The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Emmanuel Macron

  • EU agrees on new labour rules to prevent social dumping

    EU agrees on new labour rules to prevent social dumping

    EU countries have agreed on new rules to prevent the so-called social dumping and make employers pay foreign workers the same as locals, the European commissioner for employment said on Tuesday.

    “Equal pay for equal work at same place at heart of SocialEurope,’’ Marianne Thyssen, wrote on Twitter after the meeting of EU social affairs ministers in Luxembourg.

    The 1996 posted workers directive governs the employment of EU workers in other countries within the bloc and mandates certain standards, such as the payment of local minimum wages.

    Trade unions, however, complain that employers often use loopholes to abuse the rules.

    In France and other countries, the directive is perceived as having paved the way for employers to hire Eastern European workers on the cheap, known as “social dumping,” while driving down locals’ wages and social standards.

    French President Emmanuel Macron has been the most vocal critic of the regulations, and has been lobbying Central and Eastern European governments to reform the directive.

    According to figures from 2015, the legislation affects slightly over two million workers in the bloc: Poland, Germany and France were the main sending countries, while Germany, France and Belgium were the main receiving countries.

    The European Commission says foreign workers often receive only half what locals are paid.

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  • French Senate to vote on security law as Macron addresses Police

    French Senate to vote on security law as Macron addresses Police

    The French Senate will on Wednesday vote on a controversial security bill proposed by the government to help deal with the threat of terrorism.

    The bill enshrines modified versions of emergency powers into ordinary law.

    It has been criticised by UN human rights experts and France’s rights ombudsman Jacques Toubon.

    President Emmanuel Macron’s government said that the law was needed for a state of emergency to be was imposed in Paris.

    The government said that the state of emergency was as a result of the 2015 attacks that claimed 130 lives, which could be allowed to lapse at the end of the month.

    The draft law incorporates into ordinary law, with some restrictions, emergency powers that allowed the authority to restrict the movements of people suspected of terrorist links and to search properties.

    It also allows authorities to close places of worship where extremist ideas are propagated.

    Security forces are empowered to stop any person and check their identity within 10 km of major international ports and airports.

    UN human rights experts Fionnuala Ni Aolain and Michel Frost in September warned of “vague wording’’ in the draft law and “grave consequences for the integrity of human rights’’.

    Toubon said that the proposed powers would allow the freedom of individuals to be restricted on the basis of suspicions or attitudes rather than as punishment for offences.

    Macron himself would also give a speech to police and military officers on the government’s security policy.

    More than 230 people have been killed since early 2015 in France in a succession of attacks by Islamist extremists.

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  • Merkel, Macron pledge to lead EU forward post-Brexit

    Merkel, Macron pledge to lead EU forward post-Brexit

    French President, Emmanuel Macron, won backing from Angela Merkel for plans to reform the EU after Brexit, founded on what the German chancellor called “intense” cooperation between Paris and Berlin.

    But during an EU dinner in Estonia that lasted till midnight ahead of a formal summit on Friday, some leaders sounded wary of the youthful new French leader’s ambitious ideas, set out in a speech at the Sorbonne on Tuesday, for deepening EU integration.

    Merkel, re-elected for a fourth term on Sunday but weakened by the rise of an insurgent eurosceptic opposition, met Macron for half an hour before dinner and, according to a French aide, welcomed his speech as “visionary” and a return of co-founder France as a driving force in the European Union project.

    But she also noted differences.

    Some of her potential new coalition partners, along with northern governments like the Dutch and Finns, are very dubious about his suggestions for pooling budgets with less fiscally austere states in the south.

    “As far as the proposals were concerned, there was a high level of agreement between Germany and France.

    “We must still discuss the details, but I am of the firm conviction that Europe can’t just stay still but must continue to develop,” she said.

    French officials said Macron, who they said spoke again with Merkel at length after the late-night dinner, was not trying to impose his ideas but to show others that they were in their common interest and recognised that some needed time to reflect.

