Tens of thousands of people have returned to the streets in France this Saturday to protest against the high cost of living and the lack of investment in education. Unlike October 17, when many cities experienced moments of chaos with fires, looting, and clashes with the police, this Saturday the citizen mobilization was calmer and clashes between the police and some protesters were only recorded in cities such as Paris, Lyon, Marseille, and Nice. In Paris, the march was massive and peaceful, and police charges only took place once it had already ended. "Most people want to make demands peacefully. Then there is a small group that wants to get beaten up, I don't know why. But what I do know is that the government is immersed in a spiral of violence, instead of providing a social response, which is what we expect," stated Jeanne, one of the participants in the Paris march.

The Gendarmerie has placed three-meter-high fences that seem impassable on the streets of Paris leading to the Elysée. During the riots that France experienced last Saturday, groups of violent individuals tried to storm the seat of the French presidency. They stopped just over a hundred meters away. This time it will be more difficult to approach the presidential palace. French cities have shielded themselves to prevent a repeat of the scenes of looting, fires, and violence of October 17th with exceptional and highly criticized measures: banned demonstrations, curfews, shielding of official buildings, exceptional deployment of law enforcement, elite units, soldiers, and armored vehicles. "We will be absolutely ruthless" against the violent, warned the Minister of the Interior, Laurent Nuñez, this Friday.

France is trying to shield itself to avoid situations of chaos and violence once again this Saturday, when another day of major mobilizations is expected. The President of France, Emmanuel Macron, has chosen the strategy of a firm hand to stop the riots: limiting the right to demonstrate. The French head of state asked the prefects this Thursday to ban all demonstrations for the coming days—and especially, looking ahead to Saturday—that are not called by the unions. Macron considers any protest that does not have the unions behind it "illegitimate." "The general instruction is that there should be no demonstrations in the coming days," the President of the Republic explained.

The images of young people smashing shop windows, looting stores and burning urban furniture in different French cities last weekend have given an electoral boost to Marine Le Pen, who aspires to take the Élysée in the presidential elections to be held in six months' time. "Dear vandals: you are the best campaign agents for Marine Le Pen," lamented the day after the riots the chronicler of Libération Luc Le Vaillant. "Your looting, your pillaging operations, your revolutionary 'reappropriations' are the best way to bring Le Pen to power. It makes one wonder if you are not the fifth column of the far right," wrote the journalist.

France has experienced a quiet night after days of riots and the chaos experienced during the weekend following the protest over the rising cost of living. Only a few unauthorized demonstrations in Lyon and Rennes, and the occasional scene of looting, have disturbed the calm. The bans on demonstrations and the curfews decreed in different cities have served to return –at least for now– to normality. Large cities such as Paris, Marseille, Lyon, Bordeaux, and Lille will maintain partial curfews for tonight. In the case of the capital, the curfew affects all citizens –including tourists–, the Place de la République, and the Les Halles commercial area, epicenters of the violent acts of recent days. Despite the return of calm, the social crisis is far from being resolved and tension will return to the streets this Saturday in a new day of protest called by the yellow vests movement.

France spent a quiet night from Monday to Tuesday, after several localities decreed nighttime curfews to try to curb the riots of the previous days. "The selective curfews have contributed to the tranquility of this night," stated Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu in a message on his social networks, adding that they will be repeated "where the situation requires it."

The day of mobilization in France to protest against the rising cost of living has left images of authentic chaos, violence, and clashes between protesters and police in Paris and other cities such as Marseille, Lyon, Bordeaux, Rennes, and Limoges. According to the organizers, 800,000 people have taken to the streets, a figure that the French authorities lower to 550,000. Across the country, more than 90 demonstrations and 500 protests were called, and many have ended in riots –especially serious in Paris–, on a day in which the police have arrested hundreds of people. Just in the metropolitan area of the French capital, there have been 855 arrests. Nationwide, the toll of detainees rises to 1,800 people, and there are 500 injured police officers.

