Author: DW

The various campaign promises being made by the far right and far left ahead of France’s snap elections on June 30 and July 7 all have something in common: they will all be very, very expensive to carry out. Whether they call for lowering the retirement age back to 60, raising the minimum wage or granting blanket tax exemptions to everyone under 30, each campaign promise is another potential multi-billion-euro threat to France’s already empty coffers. But where will the money come from? Neither the far right nor the far left has an answer. Friedrich Heinemann, a public finance expert at the German-based Leibniz…

It is fair to say the people of France weren’t expecting to vote in a national election this summer.It is also fair to suggest the result will probably come as a shock – both to the nation and the rest of the world – with the electorate now strongly favouring the hard right. The party of Marine Le Pen, called National Rally, is well ahead in the polls with some 37% of decided voters.A coalition of parties on the left, called New Popular Front, stand on 28% while President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist Together block is well behind on 20%.Just two…

German authorities have carried out about 830,000 border checks in the time frame between the beginning of Euro 2024 and June 7, police said. German police chief Dieter Romann shared the figures on Friday, adding that 603 people had been arrested for offenses ranging from failure to make maintenance payments to homicide. Romann said about 85 people were stopped at border checks for crimes such as international terrorism as well as left-wing and right-wing extremism. He also added that 86 people were turned back at the border for hooliganism. Until Thursday, about 3,261 were not allowed to enter out of 4,659 unauthorized entries.…

In a corner of Tenerife, a winding, narrow road takes you towards a small village called Masca. At points on the route, the view of the sea below and the mountains above is breathtaking.This place, with its handful of houses and cafes, nestled among ravines and rockfaces, is about a 40-minute drive from the parts of the island most British tourists know, but it might as well be a world away. There isn’t the bustle of the resort towns in the south, with their clubs and bars. Instead, there are vast expanses of land that are arid and difficult to…

German authorities have carried out about 830,000 border checks in the time frame between the beginning of Euro 2024 until June 7, police said. German police chief Dieter Romann shared the numbers on Friday, adding that 603 people had been arrested for offenses ranging from failure to make maintenance payments to homicide. Romann said about 85 people were stopped at border checks for crimes such as international terrorism as well as left-wing and right-wing extremism. He also added that 86 people were turned back at the border for hooliganism. Until Thursday, about 3,261 were not allowed to enter out of 4,659…

General Juan Jose Zuniga, who led a failed coup attempt in La Paz earlier this week, will be held in “preventive detention” for six months, a top prosecutor said on Friday. The former army general was handed a terrorism charge, which carries 15-20 years in prison, as well as a charge for an armed uprising, the Reuters news agency cited state prosecutor Cesar Siles as saying. What do we know about Zuniga’s detention? Siles said that the Attorney General’s Office requested pretrial detention for six months. Others, including the Defense Ministry and Interior Ministry, supported the request “due to the importance and seriousness of the events…

In France, politics is happening at a ferocious pace.This country – big, wealthy, influential and vital to the stability of Europe – is suddenly facing a moment of tumult. Change, and perhaps really big change, is looming. There are election posters up everywhere, candidates staring out at you with fixed grins and slogans. But there is one face that seems to appear more than anyone else – Marine Le Pen. Image: Posters of Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella A fixture in French politics for a quarter of a century, she has stood for president, rebuilt her party, and even…

On the pier in California’s Manhattan Beach, 21-year-old Stella and her friends are crowded round a phone watching videos of two old men rowing about their golf handicap.It’s not the level of discourse they, or anyone else, hoped for from the presidential debate. “It sounds like a drunk, blackout conversation they’re having at 3am,” one young woman says.”I think Joe Biden is cognitively declining,” says another. “I think he was never fit to be president, and I don’t think he is now. I think there’s a clear, obvious answer to who is fit and that is Trump 2024.” Image: Stella…

There was very little fanfare around Germany’s chances of winning a fourth European Championship before the start of Euro 2024.Expectations were low as the team has had a difficult build-up to the tournament. They’ve also faced the footballing nightmares of recent major tournaments where they went out in the group stage in the last two World Cups and then in the last 16 to England at Euro 2020.That mood has changed.A comfortable passage through the group stages, including victories over Scotland and Hungary, has sparked a belief that they can become the most successful nation in Europe. Julian Naglesman, who…

Pollution levels in the Seine River in Paris remain well above what is allowed for bathing, according to a water quality report released on Friday. The report, completed last week and released by the Paris mayor’s office, comes less than a month before the Olympic Games, in which the French capital’s iconic waterway is set to see athletes dive into the waters for swimming events. “Water quality continues to be impaired due to unfavourable hydrological conditions — rainfall, high flow velocity, low solar radiation, temperatures below the seasonal norm and pollution in the upper reaches of the river,” the report stated.Is everyone welcome…