Parliamentary majority for Macron’s political party

#EmmanuelMacron #politics #France #NationalAssembly #voters #elections

After the Sunday’s first round of voting for the National Assembly in France, President Emmanuel Macron’s party might win the parliamentary majority, by a big difference. Forecasts on partial results showed that the party might win 390 to 445 seats in the 577 member National Assembly.

The right-wing republicans were predicted to win 80-132 seats while Marine Le Pen’s National Front is predicted to win only 1 to 10 seats. The worst loss was for the Socialists, who were shown to drop a record 200 seats since the last elections.

As the last step, the Socialist party chief Jean-Christophe Cambadelis asked the voters to support Emmanuel Macron’s rivals so that the President doesn’t monopolize the power.

Emmanuel Macron, the youngest president in France’s history, has won a lot of praise for appointing a balanced cabinet, and also leading Europe in fighting against US President Trump on climate change.

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Wow. Way to go to make a change. I do wish France is in the right hands, which does seem that way till now.

Putin meets French President Macron

#France #President #EmmanuelMacron #Russia #VladimirPutin #Versailles #PetertheGreat #Syria

French President Macron met Vladimir Putin on Monday, on the 300th anniversary of a visit to Versailles by tsar Peter the Great. The handshake this time was much warmer, compared to Macron’s handshake with Donald Trump recently.

Macron said that they disagree on a number of things but at least it was discussed. The topmost priority is the fight against terrorism and eradication of Daesh (IS) in particular. He also mentioned that Syrian use of chemical weapons will be a red line, and France will give an immediate response to such an event.

Putin also shrugged off allegations that Russian hackers infiltrated Macron’s campaign. He also seemed to have promised Macron to give the the ‘whole truth’ about an alleged crackdown on gay men in Russian-controlled Chechnya.

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You remember right? IS = Illiterate Souls

This is a firm stand by French President Emmanuel Macron. And it is nice to see such a leader appear on the podium. I wish he stays the same throughout his term and change European policies for the better.

Modi’s 4-nation tour

#PrimeMinister #NarendraModi #India #Germany #Spain #Russia #France #politics

As India has close ties with European countries for bilateral cooperation on economic, defence, science and technology, and nuclear fronts, fight against terror, and many more, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be going on a four nation European tour starting today.

He will be first visiting Germany, to meet Chancellor Angela Merkel and will head head the fourth biennial Inter-Governmental Consultations (IGC). India and Germany have more than 23 working groups that are related to climate change, energy, infrastructure and tourism. Germany also supports India’s membership in different export control regimes, including the NSG (Nuclear Suppliers Group).

He will then be meeting Premier Mariano Rajoy in Spain, and Spanish King Felipe VI. Spain’s advanced technology and infrastructure, and a cooperation in counter-terror will be some of the main topics to be discussed.

On May 31, he will be travelling to Russia where he will meet President Vladimir Putin. He will also, for the first time, be attending St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF). Science and technology cooperation and people-to-people contacts are also areas that will come up for discussion during the Modi-Putin meeting.

The final stop will be France, where Modi will meet the newly President-elect Macron, considering that India & France have very strong cooperation in space, civil, nuclear, defence and economy.

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Building a connection with other countries is important, and visiting them is always a good way of showing cooperation. India as a growing nation needs this.

A solution to WannaCry

#security #safety #cyber #computer #tech #WannaCry #France #incident

French researchers have found a last-chance way for technicians to save Windows files encrypted by WannaCry. WannaCry, which started to sweep round the globe last Friday and has infected more than 300,000 computers in 150 nations, threatens to lock out victims who have not paid a sum of $300 to $600 within one week of infection.

However, the solution will work under the following two conditions:

The computers shouldn’t have been rebooted since becoming infected
If victims applied the fix before WannaCry carried out its threat to lock their files permanently

The group that includes Adrien Guinet, Matthieu Suiche and Benjamin Delpy, have come up with the solution and told that it should work on all versions of Windows 7 and older.

Till date, only 309 transactions have been carried out (just a mere 2% of the worldwide attacks number).

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That’s great news! Finally people might be able to save their old files and be done with WannaCry for good.

Le Pen to face Macron for French presidency after polls

#Macron #LePen #France #PresidentialElections #polls #politics #voters

Emmanuel Macron will go into the second round of the French presidential election against Marine Le Pen. In the first round of the polls, Macron took first place with nearly 24% votes, and Le Pen managed to secure 22% votes, a shocking disappointment as Le Pen and her party workers had been looking at a figure of 27%-30%.

All the polls that have run a Le Pen/Macron scenario for the second round have suggested to 60/40 split in favor of Macron. Le Pen will hope for better, of course, but while she has to believe she can win on May 7, it’s a very long shot.