The French government has not wanted to make the names public nor give concrete figures, but "several" senior officials and close collaborators of ministers have been suspended from their duties after testing positive for drugs. The Prime Minister, Sébastien Lecornu, had ordered random tests to be carried out on officials holding high positions or in places where they have access to sensitive information, on diplomats and on members of ministerial cabinets. Hundreds of people have undergone them, including ambassadors, heads of cabinet and also all ministers.

A few months before leaving the Elysée, Emmanuel Macron wants to set the idea he has been pursuing for years on track: Europe must militarily emancipate itself from the United States and work together for its security and defense. Donald Trump's arrival at the White House gave impetus to the idea, and the war in Ukraine has contributed to European countries working together to defend themselves, albeit with still unencouraging results.

The far-right French leader Marine Le Pen will be a candidate in the 2027 presidential elections. It was unlikely that after the forceful sentence that condemned her to four years in prison and five years of disqualification in March 2025 for embezzlement of public funds could run for president, but an unexpected judicial plot twist will make it possible. "The French will have the freedom to choose. They will have the last word," Le Pen assured this evening in an interview on TF1 in which she announced that she will run for president despite being convicted.The leader of the National Rally also stated that she will appeal to the Court of Cassation – the equivalent of the Spanish Supreme Court – the sentence that has convicted her, a fact that adds uncertainty to her presidential candidacy. If the high court ends up confirming the verdict, Le Pen will have to campaign and participate in the presidential elections under house arrest and with an electronic ankle bracelet. If she were elected president, she would move to the Elysée with the electronic bracelet. It would be an absurd situation with no precedents.French justice has made public this Tuesday a tailor-made ruling so that Le Pen can be a candidate in the presidential elections. The Paris Court of Appeal has confirmed the first-instance conviction, but has shortened her prison and disqualification period, which left the door open for Le Pen to run in the elections, scheduled for the spring of next year. The court has imposed a sentence of three years in prison, of which only one is firm.House arrest

However, Le Pen will not enter any penitentiary center: she will have to serve the 12 months under house arrest with an electronic bracelet. The convicted person, however, could request a reduction of the house arrest, and if the judge accepts the request, she would only have to serve six months. In any case, if the future candidate appeals the decision, it is most likely that the sentence will be suspended until the Court of Cassation rules. It is expected to do so in January 2027 and, a priori, it would be then when the far-right leader would have to begin her house arrest. The high court only rules on the legality of the sentence, not on the merits.Regarding the disqualification – which is the key to Marine Le Pen's political future – the court has sentenced her to 45 months of disqualification, of which only 15 are final. As she was convicted in the first instance on March 31, 2025, she has already served the disqualification sentence. Legally, she has a clear path to be a candidate. This is the major new development in Tuesday's decision. The number two of RN –Jordan Bardella is the formal president– has benefited from a recent reform aimed at alleviating prison overcrowding, which provides that a part of prison sentences remain suspended and do not have to be served within penitentiary centers. But the court has also taken into account the political situation and its desire not to interfere in a presidential election. The president of the court, Michèle Agi, has made it clear, emphasizing that the ruling has taken into account the guarantee of "the elector's freedom of choice, an indispensable condition for the expression of democratic suffrage." And she added: "Ignoring this would violate the principle of freedom of candidacies, an essential condition for the expression […] of universal democratic suffrage." In other words, it acknowledges that the ruling has been issued in such a way that Le Pen, despite being convicted, can be a candidate.Bracelet campaign

Before the ruling became public, Le Pen had conditioned her candidacy on not being convicted of any crime and not wearing an electronic bracelet. "When one is a candidate for the presidential elections, one must have absolute freedom of movement and cannot depend on a magistrate to authorize you to go to a rally in Romorantin or to a market in Hénin-Beaumont," Marine Le Pen said last week on the LCI channel. The electronic bracelet greatly limits the movements of the convicted person: a movement perimeter is established and they must comply with house arrest schedules.

Europe is facing a new climatic reality. Extreme, long, and historic heatwaves are becoming increasingly frequent and are one of the most evident faces of a climate crisis that demands urgent responses. The episode of high temperatures affecting a large part of the continent this June (also in places where it was previously unthinkable) is breaking records in several countries and is the result of global warming caused by human activity and the accumulation of greenhouse gases. And it is no coincidence: Europe is the continent that is warming fastest on the planet and the impacts are already visible on health, agriculture, ecosystems, and water availability.

