France politics
fromwww.thelocal.fr
1 day agoInside France: French elegance, flying bells and Swedish snuff fury
French church bells are said to fly to Rome on Good Friday, returning with chocolate eggs for children on Easter Sunday.
Andres Gerber, who spent six years of his playing career at Thun, told BBC Sport, 'It's a bit like when Leicester won the Premier League.' This comparison highlights the unexpected success of a club that has historically struggled.
Austria's Defense Ministry stated, 'There have indeed been requests and they were refused from the outset.' The refusal is based on the country's neutrality policy, which has been in effect since 1955.
It has become increasingly clear how great the challenges are in implementing the directive in a national context, both for us in Sweden and in other EU countries. Therefore, a relaunch at EU level is needed and we are now taking the initiative to do so.
I do a video a day when I'm on my dog walk in Lund, and I try to find different topics to talk about. My son pointed out to me a video from national broadcaster SVT about a guy named Shahdad who came here from Iran when he was 14. Now he's 25 and he was about to be deported, even though his mum has a permanent residency and he had a job, so I did a video on him, because I didn't agree with that.
After more than 25 years of debate and delay, we have moved beyond words and into action. This commission is not just a technical body; it is a commitment to historical integrity and a long-awaited bridge to justice for those whose heritage was stolen.
At their disposal are mainly three options: The use of the so-called "trade bazooka" a never-before-used instrument that could even go as far as restricting market access for US companies in the EU. The implementation of retaliatory tariffs. The suspension of the EU-US trade deal, which has yet to come into effect. EU heads of state and government will meet for a summit on Thursday a dinner cobbled together in haste to coordinate which of those options the bloc will use in response to Trump's threats.
At first, it sounds almost too simple like someone claiming they've solved European immigration with nothing more than a calendar and a backpack. But this little pattern, when used intentionally and legally, becomes one of the most elegant travel strategies in the world. It lets you stay in Europe far longer than any tourist visa seems to allow, all without breaking rules, overstaying, or navigating complicated immigration systems.
1. Trump - whose speech at the World Economic Forum drew such demand that a stampede nearly broke out at the doors - claimed the Greenland deal gives the U.S. "everything we needed." Even with concessions falling far short of total control, Trump can tout the "Art of the Deal" to his base and retreat from an issue that polls even worse than his handling of the Epstein files. The "Trump Always Chickens Out" (TACO) mockery popularized on Wall Street may sting, but the president's MAGA machine is already moving to sell the deal as a total victory.
Standing among the Alps, it's easy to believe that they will last forever. They seem too big to fail, too old to change. This illusion of permanence has long entranced travelers who have visited to experience the intoxicating feeling of being daunted and dwarfed by a landscape's authority. But even mountains move: This past May an avalanche of ice and rock tore through the Lötschental Valley, erasing the village of Blatten in less than a minute.
Senior European diplomats are due to hold crisis talks after Donald Trump said he was targeting eight European nations with tariffs over their support for Greenland. Italy's prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, said Trump's tariffs were a mistake, and the Dutch foreign minister, David van Weel, described the US president's threats to allies as blackmail, as reaction from European leaders continued to pile up.
It's one step forward, one step back in Europe's relations with the US. Just hours after the Coalition of the Willing made a big step towards providing Ukraine with long-awaited security guarantees with potential UK and French troops deployments and all briefly seemed to be going in the right direction once again, the White House said that using US military is always an option for acquiring Greenland.
We begin with a deliberately ambitious question. What would it take for every person on Earth to live at least as well as someone in Switzerland does today-by 2100? Not culturally Swiss, but economically empowered with high incomes, long lives, strong education, and social cohesion. Achieving this would require global GDP to be about 8.5 times higher than it is today. That figure alone is enough to trigger skepticism. Will we have enough energy, materials, food, and innovation?
European nations are preparing countermeasures to Donald Trump's "blackmail," Germany's Vice Chancellor, Lars Klingbeil, said Monday. Klingbeil said Europe would respond "with a united, clear" response to the US president's threat of tariffs against eight countries for their opposition to his aim of acquiring Greenland, a Danish-owned, semiautonomous Arctic territory.
Trump's decision to announced tariffs on a raft of European nations as a means to force through the transfer of Greenland is perhaps one of the most egregious cases of blackmail against an ally in living memory. While many made peace with the unorthodox Venezuela operation given the claims of drug trafficking and population suppression, Trump's attempts to force the transfer of a fellow Nato member's land takes things a step further.