Foreign News
Barnier becomes new French PM and bids to end turmoil
Veteran French conservative Michel Barnier has taken over as prime minister, almost two months after France’s snap elections ended in political stalemate.
He said France had come to a “serious moment” and he was facing it with humility: “All political forces will have to be respected and listened to, and I mean all.”
President Emmanuel Macron named the EU’s former chief Brexit negotiator, ending weeks of talks with political parties and potential candidates.
Mr Barnier, 73, arrived at the prime minister’s residence at Hôtel Matignon in Paris on Thursday evening, taking over the role from Gabriel Attal, France’s youngest ever prime minister who has been in office for the past eight months.
His immediate task will be to form a government that can survive a National Assembly divided into three big political blocs, with none able to form a clear majority.
But Mr Barnier will need all his political skills to navigate the coming weeks, with the centre-left Socialists already planning to challenge his appointment with a vote of confidence.
He said he would respond in the coming days to the “challenges, the anger and the sense of being abandoned and of injustice that run through our towns and countryside”.
He promised to tell the truth to the French people about the financial and environmental challenges facing the country, and to work with “all those in good faith” towards great respect and unity.
It has taken President Macron 60 days to make up his mind on choosing a prime minister, having called a “political truce” during the Paris Olympics.
In his farewell speech outside Hôtel Matignon, Gabriel Attal said “French politics is sick, but a cure is possible, provided that we all agree to move away from sectarianism”.
Having led the marathon talks on the UK’s exit from the European Union between 2016 and 2019, Mr Barnier has considerable experience of political deadlock. He has had a long political career in France as well as the EU and has long been part of the right-wing Republicans (LR) party.
Known in France as Monsieur Brexit, he is France’s oldest prime minister since the Fifth Republic came into being in 1958.
Three years ago, he tried and failed to become his party’s candidate to take on President Macron for the French presidency. He said he wanted to limit and take control of immigration.
Mr Macron’s presidency lasts until 2027. Normally the government comes from the president’s party, as they are elected weeks apart.
But the man who has called himself “the master of the clocks” changed that when he called snap elections in June and his centrists came second to the left-wing New Popular Front.
President Macron has interviewed several potential candidates for the role of prime minister, but his task was complicated by the need to come up with a name who could survive a so-called censure vote on their first appearance in the National Assembly.
The Elysée Palace said that by appointing Mr Barnier, the president had ensured that the prime minister and future government would offer the greatest possible stability and the broadest possible unity.
Mr Barnier had been given the task of forming a unifying government “in the service of the country and the French people”, the presidency stressed.
Mr Barnier’s initial challenge as prime minister will be to steer through France’s 2025 budget and he has until 1 October to submit a draft plan to the National Assembly.
Gabriel Attal has already been working on a provisional budget over the summer, but getting it past MPs will require all Mr Barnier’s political skills.
His nomination has already caused discontent within the New Popular Front (NFP), whose own candidate for prime minister was rejected by the president.
Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the leader of the radical France Unbowed (LFI) – the biggest of the four parties that make up the NFP – said the election had been “stolen from the French people”.
Instead of coming from the the alliance that came first on 7 July, he complained that the prime minister would be “a member of a party that came last”, referring to the Republicans.
“This is now essentially a Macron-Le Pen government,” said Mr Mélenchon, referring to the leader of the far-right National Rally (RN).
He then called for people to join a left-wing protest against Mr Macron’s decision planned for Saturday.
To survive a vote of confidence, Mr Barnier will need to persuade 289 MPs in the 577-seat National Assembly to back his government.
Marine Le Pen has made clear her party will not take part in his administration, but she said he at least appeared to meet National Rally’s initial requirement, as someone who “respected different political forces”.
Jordan Bardella, the 28-year-old president of the RN, said Mr Barnier would be judged on his words, his actions and his decisions on France’s next budget, which has to be put before parliament by 1 October.
He cited the cost of living, security and immigration as major emergencies for the French people, adding that “we hold all means of political action in reserve if this is not the case in the coming weeks”.