It’s obvious that the final result will have an impact on Le Pen and the Front National party, however she is not in danger of being replaced if she loses since there is no alternative leader in the party, for the time being.

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If you go through both the candidate profiles, you will understand that both have their own advantages and disadvantages. However, Le Pen seems to be more — out of mind.

1 policeman killed in Paris by IS

#France #victims #policeman #IS #Paris #shooting #terrorism

A french policeman was shot dead and two others were wounded in central Paris on Thursday night in an attack carried out days before presidential elections and was quickly claimed by the Islamic State militant group. The assailant was later shot dead by the Police.

The attack occured around 9 pm, when a man stopped his vehicle next to a police car. He got out of his vehicle, and shot straight at the police man six times. According to the Islamic State news agency, Amaq news, the attacker was named Abu Yousif al-Belgiki.

The police found out that he was a 39 year old French national, who had been known for previous violent crimes.

The Anti-immigration National Front Leader Marine Le Pen repeated her call for Europe’s partly open borders to be closed.

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It is strange, the questions are baffling. Whether a government should close it’s border to protect it’s citizens. But many of the terrorists attack are carried out by the residents of the country, who have been attracted by the stupid ideals of IS.

Students and Principal wounded in French school shooting

#FrenchSchool #shooting #France #students #principal

A 16-year-old student, Killian Barbey, who had troubled relations with his peers opened fire at a high school in southern France on Thursday, wounding three other students and the principal who tried to intervene, officials said.

Alexis de Tocqueville school in the town of Grasse, a town 40 kilometers from the southern city of Nice, was attacked by Killian Barbey, who was believed to be armed with a rifle, several pistols and a small grenade. The student entered a classroom and left without doing anything, supposedly not able to find the person he was looking for. There was no reason to suspect the shootings were terrorism-related and that there did not appear to be any other suspects.

There were 4 people shot out of which 3 were students and one was the high school principal. There were at least 10 other victims with small wounds.

Read the full article here.

France’s Emmanuel Macron meets Theresa May

#EmmanuelMacron #France #TheresaMay #UK #London #PresidentialCandidate #elections

During the campaign for French elections, candidate Emmanuel Macron visited British Prime Minister Theresa May at her Downing Street office and also met Finance minister Philip Hammond later. He told reporters that, “Brexit cannot lead to a kind of optimisation of Britain’s relationship with the rest of Europe. An exit is an exit.”

Macron, aged 39, is running independently. He is a former economy minister in Socialist President Francois Hollande’s government. He was not able to obtain a meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel during recent visit to Berlin, and is now keen to improve his standing on the world stage and court voters in London, which has an estimated 200,000 french residents.

He mentioned that he was tired of hearing about French entrepreneurs leaving France and moving to London because of the better growth opportunities and the ease of starting a business. He said his ambition as president was to make France more attractive so such people would stay, or return.

Read the full article here.

Australia and France to build Largest Diesel-Electric Submarines!

France beat German and Japanese rivals to secure the Australian contract in April. Australia’s Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian signed the $41 billion deal on Tuesday, to build the world’s largest diesel-electric submarines in the Australian industrial town of Adelaide. The contract is to build 12 submarines for the given amount, the largest capital project in Australia’s history.

The deal will employ a workforce of 2,800 people starting 2022. Mr Turnbull was seen saying that Security is uncertain around the world and that is why there is a need to re-equip the navy and defence forces.

The submarines, named Shortfin Barracuda Block1A will be 97 meters (318 feet) long and will weight 4,500 metric tonnes, which is 2.5 meters shorter and 200 metric tonnes lighter than the French nuclear sub. Read the full article here.

France rebukes Russian support for Syria, Aleppo seeking for EU help

French President Francois Hollande accused Russia of reneging on its pledges in Syria. Hollande told the reporters in Brussels that Russia doesn’t honor the commitments it makes. During the summit of EU leaders in Brussels he also expressed his concern over leaving women, men and children to suffer bombing, and being treated in an undignified manner. The regime of Bashar Assad needs to take total responsibility of the situation.

The head of the local council of Aleppo, Brita Haj Hassan, warned that about 50,000 civilians in eastern Aleppo are about to be victims of a general massacre by government soldiers. He called for EU’s help, to send some troops to monitor the evacuation of civilians. He also mentioned that around 5,000 people who are hurt are currently in need of urgent evacuation.

This evacuation is part of a cease-fire deal reached between the opposition (rebels) and the Syrian government forces, so as to provide a safe passage for the civilians to leave the war-ridden Aleppo. Till now, hundreds of civilians have been killed and thousands displaced in the Russian-backed Syrian government campaign to retake Aleppo. Read the full article here.