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Category: France

  • Prosecutors urged to examine French role in Egyptian airstrikes on civilians

    NGOs want investigation into border counter-terrorism operation that allegedly ended up bombing suspected smugglers

    Two international NGOs have asked French prosecutors and the UN to investigate the French state’s involvement in Egypt allegedly committing crimes against humanity in a secret military operation on the Egyptian-Libyan border.

    A 2021 leak appeared to show how French officers complained they were being asked to facilitate Egyptian airstrikes, codenamed Operation Sirli, on the Egyptian-Libyan border, even though the original counter-terrorism purpose had been subverted by the Egyptian military into taking out vehicles containing nothing more than contraband. Dozens are estimated to have been killed or injured.

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • France must rethink case of IS-linked women refused re-entry, rules ECHR

    Families argued detention in Syria exposed the two women and their children to inhumane treatment

    The European court of human rights has condemned France over its refusal to repatriate French women who travelled to Syria with their partners to join Islamic State and are currently being held with their children at Kurdish-run prison camps.

    The ruling will be studied closely by other countries who still have citizens detained in camps in north-eastern Syria, including the UK.

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • France defers referendum on new statute for New Caledonia Kanaky

    RNZ Pacific

    Plans to hold a referendum in Kanaky New Caledonia next year on a new statute for the territory are being deferred.

    French Junior Overseas Minister Jean-Francois Carenco told the television station Caledonia that there would be no referendum in July.

    Carenco said a vote would happen once everybody is ready, noting there had been no dialogue for two years to advance matters.

    Last December, Paris said a new statute would be drawn up and put to a vote in June after 96 percent of voters rejected independence from France in the third and last referendum under the 1998 Noumea Accord.

    However, the vote was boycotted by the pro-independence camp after France dismissed pleas to postpone it because of the impact of the covid-19 pandemic on the indigenous Kanak population.

    Pro-independence parties refuse to recognise the result and reject any discussions about reintegrating New Caledonia into France while insisting that the decolonisation process was yet to be completed.

    Until there is a new statute, the institutional framework of the Noumea Accord, with its restricted electoral roll, remains in place.

    Carenco is the first French minister to visit New Caledonia since the re-election of President Emmanuel Macron in April.

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Peace Talks Essential as War Rages on in Ukraine 

    Peace talks in Turkey, March 2022. Photo credit: Murat Cetin Muhurdar / Turkish Presidential Press Service / AFP

    Six months ago, Russia invaded Ukraine. The United States, NATO and the European Union (EU) wrapped themselves in the Ukrainian flag, shelled out billions for arms shipments, and imposed draconian sanctions intended to severely punish Russia for its aggression.

    Since then, the people of Ukraine have been paying a price for this war that few of their supporters in the West can possibly imagine. Wars do not follow scripts, and Russia, Ukraine, the United States, NATO and the European Union have all encountered unexpected setbacks.

    Western sanctions have had mixed results, inflicting severe economic damage on Europe as well as on Russia, while the invasion and the West’s response to it have combined to trigger a food crisis across the Global South. As winter approaches, the prospect of another six months of war and sanctions threatens to plunge Europe into a serious energy crisis and poorer countries into famine. So it is in the interest of all involved to urgently reassess the possibilities of ending this protracted conflict.

    For those who say negotiations are impossible, we have only to look at the talks that took place during the first month after the Russian invasion, when Russia and Ukraine tentatively agreed to a fifteen-point peace plan in talks mediated by Turkey. Details still had to be worked out, but the framework and the political will were there.

    Russia was ready to withdraw from all of Ukraine, except for Crimea and the self-declared republics in Donbas. Ukraine was ready to renounce future membership in NATO and adopt a position of neutrality between Russia and NATO.

    The agreed framework provided for political transitions in Crimea and Donbas that both sides would accept and recognize, based on self-determination for the people of those regions. The future security of Ukraine was to be guaranteed by a group of other countries, but Ukraine would not host foreign military bases on its territory.

    On March 27, President Zelenskyy told a national TV audience, “Our goal is obvious—peace and the restoration of normal life in our native state as soon as possible.” He laid out his “red lines” for the negotiations on TV to reassure his people he would not concede too much, and he promised them a referendum on the neutrality agreement before it would take effect.

    Such early success for a peace initiative was no surprise to conflict resolution specialists. The best chance for a negotiated peace settlement is generally during the first months of a war. Each month that a war rages on offers reduced chances for peace, as each side highlights the atrocities of the other, hostility becomes entrenched and positions harden.

    The abandonment of that early peace initiative stands as one of the great tragedies of this conflict, and the full scale of that tragedy will only become clear over time as the war rages on and its dreadful consequences accumulate.

    Ukrainian and Turkish sources have revealed that the U.K. and U.S. governments played decisive roles in torpedoing those early prospects for peace. During U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s “surprise visit” to Kyiv on April 9th, he reportedly told Prime Minister Zelenskyy that the U.K. was “in it for the long run,” that it would not be party to any agreement between Russia and Ukraine, and that the “collective West” saw a chance to “press” Russia and was determined to make the most of it.

    The same message was reiterated by U.S. Defense Secretary Austin, who followed Johnson to Kyiv on April 25 and made it clear that the U.S. and NATO were no longer just trying to help Ukraine defend itself but were now committed to using the war to “weaken” Russia. Turkish diplomats told retired British diplomat Craig Murray that these messages from the United States and United Kingdom killed their otherwise promising efforts to mediate a ceasefire and a diplomatic resolution.

    In response to the invasion, much of the public in Western countries accepted the moral imperative of supporting Ukraine as a victim of Russian aggression. But the decision by the U.S. and British governments to kill peace talks and prolong the war, with all the horror, pain and misery that entails for the people of Ukraine, has neither been explained to the public, nor endorsed by a consensus of NATO countries. Johnson claimed to be speaking for the “collective West,” but in May, the leaders of France, Germany and Italy all made public statements that contradicted his claim.

    Addressing the European Parliament on May 9, French President Emmanuel Macron declared, “We are not at war with Russia,” and that Europe’s duty was “to stand with Ukraine to achieve the cease-fire, then build peace.”

    Meeting with President Biden at the White House on May 10, Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi told reporters, “People… want to think about the possibility of bringing a cease-fire and starting again some credible negotiations. That’s the situation right now. I think that we have to think deeply about how to address this.”

    After speaking by phone with President Putin on May 13, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz tweeted that he told Putin, “There must be a cease-fire in Ukraine as quickly as possible”

    But American and British officials continued to pour cold water on talk of renewed peace negotiations. The policy shift in April appears to have involved a commitment by Zelenskyy that Ukraine, like the U.K. and U.S., was “in it for the long run” and would fight on, possibly for many years, in exchange for the promise of tens of billions of dollars worth of weapons shipments, military training, satellite intelligence and Western covert operations.

    As the implications of this fateful agreement became clearer, dissent began to emerge, even within the U.S. business and media establishment. On May 19, the very day that Congress appropriated $40 billion for Ukraine, including $19 billion for new weapons shipments, with not a single dissenting Democratic vote, the New York Times editorial board penned a lead editorial titled, “The war in Ukraine is getting complicated, and America isn’t ready.”

    The Times asked serious unanswered questions about U.S. goals in Ukraine, and tried to reel back unrealistic expectations built up by three months of one-sided Western propaganda, not least from its own pages. The board acknowledged, “A decisive military victory for Ukraine over Russia, in which Ukraine regains all the territory Russia has seized since 2014, is not a realistic goal.… Unrealistic expectations could draw [the United States and NATO] ever deeper into a costly, drawn-out war.”

    More recently, warhawk Henry Kissinger, of all people, publicly questioned the entire U.S. policy of reviving its Cold War with Russia and China and the absence of a clear purpose or endgame short of World War III. “We are at the edge of war with Russia and China on issues which we partly created, without any concept of how this is going to end or what it’s supposed to lead to,” Kissinger told The Wall Street Journal.

    U.S. leaders have inflated the danger that Russia poses to its neighbors and the West, deliberately treating it as an enemy with whom diplomacy or cooperation would be futile, rather than as a neighbor raising understandable defensive concerns over NATO expansion and its gradual encirclement by U.S. and allied military forces.

    Far from aiming to deter Russia from dangerous or destabilizing actions, successive administrations of both parties have sought every means available to “overextend and unbalance” Russia, all the while misleading the American public into supporting an ever-escalating and unthinkably dangerous conflict between our two countries, which together possess more than 90% of the world’s nuclear weapons.

    After six months of a U.S. and NATO proxy war with Russia in Ukraine, we are at a crossroads. Further escalation should be unthinkable, but so should a long war of endless crushing artillery barrages and brutal urban and trench warfare that slowly and agonizingly destroys Ukraine, killing hundreds of Ukrainians with each day that passes.

    The only realistic alternative to this endless slaughter is a return to peace talks to bring the fighting to an end, find reasonable political solutions to Ukraine’s political divisions, and seek a peaceful framework for the underlying geopolitical competition between the United States, Russia and China.

    Campaigns to demonize, threaten and pressure our enemies can only serve to cement hostility and set the stage for war. People of good will can bridge even the most entrenched divisions and overcome existential dangers, as long as they are willing to talk — and listen — to their adversaries.

    The post Peace Talks Essential as War Rages on in Ukraine  first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Fossil Fuel Ad Ban In France Has Loopholes, Says Greenpeace

    gas pump
    4 Mins Read

    In a move that was heralded as a sign of the times amid dangerous heat waves and flooding across the globe as a result of climate change, France became the first European country to ban fossil fuel ads. But the environmental group Greenpeace among others, says it provides too much leeway for the industry.

