Emmanuel Macron
Hasina embarks on 2-week visit to UK, France Sunday
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina will leave Dhaka on Sunday for the United Kingdom and France on a two-week visit.
During the visit, she will attend the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26), Bangladesh Investment Summit and hand over ‘Unesco-Bangladesh Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman International Prize for the Creative Economy’.
The Prime Minister will also hold bilateral meetings with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and French President Emmanuel Macron apart from other heads of state and government during her visit.
The Prime Minister will also hold a meeting with the UK's Prince Charles.
A VVIP flight of Biman Bangladesh Airlines, carrying the Prime Minister and her entourage, will depart Hazrat Shajalal International Airport at 9pm.
It will land at Glasgow International Airport in Scotland at 2:45pm (local time) where Bangladeshi High Commissioner to the UK Saida Muna Tasneem will welcome her.
Hasina will address the key segment of the COP26 on November 1 apart from joining the opening ceremony.
The same day, the Prime Minister will attend a joint meeting of the Climate Vulnerable Forum (CVF)- Commonwealth High Level Panel Discussion on Climate Prosperity Partnership.
Hasina will also attend a meeting titled “Action and Solidarity-the critical decade” at the invitation of her British counterpart Boris Johnson on November 1.
She will have a meeting with Commonwealth secretary general Particia Scotland, Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and Bill Gates, the founder of Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
She will attend a civic reception virtually arranged by the Bangladeshi Community living in Scotland.
Read: South Asian nations should work together: Hasina
On November 2, the Prime Minister will attend meetings titled “Women and Climate Change” and “Forging a CVF COP 26 Climate Emergency Pact”.
She will hold a bilateral meeting with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
She will have meetings with UK’s Prince Charles, First Minister of Scotland Nicola Sturgeon, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, speaker of Scottish Parliament Alison Johnstone.
Later, she will address “A Bangladesh Vision for Global Climate Prosperity”.
On November 3, she will leave Scotland for London by a Biman Bangladesh Airlines flight. It will take off at 12pm (local time) from Glasgow International Airport and land at Heathrow International Airport at 1:30pm.
Bangladeshi High Commissioner to the UK Saida Muna Tasneem will welcome her at the airport.
On the same day, she will go to Westminster where Rushanara Ali MP and Lord Gadhia will welcome her. She will have a courtesy call with British Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle.
On November 4, the Prime Minister will inaugurate the “Bangladesh Investment Summit 2021: Building Sustainable Growth Partnerships”.
She will also unveil the cover of two publications titled ‘Secret Documents’ (Vol i-ix) and ‘Mujib & Introduction’ and inaugurate an art exhibition titled “Bangabandhu and Britain: A Centenary Collection”.
On November 7, she will inaugurate the newly-expanded portion of Bangladesh High Commission and Bangabandhu Lounge there.
She will also attend a civic reception to be accorded to her by Bangladeshi expatriates living in the UK.
On November 9, she will leave London for Paris at 8am (local time) by a VVIP flight of Biman. It will land at De Gaulle International Airport at 11:15am (local time).
Read: Identify new market trends to diversify export: Hasina
Bangladesh Ambassador Khandaker Mohammad Talha will welcome her at the airport.
She will have a meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron at Elysee Palace and witness the signing of three MoUs/TCA/TA, and attend a joint press conference before joining lunch to be hosted by the French President. She will be given guard of honour there.
The Prime Minister will also have a bilateral meeting with French Prime Minister Jean Castex.
On November 10, Airbus CEO Guillaume Faury and Dassault Aviation president Eric Trappier, Thales president Patrice Caine will meet her at her place.
She will have a meeting with a delegation of French business organisation MEDEF. French Minister Florence Parly will also meet her.
Later in the afternoon, she will visit the French Senate where she will receive official reception during the ongoing Senate Session.
On November 11, Sheikh Hasina will attend the Paris Peace Forum.
