Wegen der anhaltenden Krawalle in Frankreich kommt Präsident Emmanuel Macron vorerst nicht nach Deutschland. Bundespräsident Steinmeier äußert sein Bedauern.
Der französische Präsident hat nach einer vierten Krawallnacht am Samstag seinen Staatsbesuch in Deutschland abgesagt. Nach dem Erschießungstod eines 17 Jahre alten Jugendlichen bei einer Verkehrskontrolle am Dienstag sind in etlichen Vorstädten Unruhen ausgebrochen. Allein in der Nacht von Freitag auf Samstag gab es mehr als 1300 Festnahmen.
Es ist bereits das zweite Mal in Folge, dass Macron aufgrund innenpolitischer Schwierigkeiten einen Staatsbesuch absagen muss. Ende März war die geplante Reise von König Charles III. kurzfristig annulliert worden. Damals waren es die Rentenproteste, die das Land in Aufruhr hielten.
Steinmeier äußert „vollstes Verständnis“
Bundespräsident Frank-Walter Steinmeier hatte am Samstag mit Macron telefoniert und äußerte anschließend sein Bedauern über die Absage des französischen Präsidenten, aber auch „vollstes Verständnis angesichts der Situation in unserem Nachbarland“. So heißt es in einer Mitteilung, die das Bundespräsidialamt verschickte.
Steinmeier verfolge die Entwicklung mit großer Aufmerksamkeit. Er hoffe, dass die Gewalt auf den Straßen bald beendet und der soziale Frieden wieder hergestellt werden könne. Aus dem Schloss Bellevue hieß es, der Staatsbesuch des französischen Präsidenten solle „baldmöglichst“ nachgeholt werden.
Vor der Absage war geplant, dass Steinmeier Macron am Sonntagnachmittag zunächst ins Literaturarchiv Marbach führt. Auch ein Halt im Schillersaal war vorgesehen. Die beiden Präsidentenpaare wollten gemeinsam zu Abend essen, bevor Macron am Montagmorgen mit militärischen Ehren in Ludwigsburg begrüßt werden sollte.
Mit Bundeskanzler Olaf Scholz war eine Bootsfahrt auf der Spree vorgesehen, um auch symbolisch zu zeigen, dass Frankreich und Deutschland „in einem Boot sitzen“. Im Anschluss sollte es eine Unterredung im Kanzleramt geben.
Campaigning for Cambodia’s general election has officially begun. It's an exercise that serves more as an affirmation of a nominally democratic process than a prelude to a genuine contest.
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) — Campaigning for Cambodia’s general election officially began Saturday, an exercise that is more an affirmation of a nominally democratic process than a prelude to a genuine contest.
Eighteen parties are contesting this year’s polls, for which around 9.7 million people are eligible to vote to elect 125 members of National Assembly. The campaign period ends on July 21, and July 23 is election day.
Prime Minister Hun Sen has been in power for 38 years, and his ruling Cambodian People’s Party is virtually guaranteed a landslide victory, since the Candlelight Party, the sole other contender capable of mounting a credible challenge, was barred on a technicality from contesting the polls by the National Election Committee.
The situation mirrors what happened before the last general election in 2018, when the popular Cambodian National Rescue Party, which had performed strongly in local elections, was dissolved months before the polls by a controversial court ruling that alleged it had plotted the illegal overthrow of the government. The party’s disbanding enabled Hun Sen’s party to win all the seats in the National Assembly.
The crackdown also drove most of the party’s top leadership, among the country’s most popular and capable politicians, into exile. Most remain in self-imposed exile to avoid being jailed on various charges they say are trumped up and unfair.
Saturday’s highest-profile campaign activities were held by Hun Sen’s Cambodian People’s Party, which has huge advantages in manpower, money and organization. Its supporters, garbed in blue and white party garb, marched en masse in the capital, Phnom Penh, and other cities, while other parties held activities on a much smaller scale.
Before marching through the capital, Hun Sen, fellow leaders of his party and several thousand supporters, gathered at a convention center, where the prime minister gave a speech largely touting his administration’s achievements and stating his party’s platform.
”' am confident that my compatriots who have already seen the progress of Cambodia in full peace, independence, unity, sovereignty and territorial integrity will now continue to vote for the Cambodian People’s Party and me to continue to lead the country for the seventh legislature,” Hun Sen said, according to the English translation of his speech.
Hun Sen has said he expects to relinquish his prime minister’s job after the election and wants his eldest son, army commander Hun Manet, to succeed him.
Keeping the Candlelight Party off the ballot was just part of efforts to keep Hun Sen’s opponents in check.
The National Assembly last week unanimously approved changes to the country’s election law that will ban anyone who fails to vote from running as a candidate in future elections, a move that Hun Sen declared would serve to compel candidates for public office to prove their civic responsibility.
But critics charged it was aimed at handicapping opposition to the ruling party, by making it hard to lead an election boycott. Other amendments in the law also serve to discourage election protests.
The shooting of teenager Nahel M reignited longstanding complaints by poor and racially mixed urban communities of police violence and racism. President Macron has denied there is systemic racism in French law enforcement.