    Under the new law, which passed last month, energy products related to fossil fuels including oil, coal, and hydrogen-containing carbons, are banned across France. Penalties include fines ranging from €20,000 and €100,000 with them doubling for repeat offenses.

    Fossil fuel ads

    The ban was proposed as part of a 150-person assembly in 2019 aimed at reducing exposure to companies that promote fossil fuels linked to climate change. Globally, energy is the leading source of greenhouse gas emissions at more than 30 percent.

    But the law is facing backlash from the groups that pushed for its existence in the first place. The environmental group Greenpeace pushed for the legislation several years ago as part the country’s efforts to address climate change.

    Now, the group is saying the legislation doesn’t do enough to properly address greenwashing.

    “You will read everywhere that advertising for fossil fuels is now prohibited, but that’s not true,” Greenpeace France tweeted after the country announced the ban.

    Total ad.

    “Ads for gas can continue, patronage, sponsorship, institutional communication and financial advertising on fossil products remain authorised.”

    François Chartier, an oil campaigner at Greenpeace called the move political greenwashing. “This is not a law that is going to bring about change,” he said.

    The group says companies have room to skirt the ban such as signing on as sponsors for events. And natural gas that contains 50 percent biogas has no restrictions at all.

    “This is not a law that is going to bring about change,” François Chartier, oceans campaigner for Greenpeace France, told The Times of London. He points to Total, leading French energy company, which will still be allowed to sponsor next year’s Rugby World Cup, which will include ads seen by hundreds of millions of viewers. The last tournament in 2019 drew nearly 900 million viewers across the globe.

    Photo by Markus Spiske at Pexels.

    “According to legal and regulatory standards, environmental claims in advertising must match scientific evidence. Often, this is as much about what adverts don’t say as what they do say,” Johnny White, a lawyer from Client Earth and Jonathan Wise, co-founder of Purpose Disruptors, write in The Drum.

    “The evidence is unequivocal that we must phase out fossil fuels for a fair chance at a liveable future. But too many fossil fuel companies are heading in the opposite direction – expanding production at a rate that will blow the world’s carbon budget,” said Wise and White.

    Climate change tipping point

    They say recent protests by Greenpeace and the “wave of anti-green-washing litigation and regulation,” is moving the industry toward an “inevitable” tipping point.

    “This moment is the one where one agency or network group sees there are greater rewards in severing its ties with fossil fuel companies than maintaining them,” they write. “The question is: who is going to be the leader, and who is going to be left as laggards?”

    Mumbai to Go Net-Zero: 'We Don't Have the Luxury of Time'
    Atharva Tulsi on Unsplash

    The Climate Action Network (CAN) also criticized the legislation, calling it “potentially costly.” The group say billions of euros could be “diverted away from investing in a just transition to a sustainable economy to finance the construction of new nuclear and fossil gas power plants, until at least 2045 and 2030 respectively.”

    It says nuclear power does not meet the principle of “do no harm” to the environment.

    “Fossil gas is a proven source of greenhouse gas emissions and its consumption should be reduced by 30 percent by 2030 to reach the European climate target,” CAN said.

    “To consider it as useful for the transition is a dangerous misstep that would divert the European Union from its climate target.”

    Featured photo by Erik Mclean on Unsplash

    The post Fossil Fuel Ad Ban In France Has Loopholes, Says Greenpeace appeared first on Green Queen.

    This post was originally published on Green Queen.

  • Jean Luc Mélenchon and the France Insoumise

    Around 5000 people attended the radical left summer school of the France Insoumise (FI), held at the end of August at Valence in the South of France, reports John Mullen.

  • Pro-independence Kanaks sign pact with West Papuan movement

    RNZ Pacific

    New Caledonia’s pro-independence FLNKS (Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front) has signed a memorandum of understanding with the United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP), which wants independence from Indonesia.

    The Kanak-Papuan deal was signed by Roch Wamytan, President of New Caledonia’s Congress, and the visiting ULMWP leader Benny Wenda.

    Wamytan told La Premiere television in Noumea that both territories were involved in a process of decolonisation and emancipation — one with France, the other with Indonesia.

    “We have signed this accord because each of us are confronted by a process of decolonisation and emancipation. The people of Papua with Indonesia and us with the French state,” he said.

    “This process of decolonisation has not ended for us, it has been ruptured over time, to say the least.”

    The memorandum aims to support each other internationally and to develop a list of common goals.

    Indonesia took over the western half of New Guinea island after a controversial 1969 UN-backed referendum that is rejected as a sham by Papuans, with West Papuan activists now seeking inscription on the UN decolonisation list.

    New Caledonia has been on the UN decolonisation list since 1986, and between 2018 and 2021 has held three referendums on independence from France.

    Wenda visited Vanuatu on the first leg of his Pacific trip from his exiled base in London.

    He was a guest of the Vanuatu West Papua Independence Committee.

    FLNKS will boycott Paris talks
    New Caledonia’s pro-independence FLNKS movement said it would not attend talks in September of the signatories to the 1998 Noumea Accord in Paris.

    West Papuan independence leader Benny Wenda
    West Papuan independence leader Benny Wenda … supporting each other internationally. Image: Koroi Hawkins/RNZ Pacific

    A special meeting of the movement’s leadership decided at the weekend that legitimate talks would now have to be bilateral ones, involving the FLNKS and France as the colonising state.

    Newly-elected FLNKS Congress member Laura Humunie said bilateral talks were the only formal way to get their message to the French state.

    “We repeat, that to obtain bilateral talks we will not go to Paris because for us this is the legitimate way of talking to the French colonial state,” she said.

    “Our loyalist partners who have signed the ‘no’ referendum, means that they align with the French state’s ideals.”

    Last December, more than 96 percent voted against independence from France in a referendum boycotted by the pro-independence parties, which refuse to recognise the result as the legitimate outcome of the decolonisation process.

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

    West Papuan leader Benny Wenda
    West Papuan leader Benny Wenda (red shirt) signing the memorandum of understanding with the FLNKS. Image: FLNKS

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • AFD: How to link human rights and development

    The French Development Agency (AFD) organised an international conference to consider new ideas and approaches to linking human rights and development

    Report by Marc Limon, Executive Director of the Universal Rights Group on July 8, 2022

    Against a background of the retreat of human rights worldwide, growing doubts about the ability of the international community to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030, growing inequalities, and the ecological and climate crises, on Human Rights Day 2021 (10 December) the French Development Agency (AFD) organised an international conference on ‘Human Rights and Development.’ It brought together 500 actors from the development community, covering both the global North and South, and considered how development actors can play a key role in securing improvements in the enjoyment of human rights while at the same time recharging progress towards the achievement of the SDGs ‘leaving no one behind.’

    Key conclusions

    Warning of the risk of failure of the 2030 Agenda if development actors do not promote a development model based on human rights, participants unanimously recommended moving away from both a solely economic vision of development and a purely normative approach to human rights. In that regard, they called for more concerted action to enhance development actors’ contribution to the realisation of human rights on the ground, and to develop more robust indicators for measuring the impact of the human rights based approaches (HRBA).

    Notwithstanding, several recalled the challenges involved in convincing partners of the value-added of integrating human rights with the development agenda, and recommended undertaking research actions to provide evidence.

    Panellists further emphasised that human rights constitute a universal framework that goes beyond the North/South divide and is applicable to all. They noted a strong demand for improvements in the enjoyment of human rights in the global South as evidenced by growing social movements often led by young people. The universal nature of human rights makes it possible to fight against arbitrariness by guaranteeing a minimum essential base for everyone without discrimination. The international corpus of human rights contributes, in this sense, to reducing inequalities, so that everyone can lead a decent and dignified life. This must be reflected in the fiscal resource mobilisation policies of States, but also in their budgetary policies for social investment in health, education and social protection. States and development actors must also address the structural causes of inequality, which include discrimination based on gender, sexual orientation, economic status, and minority status, all of which are prohibited under international human rights law. For this reason, development actors are invited to contribute to the collection of reliable data on vulnerable population groups, in order to design projects with a non-discriminatory and inclusive approach.

    Speakers also agreed on the need to support civil society and preserve its space. Its role in observing, documenting, and monitoring the implementation of States’ human rights obligations is essential. It is therefore crucial to establish a culture of dialogue between a State/government and civil society when elaborating public policies, and to strengthen the capacity of CSOs to participate effectively. ‘Power should be fluid, distributed throughout society, shared and exercised collectively,’ argued one speaker.

    In terms of business and human rights, participants recalled companies’ duty of care to prevent and remedy human rights violations in the course of their activities. At the international level, this duty is based on a voluntary approach which, it was argued, showing signs of strain – few companies actually mobilise vigilance mechanisms in their value chains. Nevertheless, there is a progressive movement towards the adoption of national legislation in countries where multinational companies are headquartered to make it compulsory to draw up and implement vigilance plans that cover the impact of their activities, and those of the actors integrated into their supply or value chains, and covering both human rights and the environment. In this way, the objective is to spread human rights throughout the value chain, starting ‘from the top,’ and to contribute to guaranteeing the enjoyment of human rights of those affected by business activities. However, this raises the challenge of the cost and capacity to implement the principles of the duty of care by all actors in the value chain, in particular those in the Global South. Development actors have a role to play in supporting them. A need was also identified to strengthen the dialogue between legislators in the countries where companies are headquartered and those in which they operate in order to build coherent and complementary legislative frameworks.

    Beyond companies’ duty of care, the private sector also plays a key role in contributing to development. Speakers called for multinational companies to be held accountable so that, in addition to respecting human rights, they contribute more directly to reducing inequalities and poverty.

