Banker, economic adviser and now youngest French president

May 08, 2017

PARIS (AP) — Emmanuel Macron has been a star student, a champion of France's tech startup movement, an investment banker and economy minister. But the man who will become France's youngest president has never held elected office. After a campaign based on promises to revive the country through pro-business and pro-European policies, the 39-year-old centrist independent defeated far-right nationalist Marine Le Pen and her protectionist, anti-immigration party.

In his victory speech, Macron vowed to "rebuild the relationship between Europe and the peoples that make it." He pledged to open a new page for France based on hope and "restored confidence." It won't be his first experience in the challenge of reforming France.

He quit his job as a banker at Rothschild to become Socialist President Francois Hollande's economic adviser, working for two years by Hollande's side at the presidential palace. Then as economy minister in Hollande's government from 2014 to 2016, he promoted a package of measures, notably allowing more stores to open on Sundays and evenings and opening up regulated sectors of the economy.

Opponents on the left accused him of destroying workers' protections. Tens of thousands of people poured into the streets for months of protests, and the government had to force the law through parliament under special powers.

Last year, Macron launched his own political movement, En Marche, or In Motion, and quit the Socialist government. He promised to shake up the political landscape by appointing a government that includes new figures from business and civil society.

His next challenge will be to get a parliamentary majority in an election next month to make major changes — with no mainstream party to support him. The strong advocate of a free market and entrepreneurial spirit has called for France to focus on getting benefits from globalization rather than the protectionist policies advocated by the far right.

In his political rallies, he encouraged supporters to wave both the French tricolor and the European Union flags. Le Pen, who has tapped into working-class anger at the loss of jobs and once-secure futures, called him the face of "the world of finance," the candidate of "the caviar left."

"I'm not under control of the banks. If that was the case, I would have kept working for them," Macron answered. Macron had an unexpected test of his political skills following the first round of the vote during what became known as "the battle of Whirlpool," when Le Pen upstaged him at a Whirlpool factory in Amiens that is threatened with closure.

Le Pen's surprise appearance put him on the defensive and prompted him to meet with angry Whirlpool workers later the same day. He was whistled and booed when he first arrived. But he stood his ground, patiently debating workers in often heated exchanges about how to stop French jobs from moving abroad.

In a country shaken by recent terror attacks, he pledged to boost the police and military as well as the intelligence services and to put pressure on internet giants to better monitor extremism online.

To improve Europe's security, he wants the EU to deploy some 5,000 European border guards to the external borders of the bloc's passport-free travel zone. Macron did not campaign alone: His wife was never far away. Brigitte Macron, 24 years his senior, is his closest adviser, supporting him and helping prepare his speeches.

Macron and his wife have publicly described how their unusual romance started — when he was a student at the high school where she was teaching in Amiens in northern France. A married mother of three at the time, she was supervising the drama club. Macron, a literature lover, was a member.

Macron moved to Paris for his last year of high school. "We called each other all the time. We spent hours on the phone, hours and hours," Brigitte Macron recalled in a televised documentary. "Little by little, he overcame all my resistances in an unbelievable way, with patience."

She eventually moved to the French capital to join him and divorced. They married in 2007. Emmanuel Macron says he wants to formalize the job of first lady, adding "she has her word to say in this." Following his victory speech in the courtyard of the Louvre, his wife appeared on stage by his side, with tears in her eyes.

AP video journalist David Keyton contributed to the story.

Joy, relief and rousing Louvre party for France's Macron

May 07, 2017

PARIS (AP) — Screams of joy, sighs of relief and rousing dance music. A wave of human emotion wafted across the palatial esplanade of the Louvre Museum on Sunday night as thousands celebrated the victory of president-elect Emmanuel Macron — and the defeat of his far-right rival, Marine Le Pen.

Across town at a wooded chalet, Le Pen's supporters remained combative, pledging to turn her party's strongest-ever electoral score into a major opposition force. "Relief, relief, relief! There was a fear that the French would choose nationalism. It's been a difficult moment - the country is so divided. The atmosphere of the election — while not exactly civil war — was of a deep clash of ideas," 20-year-old student Alice Whitehead said as she partied at the Louvre.

