PARIS: French far-right leader Jordan Bardella criticized star footballer Kylian Mbappe on Tuesday for his call on the youth to vote against the “extremes” in parliamentary elections this month.
“I have a lot of respect for our footballers, whether Marcus Thuram or Kylian Mbappe, who are icons of football and icons for youth ... But we must respect the French, we must respect everyone’s vote,” Bardella told CNews TV.
“When you’re lucky enough to have a very, very big salary, when you are a multi-millionaire ... then I’m a little embarrassed to see these athletes ... give lessons to people who can no longer make ends meet, who no longer feel safe, who do not have the chance to live in neighborhoods overprotected by security agents,” he said.
France captain Mbappe, who is hugely popular, said on Sunday, during a press conference on the eve of France’s opening match at Euro 2024 that “the extremes are knocking at the doors of power.”
Forward Marcus Thuram had earlier urged people to “fight daily” to prevent Bardella’s National Rally (RN) from gaining power.
Mbappe did not name the RN but said he supported the same values and position as Thuram.
“Kylian Mbappe is against extreme views and against ideas that divide people. I want to be proud to represent France, I don’t want to represent a country that doesn’t correspond to my values, or our values,” Mbappe said.
That call resonated with some youths in Mbappe’s old neighborhood, an underprivileged Paris suburb, but was immediately criticized by the RN.
Bardella was speaking a day after France won its Euro 2024 opening match in which Mbappe suffered a broken nose.
Bardella’s euroskeptic, anti-immigration party has its first real chance of winning national power in the June 30 and July 7 ballot. Opinion polls have consistently placed the RN first since President Emmanuel Macron’s shock decision this month to dissolve parliament.
Meanwhile, French Football Federation President Philippe Diallo told a press conference at the team’s camp in Germany that players were free to express their opinion. He urged political parties not to use these comments to their benefit.
French far-right leader Bardella slams Mbappe on election comments
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French far-right leader Bardella slams Mbappe on election comments
- “We must respect the French, we must respect everyone’s vote,” Bardella told CNews TV
- Forward Marcus Thuram had earlier urged people to “fight daily” to prevent Bardella’s National Rally (RN) from gaining power
French, German, Polish leaders to visit Moldova in show of force in face of Russia
French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk will meet Moldova’s President Maia Sandu to celebrate the country’s 34th independence day as she pushes for EU membership.
“This is a show of support by European leaders for Moldova as Russia ramps up its interference activities ahead of the high-stakes elections,” the Moldovan presidency said in a statement to AFP.
Sandu and her European allies have repeatedly accused Moscow of attempts to destabilize the former Soviet republic that lies between war-torn Ukraine and EU and NATO member Romania.
A vocal critic of Russia, in particular since the start of its invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Sandu has been steering Moldova through official EU accession talks that started in June 2024.
The three EU leaders will give a press statement alongside Sandu on Wednesday afternoon, before a dinner.
They will then give speeches during the official independence day celebrations held on Chisinau’s Independence Square, with a concert concluding the evening.
Macron, Merz and Tusk want to reaffirm their “support for Moldova’s independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity,” a French presidential adviser told journalists.
They also want to support Moldova’s “European trajectory.”
“We cannot ignore the consequences of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, which directly affects Moldova,” he said.
“Moldova is threatened by Russia,” he added, referring to Moscow’s “interference and meddling” and its “playbook” of “intimidation,” “sovereignty obstructions” and “exploitation of separatism.”
In the east of the country is the pro-Moscow separatist region of Transnistria, where Russian troops are stationed.
“The visit is really a strong sign of support, and it is a symbolic message to Russia that top European countries care and follow what happens here,” political analyst Valeriu Pasha of the Chisinau-based think tank Watchdog told AFP.
He added it was the first visit of the so-called Weimar Triangle leaders together in Moldova.
While Sandu’s PAS party is likely to top parliamentary elections at the end of September, the outcome is hard to predict given the “huge Russian interference in elections, with crazy amounts of money pumped in” amid voter concerns about economic difficulties and high inflation, Pasha said.
Sandu, re-elected for a second term in 2024, last month accused Russia of “preparing an unprecedented interference in the September elections” to “control Moldova from the fall.”
The interference includes vote buying and illicit financing through cryptocurrencies for which “100 million euros” have been earmarked, Sandu has alleged.
The three EU leaders’ visit comes as the US-led drive for Russia-Ukraine peace talks seems to be stalling.
Germany and France have both said the ball is now in Russian President Vladimir Putin’s court.