    Throughout the conference, the discussions have also highlighted the inseparable links between the realisation of human rights and the protection of the environment. These two goals are not mutually exclusive, as the rights of nature guarantee the enjoyment of human rights. It is thus crucial to promote an approach to development that is not based solely on human rights, but include the rights of all living things. This is especially important, it was noted, for young people and future generations.

    In this context, the panellists made several recommendations, including the need to develop and disseminate knowledge about human mobility due to climate change. They recommended supporting climate change mitigation and adaptation projects, and called for investment in social protection and parametric insurance mechanisms to mitigate shocks from loss and damage that are already unavoidable. Development actors were also called upon to finance restoration and rehabilitation mechanisms to remedy non-economic damages such as the loss of cultural heritage or biodiversity.

    Finally, participants unanimously agreed that indigenous peoples are key actors in sustainable development. They represent 5% of the world’s population but are the custodians of 80% of the world’s biodiversity. They play a vital role on all continents – in the Amazon alone, they directly influence 48% of the land surface. The protection of the environment cannot and must not be done without them. They should be treated as true co-decision-makers in the management of these spaces and resources, in order to fully respect their free, prior and informed consent, as required under international law. Development actors should therefore seek to empower indigenous peoples by supporting the full enjoyment of their rights.

    Synthesis: Conference: “Human Rights and Development” | AFD – Agence Française de Développement

    The conference proceedings from the meeting were recently released in both French and English

    This post was originally published on Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards.

  • Barely Legal: The Global Uber Enterprise

    The lobbying of Uber should, along with those of other corporate giants, only surprise those prone to pollyannaish escapism.  Its hungry, desperate behaviour takes place in plain sight, and denials merely serve to emphasise the point.  It resembles, in some crudely distant way, the operating rationale of the notorious British sex pest Jimmy Savile, who preyed upon his victims with the establishment’s complicity.

    In terms of the gig economy, there are few more ruthless buccaneers than this San Franciscan ride-share company that has persistently specialised in cutting corners and remaking them.  Those taken aback by the latest leaked files about Uber’s conduct would do well to remember the initial stages of the company’s growth, and the protests against it.  Globally, the taxi fraternity raged against the encroachment of this new, seemingly amorphous bully.  Some authorities heeded their wishes, seeing an alternative option in transportation.

    In September 2017, Transport for London refused to renew the company’s license, accusing the company of lacking “corporate responsibility in relation to a number of issues which have potential public safety and security implications.”  For all such rowdy, boisterous resistance, the company continued to spread its tentacular reach, inculcating users and drivers with ratings, incessant surveillance and behavioural observation.

    The Uber leaks give us ringside seats to the decision making of the company.  Files numbering some 124,000 spanning the period between 2013 to 2017, were leaked to The Guardian and found their way to 180 journalists across 29 countries through the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ).  These include the savoury essence of over 83,000 emails, iMessages and WhatsApp messages exchanged between then CEO Travis Kalanick and various company executives.

    The ICIJ brings out a big gun from the off.  In 2015, France’s taxi drivers showed their incensed displeasure with the company by setting fire to tyres, overturning cars and blocking access to airports.  The result of the protest was initially significant, leading to a suspension of the company’s operations and a nationwide ban.  “Needing a friend in government to smooth things over,” states the ICIJ with gotcha confidence, “Uber’s chief European lobbyist sought help from a young French minister on the rise: Emmanuel Macron.”

    They had good reason to feel plucky.  Mark MacGann, the lobbyist in the question, is found sending a text to the then French economy minister on October 21, 2015 expressing concern about the ban.  “Could you ask your cabinet to help us to understand what is going on?”  Macron promises to “look into this personally” and urges “calm at this stage”.

    Within hours, the suspension order was being reconsidered.  “The local government in Bouches du Rhones will modify its decision and press release to clean up the statements that set off such confusion,” a relieved and grateful MacGann informs Macron.  “Thank you for your support.”  Macron expresses his own gratitude for the company’s “measured response.”

    This picture, according to the leaked messages, emerges from some dozen undisclosed communications and, at the latest count, four meetings between representatives of Uber and Macron.  It prompted French MP Aurélien Taché to call it “a state scandal.”  Mathilde Panot, parliamentary leader of the left opposition party France Unbowed gave the perpetrator of the scandal an even better description.  Macron had shown himself to be a lobbyist for a “US multinational aiming to permanently deregulate labour law”.

    The current French President is not the only one to have been taken in by the service.  The Prime Minister of the Netherlands, Mark Rutte, had some advice to give the company.  “Right now you are seen as aggressive,” he said with dreary triteness.  His solution to Kalanick: “Change the way people look at the company”.  Focus on the good.  “This will make you seem cuddly.”

    Given the protests against Uber globally, both in terms of drivers and users, the company chewed over a strategy of reverse emphasis.  The true problem, went this line of marketing, was the vicious, lazy, monopolising taxi driver.  Along the way, the company could also discount the welfare of Uber drivers while extolling the merits of a more liberal marketplace hankering for transportation options.  “Violence,” exhorted Kalanick like the privateers of old, “guarantee[s] success.”

    Spokesperson for Kalanick, Devon Spurgeon, comes close to degrading the old cabbies, suggesting that the Uber model was refreshingly competitive in the face of industry sclerosis.  Kalanick and company, explained Spurgeon to the ICIJ, “pioneered an industry that has now become a verb.”  To do so required them to break a few eggs and rules on the way “in an industry where competition had been historically outlawed.  As a natural and foreseeable result, entrenched industry interests all over the world fought to prevent the much-needed development of the transportation industry.”

    Perhaps most revealingly of all, and typical of the East India Company ethos of this titan, was the delight company members found in flouting laws and soiling regulations.   Its “other than legal status” was a point of constant excitement, notably in a range of countries from South Africa to Russia.  In the uncoated words of Uber’s head of global communications, Nairi Hourdajian, written to a colleague in 2014 as attempts in Thailand and India to shut down the company were afoot,  “Sometimes we have problems because, well, we’re just fucking illegal.”

    The battles against Uber’s corporate banditry continue, none more passionately and committedly waged than by the workers themselves.  Uber drivers have managed to make a case in the Netherlands and the UK that they are protected by the jurisdiction’s labour laws.

    The same cannot be said about the United States, where freedom of contract and the tyranny of uneven pay prevail.  As Joe Biden, well wooed by Kalanick as US Vice President, said in his adjusted 2016 speech at the World Economic Forum at Davos, there was a company able to give millions of workers “freedom to work as many hours as they wish, manage their own lives as they wish”.  The Uber cofounder was less enthused by the vice presidential vessel.  “Every minute late [Biden] is,” he wrote in a text to a co-worker, “is one less minute he will have with me.”

    The company’s board can also rest easy in one respect.  They have majority shareholder support to ensure that a lack of transparency regarding spending and lobbying activities will be permitted to continue.  While the veil continues to operate, current CEO Dara Khosrowshahi is also aggressively pursuing a policy of sprucing and cleaning the company’s image.  This pirate of transportation is turning cuddly.

    The post Barely Legal: The Global Uber Enterprise first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Australian Labor isn’t alone. Parties of the Left are making a comeback

    ANALYSIS: By Rob Manwaring, Flinders University

    One aspect of May’s federal election in Australia has been strangely overlooked: Labor’s win follows a pattern among the main centre-left parties in Europe and comparable countries.

    Traditional social democratic and labour-based parties are resurgent, and now hold office (on their own or in coalition) across all of Scandinavia and in Germany, Spain, Portugal and New Zealand.

    Where the past decade has been dominated by talk of a crisis of the left, the debate is increasingly shifting to the crisis of the right.

    SREcholz ran an uncluttered campaign based on simple promises: a higher minimum wage, stable pensions, more affordable housing and a carbon-neutral economy.

    The picture isn’t uniform, of course. Some countries have experienced the de facto demise of their main centre-left party. We might call this the “PASOKification” syndrome, after the sharp loss of support for Greece’s PASOK party, but it extends to other parts of Europe.

    The Netherlands’ once-dominant Labour Party was placed sixth in last year’s election, with just 5.7 percent of the vote.

    France’s main party of the left, the Socialist Party, was reduced to just 6.4 percent in the first round of the 2017 presidential elections and just 1.7 percent this year, but it sealed a deal to join the French Left’s first broad coalition pact in 20 years.

    British Labour, meanwhile, lost the 2010, 2015, 2017 and 2019 elections. Despite the toxicity that surrounds the Conservative government, Labour leader Keir Starmer remains unpopular and unlikely to win the next election.

    In Belgium and Italy, the Left’s situation is less bleak, though its main parties are far from hegemonic. In the highly fragmented Belgian system, the Flemish and Walloon socialist parties are part of the seven-party (yes, seven!) “Vivaldi coalition”.

    Italy’s Democratic Party is part of the current Draghi-led national unity government, and in more recent times has held the prime ministership.

    Outside Europe, the new “pink tide” in South America has seen, for example, 35-year-old Gabriel Boric win Chile’s presidential election.

    Scholz ran an uncluttered campaign based on simple promises: a higher minimum wage, stable pensions, more affordable housing and a carbon-neutral economy.

    Why the bounce back?
    Some common factors help us understand the partial return of the left.

    First, the vote share of the two main centre-right and centre-left parties has declined in most of these countries, yet the centre-left can still assemble a majority where the electoral system enables it.

    Australian Labor’s record low primary vote of 32.6 percent is part of that trend, with centre-left parties in Norway, Sweden and Spain now capturing between 25 percent and 30 percent of the vote. And even when parties win larger vote shares (as in Portugal), they have usually needed coalition partners.

    Nevertheless, centre-left parties remain a fixture in many party systems, and have found ways of getting back into office.