PARIS, July 1 (Reuters) - More than 1,300 people were arrested in France during a fourth night of rioting and President Emmanuel Macron cancelled a trip to Germany on Saturday as the funeral took place of teenager Nahel M, whose shooting by police sparked nationwide unrest.
Macron's government deployed 45,000 police officers as well as armoured vehicles overnight to tackle the worst crisis to face his leadership since the "Yellow Vest" protests which brought much of France to a standstill in late 2018.
The French president postponed a state visit to Germany that was due to begin on Sunday.
The interior ministry said on Twitter that 1,311 people had been arrested overnight, compared with 875 the previous night, although described the violence as "lower in intensity".
Finance minister Bruno Le Maire said more than 700 shops supermarkets, restaurants and bank branches had been "ransacked, looted and sometimes even burnt to the ground since Tuesday".
Local authorities all over the country announced bans on demonstrations and ordered public transport to stop running in the evening.
Nahel, a 17-year-old of Algerian and Moroccan descent, was shot by a police officer during a traffic stop on Tuesday in the Paris suburb of Nanterre.
Several hundred people lined up to enter Nanterre's grand mosque, which was guarded by volunteers in yellow vests, while a few dozen bystanders watched the funeral from across the street.
Some of the mourners, their arms crossed, said "God is Greatest" in Arabic, as they spanned the boulevard in prayer.
Salsabil, a young woman of Arab descent, told Reuters that she had come to express support for Nahel's family.
"I think it's important we all stand together," she said.
Marie, 60, said she had lived in Nanterre for 50 years and there had always been problems with the police.
"This absolutely needs to stop. The government is completely disconnected from our reality," she said.
The shooting of the teenager, caught on video, has reignited longstanding complaints by poor and racially mixed urban communities of police violence and racism. Macron had denied there is systemic racism in French law enforcement agencies.
"If you have the wrong skin colour, the police are much more dangerous to you," said a young man, who declined to be named, adding that he was a friend of Nahel's.
SHOPS RANSACKED
Rioters have torched 2,000 vehicles since the start of the unrest, which have spread to cities such as Marseille, Lyon, Toulouse, Strasbourg and Lille.
More than 200 police officers have been injured, Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said, adding that the average age of those arrested was 17. Justice Minister Eric Dupont-Moretti said 30% of the people arrested were under 18.
Friday night's arrests included 80 people in Marseille, home to many people of North African descent.
Social media images showed an explosion rocking the old port area of the southern city, but no casualties were reported.
Rioters in France's second-largest city had looted a gun store and stole hunting rifles, but no ammunition, police said.
Mayor Benoit Payan called on the government to send extra troops to tackle "pillaging and violence" in Marseille, where three police officers were slightly wounded on Saturday.
In Lyon, France's third-largest city, police deployed armoured personnel carriers and a helicopter, while in Paris, they cleared protesters from the Place de la Concorde. Lyon Mayor Gregory Doucet has also called for reinforcements.
The unrest has revived memories of nationwide riots in 2005 that forced then President Jacques Chirac to declare a state of emergency, after the death of two young men electrocuted in a power substation as they hid from police.
"Quite simply, we're not ruling out any hypothesis and we'll see after tonight what the President of the Republic chooses," Darmanin said on Friday when asked whether the government could declare a state of emergency.
Players from the national soccer team issued a rare statement calling for calm. "Violence must stop to leave way for mourning, dialogue and reconstruction," they said on star Kylian Mbappe's Instagram account.
Events including two concerts at the Stade de France on the outskirts of Paris were cancelled, while Tour de France organisers said they were ready to adapt to any situation when the cycle race enters the country on Monday from Spain.
Macron had left an EU summit in Brussels on Friday early to attend a second cabinet crisis meeting in two days and asked social media to remove "the most sensitive" footage of rioting and to disclose identities of users fomenting violence.
Videos on social media showed urban landscapes ablaze, with a tram set alight in the eastern city of Lyon and 12 buses gutted in a depot in Aubervilliers, northern Paris.
Darmanin met officials from Meta, Twitter, Snapchat and TikTok. Snapchat said it had zero tolerance for content that promoted violence.
The policeman whom prosecutors say acknowledged firing a lethal shot at Nahel is in preventive custody under formal investigation for voluntary homicide, equivalent to being charged under Anglo-Saxon jurisdictions.
His lawyer, Laurent-Franck Lienard, said his client had aimed at the driver's leg but was bumped when the car took off, causing him to shoot towards his chest. "Obviously (the officer) didn't want to kill the driver," Lienard said on BFM TV.
Unruhen in Frankreich: Emmanuel Macron sagt Staatsbesuch in Deutschland ab (www.faz.net) German
Wegen der anhaltenden Krawalle in Frankreich kommt Präsident Emmanuel Macron vorerst nicht nach Deutschland. Bundespräsident Steinmeier äußert sein Bedauern.
Cambodia ruling party victory a sure bet as campaigning begins for general election (apnews.com)
Campaigning for Cambodia’s general election has officially begun. It's an exercise that serves more as an affirmation of a nominally democratic process than a prelude to a genuine contest.
Macron cancels trip over French riots as family buries teenager (www.reuters.com)
The shooting of teenager Nahel M reignited longstanding complaints by poor and racially mixed urban communities of police violence and racism. President Macron has denied there is systemic racism in French law enforcement.