Microsoft protesters occupy president’s office as company reviews its work with Israel’s military
- Earlier this year, The Associated Press revealed previously unreported details about Microsoft’s close partnership with the Israeli Ministry of Defense, which uses Azure to transcribe, translate and process intelligence gathered through mass surveillance
REDMOND, Washington: Police arrested seven people Tuesday after they occupied the office of Microsoft President Brad Smith as part of continued protests over the company’s ties to the Israel Defense Forces during the ongoing war in Gaza, organizers said.
Current and former Microsoft employees were among those arrested, said the protest group No Azure for Apartheid. Azure is Microsoft’s primary cloud computing platform, and Microsoft has said it is reviewing a report in a British newspaper this month that Israel has used it to facilitate attacks on Palestinian targets.
The protesters could be seen huddled together on a Twitch livestream as officers moved in to arrest them. The video showed another group assembled outside.
During a media briefing Tuesday afternoon, Smith said two of those arrested were Microsoft employees.
Eighteen people were arrested in a similar protest in a plaza at the headquarters last week. The group has been protesting the company for months. Microsoft in May fired an employee who interrupted a speech by CEO Satya Nadella, and in April it fired two others who interrupted the company’s 50th anniversary celebration.
The group’s demands include that the company cut ties with Israel and pay reparations to Palestinians.
The British newspaper The Guardian reported this month that the Israel Defense Forces had used Microsoft’s Azure cloud computing platform to store phone call data obtained through the mass surveillance of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.
Microsoft has said it hired an outside law firm to investigate the allegations, but that its terms of service would prohibit such use.
“There are many things we can’t do to change the world, but we will do what we can and what we should,” Smith told reporters at a media briefing following Tuesday’s arrests. “That starts with ensuring that our human rights principles and contractual terms of service are upheld everywhere, by all of our customers around the world.”
Earlier this year, The Associated Press revealed previously unreported details about Microsoft’s close partnership with the Israeli Ministry of Defense, which uses Azure to transcribe, translate and process intelligence gathered through mass surveillance. The AP reported that the data can be cross-checked with Israel’s in-house, AI-enabled systems to help select targets.
Following The AP’s report, Microsoft said a review found no evidence that its Azure platform and artificial intelligence technologies were used to target or harm people in Gaza. Microsoft did not share a copy of that review, but the company said it would share factual findings from the further review prompted by The Guardian’s report when complete.
In the statement Tuesday, the protest groups said the disruptions were “to protest Microsoft’s active role in the genocide of Palestinians.”
Trump still weighing ‘very serious’ economic sanctions on Russia
- Trump suggested on Tuesday that he was open to “using a very strong tariff system that’s very costly to Russia or Ukraine” to make peace
WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump said on Tuesday he is prepared to impose economic sanctions against Russia if its president, Vladimir Putin, fails to agree to a ceasefire in the war in Ukraine.
“It’s very, very serious what I have in mind, if I have to do it, but I want to see it end,” Trump told a reporter who asked if Putin would face consequences. “We have economic sanctions. I’m talking about economic because we’re not going to get into a world war.”
The president has withheld long-threatened sanctions against Putin in his latest push to end the more than three-year-long war that has so far defied his efforts at mediation.
Trump is seeking one-on-one talks between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Putin. Though Zelensky has agreed in principle to such talks, Putin has not. The Kremlin has suggested no such meeting is currently on the cards.
“It will not be a world war, but it will be an economic war,” Trump said at a White House Cabinet meeting. “An economic war is going to be bad, and it’s going to be bad for Russia, and I don’t want that.”
He added: “Zelensky is not exactly innocent, either.”
Despite slow diplomatic progress, US and European officials have been discussing potential security guarantees that Washington might provide Kyiv after a hypothetical deal is reached, potentially including support by air or intelligence sharing.
Trump has long suggested using economic tools as leverage against warring nations. He is preparing to slap 25 percent more in tariffs on India’s US-bound exports on Wednesday over New Delhi’s Russian oil buying.
India is one of the biggest consumers of Russian oil.
Trump suggested on Tuesday that he was open to “using a very strong tariff system that’s very costly to Russia or Ukraine” to make peace.
Refugee group challenges Greece’s asylum freeze
- More than 10,000 people arrived in Greece from north Africa since the start of the year — more than double the number for the whole of last year, the UNHCR said
ATHENS: The Greek Council for Refugees on Tuesday questioned the legal basis of the government’s suspension of asylum claims to stem a surge in arrivals of irregular migrants.
Hundreds of migrants who have crossed the Mediterranean from north Africa have been detained since the freeze was introduced last month.
Organizations, including the UNHCR UN refugee agency, the Council of Europe and 109 non-profit groups claim the policy flouts international law.
