Europe's news in English

COPY LINK

UKRAINE

Macron urges Iran to stop backing Russia in Ukraine

French President Emmanuel Macron on Saturday urged his Iranian counterpart Ebrahim Raisi to "immediately end" Tehran's support for Russia's invasion of Ukraine, which involves supplying Moscow with attack drones, the Elysee said.

Published: 11 June 2023 10:49 CEST

Macron urges Iran to stop backing Russia in Ukraine

France's President Emmanuel Macron at the Elysee Palace in Paris, on June 9, 2023. Photo: Ludovic MARIN/AFP.

French President Emmanuel Macron on Saturday urged his Iranian counterpart Ebrahim Raisi to “immediately end” Tehran’s support for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which involves supplying Moscow with attack drones, the Elysee said.

Macron in a telephone call underlined the serious “security and humanitarian consequences” of Iran’s drone deliveries “and urged Tehran to immediately end the support it thus gives to Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine”, said a statement.

The call came a day after White House national security spokesman John Kirby said Russia was receiving materials from Iran to build a drone factory on its territory that “could be fully operational early next year”.

The White House released a satellite image of the location of the prospective plant in the Alabuga special economic zone, some 900 kilometres (560 miles) east of Moscow.

“The Russia-Iran military partnership appears to be deepening,” Kirby said in a statement, citing US intelligence information.

The United States has said that Russia has received hundreds of Iranian attack drones to attack Kyiv and “terrorise” Ukrainians, a charge denied by Tehran.

According to US data, the drones are built in Iran, shipped across the Caspian Sea “and then used operationally by Russian forces against Ukraine”, Kirby said.

The White House said it would release a new government advisory to assist businesses and governments “to ensure they are not inadvertently contributing to Iran’s (drone) program”

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.

Become a Member to leave a comment.

French election breakdown: TV clash, polling latest and 'poo' Le Pen

During the election period we will be publishing a bi-weekly ‘election breakdown’ to help you keep up with the latest developments. You can receive these as an email by going to the newsletter section here and selecting subscribe to ‘breaking news alerts’.

It’s now been 17 days since Macron’s surprise call for snap parliamentary elections, and four days until the first round of voting.

TV debates

The hotly-anticipated first TV debate of the election on Tuesday night turned out to be an ill-tempered affair with a lot of interruptions and men talking over each other.

The line of the night went to the left representative Manuel Bompard – who otherwise struggled to make much of an impact – when he told far-right leader Jordan Bardella (whose Italian ancestors migrated to France several generations back): “When your personal ancestors arrived in France, your political ancestors said exactly the same thing to them. I find that tragic.”

But perhaps the biggest question of all is whether any of this matters? The presidential election debate between Macron and Marine Le Pen back in 2017 is widely credited with influencing the campaign as Macron exposed her contradictory policies and economic illiteracy.

However a debate ahead of the European elections last month between Bardella and prime minister Gabriel Attal was widely agreed to have been ‘won’ by Attal, who also managed to expose flaws and contradictions in the far right party’s policies. Nevertheless, the far-right went on to convincingly beat the Macronists at the polls.

Has the political scene simply moved on so that Bardella’s brief and fact-light TikTok videos convince more people than a two-hour prime-time TV debate?

You can hear the team from The Local discussing all the election latest on the Talking France podcast – listen here or on the link below

Road to chaos

Just over two weeks ago when Macron called this election, he intended to call the bluff of the French electorate – did they really want a government made up of Marine Len Pen’s far-right Rassemblement National (RN) party?

Well, latest polling suggests that a large portion of French people want exactly that, and significantly fewer people want to continue with a Macron government.

With the caveat that pollsters themselves say this is is a difficult election to call, current polling suggests RN would take 35 percent of the vote, the leftist alliance Nouveau Front Populaire 30 percent and Macron’s centrists 20 percent.

This is potentially bad news for everyone, as those figures would give no party an overall majority in parliament and would instead likely usher in an era of political chaos.

The questions discussed in French conversation and media have now moved on from ‘who will win the election?’ to distinctly more technical concerns like – what exactly does the Constitution say about the powers of a president without a government? Can France have a ‘caretaker government’ in the long term? Is it time for a 6th republic?.

The most over-used phrase in French political discourse this week? Sans précédent (unprecedented).

Démission

From sans précédent to sans président – if this election leads to total chaos, will Macron resign? It’s certainly being discussed, but he says he will not.

For citizens of many European parliamentary democracies it seems virtually automatic that the president would resign if he cannot form a government, but the French system is very different and several French presidents have continued in post despite being obliged to appoint an opponent as prime minister.

READ ALSO Will Macron resign in case of an election disaster?

The only president of the Fifth Republic to resign early was Charles de Gaulle – the trigger was the failure of a referendum on local government, but it may be that he was simply fed up; he was 78 years old and had already been through an attempted coup and the May 1968 general strike which paralysed the country. He died a year after leaving office.

Caca craft

She might be riding high in the polls, but not everyone is enamoured of Le Pen, it seems, especially not in ‘lefty’ eastern Paris – as seen by this rather neatly crafted Marine Le Pen flag stuck into a lump of dog poo left on the pavement.

Thanks to spotter Helen Massy-Beresford, who saw this in Paris’s 20th arrondissement.

You can find all the latest election news HERE, or sign up to receive these election breakdowns as an email by going to the newsletter section here and selecting subscribe to ‘breaking news alerts’.

Url copied to clipboard!