Later, she will go to attend the “Unesco-Bangladesh Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman International Prize for the Creative Economy” awarding ceremony at the Unesco Headquarters.
From there she will go to Elysee Palace to attend the dinner to be hosted by French President Emmanuel Macron in honour of her.
On November 12, Sheikh Hasina will go to the Paris Peace Forum and attend a high-level panel discussion on South-South and Triangular Cooperation.
Later, she will go to the Unesco Headquarters to attend the inaugural session of the 75th Founding anniversary of Unesco where she will deliver her speech.
She will participate in the dinner to be hosted by Unesco Director General Audrey Azoulay in honour of heads of government and state.
On November 13, Sheikh Hasina will attend a civic reception to be accorded to her by the expatriate Bangladeshis living there.
In the afternoon, she will depart De Gaulle International Airport by a VVIP flight of Biman and land at Hazrat Shahjalal Airport at 10 am (local time) on November 14.
France says head of Islamic State in Sahara has been killed
France’s president announced the death of Islamic State in the Greater Sahara’s leader late Wednesday, calling Adnan Abu Walid al-Sahrawi’s killing “a major success” for the French military after more than eight years fighting extremists in the Sahel.
French President Emmanuel Macron tweeted that al-Sahrawi “was neutralized by French forces” but gave no further details. It was not announced where al-Sahrawi was killed, though the Islamic State group is active along the border between Mali and Niger.
“The nation is thinking tonight of all its heroes who died for France in the Sahel in the Serval and Barkhane operations, of the bereaved families, of all of its wounded,” Macron tweeted. “Their sacrifice is not in vain.”
Rumors of the militant leader’s death had circulated for weeks in Mali, though authorities in the region had not confirmed it. It was not immediately possible to independently verify the claim or to know how the remains had been identified.
Read:US airstrike targets Islamic State member in Afghanistan
“This is a decisive blow against this terrorist group,” French Defense Minister Florence Parly tweeted. “Our fight continues.”
Al-Sahrawi had claimed responsibility for a 2017 attack in Niger that killed four U.S. military personnel and four people with Niger’s military. His group also has abducted foreigners in the Sahel and is believed to still be holding American Jeffrey Woodke, who was abducted from his home in Niger in 2016.
The extremist leader was born in the disputed territory of Western Sahara and later joined the Polisario Front. After spending time in Algeria, he made his way to northern Mali where he became an important figure in the group known as MUJAO that controlled the major northern town of Gao in 2012.
A French-led military operation the following year ousted Islamic extremists from power in Gao and other northern cities, though those elements later regrouped and again carried out attacks.
Read: Islamic State degraded in Afghanistan but still poses threat
The Malian group MUJAO was loyal to the regional al-Qaida affiliate. But in 2015, al-Sahrawi released an audio message pledging allegiance to the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria.
The French military has been fighting Islamic extremists in the Sahel region where France was once the colonial power since the 2013 intervention in northern Mali. It recently announced, though, that it would be reducing its military presence in the region, with plans to withdraw 2,000 troops by early next year.
News of al-Sahrawi’s death comes as France’s global fight against the Islamic State organization is making headlines in Paris. The key defendant in the 2015 Paris attacks trial said Wednesday that those coordinated killings were in retaliation for French airstrikes on the Islamic State group, calling the deaths of 130 innocent people “nothing personal” as he acknowledged his role for the first time.
French rush to get vaccinated after president’s warning
More than 1 million people in France made vaccine appointments in less than a day, according to figures released Tuesday, after the president cranked up pressure on everyone to get vaccinated to save the summer vacation season and the French economy.
Some bristled at President Emmanuel Macron’s admonition to “get vaccinated!” immediately, but many people signed up for shots, accepting that getting injected was the only way to return to some semblance of pre-pandemic life.
French government spokesman Gabriel Attal, noting the latest virus surges from South Africa to South Korea, and vaccine shortages in many poorer countries, appealed to his compatriots Tuesday to “look at what’s happening in the world.”