But the government maintains it has helped to reduce migrant numbers.
Four Sudanese nationals detained in Athens are facing deportation but a court in the capital on Monday issued a provisional order to block their return, the refugees council said on Tuesday.
The European Court of Human Rights on August 14 also ordered Greece not to deport the men.
More than 10,000 people arrived in Greece from north Africa since the start of the year — more than double the number for the whole of last year, the UNHCR said.
Some 27 percent of the arrivals were from Sudan, which is stricken by civil war, while 47 percent came from Egypt.
“The clear message that the country will no longer give asylum for the next three months, and that immigrants will be detained, appears to have had an effect,” Migration Minister Thanos Plevris said on August 7.
Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis says his onservative government has been tightening immigration rules since it came to power in 2019.
Greece has been accused of illegally forcing the return of refugees or asylum seekers to Turkiye but the government has rejected the complaints.
Greece’s proximity to north Africa and the Middle East has long made it central to perilous migration routes to Europe for people escaping conflict, persecution and poverty.
India’s Election Commission under fire from opposition
- Gandhi, 55, said his party lost dozens of seats in the 2024 parliamentary elections because of vote rigging
- Over 100,000 “fake” votes were cast in the constituency, he said, courtesy of duplicate voters
NEW DELHI: The Election Commission of India, long regarded as the impartial guardian of the world’s largest democracy, is facing unprecedented scrutiny over its credibility and independence.
Opposition leaders and critics have alleged that large-scale rigging of elections is impacting the overall results of the vote.
The ECI has denied all charges, the first against it in India’s history.
Heading the charge is the leader of the opposition in New Delhi’s parliament, Rahul Gandhi of the Congress party, who previously alleged that India’s electronic voting machines are flawed.
Now Gandhi has accused the ECI of refusing to share digital voter records, detailing what he said was a list of errors after his supporters spent weeks combing through vast piles of registration lists by hand.
Gandhi, 55, said his party lost dozens of seats in the 2024 parliamentary elections because of vote rigging.
The largest democratic exercise in human history across the country of 1.4 billion people was staggered over six weeks.
Gandhi claimed that the ECI manipulated voter rolls to favor Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Modi, 74, won a historic third term last year but fell short of a majority.
The alleged rigging involved a string of tactics, according to Gandhi.
He said some people voted multiple times, citing bulk registrations from one dwelling and seemingly bogus addresses.
In a presentation to reporters on August 7, Gandhi pointed to a parliamentary constituency his party narrowly lost as an “open and shut” example of the alleged irregularities.
Over 100,000 “fake” votes were cast in the constituency, he said, courtesy of duplicate voters.
His Congress party lost the seat by just over 30,000 votes.
“Our demand from the ECI is clear — be transparent and release digital voter rolls so that people and parties can audit them,” Gandhi said.
The ECI has called Gandhi’s accusation “false and misleading.”
India’s chief election commissioner said they would “never” back down from their constitutional duties.
“Politics is being done using the Election Commission... as a tool to target India’s voters,” Gyanesh Kumar told a news conference this month.
“The Election Commission wants to make it clear that it fearlessly stands rock-solid with all voters... without any discrimination and will continue to do so.”
Kumar also said those alleging fraud either need to furnish proof under oath or apologize.
“An affidavit must be submitted or an apology to the nation must be made — there is no third option.”
Gandhi launched a month-long “voter rights” rally in the key battleground state of Bihar on August 17, receiving enthusiastic public response.
The allegations come ahead of elections in Bihar in October or November.
The opposition alleged the ECI had embarked on a “mass disenfranchisement” exercise, after it gave voters in the state just weeks to prove their citizenship, requiring documents that few possess in a registration revamp.
India’s top court stepped in last week, allowing a biometric ID most residents possess to be accepted in Bihar’s voter registration.
The “Special Intensive Revision” (SIR) of voter registration is set to be replicated across India.
Gandhi called the exercise in Bihar the “final conspiracy.”
Activists have reported finding numerous living voters declared dead by election officials, and entire families struck off draft lists.
Voter verification in Bihar is scheduled to be completed by September 25, with the final list released five days later.
“They aim to steal the elections by adding new voters under the guise of SIR and removing existing voters,” Gandhi said.
The ECI has defended the registration revision, saying it is in part to avoid “foreign illegal immigrants” from voting.
Members of Modi’s BJP have long claimed that large numbers of undocumented Muslim migrants from neighboring Bangladesh have fraudulently entered India’s electoral rolls.
Criticism mounted after the ECI replaced Bihar’s machine-readable voter records with scanned image files that do not allow text searches.
Critics said the changes made detecting anomalies more time-consuming and prone to error.