Crowds cheered with joy and frantically waved tricolor flags as the results were announced on large plasma screens in the courtyard of the Louvre Museum, a former royal palace on the shores of the Seine River in central Paris.

"Macron President!" they chanted. Supporters were of all ages, but including a notable number of young people and children. As dusk set in, strobe lights accompanied a loud DJ set that saw thumping hits by Rihanna and Sia — and a version of the Marseillaise — echo around the historic courtyard. Supporters danced, jumped and sang.

Sarra Zaoui, 8, enthusiastically waved a flag and grinned as she was hoisted up on top of a traffic light in front of the museum's famed Pyramid. Another group of girls who spoke in Arabic to their mother shouted in French "Vive la République, Vive la France!"

Emmanuel Oulai, a 35-year-old insurance broker from Paris, was subdued but hopeful. "This election has changed French politics a lot," he said. "This result shows that there are many people who believe in renewal."

"Also, he has a wonderful name!" Oulai joked. Parisians lined streets outside his campaign headquarters as Macron left in a motorcade to join the party at the Louvre. There, the European anthem, "Ode to Joy" played as Macron strode out to address his supporters.

Macron fans cited his commitment to a united Europe, his open-minded views — and the fact that he is not Le Pen, whose National Front party has tapped widespread frustration with globalization and immigration but is also tainted by a racist past.

Le Pen's election night event took place at a chalet in the Bois de Vincennes, a vast park on the eastern edge of Paris. After her defiant concession speech, Le Pen's supporters put on a happy face, pointing to her 36 percent support as a win for a party long seen as a pariah.

When the results appeared on a big TV screen in her election-night venue, people in the room chanted "Marine, the voice of the people!" and sang the French national anthem. Later, Le Pen herself did a mean jitterbug to the song "YMCA" with party dignitary Jean-Lin Lacapelle.

"Legislative elections are coming soon, so we are going to continue this beautiful fight that she started," said supporter Fabienne Chauvet. Didier Roxel, a National Front supporter, will run in France's June parliamentary election from the Paris suburb of Saint-Germain-En-Laye.

"Now we enter combat," he said. "The true opposition is us."

French voters pick new president amid heightened security

May 07, 2017

PARIS (AP) — French voters decided Sunday whether to back pro-business independent Emmanuel Macron or far-right populist Marine Le Pen as their next president, casting ballots in an unusually tense and important presidential election that also could decide Europe's future.

With Macron the pollsters' favorite, voting stations opened across mainland France at 8 a.m. (0600 GMT) under the watch of 50,000 security forces guarding against extremist attacks. A security scare caused by a suspicious bag prompted the brief evacuation of the Louvre museum courtyard where Macron plans to celebrate election night.

France's Interior Ministry said voter turnout at midday was running slightly lower than during the last presidential runoff in 2012. The ministry said 28 percent of eligible voters had cast ballots, compared with a half-day tally of 31 percent five years ago.

Commentators think a low turnout would benefit Le Pen, whose supporters are seen as more committed and therefore more likely to show up to vote. Macron voted in the seaside resort of Le Touquet in northern France alongside his wife, Brigitte Macron. Le Pen cast her ballot just a hundred kilometers away in Henin-Beaumont, a small town controlled by her National Front party.

Macron, 39, a former Socialist economy minister and one-time banker who ran as an independent, was all smiles and petted a black dog as he stepped out of his vacation home. For security reasons, he was driven to his polling station nearby.

Le Pen, 48, was able to vote without any incident after feminist activists were briefly detained a couple of hours earlier Sunday for hanging a big anti-Le Pen banner from a church in the northern town.

Meanwhile, police and soldiers worked to secure the symbolic Paris venues where the next president will celebrate victory. The grand internal courtyard of the renowned palace-turned-museum Macron picked for his celebration party reopened after several hundred journalists preparing for the election event had to leave because of the security alert over the suspicious bag.

The museum itself was not evacuated, and tourists continued entering and leaving the site. The Louvre already was being heavily guarded after an extremist attacker targeted soldiers near the museum during the presidential campaign. Paris police said the evacuation was a "precautionary measure."

