Have you missed the news a bit in the last two days? We summarize the main information for Saturday December 16 and Sunday December 17.
The head of French diplomacy, Catherine Colonna, visited Israel on Sunday, where she declared that France is concerned “to the highest degree” by the situation in Gaza. She called for “a new immediate and lasting truce”, following a meeting with her Israeli counterpart in Tel Aviv, Eli Cohen.
The latter hammered home the Israeli government’s position that a call for a ceasefire is a “mistake,” a “gift to Hamas.” France can also play an “important” role in Lebanon to avoid an escalation of regional tensions, declared the head of Israeli diplomacy. Colonna warned that calls for “de-escalation” at the Israel-Lebanon border apply to all parties, including Israel.
Furthermore, the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced on Saturday evening the death on the ground of one of its agents in an Israeli bombardment that occurred on Wednesday in Rafah, in the south of the Gaza Strip. Pope Francis deplored on Sunday the death of “a mother and her daughter” in a Catholic parish in Gaza, where “defenseless civilians” were targeted by gunfire and bombings, which also injured seven people.
A “general agreement” will “probably” be found on the draft law relating to immigration before the joint committee (CMP), declared Sunday the President of the National Assembly, Yaël Braun-Pivet, who said she “confident.” This CMP must bring together seven senators and seven deputies on Monday to reach a consensus between the presidential majority and the right on the text which could not be examined in session in the Assembly this week, after the vote on a motion to reject .
The Prime Minister, Elisabeth Borne, must again receive the leaders of the Les Républicains party on Sunday evening to discuss the fate of the text.
On the left, the leader of the socialist deputies, Boris Vallaud, called in La Tribune on Sunday “the humanists of Macronie to reason and coherence” as well as to “refuse the agreement written behind the very back of the CMP in defiance of the separation of powers, in the Prime Minister’s office under the dictation of the right.”
Undefeated in eight matches since the start of the competition, the French team hopes to take revenge on the Scandinavians on Sunday in Denmark. Les Bleues are slightly favorites. They beat the Norwegians by a whisker during the group stages.
But fullback Laura Flippes warns: Sunday “will be a whole different game.” Because if the Tricolores dream of a new global coronation, after 2003 and 2017, they also remain on three defeats in a row against the Norwegians in the final stages of a major competition.
“Russia will be a sovereign and self-sufficient power, otherwise it will no longer exist at all,” Vladimir Putin said Sunday in a speech to the ruling party, his first campaign speech ahead of the March 2024 presidential election. “Russia cannot, like some countries, give up its sovereignty in exchange for a few sausages and become someone’s satellite,” he said, in an apparent reference to Ukraine.
The Russian president was designated this weekend as an “independent candidate” in the 2024 election, and not under the label of a party. Britain’s Ministry of Defense has raised concerns about extending voting to Ukraine’s Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhia regions, regions partly annexed by Russia. He warned of a vote that would be “neither free nor fair”, specifying that “the Russian administration will almost certainly use methods such as electoral fraud and voter intimidation to guarantee a substantial victory for the Russian president”.
Alex Batty, a 17-year-old British teenager found this week in France six years after his disappearance, was repatriated to the United Kingdom on Saturday to reunite with his maternal grandmother, who had his custody before his kidnapping by his mother, in 2017, during a vacation in Spain.
“This is an immensely important moment for him and his loved ones, and we are happy that they were able to see each other again after all this time,” said Manchester police official, Matt Boyle. .
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Vatican. The Vatican criminal court on Saturday sentenced Cardinal Angelo Becciu, tried with nine others for fraud, to five and a half years in prison following a trial surrounding financial operations of the Holy See.
Miss France. Eve Gilles, Miss Nord-Pas-de-Calais, was elected live on TF1 on Saturday evening, claiming her short hair as a difference compared to the other candidates.
Libya. At least 61 migrants are missing and presumed dead after their makeshift boat sank off the coast of Libya, the International Organization for Migration reported.
Parcoursup. The government presented new features on Sunday intended to “improve the guidance” of high school students on the platform, online on Wednesday, including access to a comparator of available training courses.