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Ceuta crisis ‘a violation of Spain’s sovereignty’ says Sánchez as more than 40,000 reach enclave – Europe live

Sánchez’s line is clear: the migration crisis in Ceuta is a violation of Spain’s territorial sovereignty, driven by human traffickers wilfully misleading migrants about the legal situation following a recent ruling by the Spanish supreme court. He says human traffickers are spreading a “self-serving” and misleading interpretation of the Spanish supreme court’s recent ruling on push backs to drive migratory flows. The court said earlier this month that immediate returns of migrants crossing the border illegally did not apply to those arriving by sea – but with some important caveats. Sánchez’s fully intends to confront the gangs over that and protect Spain’s internal security, just as the government would over in Madrid, he says. The authorities will further adapt the border – for example, introducing more visible barriers to mark the border; a point specifically mentioned in the court’s ruling – to further tighten their case vis a vis the court’s ruling and thus enable repatriations. Making the most of Ceuta’s unique geographical position – or to put it bluntly, that they have nowhere further to go – the migrants will be told to return across the border or face formal proceedings. The government will also look at whether it needs to change some laws to guarantee the repatriation of those involved.

Middle East crisis live: Hamas will hand over weapons to new Gaza administration, says official, but deal depends on Israeli withdrawal

If you’re just joining us, here are the main developments: Donald Trump has claimed a deal has been reached for Hamas to disarm and Israel to withdraw its forces from Gaza. Senior Hamas officials have reportedly agreed to the plan, but the question of whether the group disarms before or after Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza has emerged as a point of contention. Ghazi ‌Hamad, a Hamas official involved in the negotiations, ‌said Hamas will hand over its weapons to the new Gaza administration but only if Israel holds up its end of the bargain. Speaking to Reuters, Hamad said disarmament will be contingent on the withdrawal of Israeli troops, and that the NCAG and international force must enter Gaza and dismantle Israeli-backed militias. Israel must approve the ⁠phased disarmament ⁠agreement ⁠before Hamas ‌will ‌implement it, Hamad added. Once both sides approve the agreement text, Israel ⁠must begin implementing the agreement’s first phase, he said. The National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG), the interim body to which Hamas has offered to hand governing authority to, said it is ready to “assume its responsibilities” in the Palestinian territory. It said it has “completed extensive institutional and operational preparations to take over the administration of the Strip”. Since its inception in January by Trump’s Board of Peace, the NCAG has been unable to enter Gaza largely due to Israeli objections. Read the full report here: Just hours after Trump’s announcement, several Palestinians ⁠were ⁠wounded in an Israeli ⁠airstrike in ⁠Gaza this morning, according to local health officials. Elsewhere, Lebanese media reported “massive explosions” overnight in southern Lebanon, where Israeli forces say they have blasted an underground tunnel network belonging to Hezbollah. Lebanon’s official National News Agency reported explosions in Yahmar al-Shaqif, Arnoun and Kfar Tebnit, all areas close to the Beaufort Ridge that is occupied by the Israeli military. Also today, a man suspected of spying on a UK military base for Iran has been arrested in Cyprus, the Metropolitan police said. Rashad Sultanov, 44, a dual British-Azerbaijani national from Islington in north London, was arrested on 17 July by Cypriot authorities after he allegedly conducted “hostile surveillance” of RAF Akrotiri and shared information with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). The IRGC said it struck two tankers under US “air escort” that attempted to pass the strait of Hormuz, according to state media. It added that four other tankers “swiftly changed course” and returned to their previous location, Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency reported.

