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French Prime Minister tests positive for Covid-19

French Prime Minister, Jean Castex, is self-isolating after testing positive for Covid.

Prime Minister Jean Castex at a press conference. He is the latest high-profile victim of Covid-19 in France.
Prime Minister Jean Castex at a press conference. He is the latest high-profile victim of Covid-19 in France. (Photo by JOHN THYS / AFP)

Castex tested positive for Covid-19 on Monday evening, his office told AFP, adding that he would isolate for 10 days while continuing to work.

Castex “immediately carried out a PCR test” after finding out that one of his daughters had tested positive, his office said.

Castex had been in Brussels on Monday morning, where he met his Belgian counterpart Alexander De Croo.

READ ALSO France says fifth Covid wave hitting at ‘lightning’ speed

He was accompanied on the trip by several other senior colleagues, including France’s Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin and Europe Minister Clément Beaune.

The 56-year-old head of government received two doses of vaccine in the spring and had never tested positive before.

He has been criticised by some sections of the French press for not respecting mask-wearing guidelines – despite calling on the population to be careful.

De Croo and four of his ministers went into quarantine on Monday after the announcement of Castex’s positive test. 

READ ALSO Mandatory jabs and restrictions: How Europe is responding to the new wave of Covid

Since the start of the pandemic, 7.5 million people in France have contracted Covid and 119,000 have died as a result. 

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EMMANUEL MACRON

Macron quips about cuddly ‘wedding’ pics with Lula

French President Emmanuel Macron has joined social media users in their jokes that likened his cosy pictures with Brazilian President Lula to those from a wedding album.

Macron quips about cuddly 'wedding' pics with Lula

Images of the pair smiling and warmly embracing during Macron’s three-day visit to Brazil circulated online this week alongside light-hearted captions and montages suggesting a loving relationship between the leaders.

“Some have compared the pictures of my visit to Brazil to those of a wedding,” Macron wrote Thursday on X.

“I tell them it was one. France loves Brazil and Brazil loves France,” he said.

Macron retweeted a picture of himself and Lula smiling during the visit, overlaid on the background of a poster for the romantic 2016 film La La Land.

Lula responded to Macron’s tweet, which was also shared in Portuguese, with emojis of the Brazil and France flags alongside two small love hearts.

One picture shared on social media this week showed the leaders raising their arms underneath a large tree in the Brazilian jungle was edited to show them holding red balloons in the shape of a heart.

“They are going to marry in the Amazon and have their honeymoon in Paris,” joked one user on X, while others said pictures from the trip could make up a wedding album.

Macron’s trip to Brazil saw the two leaders announce a billion-dollar green investment plan for the Amazon.

Lula hailed the relationship between the two countries as one that created “a bridge between the global South and the developed world.”

Macron’s warm relations with Lula mark a departure from the frosty ties between the French leader and Brazil’s former right-wing president Jair Bolsonaro, who led the country from 2019 to 2022.

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