Emmanuel macron

On September 21, students at the Lycée Saint-Exupéry in Créteil, south-east of Paris, staged a protest. They had a list of grievances. Classes were overcrowded and there was a shortage of teachers. They were also dismayed at the decaying state of some of the school buildings and the automated university admissions platform they feel deprives them of autonomy. Students filmed the protest and uploaded the footage onto social media. It went viral. Across France, children in other secondary schools joined the protest. They aired the same complaints as their peers in Créteil – and more. Some students described seeing rats in classrooms, others of enduring leaking ceilings and moldy walls. For many, memories of the summer heatwave were still painfully fresh.

The government of France held a crisis meeting yesterday afternoon as a school protest movement intensified in violence. On Wednesday, 625 people were arrested and 83 gendarmes and police officers were injured as youths protested outside hundreds of schools nationwide. Yesterday, a school in Nantes was severely damaged after being firebombed and a fire engine was destroyed in Marseille. In the city of Reims there were fierce clashes between protesters and police, and only the use of tear gas dispersed the demonstrators. In some cities, such as Rennes, it was reported that university students were protesting alongside the high school pupils. The government claimed yesterday that the movement has been hijacked “by LFI and its far-left proxies.

France’s under-15s can carry on using social media after a parliamentary ban was struck down by the Republic’s constitutional council on Friday. The ruling is a humiliating blow for Emmanuel Macron, who had championed the legislation from the beginning. It had won the backing of both parliament and the Senate last month but the Council had other ideas. In rejecting the Bill, France’s highest constitutional authority judged that it “places a disproportionate restriction on freedom of expression and communication.” Macron heard the news as he enjoyed the surf at his seaside retreat on the Riveria, a break that has already provoked the ire of many. Should the President be gallivanting on a jet-ski when so much of the country is ravaged by destructive wildfires?

Emmanuel Macron has lost a friend in Keir Starmer. The French President paid tribute to the outgoing British Prime Minister last week, describing him as a man of ‘dignity, decency and courage’. When one door closes another one opens, and while Starmer was organising the removal vans, Macron was welcoming Giorgia Meloni to the Côte d’Azur. Last week’s Franco-Italian summit was the first of its kind since 2020; Meloni was elected prime minister two years later. For Macron, she posed a threat to European ‘values’ because her party had its roots in postwar fascism Her victory did not go down well with Macron and his centrist government.

France has maxed out on migrants. It’s a message that Marine Le Pen’s National Rally party has been pushing for years, but it’s one now endorsed by the government’s Justice Minister. In an interview with a newspaper at the weekend, Gérald Darmanin declared that the Republic has "reached the limits of our capacities for integration and assimilation." Darmanin believes that a three-year suspension of legal immigration is the answer, and in particular he wants a crackdown on the policy of family reunification. Introduced in 1976, the policy allowed migrants – mainly from North Africa – who came to France to work to also bring their family. "We must put an end to immigration as it exists today," said Darmanin.

It was the slap that shook the world. Not so much from shock but laughter, as cameras caught the Macrons having a domestic on an international flight. A book published this week in France claims that Brigitte slapped her husband after discovering "a steamy message" on Emmanuel’s phone sent by an actress. According to Un Couple (Presque) Parfait, ‘Slapgate’ wasn’t the first time Brigitte had to bring her husband to heel over a woman The books says the sender was Iranian-born Golshifteh Farahani, who came to prominence in 2008 when she starred alongside Leonardo DiCaprio in the Ridley Scott film, Body of Lies. Brigitte allegedly found the message as the presidential jet landed at Hanoi airport in May last year.

Ten days after Thanksgiving, news watchers were exposed to one of the more culturally incongruous images in recent history: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and French President Emmanuel Macron beaming in front of the British Prime Minister’s house at 10 Downing Street, giving each other the locked-thumbs handshake familiar to African-American jazz musicians and professional athletes of the 1970s. Right on, brother! At that moment, according to Ukrainian media, thousands of Zelensky’s soldiers had been encircled by Russian troops near the city of Pokrovsk (or Krasnoarmiisk, as it may well soon be renamed). Large gaps were appearing in the Ukrainian front, desertions were rising and Russians appeared to be opening a new front east of Kharkiv.

Emmanuel Macron says Europeans should stop relying on social media for their news and turn back to traditional public media. Speaking in Paris on Wednesday, he said people were “completely wrong” to use social networks for information and should instead depend on journalists and established outlets. Social platforms, he argued, are driven by a ‘process of maximum excitement” designed to “maximize advertising revenue,” a system he said is “destroying the foundations of democratic debate.” He accused X of being “dominated by far-right content” and added that the platform was no longer neutral because its owner had “decided to take part in the democratic struggle and in the international reactionary movement.” TikTok, he warned, was no less dangerous.

Candace Owens joined Freddy Gray on the Americano show last Friday to discuss her recent lawsuit with the Macrons, Trump's intervention, the Epstein Files and accusations of anti-Semitism. Here are some highlights from their conversation. Why did Macron and his wife sue Candace Owens? Freddy Gray: Candace is being sued or threatened with legal action by the Macrons, Emmanuel and Brigitte Macron, the President and First Lady of France. Because, Candace, you believe that Brigitte Macron is a man. Why do you think the Macrons are choosing to sue you? Candace Owens: Because they were trying to stop the story. I think it was an effective PR strategy.