    “The idea is not about forcing people to give a binary response.

    France cannot force things,” one said, adding that Paris hoped leaders could agree on a way to work on the ideas in the coming weeks before an October summit in Brussels.

    “The dinner,” a Macron aide said, “Was a chance to share further the Sorbonne project … Things are on the move.”

    An EU official said that the dinner had shown there was a “strong and shared willingness to maintain the unity” and that the EU should be “open to address new ideas” while continuing to work to deliver concrete results for citizens.

    Summit Chair, Donald Tusk, would consult governments in the coming two weeks and make proposals for how to follow up on the debate about reform at a summit in Brussels on Oct. 19-20.

    European Commission President, Jean-Claude Juncker, proposed similar but different reforms earlier this month and called for a landmark summit of the 27 in Romania on the day Britain leaves the EU in 18 months time, on March 30, 2019.

    British Prime Minister, Theresa May, also attended the dinner in spite of Britain’s increasing isolation as it prepares to quit.

    She took the opportunity of Friday’s “digital summit” in Tallinn to visit British troops on a NATO mission in northern Estonia and pledged post-Brexit security cooperation with European neighbours confronting Russian threats.

    May arrived with a better sense of whether her keynote major Brexit speech last Friday has succeeded in unblocking talks in Brussels on Britain’s divorce package.

    The chief EU negotiator, Michel Barnier, praised on Thursday a “new dynamic” to Brexit negotiations created by concessions made by May although progress was still not sufficient to allow discussions on future trade relations.

    EU officials said she should not expect direct feedback in Tallinn from the other leaders.

    But she was expected to talk to Merkel and others individually as she pursues her quest for agreement to open talks on close ties with the bloc.

    Friday’s talks on a “digital agenda” for Europe will range from ways to ease cross-border flows of data while protecting privacy to cyber security and taxing online businesses.

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  • Macron to address terrorism, climate at UN

    Macron to address terrorism, climate at UN

    French President Emmanuel Macron will give his first address to the UN General Assembly on Tuesday, with terrorism and climate change as his top priorities.

    Elysee officials were tight-lipped about the likely contents of Macron’s speech ahead of his travel.

    But his agenda included a security-focused meeting on Monday evening with fellow heads of state from the Sahel region of West Africa, where French troops are supporting local forces against militants.

    Macron and British Prime Minister Theresa May, as well as Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni would host a meeting on preventing terrorist use of the internet.

    The French president, who took office in May, would also open a summit on a French-backed proposal for global pact on environment, aimed at creating binding international code of environmental law.

    French officials say Macron will also discuss the Syrian conflict with leaders of the other four permanent members of the UN Security Council – Britain, China, Russia and the U.S.

  • France bans hiring of spouses by politicians in wake of Fillon scandal

    France bans hiring of spouses by politicians in wake of Fillon scandal

    France on Thursday banned politicians from employing their spouses or children as parliamentary assistants under rules adopted in response to a scandal involving former Prime Minister, Francois Fillon and his wife.

    The law, one of the first to be approved since President Emmanuel Macron’s election in May, will apply to ministers and members of parliament, bringing France into line with countries like Germany.

    The law will also ending what is a widespread family business.

    The essential clauses of the legislation were voted through by members of the National Assembly in votes Wednesday night and on Thursday.

    Macron, a 39-year-old centrist, won the presidential contest promising he would end practices blamed for widespread voter distrust of politicians.

    One of his hottest competitors in the presidential race was Fillon, a conservative ex-prime minister whose campaign was destroyed by a scandal involving payments to his British spouse Penelope.

    The affair was exposed by media in late January, prompting a judicial inquiry, still underway, into allegations that Fillon paid wife Penelope hundreds of thousands of euros over years for little, if any, work as an assistant.

    He also paid two of the couple’s children for similar work.