The image of long queues in front of large appliance stores every day first thing in the morning, before they open, to buy an air conditioner or a fan, best explains the desperation of the French after nine days of a historic, intense and long heatwave, with daytime and nighttime temperatures that have broken all records. Managing to buy an air conditioning unit has become an impossible mission. Stocks have run out.

If there is one thing the G-7 countries agree on, it is that the pact between the United States and Iran to end the conflict could provide a boost for peace in Ukraine. With the war in Iran, that of Ukraine had taken a back seat. But now, with the Middle East conflict on track – albeit with a fragile agreement – the wind is blowing in the right direction. At the summit gathering the seven major world powers – France, the United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the United States – in the French city of Évian-les-Bains until this Wednesday, the G-7 leaders have united to redouble pressure on Russia to sit down and negotiate peace. "Russia should reach an agreement," warned US President Donald Trump.

Europe and the main world powers have received the peace agreement between the United States and Iran with caution but also with hope. The announcement came just hours before the start of the G-7 summit, which will be held until Wednesday in the French city of Évian-les-Bains, with Lake Geneva as its backdrop, and with the presence of the US President, Donald Trump. "The agreement is an opportunity to restore regional stability and stabilize the world economy," France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Italy, and Japan have stated in a joint statement.

More than 6,000 people participated on Sunday in a silent march in Florence, a municipality of just over 6,000 inhabitants located near Toulouse (Occitania). It is the town where Lyhanna, an 11-year-old girl, lived with her parents and brother. The police found her dead last Thursday, allegedly murdered by the father of one of her best friends, a 41-year-old man. The family had reported her missing three days earlier.

Brussels banned the Russian news agency Sputnik and the television station Russia Today, considered instruments of Kremlin disinformation, throughout European territory shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine more than four years ago. But in France, Russian propaganda did not die with that decision by the European Commission. Added to the entire disinformation apparatus operating through social networks is the strange phenomenon of Xenia Fedorova, the journalist who directed Russia Today in France until it had to close.

France, a European country that was a pioneer 25 years ago in recognizing the slave trade and slavery as a crime against humanity, is now opening the door – timidly – to its reparation. The country was one of the main colonizing powers in Africa, the Caribbean, and America, especially between the 17th and 18th centuries, where it promoted slavery. The President of the Republic, Emmanuel Macron, has argued this week that the "immense issue" of reparation should not be evaded.

The spectacular figures give an idea of the scope of the problem: the Paris Public Prosecutor's Office has opened an investigation into 84 nursery schools, 20 primary schools, and 10 nurseries in the French capital due to complaints against monitors and childcare educators, for both sexual abuse and acts of mistreatment (violence, punishments, etc.). The Prosecutor's Office announced this week, coinciding with a strike this Tuesday by educational staff who look after children in schools during non-teaching hours, both during the lunch break and in activities held in the afternoons, when classes have already finished.

A few days after crossing the Pyrenees on foot to flee Francoism, in the middle of February and in the midst of a glacial cold, Montserrat Casals fell ill. She was only three years old. She was transferred alone to a hospital in France while her mother and brother were locked up in Gaillon Castle, in Normandy, and her father was interned in the Barcarès concentration camp. A week later, a nun from the French hospital where Montserrat had been admitted went to the castle with the child in her arms to hand her over to her mother, Rosa. "I bring you your daughter because she is about to die. We can do nothing more," the nun told her. It was 1939.

Spanish strawberries, mostly produced in Huelva, have flooded French supermarkets for decades. Their price is clearly lower than French varieties. But little by little, strawberries produced in France have been gaining ground. According to the sector, for the first time, 50% of this fruit consumed in France has been grown in the country. The rest is imported, mainly from Spain. "It hasn't happened suddenly. Over 15 years, we have gained 10% of the market share from Spanish strawberries. It hasn't been a sudden change," explains Emeline Vanespen, director of the main French association of strawberry producers (AOPn Fraises et Framboises de France).