If Le Pen wins, she plans to celebrate at the Chalet du Lac in the Bois de Vincennes, a vast park on Paris' eastern edge. The most closely watched and unpredictable French presidential campaign in recent memory ended with a hacking attack and document leak targeting Macron on Friday night. France's government cybersecurity agency, ANSSI, is investigating the hack, which Macron's team says was aimed at destabilizing the vote.

France's election campaign commission said Saturday that "a significant amount of data" — and some fake information — was leaked on social networks following the hacking attack on Macron. The leaked documents appeared largely mundane, and the perpetrators remain unknown.

The fate of the European Union may hang in the balance as France's 47 million voters decide whether to risk handing the presidency to Le Pen, who dreams of quitting the bloc and its common currency, or to play it safer with Macron, an unabashed pro-European who wants to strengthen the EU.

Global financial markets and France's neighbors are watching carefully. A "Frexit" would be far more devastating than Britain's departure, since France is the second-biggest economy to use the euro. The country also is a central pillar of the EU and its mission of keeping post-war peace via trade and open borders.

The vote will help gauge the strength of global populism after the victories last year of a referendum to take Britain out of the EU and Donald Trump's U.S. presidential campaign. In France, it is a test of whether voters are ready to overlook the racist and anti-Semitic past of Le Pen's National Front party.

Le Pen has broadened the party's appeal by tapping into — and fueling — anger at globalization and fears associated with immigration and Islamic extremism. Macron has argued that France must rethink its labor laws to better compete globally and appealed for unity and tolerance that Le Pen called naive.

Either candidate would lead France into uncharted territory, since neither comes from the mainstream parties that dominate parliament and have run the country for decades. The winner will have to try to build a parliamentary majority in elections next month to make major changes.___

John Leicester in Paris, Alex Turnbull in Henin-Beaumont and Chris den Hond in Le Touquet contributed.

French campaign watchdog examines election-eve Macron leak

May 06, 2017

PARIS (AP) — France's election campaign watchdog is investigating a hacking attack and document leak targeting presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron that his political movement calls a last-ditch bid to disrupt Sunday's tense runoff vote.

Fears of hacking and campaign interference have simmered throughout France's high-stakes, closely watched campaign — and boiled over Friday night as Macron's team said it had been the victim of a "massive and coordinated" hack.

His political movement said the unidentified hackers accessed staffers' personal and professional emails and leaked campaign finance material and contracts — as well as fake decoy documents — online. The perpetrators remain unknown. While the hack is shaking up the already head spinning campaign, it's unclear whether the document dump would dent Macron's large poll lead over far-right Marine Le Pen going into the vote.

After ditching France's traditional left-right parties in a first-round election, voters are now choosing between Macron's business-friendly, pro-European vision and Le Pen's protectionist, closed-borders view that resonates with workers left behind by globalization. The future of the European Union may hinge on the vote, also seen as a test for global populism.

Voting begins in France's overseas territories Saturday before moving to the mainland Sunday, amid a nationwide blackout on campaigning and media coverage seen as swaying voters' views. The leak began just before the blackout descended at midnight, in theatrical timing fitting for the dramatic campaign.

Someone on 4chan — a site known for, among other things, cruel hoaxes and political extremism — posted links to a large set of data which the poster claimed had come from Macron's campaign. Macron's campaign swiftly confirmed it had been hacked some weeks ago, and that at least some of the documents were genuine.

Slamming the hack as an effort to "seed doubt and disinformation" and destabilize the vote, Macron's movement En Marche said it would "take all measures" to shed light on what happened. It recalled similar leaks from Hillary Clinton's U.S. presidential campaign, which also said that authentic documents were mixed with false ones.

The No. 2 in Le Pen's anti-immigration National Front party, Florian Philippot, asked in a tweet, "will the #Macronleaks teach us something that investigative journalism deliberately buried?" The commission overseeing the French campaign said in a statement that it is holding a meeting early Saturday after being informed of the hack and leak.

The voting watchdog also called on the Interior Ministry late Friday to look into claims by the Le Pen campaign that ballot papers are being tampered with nationwide to benefit Macron. The Le Pen campaign said electoral administrators in several regions who receive ballot papers for both candidates have found the Le Pen ballot "systematically torn up."