Read:Malaysia shuts vaccination center after 204 staff infected
Macron also announced that special COVID-19 passes will be required starting in early August to enter restaurants and shopping malls and to get on trains and planes. The announcement raised questions and worries among foreign tourists and as residents of France planning vacations.
An app that centralizes France’s vaccine appointments, Doctolib, said Tuesday that 1.3 million people signed up for injections after Macron gave a televised address Monday night. It was a daily record since France rolled out coronavirus vaccines in December. People under age 35 made up most of the new appointments, Doctolib said.
Macron said vaccination would be obligatory for all health care workers by Sept. 15, and he held out the possibility of extending the requirement to others. Around 41% of the French population has been fully vaccinated, though the pace of shots being delivered has waned as summer vacations approached.
Government spokesman Attal insisted the vaccine mandate wasn’t meant to “stigmatize” reluctant health workers but to limit risks to the vulnerable populations they care for.
Some residents said the government’s vaccine push makes them feel safer. At a vaccine center Tuesday in Versailles, finance worker Thibault Razafinarivo, 26, said, “I have a newborn baby at home, and we don’t want to take any risks.” A 23-year-old who works in radiology said she wants to protect her family and her patients.
Read:Death toll rises to 92 in blaze at coronavirus ward in Iraq
Others, though, expressed frustration at the idea of mandatory vaccines or needing passes to go to a café.
“I’m getting vaccinated because I want to have a social life and go on holidays,” law student Marius Chavenon, 22, said, adding: “I don’t think vaccination should be compulsory. We live in France, we should be able to do what we want.”
In Paris, nurse Solene Manable said, “There are many health workers who don’t want to get vaccinated because we don’t know much about the vaccines.” But she said she understood “many people who are getting vaccinated to be able to go back to restaurants,...to be able to have a normal life again.”
Some people said they’re now getting vaccinated because Macron also announced that France will start charging money for some virus tests, which up to now have all been free for anyone in French territory.
To get the COVID pass that will soon be required in all restaurants, people must have proof of vaccination or recent virus infection, or a negative test from the last 48 hours.
Read:US COVID-19 cases rising again, doubling over three weeks
Restaurant and bar unions demanded a delay for the passes, and government officials were meeting with industry representatives Tuesday. Restaurant workers expressed concern with enforcing the requirement and fear it could scare customers away after all French eating establishments stayed shuttered for nine months from the pandemic’s onset.
Health Minister Olivier Veran defended the new rule, saying, “The question is: It’s lockdown or the health pass.”
He also welcomed the renewed vaccine interest, saying on BFM television Tuesday: “That’s thousands of lives saved.”
More than 111,000 people with the virus have died in France.
Slap to Macron puts focus on ultra-right groups
Bubbling beneath France’s political landscape is an assortment of ultra-right groups, a subculture that shot to the nation’s attention when a young man slapped President Emmanuel Macron and blurted out a centuries-old royalist cry.
Ultra-rightist groups are considered increasingly dangerous despite their small following and are on the radar of authorities. Numerous arrests have been made and several groups banned. Challenges to the French identity are often at the center of their ideologies.
During Wednesday’s Cabinet meeting, Macron stressed the incident a day earlier was “an isolated act by a violent individual” that wouldn’t stop his direct contact with the population.
“No violence can be considered banal in the country,” government spokesman Gabriel Attal said.
Read:French leader Macron is slapped during visit to small town
The town of Tain-l’Hermitage, where the assault occurred, was the president’s most recent stop on a tour designed to “feel the pulse of the country” that’s been laid low by the coronavirus and trying to get back on its feet.
Damien Tarel, 28, the man who slapped the president, and a second man, identified only as Arthur C., also 28, were quickly arrested. Neither had police records, the local prosecutor said.
Tarel told investigators he struck out without thinking, the prosecutor’s office said. He is to appear in court Thursday on a charge of violence against a person invested with public authority.