    Second, the reinvigorated centre-left parties — including Anthony Albanese’s Labor — share common policy positions. We might sum them up as a “back to basics” strategy, with a clear focus on improved wages and conditions, job security and reinvigorated public institutions.

    Albanese’s win has parallels with the victory of Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrat–led “rainbow coalition” in Germany. As one commentator described it:

    Scholz ran an uncluttered campaign based on simple promises: a higher minimum wage, stable pensions, more affordable housing and a carbon-neutral economy.

    Social democrats have sought to (mildly) rebuild public institutions. The Danish Social Democrats have pledged to increase public and welfare spending by 0.8 percent per year for five years.

    Jacinda Ardern’s NZ Labour government has increased the minimum wage. Antonio Costa’s recent majority government in Portugal was built on a coalition united in seeking to reverse the austerity measures that followed the eurozone crisis.

    Common features …
    This “new” minimalist social democracy has several entwined elements. First, the incoming governments have captured a mood, amplified by the pandemic, that centre-right governments have neglected key public goods.

    Second, these centre-left governments have turned away from “third way” policies associated with leaders like Bill Clinton and Tony Blair. As catalogued here, centre-left parties have turned leftwards since the 1990s and 2000s.

    Many of their party manifestos have a renewed focus on tackling inequality and increasing welfare spending.

    Finland’s Prime Minister Sanna Marin
    Modern social democracy … Finland’s Prime Minister Sanna Marin at an EU summit in Brussels last month. Image: The Conversation/Olivier Matthys/AP

    Third, the centre-left parties have been gradually “greening”. Many are seeking to make renewables part of their reinvigorated industry and manufacturing agendas.

    As Albanese and his colleagues know, this is a delicate balancing act, aimed at protecting employees in fossil-fuel-intensive industries while setting out modest climate targets. This “balance” seems to be hitting the electoral sweet spot by capturing public demand for action while allaying fears about the speed of transition — even if the targets fail to keep up with the science.

    The final element is the longstanding “feminisation” of the parties. Many are reaping the rewards of the struggles by feminist MPs, allies and members to improve representation.

    It’s no coincidence that four of Scandinavia’s five current centre-left prime ministers are female. The centre-left parties look modern and representative, and most have strong gender policies, especially on issues like the gender pay gap.

    … And one significance difference
    It’s worth noting a key difference between Australian Labor and its resurgent counterparts. Many centre-left parties in Europe have made strong pledges to invest in their welfare states — in part to see off the welfare chauvinism of radical right challengers.

    In New Zealand, the Ardern government has announced a new unemployment insurance scheme.

    The dynamics seem different in Australia, and Labor apparently sees little electoral value in shifting from its “modest” welfare agenda.

    One important lesson for Labor is that in almost all the cases internationally, the centre-left has had to learn to govern in partnership with other key players.

    This will be a pressing issue for Albanese as he deals with a record crossbench in both houses. It could even determine how long Australia’s centre-left party governs.The Conversation

    Dr Rob Manwaring is associate professor, Politics and Public Policy, Flinders University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Tahitian pro-independence MP slams ‘bad signal’ for French Pacific

    RNZ Pacific

    France’s abolition of the status of an overseas minister has received mixed reactions in both France and its overseas territories, with a pro-independence Tahitian member of the National Assembly condemning the “bad signal”.

    The position was abolished in yesterday’s government reshuffle and replaced with a minister delegate, a post given to Jean-Francois Carenco.

    He will work alongside Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin.

    A French Polynesian member of the French National Assembly, Moetai Brotherson, said the change of of status “sends a bad signal to the overseas territories”.

    “We remember the way Mr Darmanin sent forces to Guadeloupe. We also remember the declarations [against independence] in New Caledonia,” he said.

    Brotherson said the new representatives were unknown to French Polynesia and New Caledonia, adding he would rather have a single minister exercising full power over the overseas territories.

    Negative reactions also came from the French right-wing opposition’s Marine Le Pen as well as overseas territory officials.

    Newly elected MP in favour
    However, a newly elected New Caledonian French National Assembly member and anti-independence politician, Nicolas Metzdorf, said he supported this new move.

    “An association of overseas territories minister and minister of interior is excellent news for our territories,” he said.

    “It is a demonstration that Emmanuel Macron considers the overseas territories in the same way as mainland France.”

    Darmanin and Carenco are set to tour all of the overseas territories, starting with a visit to Reunion on Thursday.

    Darmanin said he put the institutional questions of New Caledonia at the top of his priorities.

    “I think of the subject of ecology but also institutional questions,” he said.

    “I think of New Caledonia and the Ministry of the Interior that has for a long time pondered on the subject with many colleagues there. There is a clear need for two ministers to take care of the overseas territories.”

    Resigned after one month
    The previous minister, Yael Braun-Pivet, resigned last month after just one month in office to successfully run for the presidency of the French National Assembly.

    Carenco was Secretary-General of New Caledonia in 1990 and 1991.

    Last December, New Caledonia voted against independence in the third and final referendum under the Noumea Accord.

    The vote was boycotted by the pro-independence side which refuses to accept the result as the legitimate outcome for the indigenous Kanak people to be decolonised.

    It regards the rejection of full sovereignty at the ballot box as the Noumea Accord’s failure to entice the established French settlers to join it to form a new nation.

    However, the anti-independence camp says the three “no” votes are the democratic expression of the electorate to remain part of France.

    Paris wants to draw up a new statute for a New Caledonia within France and put it to a vote in New Caledonia in June 2023.

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

  • Vegan Food Gets Protection In India, a Labeling Blow in France

    3 Mins Read

    What exactly is vegan food? While France moved last week to ban language commonly used to describe plant-based products such as “steak” or “sausage,” India says it is now moving to further clarify the definition of vegan food in order to curb the sales of fake vegan options.

    “Vegan food means the food or food ingredient, including additives, flavourings, enzymes and carriers, or processing aids that are not products of animal origin and in which, at no stage of production and processing, ingredients, including additives, flavourings, enzymes and carriers, or processing aids that are of animal origin has been used,” India’s Food Safety and Standards Authority (FSSAI) said in its definition.

    FSSAI regulations

    The FSSAI says labeling items as vegan that do not fall under the description violates the agency’s regulations. It’s also putting similar restrictions on imports.

    The agency is also restricting animal testing—an ethical component to veganism, meaning something could not contain animal ingredients but if it was tested on animals, as is the case with many cosmetics, it wouldn’t qualify. Here, though, the agency is extending that to food items.

    “The food products to be called vegan, shall not have involved animal testing for any purpose, including safety evaluation, unless provided by any Regulatory Authority,” it said.

    Courtesy GoodDot

    More than 80 percent of Indians limit meat intake with 39 percent identifying as vegetarian. The vegan diet is also gaining in popularity. According to Statista, a survey conducted in India last year found more than 47 percent of respondents had consumed plant-based food products due to their concerns regarding animal welfare in food production. A further 44.5 percent did so to follow a vegetarian or vegan diet.

    That issue came up when U.S.-based vegan meat manufacturer Impossible Foods submitted its novel heme ingredient to voluntary animal testing to earn the FDA’s GRAS status (generally recognized as safe). The company’s testing involved close to 200 rats. The 2017 study earned backlash from animal rights groups including PETA, which has since removed much of its comments from the Internet.

    Impossible Foods’ founder Pat Brown claimed it was the necessary evil in being able to save millions, if not billions more animals. The approval has helped the company expand its market presence.

    Labeling vegan food in France

    But in France, where Impossible is still not yet approved, it may have to rethink the names of some of its products. Last week, the county banned animal nomenclature from being used on vegan food.

    Courtesy Impossible

    “It will not be possible to use sector-specific terminology traditionally associated with meat and fish to designate products that do not belong to the animal world and which, in essence, are not comparable,” the official decree reads.

    France is the first E.U. country to ban the use of common terms on vegan foods in a move it says is to protect the country’s animal product producers as well as consumers. It initially pushed the E.U. to take similar bloc-wide measures, but that motion was rejected. Producers selling vegan food in France will have until October to update their packaging.

    The post Vegan Food Gets Protection In India, a Labeling Blow in France appeared first on Green Queen.

    This post was originally published on Green Queen.

  • Greenpeace condemns NZ silence on Pacific deep sea mining risks

    Asia Pacific Report newsdesk

    Greenpeace Aotearoa has condemned New Zealand for “standing by” while “deep wounds are inflicted on its Pacific neighbours” by silence over deep sea mining.

    Greenpeace’s seabed mining campaigner James Hita made the critical statement today after a dramatic shift at the UN Oceans conference in Lisbon this week when several Pacific governments formed an alliance to oppose deep sea mining in international waters.

    The environmental movement said the continued silence from the New Zealand government on the issue was “deafening”.

    To standing ovations, Fiji and Samoa joined the alliance opposing deep sea mining announced by Palau on Monday.

    The following day Tuvalu, Tonga, and Guam announced their support for a halt to deep sea mining and France is now also calling for a legal and robust framework to ban deep sea mining in the high seas.

    But so far the New Zealand government has not taken a stance on the issue.

    “New Zealand risks standing by while deep wounds are inflicted on its Pacific neighbours if it continues to stay silent on deep sea mining,” James Hita said.

    ‘Ruthless corporations’
    “This move by ruthless corporations to begin deep sea mining in the Pacific is the latest example of colonisation in a region that has already suffered so much from nuclear testing, overfishing and resource extraction by the developed world.

    “It’s a sad irony that when French nuclear testing threatened the Pacific, Norman Kirk’s Labour government sent a frigate in protest, but now, when corporate seabed mining threatens the Pacific, Jacinda Ardern’s Labour government does nothing while Macron’s French government speaks out to protect the Pacific.

