Category World News

French President Emmanuel Macron has unveiled a new government after holding marathon talks with newly re-appointed Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu ahead of a fast-approaching deadline to present next year’s budget to parliament.

In Lecornu’s new cabinet, Jean-Noel Barrot remains as foreign minister, while outgoing Labour Minister Catherine Vautrin takes on the defence portfolio, according to a lineup published by the president’s office on Sunday.

In a post on X, Lecornu wrote: “A mission-based government has been appointed to draw up a budget for France before the end of the year.”

“I would like to thank the women and men who have freely committed themselves to this government, putting aside personal and partisan interests. Only one thing matters: the interests of the country.”

Macron reinstated Lecornu late on Friday, just four days after the premier had resigned and as his first government collapsed, leading to outrage and pledges from opponents to topple any new cabinet at the first chance.

The former defence minister was tasked with assembling a government to present a 2026 draft budget on Monday, giving parliament the constitutionally required 70 days to scrutinise the plan before the year’s end.

But the right-wing Republicans (LR), a key political ally, complicated matters on Saturday by announcing that the party would not take part in the new government but only cooperate on a “bill-by-bill” basis.

Other allied and rival parties wrestled all weekend over whether to join Lecornu’s new government or vote to topple it.

The premier had pledged to work with all mainstream political movements and to select cabinet members who are “not imprisoned by parties”.

A Macron loyalist, Lecornu agreed after he had quit to stay on for two extra days to talk to all political parties.

He told the French weekly La Tribune that he had resigned “because the conditions were no longer met” and said that he would do so again if that remained the case.

The French president, facing the worst domestic crisis since the 2017 start of his presidency, has yet to address the public since Lecornu’s first government fell.

On Monday, Macron is due to travel to Egypt to support a Gaza ceasefire deal brokered by the United States, a trip that could delay the presentation of the draft budget.

Lecornu’s reappointment comes as France faces political deadlock and a parliamentary impasse over an austerity budget against a backdrop of climbing public debt.

The country faces pressure from the European Union to rein in its deficit and debt, with the fight over cost-cutting measures toppling Lecornu’s two predecessors.

Lecornu has pledged to do “everything possible” to give France a budget by the end of the year, saying that restoring the public finances was “a priority” for the future.

But he is under pressure from parties across the political spectrum, including the Socialists, who have threatened to topple his government unless he backs away from the 2023 pension reform that pushed the retirement age from 62 to 64.

Lecornu said on Saturday that “all debates are possible” over the pension reforms, and that his “only ambition is to get out of this situation that is painful for everyone”.

If Lecornu fails to secure parliamentary support, France would need emergency stopgap legislation to authorise spending from January 1 until a full budget is adopted.

Torrential flooding has continued to sweep parts of central and southeastern Mexico, raising the death toll to at least 44 people in less than a week.

Heavy downpours caused by two tropical storms have triggered landslides and flooding across five states, including Veracruz, Puebla, Hidalgo, Queretaro and San Luis Potosi, the government said in a statement on Sunday.

Floods have killed 18 people in Veracruz state, 16 in Hidalgo, nine in Puebla and one in Queretaro, the statement said.

Mexico’s El Universal newspaper put the death toll even higher — at 48 — and reported that dozens remain missing.

Around 320,000 people have experienced power outages, and at least 16,000 homes have been damaged, according to authorities, who fear that more landslides and overflowing rivers could exacerbate the damage.

‘We will not leave anyone’

President Claudia Sheinbaum said the military has been mobilised to help with rescue operations and aid distributions. “We will not leave anyone without support,” she said in a post on X.

Photos posted by the military showed people being evacuated by soldiers with life rafts, homes flooded with mud, and rescue workers trudging through waist-high waters.

Mexico has been hit by particularly heavy rains this year, and Mexico City recorded its rainiest June in more than two decades.

Authorities have attributed the latest deadly downpours to the remnants of Hurricane Priscilla and Tropical Rainstorm Raymond, both of which dumped heavy rains on Mexico’s west.

Tens of thousands of Palestinians are held in Israeli jails – most of them without charge.

And as the ceasefire deal between Hamas and Israel is centred on the release of detainees, about 2,000 of them are due to be released.

But the mistreatment of detainees by Israeli forces has been documented for decades.

So in addition to international law, is Israel breaking its own laws in its arrest and treatment of prisoners? Why did it arrest and torture so many people during its war on Gaza? And is it using mass detention to maintain its occupation?

Presenter: Neave Barker

Guests:

Naji Abbas – Director of the Prisoners & Detainees Department at Physicians for Human Rights-Israel

Ubai Aboudi – Executive director at Bisan Center for Research and Development, held in administrative detention in Israel without trial

Voters in the eastern city of Frankfurt an der Oder have chosen an independent candidate over the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) contender, blocking what would have been the largest opposition party in parliament’s first major urban win in a German mayoral election.

Independent Axel Strasser won on Sunday with 69.8 percent of the vote against AfD candidate Wilko Moller, who received 30.2 percent, according to preliminary results. Voter turnout was 49.4 percent.

In the first round of voting on September 21, Strasser received 32.4 percent of the vote and Moller 30.2 percent, while candidates from the centre-right Christian Democratic Union and the centre-left Social Democratic Party were eliminated.

The election came three days after the Bundestag, Germany’s parliament, stripped two AfD lawmakers of their parliamentary immunity, with one accused of defamation and the other of making a Nazi salute, which is illegal in Germany.

Ahead of the election, political scientist Jan Philipp Thomeczek, of the University of Potsdam, told the dpa news agency that a victory for Moller would have sent “a very strong signal” that the anti-immigrant and eurosceptic AfD can succeed in urban areas.

Frankfurt an der Oder is a city in the eastern German state of Brandenburg, located directly on the border with Poland. It is distinct from Frankfurt am Main, the much larger financial hub in western Germany.

It is the fourth-largest city in Brandenburg, with some 57,000 residents. The city’s challenges include border checks to and from Poland, immigration and the economy.

The German Association of Towns and Municipalities said there is currently no AfD-affiliated mayor of a city of significant size anywhere in the country.

Tim Lochner became mayor of the town of Pirna, near the Czech border, after being nominated for election in 2023 by the AfD, but he is technically an independent. AfD politician Robert Sesselmann is the district administrator in the Sonneberg district in Thuringia, and there are also AfD mayors in small towns in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt.

The Brandenburg domestic intelligence service in May classified the AfD’s state branch as “confirmed far-right extremist”, a label the party rejects as a politically driven attempt to marginalise it.

A 1,100-page report compiled by the agency – that will not be made public – concluded that the AfD is a racist and anti-Muslim organisation.

The designation makes the party subject to surveillance and has revived discussion over a potential ban for the AfD, which has launched a legal challenge against the intelligence service.

United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio sharply criticised the classification when it was announced, branding it as “tyranny in disguise”, and urged German authorities to reverse the move.

In response, Germany hit back at US President Donald Trump’s administration, suggesting officials in Washington should study history.

“We have learnt from our history that right-wing extremism needs to be stopped,” said Germany’s Federal Foreign Office in a statement.

The Kremlin also criticised the action against the AfD, which regularly repeats Russian narratives regarding the war in Ukraine, and what it called a broader trend of “restrictive measures” against political movements in Europe.