While Tarel’s motives remained unclear, it was his Medieval-era cry “Montjoie! Saint Denis!” as he slapped Macron’s cheek, that pointed to the aggressor’s potential interest in the tiny royalist fringe movement. Social media posts showed he followed royalist TV channels and a smattering of extreme-right figures.
At the home of Arthur C, police found weapons, old books on the art of war, a copy of Adolf Hitler’s manifesto “Mein Kampf,” and two flags, one symbolizing Communists and another of the Russian revolution, the prosecutor’s office said. He is to be summoned to court next year for illegal possession of arms.
Tarel told investigators he was close to the Yellow Vest movement for social and economic justice, but also held right- or ultra-right political convictions without being a member of a party or group, according to a statement by the prosecutor’s office.
Read: Virus-stricken Macron at presidential retreat with fever
“Testimony of witnesses and (Tarel’s) companion do not add clarity to what motivated” the suspect to slap Macron, the prosecutor’s office said.
In 2018, the royalist call-to-arms dating to Medieval times was cried out by someone who threw a cream pie at the far-left lawmaker, Eric Coquerel. The extreme-right pro-monarchist group Action Francaise took responsibility. Action Francaise did not claim a role in Tuesday’s slapping incident, but hours later tweeted, “Vive la tarte a Tain,” a play on words combining the slang for “slap” (tarte), the French apple desert, tarte tatin, and Tain-l’Hermitage, where the incident occurred.
Far-right leader Marine Le Pen was among political chiefs to quickly condemn the assault. Le Pen, a candidate in 2022 presidential elections, has spent years working to rid her National Rally party of extremist elements who gravitated around her father’s National Front party, which she renamed.
Obscure to most of France, ultra-right movements are a priority on the radar of investigators.
A probe into an alleged plot uncovered in 2018 against Macron by a mini-group whose members were scattered around France is still in progress. The group, known as Les Barjols, was ordered disbanded.
Mediapart, an online investigative outlet, reported last month that investigators are on alert for the eventual return of ultra-right terrorists. It cited a confidential report from the prosecutor’s office detailing the professionalism and ability to obtain weapons by some groups. It said 17 deaths can be attributed to the ultra-right between 2016-2019, and quoted investigators as counting about 1,000 militants and 2,000 followers of the ultra-right.
Read:Macron's 'republican values' ultimatum to French Muslims
In March, France banned Generation Identity, citing its ideology “inciting hate, violence or discrimination of individuals ... based on origins, race or religion.” The organization was known for spectacular actions to get out its anti-migrant message in what it claimed was a mission to preserve French and European civilization.
Tarel’s social media profile showed an interest in medieval combat and martial arts, confirmed by a friend in an interview on BFMTV. The friend, identified only as Loic, said he was “stunned” by the slap. In October 2018, Tarel put out a call on a social media platform for funds for an association of Medieval martial arts in the town where he and Arthur C. were born and live, Saint-Vallier, with a population of under 4,000.
Four hours before Tuesday’s assault, a TV news show, Le Quotidien, broadcast a brief clip of Tarel, Arthur C. and another man waiting to see Macron. Neither Tarel nor Arthur C. spoke, but the third person said: “There are things that should be said, but unfortunately cannot be said.”
Among the issues, he said, was “the decline of France.”
French leader Macron is slapped during visit to small town
French President Emmanuel Macron was slapped Tuesday in the face by a man during a visit to a small town in southeast France.
Macron’s office confirmed a video that is widely circulating online.
The French president can be seen greeting the public waiting for him behind traffic barriers in the small town of Tain-l’Hermitage after he visited a high school that is training students to work in hotels and restaurants.
The video shows a man slapping Macron in the face and his bodyguards pushing the man away as the French leader is quickly rushed from the scene.
French news broadcaster BFM TV said two people have been detained by police in the assault.
Macron has not commented yet on the incident and continued his visit.