What to know about Ceuta, Spanish city on EU’s border in Africa

Thousands of people have streamed into the tiny Spanish territory of Ceuta in north Africa from Morocco, with at least 18 dying in the attempt, prompting Spain to deploy its military to restore the border. Videos and images from the frontier showed crowds of people, mainly Moroccans, walking around the breakwaters at an urban beach near a border checkpoint with Morocco on to local roads. The majority appeared to be young men, though there were also families with women and children. It was not immediately clear what prompted so many people to cross to Ceuta. Spain’s government said it would send the armed forces to help the civil guard in Ceuta. The Spanish prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, was expected to visit on Friday. An autonomous Spanish city in continental Africa Ceuta and the larger Spanish territory of Melilla, which is 250 miles east, are located on the Mediterranean coast at the tip of Africa. Both autonomous cities belong to Spain and share the European Union’s only land borders with Africa. In Spanish possession since 1580, Ceuta is home to a mixed population of Christians and Muslims, and Spanish and Moroccan residents and day workers who live in relative harmony. Morocco does not officially recognise Ceuta and Melilla as Spanish territory and often refers to them as occupied lands. A migration and diplomatic flashpoint between Spain and Morocco Ceuta has been a flashpoint in diplomatic crises in recent memory between Madrid and Rabat. In May 2021, the Moroccan government dropped its border controls and let about 8,000 people from Morocco and sub-Saharan countries pour into Ceuta in just two days. The move was broadly interpreted as retaliation for Spain’s decision to allow a pro-independence leader from the disputed Western Sahara region to receive medical treatment at a Spanish hospital. Tensions were defused only after Sánchez shifted his country’s longstanding position on Western Sahara and met the Moroccan king, Mohammed VI, the following year. A destination for migrants trying to reach Europe Spain is a main point of arrival into Europe for people seeking better economic opportunities or an escape from violence in their home countries. Ceuta and Melilla are heavily fortified as they are seen as destinations for those trying to reach Spain from Morocco and other parts of Africa. Many migrants who reach Ceuta or Melilla are immediately turned back, while others are held in migrant shelters and can apply for asylum in Spain. To reach Ceuta, people often swim from the Moroccan town of Fnideq, covering about 3 miles (5km). Others attempt the crossing from the nearer town of Belyounech. Migrant arrivals to Ceuta and Melilla are generally much lower than those reaching Spain through the Canary and Balearic Islands. Spain’s overall immigrant population has grown considerably in recent decades, with about 10 million people in the country of 50 million having been born elsewhere. Many are from Colombia, Venezuela and Morocco and work in key sectors of the Spanish economy including agriculture, tourism and the services sector.

‘Extremely scary findings’ show climate crisis is supercharging Europe’s wildfire weather

The extreme heat and drought stoking huge wildfires in Spain and France were made far more likely by the climate crisis, a scientific analysis has found. Global heating made hot, dry and windy weather at least 20 times more likely in Spain and twice as likely in France, experts from the World Weather Attribution (WWA) consortium calculated. The finding is the latest to pin the blame for the continent’s sweltering and deadly summer firmly on the heating caused by the burning of oil, gas and coal. The intense heatwave at the end of June, which is estimated to have killed 20,000 people, could not have happened without the extra heat trapped by carbon pollution, a previous WWA study showed. Another found that the climate crisis-driven heat was “sucking soils dry” as extreme drought spread across Europe. Searing heat and parched land led to very high “daily severity ratings”, the metric that was used in the new analysis and which measures how severe a wildfire will be if ignited. Studies of the 2025 wildfires also found they were supercharged by the climate crisis. This year’s wildfires in western Europe have been made worse by a wet winter and spring, which boosted the growth of vegetation, which then dried out and provided fuel for the fires – so-called whiplash conditions. Global heating is making winters wetter and summers drier and hotter in Europe. Dr Clair Barnes, a research associate at Imperial College London and part of the WWA study team, said: “We’ve seen repeatedly how climate change increases hot, dry, flammable conditions that are extremely conducive to wildfires. “What’s unique about [the July fires in Spain and France] is that it’s still early in the season – and with another heatwave looming, these findings are extremely scary. What we’re seeing is a clear sign of the escalating impacts of [human-caused] warming.” Julie Arrighi, the director of programmes at Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre, said: “What we are seeing now in Spain and France goes well beyond what we would expect from past events.” The wildfires have released huge plumes of toxic smoke. Dr Augustin Colette, at the French National Institute for Industrial Environment and Risks, said: “The smoke increased particulate [pollution] peak levels up to 20 times above what is considered ‘fair air quality’, and extremely poor air quality was felt up to 400 km away from the fires.” About 1.5 million people a year are estimated to have their lives shortened by wildfire smoke. Severe wildfires have burned across Spain and France since early July, killing people, destroying thousands of homes, and forcing more than 300,000 people to flee. The WWA analysis assessed the seven-day period with the highest daily severity ratings (DSR) for each country. The scientists used weather records and established statistical methods to estimate how much more likely a week of extremely high DSR is in today’s heated world compared with in the world before mass fossil-fuel burning raised the global temperature by 1.4C (2.5F). Big wildfires have also broken out in the UK and Greece, where three firefighters lost their lives. The UN’s climate chief, Simon Stiell, said: “These European megafires show how fast climate-driven extreme heat and dry landscapes can turn wildfires into devastating national disasters. “Humanity continuing to burn colossal amounts of coal, oil and gas is making these conditions more dangerous, and these megafires more deadly and destructive,” he said. “But the solutions are equally clear: all countries must move faster from fossil fuels to renewables and protect people from worsening climate impacts, from wildfires, to megastorms and floods, to droughts hitting food production.” The Guardian’s climate forum 2026 On Tuesday 20 October, join Damian Carrington, and our panel of experts – including Prof Andy Haines, Katie White MP, Asad Rehman, Shruti Suresh, Gareth Thomas and Amy Fairman – for a hopeful and solutions-focused evening. Book tickets here or at guardian.live