    “New Zealand has a golden opportunity right now to show real solidarity and leadership in the Pacific and we call on Prime Minister Ardern, Minister of Foreign Affairs Nanaia Mahuta and Minister of Oceans and Fisheries David Parker to seize the day and make us proud.

    “To maintain respect in the Pacific, the Ardern government needs to start standing up for the things that matter to the Pacific.

    “Palau, Vanuatu, Tuvalu, Fiji, Tonga, and Samoa are all calling for a moratorium on seabed mining but so far the New Zealand government is sitting on its hands,” said Hita.

    Deep sea mining is a destructive and untested industry where minerals are sucked up from the ocean floor and waste materials pumped back into the ocean.

    A sediment plume smothers marine life, threatening vulnerable ecosystems, fisheries and the people’s way of life.

    Ocean floor disruptions
    Scientists say that disruptions to the ocean floor may also reduce the ocean’s ability to sequester carbon, adding to the climate crisis.

    Without action from governments to stop it, mining of the deep seas in the Pacific could begin as early as mid-2023.

    • Greenpeace Aotearoa launched a petition in June calling on the NZ government and Minister of Foreign Affairs Nanaia Mahuta to support a ban on deep sea mining in the Pacific and around the world. More than 9000 people have signed.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • CIA And Western Special Ops Commandos Are In Ukraine

    The CIA and special operations forces from NATO members Britain, France, Canada, and Lithuania are physically in Ukraine, helping direct the proxy war on Russia, according to a report in The New York Times.

    These Western forces are on the ground training and advising Ukrainian fighters, overseeing weapons shipments, and managing intelligence.

    At least 20 countries are part of a US Army-led coalition, guiding Ukraine in its fight against Russian troops.

    Some Ukrainian combatants are even using US flag patches on their equipment.

    This is all according to a June 25 report in The New York Times, titled “Commando Network Coordinates Flow of Weapons in Ukraine, Officials Say.”

    The Times is a de facto organ of the US government. Although technically private, the paper closely follows the line of the CIA and Pentagon.

    The post CIA And Western Special Ops Commandos Are In Ukraine appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • Climate activists block IMF Paris office doors

    Climate activists on Monday blocked entry to the International Monetary Fund’s Paris office with some gluing their hands to its doors, demanding developing countries’ debt be scrapped to help tackle climate change.

    The Paris protest is part of a “Debt for climate” global campaign calling on wealthy-nation leaders attending the G7 summit in Germany to cancel the debts of poorer and less industrialized countries, known as the global south.

    The post Climate activists block IMF Paris office doors appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • Fritch slams Tahiti pro-independence wins for Paris as ‘catastrophic’

    RNZ Pacific

    French Polynesia’s President Édouard Fritch has described the election of three candidates of the pro-independence Tavini Huiraatira party to the French National Assembly as “catastrophic”.

    They won all three seats in a run-off against candidates of his ruling Tapura Huiraatira party, which holds two-thirds of all seats in French Polynesia’s Assembly.

    Fritch said French Polynesia was sending people to Paris who would talk about sovereignty, independence, and the United Nations while the territory was near the end of its means.

    He said French Polynesia was in the middle of an economic crisis, making him wonder how he could work when the three were part of the opposition to President Émmanuel Macron’s bloc.

    Fritch said Tavini’s independence plan lacks a roadmap and only offers something nebulous.

    He said after the first round of the election, all the opposition forces turned against the Tapura, accusing the unsuccessful candidates of the other parties of hypocrisy.

    Fritch should resign, says Temaru
    French Polynesia’s pro-independence leader Oscar Temaru said after last weekend’s election defeat of the government candidates that President Fritch should resign.

    Temaru’s Tavini Huiraatira party won French Polynesia’s three seats in the French National Assembly, defeating the three candidates of the ruling Tapura Huiraatira.

    Mayor of Faa'a Oscar Temaru
    Pro-independence leader Oscar Temaru … calls on territorial President Édouard Fritch to resign. Image: Tinfos 30

    Temaru said in view of this result it would only be fair if he quit.

    He said the weekend victory was a “historic moment” that should resonate beyond French Polynesia and showed that the Māohi people wanted to be recognised for who they were.

    Temaru said, however, that in the current situation French Polynesia had neither the institutions nor the means to solve its problems, but with independence, it would have them.

    He said for French President Émmanuel Macron, the election result in Tahiti would be a “cold shower”.

    He also said independence would not be achieved tomorrow but at a time when people wanted it.

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • French parliamentary election results: Bad blow for Macron, mixed news for the left

    The left, under the banner of the newly formed Popular Union (NUPES), grew from 64 MPs to around 142 in the second round of the French parliamentary elections on June 19, reports John Mullen.

    This post was originally published on Green Left.

  • Rival New Caledonian sides left in run for French National Assembly seats

    RNZ Pacific

    New Caledonia’s first round of the French National Assembly election has seen surprise advances of the pro-independence Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front (FLNKS) whose two candidates both made it to next Sunday’s run-off round.

    Wali Wahetra came second in the constituency made up of the anti-independence stronghold Noumea plus the mainly Kanak Loyalty Islands and the Isle of Pines.

    Her success marks the first time in 15 years that an FLNKS candidate has qualified for the second round there.

    “The goal was attained for the first round”, she said and thanked “those who think our struggle is legitimate and noble”.

    Sunday’s voting was the first since the referendum on independence from France in December when the FLNKS boycotted the event, which then saw 96 percent vote against independence.

    The election was open to all French citizens in New Caledonia, in contrast to the referendum, for which the roll was restricted to indigenous people and long-term residents.

    Turnout was 33 percent, which was a one-percent drop over the previous National Assembly election in 2017.

    Lift in independence vote
    However, there was a slight lift in areas traditionally voting for independence because last time a key FLNKS party, the Caledonian Union, had called for abstaining.

    With the joint FLNKS call to go out and vote, Wahetra secured 22 percent of the vote while the winner in the constituency Philippe Dunoyer got 41 percent.

    Seeking re-election for another five-year term, Dunoyer stood for a newly formed Ensemble, which is a four-party coalition linked for the purpose of this election to French President Emmanuel Macron.

    In the other constituency, encompassing the main island minus Noumea, the anti-independence candidate Nicolas Metzdorf won 34 percent of the vote, a narrow advantage over the FLNKS candidate Gerard Reignier with 33 percent.

    Reignier said: “We gave us a goal of making it to the second round and we made it to the second round”.

    Seventeen candidates contested Sunday’s election, including a former president Thierry Santa of the Rassemblement, which had historically been the key anti-independence party.

    He won, however, just 22 percent, clearly distanced by Metzdorf and Reignier.

    The Rassemblement’s other candidate, Virginie Ruffenach, also came third in her southern constituency, winning 14 percent of the vote.

    Reacting to her defeat, Ruffenach urged her supporters to back Dunoyer in the run-off to ensure the anti-independence parties keep being represented in Paris.

    Single candidate tactic
    The success of the FLNKS has in part been explained by its member parties agreeing to run a single candidate in each of the two constituencies.

    After shunning the referendum in December, it campaigned for the two seats in the hope of getting a representative elected to the French Assembly to have its quest for sovereignty heard.

    The result also confirmed the political divide entrenched for years and largely along geographical and ethnic lines.

    The polarisation is such that Reignier won more than 90 percent of votes in the northern electorates known for their pro-independence stance.

    The anti-independence camp has been riven for years by varying rivalries but for the National Assembly election, four parties formed the Ensemble group, which Metzdorf considered to be a success.

    Metzdorf, who is mayor of La Foa and the leader of Generations NC, joined as did Dunoyer of Caledonia Together Party, which had won both seats in 2017.

    In the 2018 provincial election, Caledonia Together was weakened and the party leader, Philippe Gomes, who had held one of the two Paris seats for a decade, did not seek re-election this year.

    First round victories hailed
    Sonia Backes, who is the president of the Southern Province and the anti-independence politician representing the French president in New Caledonia, hailed the first-round victories of the Ensemble candidates.

    She welcomed the support immediately expressed by the defeated Rassemblement politicians, saying there must be a united “loyalist” camp.

    Backes added that perhaps the new French overseas minister might visit next week while the law commission of the French Senate will conduct a fact-finding mission in preparation of a new statute for New Caledonia.

    Many candidates expressed concern about the low turnout, saying some thought has to be given to finding ways of engaging the public.

    With campaigning resuming for next Sunday’s run-off, the two camps are aware that a large pool of voters could be mobilised on both sides.

    The anti-independence side is however poised to bolster the support for its two candidates as the losing contenders in its ranks can add their backing for Dunoyer and Metzdorf.

    This leaves scant hope for the FLNKS to win a seat in Paris — one of 577 on offer.

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • France’s New Ecologic and Social People’s Union presents a radical vision in parliamentary election

    France is set to hold parliamentary elections on Sunday, June 12. The election for the 577-member National Assembly will be held in two stages. The first round on Sunday will be followed by a run-off round on June 19 in constituencies where it is necessary. The voting follows the presidential election in April when incumbent Emmanuel Macron won a lackluster victory.

    One highlight of the presidential election was the strong showing by left-wing candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon who won close to 22% of the votes and ended up narrowly losing to the far-right candidate Marine Le Pen who contested against Macron in the second round. However, in these elections, left and progressive forces were divided. For the parliamentary elections, they have come together under the banner of the New Ecologic and Social People’s Union (NUPES) under Mélenchon’s leadership with a radical vision for France. Zoe Alexandra of Peoples Dispatch speaks to Florence Roger, the NUPES candidates for the First constituency for French Residents Overseas which covers French citizens living in the US and Canada.

