Browsing: EU Featured

Surveys have fluctuated wildly in the run-up to election day, but observers believe that whichever party wins the most seats in this Wednesday’s parliamentary elections in the Netherlands may need support from at least three other parties to govern. Dilan Yesilgoz, leader of the centre-right VVD party and successor to outgoing PM Mark Rutte, is hoping to cap a meteoric rise by clinching the top job. She would be the first woman to do so in the Netherlands. Born in Turkey, the 46-year-old Yesilgoz has taken a hard line on immigration. For more, we speak to Professor Joop van Holsteijn from the Institute of Political Science at Leiden University.

‘The state can offer them a kind of deal, in which a woman’s sentence is terminated and in case she gives birth during such a “vacation”, the rest of the term is cancelled.’

Sweden said Tuesday it wanted to introduce new requirements that would allow the deportation of asylum-seekers and immigrants for substance abuse, association with criminal groups or statements threatening Swedish values. 

The draw for next summer’s group stage will take place next month.

A new Dutch political party started by Pieter Omtzigt is among those leading in opinion polls for the snap elections in the Netherlands on Wednesday, November 22. Omtzigt, a former Christian Democrat MP, is known for helping bring down the government of Mark Rutte in 2021 after revealing a child benefits scandal, in which thousands of families were wrongly accused of fraud on the basis of their ethnicity. The centrist anti-establishment candidate is shaking up the Dutch political landscape and is already drawing comparisons to French President Emmanuel Macron, who swept to power in 2017 with his new centrist party. So who is Omtzigt, the man who could become the next Dutch prime minister? Our correspondents report.

President Volodymyr Zelensky on Tuesday linked historic pro-democracy protests in Kyiv one decade ago to the invasion of Ukraine, describing the demonstrations on Maidan square as the “first victory” of the war with Russia. FRANCE 24’s Emmanuelle Chaze reports from Kyiv.

The ’ndrangheta family were running drugs and arms worldwide, the tribunal heard.

An Italian tribunal on Monday convicted 207 people and sentenced them to a combined 2,100 years in prison on charges related to their membership in Italy’s ‘Ndrangheta organised crime syndicate, one of the world’s most powerful, extensive and wealthy drug-trafficking groups. The mafia group, which is tied to some 150 Calabrian families, has a near monopoly on the European cocaine trade, bringing in €50 billion annually according to some estimates, FRANCE 24’s Seema Gupta said. 

An Italian tribunal on Monday convicted 207 people and sentenced them to a combined 2,100 years in prison on charges related to their membership in Italy’s ’ndrangheta organized crime syndicate, one of the world’s most powerful, extensive and wealthy drug-trafficking groups. 

Holding olive branches and white banners, French performers from different religious and ethnic backgrounds led thousands of people on a silent march through central Paris on Sunday to call for peace between Israelis and Palestinians and unity in France.