Iraq says it had ‘no prior knowledge’ of US-Saudi attacks – as it happened

We’re closing this page now and moving our live coverage to a new blog here, including a rundown on the latest key developments.

Friday briefing: Why attacks on hospitals from Ukraine to Lebanon now happen with impunity

Good morning. While you were asleep, Donald Trump claimed a deal had been reached for the “complete disarmament of Hamas” in Gaza. His announcement, characteristically, does not seem watertight, with briefings from both sides revealing points of contention, and as such is being treated with caution by some world leaders. As anyone paying attention knows, the conflict has seen Israel and Hamas accused of war crimes, and two years ago, the international criminal court issued an arrest warrant for Benjamin Netanyahu. Elsewhere in the region, the Israel-US military operation in Iran has been repeatedly declared as “illegal”. That label now feels almost obsolete on the global stage, as laws are ignored, norms tossed aside, and multinational institutions degraded. Cynics might suggest nothing new here; that the international rules-based order has always been illusory, wielded by the powerful to be followed (and disregarded) at will, to suit self-serving whims and ambitions. But even the mirage appears to have faded. And nowhere is this more acutely felt than in conflict zones, by those who are unwell or injured – and the healthcare workers treating them, in particular. For today’s First Edition, we ask how this deathly reality came to be. Beirut-based Guardian reporter William Christou reflects on Israel’s ongoing campaign of attacks on Lebanese healthcare workers, and we ask Natasha Sax – a legal expert with Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), who has worked in Gaza, Iraq and Lebanon – why international law is failing. Before that, today’s top stories. Five big stories England news | Hundreds of people have been evacuated and a major incident declared after a wildfire spread over more than 80 hectares (200 acres) on the coast of Suffolk, just a few miles from the Sizewell B nuclear power station. UK politics | Labour has accused Reform UK of being “up to its neck in sleaze” as it called on the Electoral Commission to urgently investigate substantial donations made to the party by the mother of a convicted fraudster. Middle East | Donald Trump has said a deal has been reached for Hamas to disarm and for Israel to withdraw its forces from Gaza, however briefings from both sides exposed disputes over its implementation that could prove difficult to overcome. Europe | The Spanish government is deploying extra troops and police officers to its north African enclave of Ceuta after thousands of people swam and waded into the tiny territory from neighbouring Morocco in a matter of hours. UK news | The co-founder of Palestine Action has won permission to challenge the ban against the group at the UK’s highest court. In depth: ‘When international agencies withdraw, local medics remain’ Palestine tops the list of countries with the most healthcare workers killed in the past five years. There, Israel’s relentless attacks on Gaza’s medical infrastructure are well documented. Lebanon ranks second, with 569. It’s a subject William has covered extensively, his latest report turning to the psychological impact on medics and their families. Countries with the most healthcare workers killed since 2021 During the last two wars in Lebanon, William tells me, Israel’s targeting of healthcare workers has been “consistent”. Since fighting escalated again this March, at least 135 Lebanese medics have been killed, with nearly 400 others injured. Including the last war in 2024, the death toll is close to 400. Particularly common are “double-taps”: Israel striking a target, waiting for paramedics to arrive, then striking again. “In April there was a quadruple tap,” William says. In Mayfadoun, southern Lebanon, paramedics responded to the injured after an Israeli airstrike. “That team was hit,” says William. “Another team went out. They were also hit. Another crew went: hit, again.” Four medics were killed, and six wounded. Southern Lebanon has borne the brunt, where Israel has been conducting what UN-appointed human rights experts describe as forced displacement. “The way healthcare officials put it to me,” William says, “is that it’s an attempt to degrade the ability to sustain life in these areas, similar to what’s been seen in Gaza, so the population leaves for ever.” When international agencies withdraw, local medics remain long after. “They stay, knowing the risk of death,” says William. “Some die, others watch their colleagues be killed.” A group of medics he met attempted to figure out the criteria Israel uses to target them. “It was impossible, so they gave up eventually.” Many of them are unpaid. “One man I spoke to recently said that after the 2024 war, he promised he’d never do it again. But this time, he couldn’t stop himself from volunteering. There’s a sense of duty to their communities.” William remembers many of their stories. There’s Hafez Yahya, a civil defence medic killed by an Israeli drone strike in May. He’d been a volunteer for 25 years. “I also met Mohammed Suleiman,” says William, “whose 16-year-old son Joud was one of three paramedics killed by an Israeli drone strike in March while bringing food to people in Nabatieh.” They were wearing paramedic uniforms. It’s inconceivable. *** Countries with most attacks on healthcare Just 10 years ago, the United Nations security council condemned the “prevailing impunity” for attacks on medics, hospitals and other healthcare facilities in conflicts, urging they not “remain unpunished”. A