    Although he denounced what he called a dirty tricks campaign and denied having done anything illegal, he admitted an error of judgment.

    The scandal sank his bid for election and thrust the spotlight on the family hires of dozens of other politicians.

    Roughly one in six members of parliament has a family member drawing a salary as an assistant.

    Macron’s government, whose debut as a clean-hands operation has been tainted by a separate inquiry that prompted a justice minister to resign, is also planning a crackdown on how freely MPs use the substantial budgets allotted to them.

    Currently, members of the 577-member National Assembly get a budget of 130,000 euros (152,000 dollars)a year, on top of their own pay and secretarial funds – which the new government says is too loosely controlled in the way it is used.

    “Members of parliament are there to adopt laws and not to be hand out subsidies,” Nicole Belloubet, who replaced predecessor Francois Bayrou in June as justice minister, told Europe 1 radio.

    The bill on family hires was criticised by some politicians, during a pre-vote debate where one of them, Julien Aubert of the opposition The Republicans party, said it was excessive.

    “It’s like a pig flu: one pig is ill and the whole herd gets put down,” he said.

  • France to nationalise shipyard if Italy rejects deal – Minister

    France to nationalise shipyard if Italy rejects deal – Minister

    The French state on Wednesday said it would nationalise the STX France shipyard if Italy does not accept its offer to split STX’s capital equally.

    It put down a marker on the limits of economic liberalism under new President Emmanuel Macron.

    The threat raises the stakes in a standoff over the shipyard’s fate, the only one in France with facilities large enough to build aircraft carriers.

    Fincantieri agreed in May to pay 79.5 million euros (92.6 million dollars) for two-thirds of STX France, which is being sold following the collapse of South Korean parent STX.

    However, the Italian bid has raised fears for French jobs at the Saint-Nazaire site on the Atlantic Coast.

    French Economy Minister Bruno Maire said the nationalisation would give the state more time to find a better shareholder deal.

    He said even if its temporary, it would mark the first major state intervention in the corporate world by Macron’s government, which was elected on a pro-business platform.

    Italian interests rejected the French proposal for ownership of STX France to be split equally between Italian state-owned shipbuilder Fincantieri and Paris.

    Both Fincantieri Chief Executive Giuseppe Bono and Italian Industry Minister Carlo Calenda raised the prospect that Fincantieri could walk away from the deal if France backed away from conditions agreed under the former government of President Francois Hollande.

    “We are Europeans and on STX we cannot accept being treated worse than the Koreans,” Bono said on a conference call in reference to the shipyard’s previous majority owner.

    Italian Economy Minister Pier Padoan later took a more conciliatory tone, saying Italy was open to changing the terms of the deal, but insisted Fincantieri must have control.

    “We have offered to listen to the new government’s requirements, but there is no reason why Fincantieri should give up a majority stake and control of the French company.”

  • France military chief resigns over budget cuts

    France military chief resigns over budget cuts

    France’s head of the armed forces resigned on Wednesday after a heated dispute with Emmanuel Macron over defence budget cuts, bringing to a head an early test of the newly elected president’s mettle.

    In a statement, 60 year-old Pierre de Villiers said he had tried to maintain a French defence force with the ability to do an increasingly difficult job within the financial constraints imposed on it, but was no longer able to sustain that.

    “In the current circumstances I see myself as no longer able to guarantee the robust defense force I believe is necessary to guarantee the protection of France and the French people, today and tomorrow, and to sustain the aims of our country,” he said.

    De Villiers said that Macron had accepted his resignation.

    A fierce row broke out on July 14 between the two men just two months after Macron was elected, and just as France prepared for the military pomp of the Bastille Day parade where Macron’s U.S. counterpart Donald Trump was the guest of honor.

    De Villiers, appearing before a closed-door hearing of parliamentarians, had used strong language to protest at the 850 million euro (979.46 million dollars) defence budget cut Macron was making as part of his efforts to rein in state spending.