The presidential campaign has been unusually bitter, with voters hurling eggs and flour, protesters clashing with police and candidates insulting each other on national television — a reflection of the widespread public disaffection with politics.

Le Pen, 48, has brought her far-right National Front party, once a pariah for its racism and anti-Semitism, closer than ever to the French presidency, seizing on working-class voters' growing frustration with globalization and immigration. Even if she loses, she is likely to be a powerful opposition figure in French politics in the upcoming parliamentary election campaign.

In an interview with The Associated Press on Friday, Le Pen said that win or lose, "we changed everything." She claimed an "ideological victory" and said she could still pull of a surprise win on Sunday.

The 39-year-old Macron also helped upend France's traditional political structure with his wild-card campaign outside standard parties. Many voters, however, don't like either Le Pen or Macron. They fear her party's racist past, while worrying that his platform would demolish worker job protections or be too much like his mentor, the deeply unpopular outgoing President Francois Hollande.

UK Conservatives gain in local election; Labor, UKIP sink

May 05, 2017

LONDON (AP) — British Prime Minister Theresa May appeared on course for a sweeping election victory next month after her Conservatives made big gains in local elections at the expense of rivals on both the pro-EU left and the Euroskeptic right.

Ballots were counted Friday from contests for local councils in Scotland, Wales and many parts of England, as well as from mayoral competitions in several cities. With almost all the results in, May's party had gained control of 11 new councils, added more than 500 new councilors and taken a plum mayoral post in the Birmingham area of central England, once strong Labour Party territory.

Portraying herself as a rock of stability in turbulent times, May is urging voters to give the Conservatives a bigger majority in Parliament in the June 8 national election in order to strengthen Britain's hand in exit talks with the European Union. Results from the local elections suggest the message is getting through.

John Curtice, a professor of politics at Strathclyde University, said the Conservatives were on course for their best local-election result in at least a decade, and possibly in a quarter century. "I will not take anything for granted," May insisted.

But Defense Secretary Michael Fallon said voters "are now seeing that what this country needs is a government with a full, working majority to negotiate a good, successful exit from the European Union and to build a stronger, fairer Britain."

The main opposition Labour Party took a beating, shedding some 300 local councilors nationwide and suffering losses in long-time heartlands including industrial south Wales and northeast England. Most dramatically, it lost ground in Scotland, where the Conservatives — long all-but-extinct there — made gains. The party even lost control of the city council in Glasgow, Scotland's biggest city and once the staunchest of Labour strongholds.

Labour did win mayoral contests in the northern English cities of Doncaster, Liverpool and Manchester, but lost the race in the West Midlands area around Birmingham to Conservative Andy Street by just 4,000 votes.

Labour finance spokesman John McDonnell acknowledged the party had suffered a tough night, but told ITV the results were not "the wipeout that people expected." He insisted it is still "all to play for" in the national vote.

But the results will deepen the gloom of Labour members who believe their staunchly left-wing leader Jeremy Corbyn — painted by the Conservatives as a high-taxing loose spender who is weak on security — is driving the party toward a resounding defeat on June 8.

Meanwhile, the centrist Liberal Democrats — the most firmly pro-EU of Britain's major parties — failed to make the big gains they were hoping for in Thursday's vote. And the right-wing U.K. Independence Party, whose animosity to the EU helped drive Britain out of the bloc, was all but wiped out. UKIP lost all but one of the more than 100 council seats it held, as voters switched to the Conservatives now that UKIP's main goal had been achieved.

UKIP deputy chairwoman Suzanne Evans acknowledged the party faces a "difficult dilemma." "We have got what we wanted, but unfortunately we have been in a sense the victims of our own success," she told Sky News.

Obama endorses Macron in France's presidential runoff

May 05, 2017

WASHINGTON (AP) — Former President Barack Obama has endorsed a candidate in the race for France's presidency, taking his first dive back into international politics since leaving the White House in January.