    The post France’s New Ecologic and Social People’s Union presents a radical vision in parliamentary election appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • Emmanuel Macron’s Precarious Hold on France

    Ahead of this month’s parliamentary elections, the French left has reemerged as the primary opposition to the president.

    This post was originally published on Dissent MagazineDissent Magazine.

  • Fijian policymaker calls for an ‘inspired’ defence of world oceans

    RNZ Pacific

    The global community needs to “be inspired” to defend the world’s oceans ahead of the second United Nations Oceans Conference in Lisbon at the end of the month, a Fijian policymaker says.

    Fisheries Minister Semi Koroilavesau said the Pacific could not protect its greatest resource through advocacy and action on its own.

    Safeguarding the ocean and its resources against future dangers “to make it truly sustainable” will require the “entire world” to show more commitment, Koroilavesau said.

    A former Navy commander and a self-professed marine advocate, he believes Pacific people’s future will be secured if “we will take whatever actions we must take”.

    There are “enormous challenges before us and we need to turn our hopes into genuine ambition” to boost ocean action in the Blue Pacific, he told participants attending the World Oceans Day celebrations in Suva on Wednesday.

    “As stewards of the Ocean, our task is to lead, to be a beacon of Blue leadership that inspires the world to turn away from the model of development that harms our ocean and threatens to strip off our life given resources,” he said.

    This year’s theme for the international day — marked annually on June 8 — is “Revitalisation: Collective Action for the Ocean”.

    Collaboration called for
    Koroilavesau said it calls for “wider commitment” and urged stakeholders to collaborate to realise the changes necessary to protect the ocean.

    “Our shared commitment towards collaboration will inspire and ignite actions that will certainly benefit us and our future generations,” he said, adding “the health and wellbeing of the Pacific Ocean and “the state of our climate are an interconnected system.”

    The Pacific Ocean spans approximately 41 million square kilometres and is a fundamental part of the livelihoods and identity of the Pacific people.

    Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat (PIFS) deputy director-general Dr Filimon Manoni said the ocean was at the heart of the region’s geography and its cultures.

    “It’s all we have…[and] all we return to in times of need, either for daily sustenance, for economic development, and nation building aspirations,” Dr Manoni said.

    “We are inextricably linked to the ocean in all aspects of our everyday life.”

    The ocean is home to almost 80 percent of all life on Earth. But its state is in decline, as it faces a range of threats due to human activity.

    Critical year for the ocean
    “Its health and ability to sustain life will only get worse as the world population grows and human activities increase,” the United Nations has said.

    This year 2022, therefore, is regarded as a critical year for the ocean and an opportunity to reset the global ocean agenda at the Portugal conference.

    This week, regional stakeholders gathered in Suva during the fourth Pacific Ocean Alliance (POA) meeting convened by the Office of the Pacific Ocean Commissioner (OPOC) to prepare for the UN conference.

    The gathering was scheduled to align with the World Oceans Day to drive regional and global awareness of the region’s priorities for global ocean action, according to OPOC.

    Over two days, the alliance aimed to identify the collective priorities for ocean action and approaches to drive global support.

    Ocean’s Commissioner and Pacific Islands Forum Secretary-General Henry Puna said “much has evolved” since the last time the Alliance met in 2019, prior to the covid-19 pandemic.

    Puna said the region now finds itself “in a much more contested and challenging environment…faced with heightened geostrategic competition” as it “navigates the impacts of a global pandemic”.

    Ocean health still suffers
    “Yet the health of our ocean and indeed our planet continues to suffer as a result of climate change and other anthropogenic depressions,” he said.

    “This challenging context will place significant pressure on our ability to realise our political and sustainable development aspirations.”

    Several high-level ocean-related events have already been held this year with the Our Ocean Conference in Palau in April and the One Ocean Conference hosted by France in May.

    Puna is expecting the conversations held during the POA meeting will strengthen the Pacific’s collective vision to conserve and sustainably use the world’s oceans and marine resources.

    “I am hopeful that this gathering of the POA will provide an opportunity for us all to share our experiences and reflect on how we can work together, how we can collaborate and engage better, and how we can do more to ensure the health and survival of our ocean,” he said.

    The UN Oceans Conference will be held from June 27 to July 1.

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • French court rejects Kanak Senate bid to annul New Caledonia referendum outcome

    RNZ Pacific

    An indigenous legal challenge in a bid to annul the result of last December’s referendum on New Caledonia’s independence from France has failed.

    The highest administrative court in Paris has rejected a claim by the Kanak customary Senate that the impact of the covid-19 pandemic was such that the referendum outcome was illegitimate.

    More than 96 percent voted against independence in the third and last referendum under the Noumea Accord, but more than 56 percent of voters abstained.

    The pro-independence parties had called for a boycott of the referendum after France had rejected pleas for the vote to be postponed until this year.

    When the first community outbreak of the pandemic was recorded in September, a lockdown was imposed, which was extended into October, as thousands contracted the virus and hundreds needed hospital care.

    The court in Paris found that the epidemiological situation had improved in October and November and that by the time of the referendum on December 12, more than 77 percent of the population had been vaccinated.

    It also said the year-long mourning declared by the Kanak customary Senate in September was not such as to affect the sincerity of the vote.

    No minimum turnout
    The court added that neither constitutional provisions nor the organic law make the validity of the vote conditional on a minimum turnout.

    In the week before the referendum, 146 voters and three organisations filed an urgent submission to the same court, seeking to postpone the vote.

    They said given the impact of the pandemic, it was “unthinkable” to proceed with such an important plebiscite.

    They said because of the lockdown, campaigning had been unduly hampered as basic freedoms impinged.

    However, the court rejected the challenge and voting went ahead as intended by the French government.

    Rejecting the referendum outcome, the pro-independence side said apart from court action, it would seek to win the support for its position from the Pacific Islands Forum and the United Nations.

    A pro-independence delegate to last month’s UN decolonisation meeting said French President Emmanuel Macron had declared after the referendum that New Caledonia showed it wanted to stay French although it was known that 90 percent of Kanaks wanted independence.

    French Senate mission planned
    The French Senate is hearing experts this week as its law commission prepares work on a new statute for New Caledonia following last year’s rejection of independence.

    The commission, which is chaired by François-Noel Buffet, has also formed a team that will travel to New Caledonia in two weeks for talks with all stakeholders.

    The team is expected to stay for a week and complete its work by the end of July.

    In December, more than 96 percent voted against independence in the third and last referendum under the Noumea Accord, which had been the decolonisation roadmap since 1998.

    However, the pro-independence parties refuse to recognise the result, saying their abstention had rendered the outcome of the process illegitimate.

    Paris plans to hold a referendum next June on a new statute for a New Caledonia within the French republic.

    Buffet said his mission to Noumea was to consider the institutional situation by consolidating the dialogue initiated by the Matignon and Noumea Accords between France and New Caledonia.

    Electoral rolls issue
    A key issue will be the fate of the electoral rolls.

    The Noumea Accord, whose provisions have been enshrined in the French constitution, restricts voting rights to indigenous people and long-term residents.

    Migration this century has added about 40,000 French citizens who remain excluded from referendums and from provincial elections.

    The anti-independence parties want the rolls to be unfrozen, but the pro-independence side is strongly opposed to this.

    It told the UN Decolonisation Committee that France’s intention to open the electoral rolls to French people who arrived after 1998 was the ultimate weapon to “drown” the Kanak people and “recolonise” New Caledonia.

    It warned the Kanaks would be made to disappear, which would not be accepted but inevitably lead to conflict.

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • The Geopolitical War over Mali: West Africa is Up for Grabs

    The distance between Ukraine and Mali is measured in thousands of kilometers. But the geopolitical distance is much closer to the point that it appears as if the ongoing conflicts in both countries are the direct outcomes of the same geopolitical currents and transformation underway around the world.

    The Malian government is now accusing French troops of perpetuating a massacre in the West African country. Consequently, on April 23, the Russian Foreign Ministry declared its support for Malian efforts, pushing for an international investigation into French abuses and massacres in Mali. “We hope that those responsible will be identified and justly punished,” the Ministry said.

    In its coverage, Western media largely omitted the Malian and Russian claims of French massacres; instead, they gave credence to French accusations that the Malian forces, possibly with the help of ‘Russian mercenaries’ have carried out massacres and buried the dead in mass graves near the recently evacuated French army Gossi base, in order to blame France.

    Earlier in April, Human Rights Watch called for an ‘independent, credible’ inquiry into the killings, though it negated both accounts. It suggested that a bloody campaign had indeed taken place, targeting mostly “armed Islamists” between March 23-31.

    Media whitewashing and official misinformation aside, Mali has indeed been a stage for much bloodletting in recent years, especially since 2012, when a militant insurgency in Northern Mali threatened the complete destabilization of an already unstable and impoverished country.

    There were reasons for the insurgency, including the sudden access to smuggled weapon caches originating in Libya following the West’s war on Tripoli in 2011.  Thousands of militants, who were pushed out of Libya during the war and its aftermath, found safe havens in the largely ungoverned Malian northern regions.

    That in mind, the militants’ success – where they managed to seize nearly a third of the country’s territory in merely two months – was not entirely linked to western arms. Large swathes of Mali have suffered from prolonged governmental neglect and extreme poverty. Moreover, the Malian army, often beholden to foreign interests, is much hated in these regions due to its violent campaigns and horrific human rights abuses. No wonder why the northern rebellion found so much popular support in these parts.