    “I won’t let myself be fucked like that,” he said according to two parliamentary sources.

    “I may be stupid, but I know when I am being had.”

    Macron had gone public with his rebuke. “I have made commitments, I am your boss,” he said in a speech to dozens of top army officers and their families.

  • Police arrest suspect planning to assassinate Macron on Bastille Day

    Police arrest suspect planning to assassinate Macron on Bastille Day

    The police said a 23-year old man describing himself as a “nationalist” has been placed under investigation over a plan to attack French President Emmanuel Macron at this year’s July 14 Bastille Day parade.

    A police source said on Monday that the man was arrested after expressing an interest, in a video game chatroom, in acquiring a Kalashnikov-style weapon in order to commit an attack.

    The source said that during his detention, the suspect described himself as a nationalist and made offensive comments about blacks, Arabs, Jews and homosexuals.

    French radio station RMC said the suspect was unemployed, had mental health problems and was sentenced in 2016 for making comments in favor of terrorism.

    Security at this year’s Bastille Day parade on the Champs Elysees is likely to be even tighter than usual given the expected presence of U.S. President Donald Trump.

    In 2002, Maxime Brunerie, a neo-Nazi, fired a sports rifle at then President Jacques Chirac at the Bastille Day parade, before then being overpowered.

    Chirac was not harmed.

  • France, Africans must eradicate ‘terrorists, thugs and murderers’ – Macron

    France, Africans must eradicate ‘terrorists, thugs and murderers’ – Macron

    France and its African partners must work together to wipe out Islamist militants in the volatile Sahel region, President Emmanuel Macron said at the opening of a summit in Bamako on Sunday.

    Leaders of the G5 Sahel bloc – Mali, Burkina Faso, Mauritania, Niger and Chad – were expected to launch a new multi-national force at the meeting aimed at combating militants and illegal activity in the vast arid zone.

    “Every day we must combat terrorists, thugs, murderers … who we must steadfastly and with determination eradicate together,” said Macron, who was making his second visit to Mali since taking office in May.

    Islamist militant groups, some with links to al Qaeda, seized control of Mali’s desert north in 2012.

    While they were driven out of major cities and towns a year later by a French-led military intervention, they continue to carry out attacks against on UN peacekeepers, Malian soldiers and civilian targets.

    The violence has spilled over into neighbouring countries in West Africa’s Sahel region and Paris has deployed thousands of French troops to combat Islamists under a cross-border operation known as Barkhane.

  • French defence minister Goulard steps down amid jobs probe

    French defence minister Goulard steps down amid jobs probe

    French Defence Minister Sylvie Goulard is stepping down amid an investigation into employment contracts at the political party she belongs to, French newspaper Le Monde and other media reported on Tuesday.

    Le Monde quoted a statement from Goulard saying that she wished “to be able to freely demonstrate my good faith” if anti-corruption police wanted to verify the employment conditions of the staff she employed as a member of the European Parliament (MEP).

    Earlier in June, French prosecutors opened a preliminary investigation into allegations that Democratic Movement (Modem) staff had been paid as European Parliament assistants to the party’s MEPs while actually working for the party.

    The investigation was triggered by complaints from a former Modem staffer and an MEP for the far-right National Front, as well as press reports.

    Modem has said that all its staff were properly and legally employed, and that some of them were in fact working part-time for the party and part-time for its MEPs.

    Goulard was an MEP for Modem until she stepped down in May to take up the position of defence minister under President Emmanuel Macron.

    The government resigned on Monday to allow Macron and Prime Minister Edouard Philippe to appoint a new line-up after parliamentary elections, and Le Monde quoted Goulard as saying she had asked not to be reappointed.

    National Front leader Marine Le Pen has also been the subject of allegations that she claimed back salaries from the European Parliament for supposed aides who were actually working for her party.

    Le Pen denies the allegations.