decade on, the situation has deteriorated. Hospitals and medics are under attack; in Ukraine, in Sudan, in Gaza, in Lebanon, in Myanmar and far beyond in unprecedented numbers. I ask Natasha Sax if these attacks are the result of gaps in international law. “Not at all,” she tells me. Healthcare in conflict zones is governed by international humanitarian law (IHL), “one of the most comprehensive and densely codified bodies of law anywhere”. The legal framework for protecting hospitals, medical workers and ambulances is set out in the Geneva conventions, signed in 1949 by every internationally recognised state in the wake of the second world war. “Such universal agreement is basically unheard of in international law,” says Natasha. “The issue is a lack of will to implement it.” *** Enshrined in law IHL is clear: medical units such as hospitals and pharmacies – their patients, too – have special legal status. Parties have a duty to respect (not attack or actively harm) and protect: a positive obligation to ensure they can function. On the ground, Natasha says, this simply isn’t happening. “Mass displacement orders stopping access, local water and sewage systems destroyed, besieging, raiding and turning hospitals to rubble? We see all of this today – clear violations.” There are narrow exceptions to these rules. Even then, harm to civilians and infrastructure must be proportional to military advantage gained; the impact on patients (present and future) must be considered. Evacuation warnings are a must, weapons and methods that minimise harm … the list continues. All of this, Natasha says, is ignored today with alarming regularity. She points to Gaza. Here, half of hospitals are totally non-functional, the remaining 18 only operating partially. The consequences for the civilian population are both present and future. Medical personnel are covered by IHL too: entitled to work, protected from acting against medical ethics, or punishment for providing assistance. The law dictates everyone is entitled to healthcare in conflict zones, whether civilian or previously fighting: in a medic’s care, all are patients. “IHL guarantees the workers who treat them are protected. Except, in many conflicts, we are seeing them killed, arrested, detained and persecuted.” *** This is no accident In the last 10 years, MSF recorded 255 security incidents, of which 107 took place in medical facilities. These increases are reflected in wider WHO data. Globally, incidents have more than doubled since 2021. In 2015, a deadly US attack on an MSF trauma centre in Kunduz, Afghanistan killed 42 people. Simultaneously, medics were systematically targeted in Yemen and Syria. States strongly denounced the situation, with UN Resolution 2286 (pdf) unanimously passing one year later. “But we have not seen change materialise,” says Natasha. “More than that, we once had condemnation, now we have normalisation. It’s almost on a daily basis that healthcare is attacked. There is no outcry. The silence is shocking.” Infrastructure for accountability already exists. At the domestic level, states are obliged to ensure their military complies with IHL. There’s the international humanitarian fact-finding commission – a Geneva-based investigative body, founded in 1991 – that can perform investigations of possible breaches. “We call it the sleeping beauty, as it’s so under utilised,” says Natasha. To date, it has launched investigations into just two localised incidents. And there’s always the international criminal court for prosecutions, if states were willing. “People want to think a new treaty or law will fix things,” says Natasha. Except, there is no need: protections for patients and medics are clear, enforceable and bind us all … at least on paper. “But they’re being manipulated, misused, cynically interrupted or wilfully ignored with near total impunity,” she says. “The law seems to have turned into a suggestion, rather than a binding framework.” Modern warfare technology allows militaries to operate with precision – assaults are rarely indiscriminate. These attacks, therefore, appear more than incidental. “When we see these patterns,” says Natasha, “it raises the question: is it reckless negligence, or an intentional strategy to deny certain populations of healthcare?” What else we’ve been enjoying Accustomed as we’ve become to the slurry of awful post-Brexit immigration horror stories, reading about the couple stuck in Kraków after living in UK for 80 years still got me. Michael Aditya Chakrabortty is asking the real questions in his video on whether British graduates are being conned. As someone whose profession bears no relation to my degree, I’ve often wondered this. Micha Frazer-Carroll, newsletters team As a fan of top food-guy Jimi Famurewa (and having edited his restaurant reviews in a previous life), I’ve been looking forward to his new video series, Feed. The first, on third culture bakeries, doesn’t disappoint. Michael I loved this piece by Eromo Egbejule exploring why artists are flocking to the tranquil city of Grand Bassam, Côte d’Ivoire. Creatives are trading spiralling rents for fresher food, cheaper markets and scenic beachfronts. Micha The wildfires spreading through Europe are terrifying. This visual guide offers a clear, engaging need-to-know outline of the scale of the emergency. Be warned: it’s confronting. Michael Sport Commonwealth Games | Emily Campbell set a new Commonwealth record in +86kg final, before revealing she will be appearing on Celebrity MasterChef next month. Football | Fifa has responded to the threat of boycott from European nations with a statement saying that “nobody is selling football”, while blaming the media for