Mr Barnier is likely to attract support from the president’s centrist Ensemble alliance. Macron ally Yaël Braun-Pivet, who is president of the National Assembly, congratulated the nominee and said MPs would now have to play their full part: “Our mandate obliges us to.”
The former Brexit negotiator had only emerged as a potential candidate late on Wednesday afternoon.
Until then, two other experienced politicians had been touted as most likely candidates: former Socialist prime minister Bernard Cazeneuve and Republicans regional leader Xavier Bertrand. But it soon became apparent that neither would have survived a vote of confidence.
That was Mr Macron’s explanation for turning down the left-wing candidate, Lucie Castets, a senior civil servant in Paris who he said would have fallen at the first hurdle.
The president has been widely criticised for igniting France’s political crisis.
A recent opinion poll suggested that 51% of French voters thought the president should resign.
There is little chance of that, but the man Mr Macron picked as his first prime minister in 2017, Édouard Philippe, has now put his name forward three years early for the next presidential election.
[BBC]
Tributes have been paid to the war photographer Paul Conroy who has died at the age of 61.
He covered conflicts around the world and was wounded in the Syrian army’s bombardment of Homs, which killed his Sunday Times colleague Marie Colvin in 2012.
Their fateful assignment was depicted in the 2018 movie A Private War, with the actor Jamie Dornan playing Conroy.
The Liverpool-born photographer died from a heart attack on Saturday in Devon, where he had lived, his brother Alan told the BBC.
“He did all his life what he wanted to do to make a difference – he found great pleasure in exposing wrongs,” Alan added.
BBC newsreader Clive Myrie posted that he was “utterly devastated” by the news, describing Conroy as “a wonderful photojournalist and a wonderful human being”.
“I counted him as a friend and a decent, principled and kind man. My brutha you will be sorely missed. RIP”
Lindsey Hilsum, international editor at Channel 4, added: “All of us who knew and loved him are devastated.”
Conroy also spent seven years with the Royal Artillery as a soldier before becoming a professional photographer and was a trustee of the Frontline Club for media professionals, diplomats and aid workers.
Its founder Vaughan Smith, who was also in the Army, said: “He was one of the characters – those people who stand out because everybody adores them and they make you feel better.”
The 2018 documentary Under the Wire was made about Conroy’s escape from the 2012 bombardment of a makeshift media centre in Homs, where his colleagues Marie Colvin and Remi Ochlik were killed.
Referring to the Syrians who were killed in the area, he said: “These beautiful people who were being slaughtered, I wanted to tell their story.”
He only realised how badly injured he was when he returned to the UK.
“Obviously I knew I had a huge hole in the back of my leg,” he said.
“But in London I found out I also had a great big piece of shrapnel wedged under my kidneys. I had 23 operations on my leg and others on my abdomen and back. I was in hospital for five months.”
Conroy worked in Libya and Ukraine and had recently returned from an assignment in Cuba.
He also took photos for the British singer Joss Stone and wrote music with her.
She said she was “so grateful to have known him and honoured to call him my friend”.
“I wouldn’t be the person I am today without Paul. Paul Conroy was a legend. A wonderful person through and through. Always standing up for what was right. Always there for those in need.”
He leaves behind a wife, three sons and grandchildren.
[BBC]
Iran has begun 40 days of mourning after Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in ongoing attacks by the United States and Israel, according to Iranian state media.
Top security officials were also killed in Saturday’s strikes, along with Khamenei’s daughter, son-in-law and grandson. The killings mark one of the most significant blows to Iran’s leadership since the 1979 Islamic revolution.
President Masoud Pezeshkian condemned the killing as “a great crime”, according to a statement from his office. He also declared seven days of public holidays in addition to the 40-day mourning period.
Reporting from Tehran, Al Jazeera’s Tohid Asadi said people were pouring into the streets of the capital following the news of Khamenei’s killing.
“There will be expected ceremonies,” he said, noting they would likely take place amid continuing bombardment across the country.