    Two months after the Tuareg rebellion in the north, a Malian officer and a contingency of purportedly disgruntled soldiers overthrew the elected government in Bamako, accusing it of corruption and of failure in reining in the militants. This, in turn, paved the road for France’s military intervention in its former colony under the guise of fighting terrorism.

    The French war in Mali, starting in 2013, was disastrous from the Malians’ point of view. It neither stabilized the country nor provided a comprehensive scheme on how to pacify the rebellious north. War, human rights violations by the French themselves, and more military coups followed, most notably in August 2020 and May 2021.

    But France’s intervention was fruitful from France’s viewpoint. As soon as French troops began pouring into Mali, as soon as France began strengthening its control over the Sahel countries, including Mali, leading to the signing of two defense agreements, in 2013 and 2020.

    That’s where the French West African ‘success story’ ends. Though Paris succeeded in digging its heels deeper in that region, it gave no reason to the Malian people or government to support their actions. As France became more involved in the life of Malians, ordinary people throughout the country, north and south, detested and rejected them. This shift was the perfect opportunity for Russia to offer itself as an alternative to France and the West. The advent of Russia into the complex scene allowed Bamako to engineer a clean break from its total reliance on France and its Western, NATO allies.

    Even before France formally ended its presence in the country, Russian arms and military technicians were landing in Bamako. Attack helicopters, mobile radar systems and other Russian military technology, quickly replaced French arms. It is no wonder why Mali voted against the United Nations General Assembly Resolution to suspend Russia from the UN Human Rights Council.

    As a result of the Ukraine war and western sanctions starting in late February, Russia accelerated its political and economic outreach, particularly in southern countries, with the hope of lessening the impact of the west-led international isolation.

    In truth, Moscow’s geopolitical quest in West Africa began earlier than the Ukraine conflict, and Mali’s immediate support for Russia following the war was a testament to Moscow’s success in that region.

    Though France officially began its withdrawal from Mali last February, Paris and other European capitals are increasingly aware of what they perceive to be a ‘Russian threat’ in that region. But how can the West fight back against this real or imaginary threat, especially in the light of the French withdrawal? Further destabilizing Mali is one option.

    Indeed, on May 16, Bamako declared that it thwarted a military coup in the country, claiming that the coup leaders were soldiers who “were supported by a Western state”, presumably France.

    If the ‘coup’ had succeeded, does this indicate that France – or another ‘western country’ – is plotting a return to Mali on the back of yet another military intervention?

    Russia, on the other hand, cannot afford to lose a precious friend, like Mali, during this critical time of western sanctions and isolation. In effect, this means that Mali will continue to be the stage of a geopolitical cold war that could last for years. The winner of this war could potentially claim the whole of West Africa, which remains hostage to global competition well beyond its national boundaries.

    The post The Geopolitical War over Mali: West Africa is Up for Grabs first appeared on Dissident Voice.

  • General Electric’s French Tax Scam

    Since the purchase of Alstom Energy in 2015, the US multinational could have put in place a vast system of tax evasion involving France, Switzerland and Delaware. With the blessing of the French Finance Ministry.

    It is an industrial fiasco which has no end. Seven years after the sale of Alstom Energy to General Electric,1 the record of the American multinational has been disastrous – 5000 workers retrenched, including 1400 in the key Belfort factory complex; an advanced technology hub left to rot; a preliminary inquest for conflict of interest against Hugh Bailey, CEO of GE France.2 And now, a scandal involving tax evasion.

    According to our inquest, supported by independent audit reports and several internal accounting documents of the group, the American multinational has put in place an opaque financial setup between its French subsidiary, General Electric Energy Products France (GEEPF) and subsidiaries domiciled in Switzerland and in the American State of Delaware.

    Objective: to bypass the French tax authorities in concealing the profits arising from the sale of gas turbines produced at Belfort, in the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté.region. We estimate that more than €800 million has disappeared from GEEPF’s accounts between 2015 and 2020. This translates into a deficit for the public exchequer of €150-300 million.

    Mediapart has already analysed in 2019 the means by which the financial policies of the company has drained the Belfort site. The massive utilisation of intra-group financial transfers via transfer pricing has been outlined. The revelations of Disclose confirm and deepen this information.

    For GE, the large-scale tax evasion begins in late 2015 by a trick both simple and discrete: the transfer of corporate liability to a company created for the occasion at Baden, in Switzerland. Its name: General Electric Switzerland GmbH (GES).

    From then onwards, the Belfort factory, announced at the time of purchase from Alstom as the future global site of turbine production for the group, ceases to be a manufacturing site and becomes a ‘production unit’ placed under the direction of a Swiss company. This restructuring marks the last profitable year of the Belfort site. And for good reason: with this sleight of hand, GE comes to launch its process of the appropriation of the profits arising from the sale of turbines and component parts ‘made in France’.

    An illustration from 2019. This particular year, a contract is passed between GEEPF and the Swiss company GES for the sale of gas turbines. The contract price – more than €350 million. Although these products have been produced in France, GES appropriates for itself the status of ‘manufacturer’, presenting the Belfort site merely as a banal ‘distributor’.

    The point of this vanishing act: to allow the Swiss outlet to resell the turbines to the ultimate client in order to garner the profits of the sale. In the framework of the contracts, not less than 97 % of the profits fly off to Switzerland, where the company tax rate ranges between 17 – 22 % against 33 % in France. Contacted, General Electric has not responded to our questions.

    Laissez-faire of the state

    A similar setup concerns the sale of replacement parts for the turbines – the bulk of revenues generated at Belfort. From estimates based on the GE group’s annual reports, the scheme could have transferred around €1.5 billion to GES, the Swiss subsidiary, between 2016 and 2019. All with the blessing of the French Finance Ministry.

    From our investigations, General Electric, following the acquisition of Alstom Energy, could have benefited from the protocol of a ‘trust relationship’ (relation de confiance) with the French Treasury. This mechanism allows that “the enterprise should furnish all the elements necessary to the understanding of its [fiscal] situation”, citing a document from the DGFiP (direction générale des finances publiques), dating from 2013. Clearly, the multinational has validated its tax scheme, involving the links with its subsidiaries, with the Finance Ministry. In return, it has ensured that the Ministry has arranged to not execute any control over the arrangement. Interrogated over its precise knowledge of this mechanism of fiscal optimisation established by General Electric, the Ministry of Economy and Finance has not responded to our questions.

    At Baden, 8 Brown-Boveri Strasse, General Electric has domiciled three other subsidiaries as French ‘service providers’. The first two, General Electric Global Services GMbH and GE Global Parts and Products GmbH, are charged to sell replacement parts manufactured at Belfort. The third, baptised General Electric Technology GmbH, has as mission to hold the patent rights over gas turbines. For one simple reason, according to one of the audit reports consulted by Disclose: “The foreign revenues arising from patents are very little taxed in Switzerland”. Since 2017, €177 million of royalty payments have left France, direction Baden.

    The millions sent to Delaware

    To complete its strategy of fiscal optimisation, General Electric relies on another subsidiary of the group, based, this time, in the US. Monogram Licensing International LLC – this is its name – is domiciled in Delaware, a State known for imposing zero tax on companies. Between 2014 and 2019, it could have received around €80.9 million on the part of GE France for the utilisation of GE’s brand, logo and advertising slogans. According to the contract in place between GE France and Monogram, France must pay 1 % of its annual turnover to Delaware. However, this threshold has been cleared on several occasions. With no explanation, one of the audits of the group has underlined.

    The massive appropriation of the wealth produced by the workers of Belfort is essentially illegal, as outlined in the international tax convention BEPS (Base Erosion and Profit Shifting). Taking effect in France in 2019, this text, intended to reinforce the struggle against tax evasion, stipulates that company profits must be “taxed where the real economic activity takes place … and where value is created”. Logically, in the case of turbines manufactured at Belfort, the associated tax must then be deducted in France, not in Switzerland.

    The workforce the losers

    In making disappear €800 million from the accounts of General Electric Energy Products France, the multinational has then escaped tax. But it has also deprived the French workforce of a part of their participation in the enterprise. A tax expert to whom we’ve submitted the details of the operations of General Electric at Belfort confirms it: in artificially reducing the profits, the industrial could have deprived its employees of several thousand euros each, between 2015 and 2019, by virtue of their formal participation in GEEPF profits. In December 2021, the SUD Industrie Union and the Social and Economic Committee (CSE) on the Belfort site have lodged a complaint against their employer for “fraud against the right to participation [in profits] of employees”.

    The system implanted by the group has equally burdened the municipal budget. “Leaving from the moment when GE moved its profits offshore, inevitably it pays less [local] taxes”, explains Mathilde Regnaud, opposition Councillor at Belfort. By February 2022, given “the cumulative loss of tax takings”, estimated at €10 million, from the tax on enterprise value-added (cotisation sur la valeur ajoutée des entreprises, CVAE), members of the Municipal Council of Belfort have requested a detailed analysis of the tax losses suffered by the town. A demand which points above all to “the legality … of the manoeuvres of fiscal optimisation” carried out by General Electric on the territory. In 2021, the aforesaid manoeuvres could have in part provoked the augmentation of property taxes on the commune.

    *****

    31 May. Following publication, the Ministry of the Economy and Finance and the DGFiP (direction générale des finances publiques) have reacted through Agence France-Presse, claiming that they had never validated GE’s tax arrangements via any ‘trust relationship’. General Electric, through AFP, claims that the group “respects the fiscal regime of the countries in which it operates”.