disrupting its consultation process over controversial plans to sell chunks of the World Cup to US-based private investment. Football | London City Lionesses will kick off the new Women’s Super League season against Manchester United on Friday 4 September. Something for the weekend Our critics’ roundup of the best things to watch, read, play and listen to right now Music Shaboozey: The Outlaw Cherie Lee & Other Western Tales | ★★★★☆ It’s fair to say that if Shaboozey never released another note of music, his place in history would still be assured. He wasn’t the only Black country-leaning artist brought to a wider audience by a guest appearance on Beyoncé’s 2024 album Cowboy Carter, but no one else capitalised on the exposure quite so remarkably. As a demonstration of his eclecticism, The Outlaw Cherie Lee works well. The pop-facing tracks hit, the strike rate when he diversifies is higher than his naysayers would suggest, and there’s an impressive boldness about his evident desire to draw R&B, soul and hip-hop artists into his world. The overarching storyline is tight and well handled. Perhaps most importantly, the album never feels like the work of an artist whose career has been destabilised by a huge, unexpected and unrepeatable hit, but rather the work of an artist digging in for the long haul. Alexis Petridis TV Jared Leto: Hollywood’s Dark Secret | ★★★★★ Jared Leto has long been a person with something of a reputational issue. The public-facing side of this was bad enough, but for years there have been upsetting rumours about what he does in private. After a lengthy investigation, this BBC documentary has finally brought at least some of them to light. This is, as you might imagine, not a fun thing to watch. The film documents allegations of what are said to be decades of systematic criminal misconduct against teenage girls. What is particularly galling about Hollywood’s Dark Secret is that this is not the first time someone has tried to investigate these claims. Maybe the floodgates will finally open. Stuart Heritage Film Spider-Man: Brand New Day | ★★★☆☆ Just a few weeks ago, Tom Holland was telling us that his role as Telemachus in Christopher Nolan’s Odyssey was his “last chance to play a boy”. Well, Holland is back as the supposedly scrappy, gawky, arachnid young superhero Spider-Man. Zendaya saves this film, rescuing it from silliness and the generic deja vu overfamiliarity that is always threatening to sink it. Something in MJ’s civilian status, her non-superhero identity, brings Zendaya’s grownup acting presence to the fore in ways denied to everyone else on screen, including Holland. It’s an entertaining spectacle, but really without the novelty of movie-iterations like the more experimental Spider-Verse animations. A more radical reboot is needed. Peter Bradshaw Game Halo: Campaign Evolved (PC, Xbox, PS5) | ★★★★☆ I had my misgivings after the opening level of this 25th-anniversary remake of Xbox’s most iconic shooter, in which the freshly defrosted supersoldier Master Chief fends off an alien attack on a disintegrating spaceship. After that, however, I spent much less time thinking about what has been changed, and much more thinking about what hasn’t. Nobody really makes single-player shooters like Halo any more: tense, adaptable, challenging. Halo: Campaign Evolved reminded me what we’ve been missing. It is a good remake of a brilliant game. For millions of younger players, it is a perfect, modernised introduction to everything that was great about the 00s-style first-person shooter. For those of us who were there at the time, it’s a welcome return trip. Keza Macdonald The front pages “Reform is ‘up to its neck in sleaze’, says Labour as it calls for inquiry”, is the Guardian’s front page today. “Uefa backs World Cup boycott”, is the Times’ front page, the Sun says “Football’s staying home”, and the i Paper writes “Game changer: Europe tackles Infantino by boycotting the World Cup”. The Express also goes with “England join boycott of World Cup” while the Mirror’s take is “Red card for Infantino”. Elsewhere, the Mail says “Burnham admits oil drilling can ease cost of living”, the Telegraph writes “Labour’s £18bn council raid”, and the FT has “BoE holds rates steady but sees risks ahead if war drags on”. Lastly, Metro, on the heatwave, splashes “Cruel summer”. The Latest US-Iran strikes risk regional war in Middle East The US military has carried out a wave of airstrikes against Iran in response to Tehran targeting American bases in Jordan. The strikes were launched after Donald Trump vowed to hit Iran “very hard” following a days-long pause in fighting. Iran has expanded its military strikes in the region, raising fears of an all-out war. Lucy Hough speaks to Guardian senior international reporter, Peter Beaumount. Cartoon of the day | Ben Jennings The Upside A bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all bad In what they hope will prove a spectacular feat of memory, this weekend the Aurora Orchestra will attempt to perform Mahler’s (almost hour long) First symphony entirely by heart. For the musicians, it’s exhilarating – and for those listening, they hope, it’ll be transformative. Twelve years ago, the orchestra attempted a similar feat with Mozart’s 40th. This weekend’s piece is almost twice as long, and requires double the number of musicians. “I want to find ways to give audiences the same breathtaking experience I have,” says artistic director Jane Mitchell. Sign up here for a weekly roundup of The Upside, sent to you every Sunday Bored at work? And finally, the Guardian’s puzzles are here to keep you entertained throughout the day. Until tomorrow. Quick crossword Cryptic crossword Wordiply