Protests denouncing Khamenei’s killing were also reported elsewhere, including Shiraz, Yasuj and Lorestan.
Footage aired by Iranian state media showed supporters mourning at the shrine of Imam Reza in Mashhad, with several people seen crying and collapsing in grief.
The killing also led to protests in neighbouring Iraq, which declared three days of public mourning. In Baghdad, protesters confronted security forces in the heavily fortified Green Zone, which houses Iraqi government buildings and foreign embassies.
Videos verified by Al Jazeera showed demonstrators waving flags and shouting slogans, with witnesses saying some were attempting to mobilise towards the US Embassy. Footage also showed protesters blocking vehicles at a roundabout near one of the entrances to the area.
There was also a protest in the Pakistani city of Karachi, where footage, verified by Al Jazeera, showed people setting fire to and smashing the windows of the US consulate.
However, there have also been reports of celebrations in Iran, with the Reuters news agency quoting witnesses as saying some people had taken to the streets in Tehran, the nearby city of Karaj and the central city of Isfahan.
Meanwhile, the official IRNA news agency reported that a three-person council, consisting of the country’s president, the chief of the judiciary, and one of the jurists of the Guardian Council, will temporarily assume all leadership duties in the country. The body will temporarily oversee the country until a new supreme leader is elected.
Khamenei assumed leadership of Iran in 1989 following the death of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who had led the Islamic revolution a decade earlier.
While Khomeini was regarded as the ideological force behind the revolution that ended the Pahlavi monarchy, Khamenei went on to shape Iran’s military and paramilitary apparatus, strengthening both its domestic control and its regional influence.
Meanwhile, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) pledged revenge and said it had launched strikes on 27 bases hosting US troops in the region, as well as Israeli military facilities in Tel Aviv.
[Aljazeera]
A 24-year-old British man is among 19 people who were killed in a bus crash in Nepal, police say.
The bus – which had been carrying tourists – had been travelling to the capital, Kathmandu, when it lost control and fell 200m on to the bank of the Trishuli river, in the country’s central Dhading district, in the early hours of Monday morning.
There were 44 people onboard including the driver, 25 of whom suffered injuries. The bus had been travelling from Pokhara, a popular tourist spot.
Nepal’s Home Ministry has created a five-member taskforce to investigate the cause of the incident. The UK Foreign Office said it was assisting the family of the Briton who was killed.
Nepalese authorities identified him as Stewart Dominic Ethan. His name has not been confirmed by the Foreign Office.
Nepalese police say they have identified all 19 bodies, including a 40-year-old Chinese woman and a 32-year-old man from India. Among the injured is a Chinese national and a New Zealander.
All the injured had been taken to hospitals in the capital, they added. Children were among those onboard.
Multiple teams were sent to the site, including police units, the army and a rescue team of divers, authorities said.
Police spokesman Abinarayan Kafle said 17 people died at the scene, with two more dying while receiving treatment, BBC Nepali reported.
Road accidents are relatively commonplace in Nepal, due to a range of factors including poor road maintenance and narrow paths in mountainous areas.
In 2024, at least 14 people died after a bus travelling from Pokhara to Kathmandu fell into the Marsyangdi river in the Tanahun district.
“We are supporting the family of a British man who has died in Nepal and are in contact with the local authorities,” a Foreign Office spokesman told the BBC.
Nepal is a popular destination for many international visitors, especially climbers, who travel there to access a key section of the Himalaya mountain range that includes Mount Everest.
Home to eight of the world’s tallest peaks, mountaineering is a significant source of revenue for the country – in 2024 climbing fees brought in $5.9m.
[BBC]
PCB fines Pakistan players for underwhelming T20 World Cup campaign
Iran strikes Qatar and Saudi energy sites as US jets shot down by Kuwaiti ‘friendly fire’
India and Canada agree series of deals as Carney and Modi reset ties in Delhi
Oil prices rise after ships attacked near Strait of Hormuz
War photographer Paul Conroy dies as tributes paid
Allies of US in the Gulf bear brunt of Iran attacks
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