French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron released a video from Obama Thursday morning with the former president touting his candidacy. "I have admired the campaign that Emmanuel Macron has run," Obama said. "He has stood up for liberal values; he put forward a vision for the important role that France plays in Europe and around the world; and he is committed to a better future for the French people. He appeals to people's hopes, and not their fears."

Macron is facing far-right candidate Marine Le Pen in Sunday's runoff vote. Polls suggest Macron is well ahead. Obama said he doesn't plan to get involved often in political situations. "I'm not planning to get involved in many elections now that I don't have to run for office again, but the French election is very important to the future of France and the values that we care so much about. Because the success of France matters to the entire world," he said.

Macron asked Obama for his support, an Obama aide said. Obama called Macron privately in April and praised him, but declined to make an endorsement. But now, Obama decided to weigh in because he believes France's success impacts international challenges on the global stage, the aide said.

The aide spoke on background because the aide wasn't authorized to speak about Obama's deliberations. Political scientist Dov H. Levin of Carnegie-Mellon University called Obama's endorsement unusual for a former president. Presidents like Bill Clinton have tried to personally influence elections in places like Russia and Israel while in office, but Levin said he has not come across an instance where a former president has offered an endorsement in a foreign leadership race like Obama.

Levin, who studies U.S. attempts to influence elections in other countries, said it is rare for a former president to have enough popularity or influence in a foreign country for his assistance to even be desired. "My guess is that Macron found that Obama, even as a former president, still has enough cachet, enough influence with French voters to make it worth asking for his endorsement," Levin said.

Obama ended his message with the words "En Marche," the name of Macron's political movement which means "In Motion" in English, and "Vive La France." President Donald Trump has praised Macron's opponent, Le Pen, although he has not explicitly endorsed her.

"She's the strongest on borders, and she's the strongest on what's been going on in France," Trump said in an April 21 interview with The Associated Press. "Whoever is the toughest on radical Islamic terrorism, and whoever is the toughest at the borders, will do well in the election."

Obama has mostly stayed in the background in American politics since Trump moved into the White House. When congressional Republicans first planned to vote down his signature health care plan, the Affordable Care Act on its seventh anniversary, Obama broke his silence to tout the law's effectiveness. "Thanks to this law, more than twenty million Americans have gained the security and peace of mind of health insurance," he said back in March.

House Republicans narrowly approved a bill striking down parts of the law on Thursday. Obama, through a spokesman, has also criticized Trump's attempt to ban the entry of citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries into the United States, which was eventually halted by the federal courts.

Pentagon to request thousands more troops for Afghanistan next week

Washington (AFP)
May 4, 2017

The Pentagon will ask the White House next week to send thousands more troops to Afghanistan to break a deadlocked fight with the Taliban, a senior official said Thursday.

After a steady downsizing of US troop numbers since 2011, US military commanders say they need to strengthen the numbers on the ground to better support Afghan forces and help retake territory lost to the Taliban.

According to US media, the Pentagon will ask for 3,000 to 5,000 more soldiers, mainly to be assigned to advise and train Afghan military and police.

US troops in Afghanistan number about 8,400 today, and there are another 5,000 from NATO allies, also now in an advisory capacity.

But that is a far cry from the US presence of more than 100,000 six years ago, and the Afghan military has struggled to fill the void amid an unrelenting Taliban insurgency.

"I expect that these proposals will go to the president within the next week," said Theresa Whelan, Acting Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations, in a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing.

The intent is "to move beyond the stalemate and also to recognize that Afghanistan is a very important partner for the United States in a very tricky region."

NATO officially ended its combat operations against the Taliban at the end of 2014, and its current mission is to support Afghan troops in training and advice.

Last year, with the Kabul government struggling to hold ground against the Taliban, former president Barack Obama authorized US air strikes against the Taliban in limited cases, to ensure Afghan forces on the ground would have a "strategic advantage."

The new Trump administration could go beyond that to permit more direct engagement between US forces and the Taliban, General Raymond Thomas, commander of the US Special Operations Command, told the same hearing Thursday.

"Changes to the rules of engagement are being considered," he said.

Source: Space War.
Link: http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Pentagon_to_request_thousands_more_troops_for_Afghanistan_next_week_999.html.