Will brutal wildfires force French leaders to take climate crisis seriously?

As dozens of forest wildfires burned across France this week amid the summer’s fourth brutal heatwave and increasing air pollution, some wondered whether voters’ first-hand experience of the climate emergency would change the political debate ahead of next year’s presidential election. The Green leader, Marine Tondelier, who cut short a tour of France on medical advice that at seven months pregnant she should avoid breathing smoke-filled air in the south-west near a huge wildfire in Gironde, said the political class still had its head in the sand. She said the government had ignored her plea for cross-party crisis talks to declare a national state of emergency on the climate this summer. She called for a new “climate welfare state” in France to help those whose lives were being affected as about 260,000 people were evacuated because of wildfires across the country. But French politicians focused instead this week on arguments over budgets, crisis planning and criticisms over the levels of state funding for emergency services and equipment to fight fires, including water-bombing planes. The more complex longer-term issues of cutting emissions and structural societal changes to address climate heating were largely left aside. The president, Emmanuel Macron, said it was not the time to analyse lessons to be learned while France was still in “full battle” against fires. Macron, whose decade as president comes to an end next spring, returned to his war vocabulary of the 2020 Covid pandemic. As the Gironde wildfire burned an area four times the size of Paris, Macron flew to the crisis operations centre in Bordeaux, saying France was facing its “hardest situation since the second world war”. He also said the situation was “totally atypical”, suggesting the wildfire was out of the ordinary. Climate experts said growing numbers of forest fires had been predictable amid rising temperatures. Most political parties will not clarify their full election manifestos – and positions on the climate crisis – until this winter, and some climate campaigners worry that by then the fires and heatwaves may be less present in the media and people’s minds. Marine Le Pen, who leads the far-right anti-immigration National Rally (RN), is seen as having a good chance of reaching the final round vote in the presidential race. During the second round of the last contest, in 2022, Le Pen said: “I have never been a climate sceptic”. But the following year she said the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was “alarmist”, and some RN politicians have in the past questioned the role of human activity in climate heating. The RN has also opposed the workings of the EU’s green deal, which is designed to make the EU carbon neutral by 2050. But since the heatwaves of the start of the summer, key figures in Le Pen’s party have sought to stress that the RN is not a climate crisis denier. This week, the RN focused more on the heroism of firefighters and alleged underfunding of fire services by the state than on long-term environmental action. The radical left candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon earlier in July proposed reorganising French regions into “eco-regions” to ensure water supply and deal with the climate crisis. Rémi Lefebvre, a professor of political science at the University of Lille, said of the current wildfires’ impact on the presidential campaign: “Ecology will probably be talked about more during the election campaign, but I’m not convinced that it will reconfigure French political life.” He said serious wildfires in previous years had not forced a change of direction and French politics had shown itself to be “too short-termist” to dig deep into changing models of society. Lefebvre said Le Pen did not take a stance of denying climate change “because that is no longer possible … we’ve passed that point”. But he said the broader issue was political inaction on climate challenges. He said a lot of French people felt those in charge were powerless to react.