  • The article has been translated by Evan Jones.
    1. [Translator’s note] The complex saga of the corrupt takeover of Alstom Energy by General Electric is told in Jones, ‘Behind GE’s Takeover of Alstom Energy, Counterpunch, 2 December 2016; and Jones, ‘The Coalition of the US Justice Department and GE against Alstom’, Dissident Voice, 20 April 2019. Of great significance regarding the rise and rise of General Electric is a recent book by Stephen Maher, Corporate Capitalism and the Integral State: General Electric and a Century of American Power, Palgrave Macmillan, 2022.
    2. [Translator’s note] In September 2019, the public prosecutor of Paris charged Bailey for possible conflict of interest. Bailey was advisor in the office of Emmanuel Macron, then Economy Minister, when €70 million was granted to the French export authority which directly benefited GE’s exports. In 2017, Macron becomes President, Bailey is hired by GE France and is appointed CEO in 2019.
    The post General Electric’s French Tax Scam first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • French parliamentary elections, the ‘People’s Union’ and Mélenchon

    In the run-up to June’s parliamentary elections, the political atmosphere in France has been transformed by a new left alliance, the New Popular Ecological and Social Union, reports John Mullen.

    This post was originally published on Green Left.

  • New York Times admits truth of Haitian coup

    “A Haitian president demands reparations and ends up in exile”, declared the front-page of Wednesday’s New York Times. Eighteen years later those who opposed the US, French and Canadian coup have largely won the battle over the historical record.

    French ambassador Thierry Burkard admits that President Jean-Bertrand Aristide’s call for the restitution of Haiti’s debt (ransom) of independence partly explains why he was ousted in 2004. Burkard told the Times the elected president’s removal was “a coup” that was “probably a bit about” Aristide’s campaign for France to repay Haiti.

    Other major outlets have also investigated the coup recently. In 2020 Radio-Canada’s flagship news program “Enquête” interviewed Denis Paradis, the Liberal minister responsible for organizing the 2003 Ottawa Initiative on Haiti where US, French and Canadian officials discussed ousting the elected president and putting the country under UN trusteeship. Paradis admitted to Radio-Canada that no Haitian officials were invited to discuss their own country’s future and the imperial triumvirate broached whether “the principle of sovereignty is unassailable?” Enquête also interviewed long time Haitian Canadian activist and author Jean Saint-Vil who offered a critical perspective on the discussion to oust Aristide.

    Radio-Canada and the Times’ coverage was influenced by hundreds of articles published by solidarity campaigners in left wing outlets. Damming the Flood: Haiti and the Politics of Containment: Repression and Resistance in Haiti, 2004–2006, Canada in Haiti: Waging War on the Poor Majority, Haiti’s New Dictatorship: The Coup, the Earthquake and the UN Occupation, An Unbroken Agony Haiti, from Revolution to the Kidnapping of a President provide richer documentation about the coup, as do documentaries Haiti: We Must Kill the Bandits, Haiti Betrayed and Aristide and the Endless Revolution.

    The Times article on Aristide’s ouster was part of a series on imperialism in Haiti the paper published on its front page over four days. “The Ransom” detailed the cost to Haiti — calculated at between $21 billion and $115 billion — of paying France to recognize its independence. “A bank created for Haiti funneled wealth to France” showed how Crédit Industriel et Commercial further impoverished the nation in the late 1800s while “Invade Haiti, Wall Street urged, And American military obliged” covered the brutal 1915–34 US occupation, which greatly reshaped its economy to suit foreign capitalists.

    The Times decision to spend tens, maybe hundreds, of thousands of dollars on the series was no doubt influenced by the Black Lives Matter movement and the paper’s 1619 project on slavery. Additionally, Saint-Vil and other Haitian-North American activists have been calling for France to repay the ransom for more than two decades. In 2010 a group of mostly Canadian activists published a fake announcement indicating that France would repay the debt. Tied to France’s Bastille Day and the devastating 2010 earthquake, the stunt by the Committee for the Reimbursement of the Indemnity Money Extorted from Haiti (CRIME) forced Paris to deny it, which the Times reported. The group also published a public letter that garnered significant international attention.

    While these campaigns likely spurred the series, a number of academics made it about themselves. White Harvard professor Mary Lewis bemoaned that her research assistant was cited in “The Ransom” but she wasn’t. Another academic even apologized for sharing the important story. “I regret sharing the NYT article on Haiti yesterday. So many scholars are noting their egregious editorial practices. The writers of the article did not properly credit their sources.” Unfortunately, the academics’ tweets received thousands of likes.

    Leaving aside the pettiness of academia, the series is not without questions and criticisms. First, will the Times apply the historical logic of the series to its future coverage of Haiti or continue acting as a stenographer for the State Department? More directly, why didn’t the series mention the “Core Group” that largely rules Haiti today? The series is supposed to show how foreign intervention has contributed to Haitian impoverishment and political dysfunction, but the Times ignores a direct line between the 2004 coup and foreign alliance that dominates the country today.

    Last week Haitians protested in front of the Canadian embassy in Port-au-Prince. They chanted against the Core Group, which consists of representatives from the US, Canada, EU, OAS, UN, Spain, Brazil and France. A protester banged a rock on the gates. Previously, protesters have hurled rocks and molotov cocktails, as well as burned tires, in front of the Canadian Embassy.

    The Times series has solidified the historical narrative regarding the 2004 coup and popularized the history of imperialism in Haiti. The series is a boon to North Americans campaigning for a radical shift in policy towards a country born of maybe the greatest victory ever for equality and human dignity.

    But the point of activism is not simply to describe the world, but to change it.

    The post New York Times admits truth of Haitian coup first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Grenoble takes on French state as burkini legal row reaches highest court

    Dispute due to go before Conseil d’Etat in municipal bid to allow people to wear any kind of swimwear

    The legal row over whether burkinis, or full-body swimsuits, should be allowed in French municipal swimming pools is to go before France’s highest administrative court as the city of Grenoble battles the state.

    The city, at the foot of the French Alps, has been a the centre of a bitter political row since its Green mayor, Éric Piolle, who leads a broad left-wing coalition, proposed loosening rules on swimwear in outdoor municipal pools.

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • New Caledonia’s Frogier pulls out of French National Assembly race

    RNZ News

    A New Caledonian anti-independence candidate has withdrawn from the race for a seat in the French National Assembly just hours before nominations closed.

    Vaea Frogier pulled out, citing concern about the splits in the anti-independence camp.

    Seventeen candidates in New Caledonia are standing in next month’s election, with the pro-independence parties jointly fielding just one candidate in each of the territory’s two electorates for the seats in Paris.

    Frogier said the anti-independence side was more divided than ever, facing the unity of the pro-independence side, which may win a seat.

    Her withdrawal is meant to increase the chances of anti-independence politicians retaining the two seats.

    In March, Frogier had been among the first to lodge a candidacy.

    Frogier is a former deputy mayor of Mont-Dore and the daughter of Pierre Frogier, who is a former president of New Caledonia and now a member of the French Senate.

    New French Overseas Minister
    Meanwhile, a new French Overseas Minister has been appointed by President Emmanuel Macron in the second stage of his government reshuffle, reports RNZ Pacific.

    Yael Braun-Pivet has replaced Sebastien Lecornu who has been given the defence portfolio.

    Braun-Pivet had been the head of the National Assembly’s law commission.

    Her main challenges include negotiations with New Caledonian leaders in the aftermath of last December’s controversial independence referendum.

    While the anti-independence camp wants the territory’s reintegration into France after its victory at the ballot box, the rival pro-independence side refuses to accept the referendum result.

    In the reshuffle’s first step on Monday, Macron chose Elisabeth Borne as the new prime minister.

    The foreign affairs portfolio has been given to Catherine Colonna who has been France’s ambassador to Britain.

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Mali’s Military Ejects France, But Faces Serious Challenges

    On May 2, 2022, a statement was made by Mali’s military spokesperson Colonel Abdoulaye Maïga on the country’s national television, where he said that Mali was ending the defense accords it had with France, effectively making the presence of French troops in Mali illegal. The statement was written by the military leadership of the country, which has been in power since May 2021.

    Colonel Maïga said that there were three reasons why Mali’s military had taken this dramatic decision. The first was that they were reacting to France’s “unilateral attitude,” reflected in the way France’s military operated in Mali and in the June 2021 decision by French President Emmanuel Macron to withdraw French forces from the country “without consulting Mali.”

    The post Mali’s Military Ejects France, But Faces Serious Challenges appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • Flosse’s Amuitahiraa party names candidates for French elections

    RNZ Pacific

    French Polynesia’s Amuitahiraa Party has registered its three candidates for the French National Assembly elections next month — just hours before the nomination deadline.

    The three are Pascale Haiti, Jonathan Tariha’a and Sylviane Terooatea.

    Haiti, a former member of the French Polynesian Assembly, is the partner of party founder and leader Gaston Flosse, who is banned from public office until 2027.

    If elected, the Amuitahiraa politicians say they will work towards developing the territory’s autonomy statute to make French Polynesia a sovereign state associated with France.

    The 90-year-old Flosse was president of French Polynesia five times and was a French government minister under President Jacques Chirac.

    Two of the three French Polynesian seats in the French National Assembly are held by the ruling Tapura Huiraatira Party, and the third by a pro-independence party.

    Pro-independence Tavini Huiraatira party’s Moetai Brotherson is seeking re-election.

    Wallis and Futuna nominations
    Meanwhile, nominations opened in Wallis and Futuna on Monday for the election of the territory’s only member of the French National Assembly.

    Candidates can register until Friday for the elections.

    The territory’s seat has been held by Sylvain Brial since 2018 when he won a byelection after successfully challenging the 2017 electoral victory of Napole Polutele.

    In Kanaky New Caledonia, nominations are still open this week, with candidates of the pro-independence camp yet to be announced.

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.