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French President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday defiantly vowed to push through a controversial pension reform, saying he was prepared to accept unpopularity in the face of sometimes violent protests, and that he plans to enact the new law by the end of the year. Follow our live updates for all the latest developments. All times are Paris time (GMT+1).

The timing couldn’t have been worse. Turkey had already threatened to derail Sweden’s NATO aspirations when a far-right extremist set fire to a Koran outside the Turkish embassy in Stockholm. On Friday, Ankara issued its verdict on Sweden and Finland’s joint NATO bid: For now, Turkey would only start ratifying Finland’s application. Several reports have since emerged, meanwhile, pointing to suspected Russia ties among the organisers of the damaging Koran-burning protest.

The Gulag is synonymous with some of the worst mass human rights abuses of the 20th century, and also some of the lesser known. As many as 24 million people were imprisoned and some 1.6 million killed in the Soviet prison system. But no one was ever held accountable for the crimes, begging the question of how the legacy of the Gulag has impacted modern-day Russia. Micha?l Prazan’s book “Varlam” retraces the story of Russian writer and Gulag survivor Varlam Shalamov. The author joined us for Perspective.