Kigali, Rwanda | AFP | Rwandan President Paul Kagame has met with his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron in New York for rare talks, Kigali said Tuesday, as diplomatic ties remain icy over the 1994 genocide. Kigali has long accused France of complicity in the genocide of some 800,000 mostly ethnic …
Read More »France gets First Dog: Macron adopts labrador mix Nemo
Paris, France | AFP | In keeping with time-honoured French presidential tradition, Emmanuel Macron has given the country a First Dog. The 39-year-old president and his wife Brigitte adopted a black labrador-griffon mix at the weekend, whom they have named Nemo after the captain in Jules Verne’s science fiction classic, Twenty …
Read More »Macron courts the stars; meets Rihanna on education
Paris, France | AFP | France’s Emmanuel Macron continued to reach for the stars Wednesday, hosting R&B icon Rihanna for what she called “incredible” talks at the presidential palace in Paris two days after Irish rocker Bono. Barbados-born Rihanna is an ambassador for the Global Partnership for Education, which is …
Read More »Macron puts France top of ‘soft power’ rankings: survey
Paris, France | AFP | France has leapfrogged the United States and Britain as the world’s top so-called soft power, helped by the election of President Emmanuel Macron, a study of countries’ non-military global influence showed Tuesday. While France has risen, Donald Trump’s ascent to the White House has seen the …
Read More »Merkel, Macron put defence at heart of blooming ties
Paris, France | AFP | France and Germany agreed Thursday to begin work on a joint fighter jet, a major advance in their relations designed to underline their united front in the face of fracturing Western relations. Newly elected French President Emmanuel Macron welcomed German Chancellor Angela Merkel to the …
Read More »Macron to slash France’s MPs by a third as part of political shake-up
Versailles, France | AFP | President Emmanuel Macron on Monday promised a “profound transformation” of French politics, proposing to slash by a third the number of MPs, and telling lawmakers he would call a referendum if they do not agree. In his first address to members of the National Assembly …
Read More »Macron stumbles at EU summit over Chinese investments
Brussels, Belgium |AFP | EU leaders on Friday poured cold water on a proposal by French President Emmanuel Macron to hand Brussels more powers to control Chinese investments in strategic European industries. European leaders discussed the divisive topic on the second day of an EU summit in Brussels, as Europe …
Read More »Macron: France’s youngest president resets French politics
Paris, France | AFP | He’s the man with the Midas touch — and French President Emmanuel Macron proved it again Sunday when his party secured a huge parliamentary election giving him a free hand to push through his programme. Just four weeks after taking office and 14 months after …
Read More »Rwanda-born Berville is French MP as Macron secures majority
Rwanda-born Berville is MP as Macron marches to clear majority in French parliament Paris, France | AFP | French President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist party swept to a large majority in parliamentary elections on Sunday, although it fell short of a predicted landslide. Macron’s year-old Republique en Marche (Republic on the …
Read More »ANALYSIS: ‘Macron-mania’ prompts talk of herd mentality
Paris, France | AFP | The theory has been aired several times over the last week: French voters are so desperate for change and for new President Emmanuel Macron to succeed that they are blindly electing his party’s candidates to parliament. Polls suggest that Macron’s Republic on the Move (REM) …
Read More »