister at 73.
Over a year after he visited Marseille, Pope Francis returns to the Mediterranean shores. Whereas his predecessor , on September 12, 2008, inaugurated the Collège des Bernardins in Paris with a major address on the sources of European culture, Francis is coming to close a congress devoted to popular religion. The various aspects of this trip seem consistent with his way of doing things. Why choose Corsica over Paris [and the reopening of Notre-Dame]? Let’s…
He is a man of faith. And he refuses to think that he sacrificed himself gratuitously. Oriol Junqueras believes that, if he sacrificed himself by going to prison, there must be a humane and fair counterpart, a gesture of affection that would fill his existence with meaning: obtaining the grateful vote of the Catalans to be president of the Generalitat.At the moment, it doesn’t seem like things are going that way. According to the latest…
Although it was the Embassy in Paris that contacted the Elysée to inform that Don Felipe could not go to the inauguration of the cathedral, they claimed not to know anything. Read Foreign Affairs allowed Zarzuela to slip up in Notre Dame
Brigitte Macron at the Elysée Palace in Paris, on October 4, 2024. BENOIT TESSIER / EPISODE Four men will appear in court next year in Paris over allegations they harassed French First Lady Brigitte Macron online, prosecutors said Thursday, December 12. A hearing in July next year will concern “malicious comments about Brigitte Macron’s gender and sexuality, as well as her age difference with her husband… likening her to a pedophile,” prosecutors said. The first…
Newly appointed Prime Minister Francois Bayrou walks in Paris, France, December 13, 2024. STEPHANIE LECOCQ / REUTERS French President Emmanuel Macron appointed François Bayrou as prime minister on Friday, December 13, over a week after lawmakers voted to oust conservative ex-prime minister Michel Barnier. A heavyweight politician, Bayrou heads the centrist MoDem party who has been allied to Macron since he swept to power in the 2017 election campaign. “The President of the Republic has…
The Conference of Presidents concluded as it began: without a hint of agreement to address the immigration issue, specifically the situation of unaccompanied foreign minors who remain overcrowded in the Canary Islands and Ceuta. Neither between the autonomous communities, nor with the Government. “It has been a missed opportunity,” said the Canary Islands president, Fernando Clavijo. “I don’t want to say that we have wasted time, because I think we have to talk about these…
The president of Catalonia proposes holding another Conference of Presidents in Barcelona to develop the financing reform Read Illa says she wants one "solidarity financing" and warns Ayuso that he will not accept "lessons" of whom "they practice fiscal lack of solidarity"
Ratings agency Moody’s downgraded France’s credit rating to Aa3 with a stable outlook Saturday over what the group described as France’s “political fragmentation”. French President Emmanuel Macron appointed his centrist ally François Bayrou as prime minister Friday after the previous premier Michel Barnier fell to a no-confidence vote the week before. Moody's downgrades France credit rating over 'political fragmentation'
It was a fleeting moment. A rare sign of empathy. On January 11, 2015, after the terrorist attack on Charlie Hebdoa teacher from the northern French city of Arras, wearing a hat, pulled away from the body of the republican march that had been organized that day, to go and hug a CRS officer, a sturdy 32-year-old who hailed from the French overseas department of Martinique. It was a moment of communion and gratitude. The…
François Bayrou arrives at the Elysée Palace in Paris on August 23, 2024. LAFARGUE RAPHAEL/ABACA In 2015, Nicolas Sarkozy won the prize for political humor attributed by the Press Club de France for a dig at the MoDem president: “To despair over François Bayrou, I would have to have once placed hope in him…” Nine years on, what hopes do Les Républicains (LR) have in the centrist’s appointment as prime minister, announced on Friday, December…
An ERC activist exercises her right to vote, last November 30, at the party’s headquarters in Barcelona.Marta Perez (EFE)Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC) celebrates this Saturday the second round in the election to elect its leadership. Militància Decidim, the candidacy of the party’s former president and re-election candidate Oriol Junqueras, is the favorite against Nova Esquerra Nacional, headed by Xavier Godàs and which brings together supporters of the party’s until now general secretary, Marta Rovira.…
The Second in the line of succession has presided over her first act in one more step to assume responsibilities Read Infanta Sofía makes her solo debut with the presentation of an award and institutional prominence
New French Prime Minister Francois Bayrou said on Friday he faced a “Himalaya” of a challenge to tackle France’s deficit, as opponents gave lukewarm reactions to his appointment. He replaces Michel Barnier, who was ousted by lawmakers last week for trying to pass a cost-cutting 2025 budget. New French PM François Bayrou to grapple with national debt, budget
An innocent “How’s it going?” can be interpreted by some people as the perfect occasion to dump their misfortunes on the unsuspecting inquirer. Such venting can be sincere, but even real problems can wind up being over-emphasized in these situations. There are many life stages in which we can run up against complicated moments, difficult patches — sometimes, it’s impossible to overstate how bad we feel. But that’s different from the outbursts of drama addicts,…
On the long wooden table reserved for consulting the riches of the Fraternité des Capucins library in the Montparnasse neighborhood of Paris, the in-house archivist placed two dark gray boxes and an old photo album. They elucidate the little-known life of Abbé Pierre before he was a Resistance fighter honored by Charles de Gaulle, the founder of the solidarity organization Emmaüs, or a sexual predator accused of assaulting 24 women including at least three minors.…
Pope Francis at a mass at the Stade Velodrome, Marseille, September 23, 2023. VATICAN MEDIA VIA ABACA For the third time, Pope Francis is preparing a trip to France. After visiting the European Parliament in Strasbourg in 2014 and taking part in the Rencontres Méditerranéennes in Marseille in September 2023, he will head for Ajaccio, Corsica, on Sunday, December 15. As with his previous trips, the Pontiff is not making an official state visit, but…
Miguel Juan tells, Councilor for Health, Citizen Participation, Animal Welfare and Sports of Enguera (Valencia, 4,911 inhabitants), that an 80-year-old resident of the town “every Friday, at noon, waits for the volunteers who collect the biowaste that accumulates in a paint can that she has in the garage.” Vegetable peelings, fruit skins, even leftover macaroni, meat, bones or fish scraps. Like her, 70 families in the Valencian municipality separate what they leave on their plates…