Speaking at the National Assembly, Prime Minister Jean Castex said “through the head of state, that’s democracy that has been targeted,” in comments prompting loud applauds from lawmakers from all ranks, standing up in a show of support.
“Democracy is about debate, dialogue, confrontation of ideas, expression of legitimate disagreements, of course, but in no case it can be violence, verbal assault and even less physical assault,” Castex said.
Far-right leader Marine Le Pen firmly condemned on Twitter “the intolerable physical aggression targeting the president of the Republic.”
Visibly fuming, she said later that while Macron is her top political adversary, the assault was “deeply, deeply reprehensible.”
Less than one year before France’s next presidential election and as the country is gradually reopening its pandemic-hit economy, Macron last week started a political “tour de France,” seeking to visit French regions in the coming months to “feel the pulse of the country.”
Macron has said in an interview he wanted to engage with people in a mass consultation with the French public aimed at “turning the page” of the pandemic — and preparing his possible campaign for a second term.
The attack follows mounting concerns in France about violence targeting elected officials, particularly after the often-violent “yellow vest” economic protest movement that repeatedly clashed with riot officers in 2019.
Village mayors and lawmakers have been among those targeted by physical assaults, death threats and harassment.
But France’s well-protected head of state has been spared until now, which compounded the shockwaves that rippled through French politics in the wake of the attack.
Bangabandhu would have been proud of Bangladesh’s achievements: Macron
Appreciating Bangladesh's progress, President of France Emmanuel Macron has said Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman would undoubtedly have been proud of Bangladesh’s achievements.
"Bangladesh indeed deserves our admiration for the progress made in economic and human development, including in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic," he said in a message sent to President Abdul Hamid.
On the occasion of the National Day of Bangladesh, he sent the message on his behalf and the people of France with warm congratulations.
"Bangladesh is celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of its declaration of independence on March 26. This important date in the history of a young and promising State was made possible thanks to the admirable courage of the Bengali people to defend their cultural heritage and freedom at the call of the Father of the Bangladeshi Nation," said the President of France.
Also read: Curtain falls on 10-day celebration marking golden jubilee, Bangabandhu’s birth centenary
In 1971, Macron said, André Malraux called on the world to support the freedom of the Bengalis.
"Half a century later, Bangladesh can be proud of its achievements, and France remains ready to best meet its needs in the areas of the environment, energy, telecommunications, the blue economy and sovereignty in matters of defense and security, in the spirit of an inclusive, open and secure Indo-Pacific space," he said.
President Macron said the Bangladeshi government and people have shown their generosity by welcoming the Rohingyas forced to flee, once again, Myanmar in 2017.
"Your country has asserted itself as a responsible power: it is the main provider of troops for the peacekeeping operations in the world; it defends multilateralism and the norms of international law; it is committed to the defense of the environment and access to essential global public goods, such as health," he said.
He renewed his congratulations to President Hamid and the people of Bangladesh on the fiftieth anniversary of Bangladesh.
France to announce new virus restrictions in Paris region
France is set to announce new coronavirus restrictions on Thursday, including a potential lockdown in the Paris region and in the north of the country, as the number of COVID-19 patients in intensive care units spikes.
Virus-stricken Macron at presidential retreat with fever
As French President Emmanuel Macron rides out the coronavirus in a presidential retreat at Versailles, French doctors are warning families who are heading for the holidays to remain cautious because of an uptick in infections — especially at the dinner table.
Major global developments in a year of Covid-19
In a year dominated by Covid-19, many other developments including China’s crackdown on Hong Kong’s democracy, an apocalyptic explosion in Beirut, and a tumultuous US presidential election unfolded.
Uproar in France over proposed limits on filming police
French activists fear that a proposed new security law will deprive them of a potent weapon against abuse — cellphone videos of police activity — threatening their efforts to document possible cases of police brutality, especially in impoverished immigrant neighborhoods.