Could AI take your job? Some workers in China already know the answer

On the tree-lined streets of Wuhan, where cars jostle for space with mopeds and cargo trucks, the malfunctioning of a new type of vehicle has recently been causing chaos on the city’s roads. In March, several cars from a fleet of driverless taxis stopped abruptly in the streets. The “system malfunction” left distressed riders stranded for hours. The robotaxis, known as Apollo Go and powered by artificial intelligence (AI), were taken off Wuhan’s streets for months for investigations. But the outage was a boon for 45-year-old taxi driver Yao Xinnong. His wages, which had fallen by about 40% since Apollo Go launched in 2022, jumped back up as customers returned. “I don’t really like them, to be honest,” Yao says of the driverless cabs operated by the tech giant Baidu. “Their impact has been huge”. China is encouraging the deployment of AI at a scale unseen in the west. The technology is being rolled out at a staggering rate in an increasingly precarious labour market, and the Wuhan episode helped to highlight the social tensions it is causing. Gig workers like Yao are fearful about the impact of AI on their livelihoods, while recent incidents of white-collar workers being replaced by AI have also sparked a debate over whether workers should embrace the technology – or try to compete with it. Addressing Shanghai’s World AI Conference in July, China’s leader, Xi Jinping, said that AI should be “an important driver for shared prosperity and common security”. But that goal is being pursued amid an increasingly fragile labour market. As well as suffering from high levels of unemployment, China has seen tens of millions of workers drop out of formal employment into the gig economy. According to one thinktank, the number of people in flexible employment will rise to 320 million this year, up from 160 million in 2019. That is about 44% of China’s workforce. Taxi drivers are one part of this huge cohort. Across the country, as previously heavyweight industries such as real estate and education have floundered, workers have turned to ride-hailing apps to make ends meet. But now the rollout of robotaxis, one of the most popular applications of AI that is already in use in China, is threatening their livelihoods. “If the state really took you into consideration, Apollo Go would never have gone on the market,” says one Wuhan driver. “If things keep going this way in the future, sure, rapid development and scientific progress are great, but ordinary people like us will have no place to survive,” she adds. In 2024, taxi drivers in Wuhan protested against the rollout of Apollo Go in their city. It is unclear how many people took part, because news of the protests were quickly censored. Several drivers interviewed in Wuhan said they had heard about the protests but denied being involved. That year, a Wuhan taxi company, took the rare step of publicly criticising the government’s policy to allow automation on to the city’s streets. “The recent rise of autonomous ride-hailing vehicles has allowed technology to monopolise resources and take away the livelihoods of people at the bottom of society,” the letter said. Authorities in China do not take kindly to public criticism. When the Guardian visited the taxi company’s office in July, an employee declined to be interviewed, citing an agreement with the police to refuse interviews and the risk of detention if he violated the agreement. But two years later, the government is echoing some of the same concerns first voiced by the Wuhan drivers. An editorial published in the state-run Workers’ Daily said that employment rights were “facing new challenges” in the age of AI. The article warned of a “collision between traditional employment rules and the iteration of AI technology”. The government recently pledged to “comprehensively address the impact of changes in the external environment and the development of new technologies such as artificial intelligence on employment”. Selina Xu, a China technology analyst, said there had been a “major vibe shift” from Beijing. She says that after the success of local AI model DeepSeek last year, China was “very pro AI development”. “This year, if you look at certain new guidelines that have been published … there has been a lot more emphasis placed on AI for boosting employment and people-first approaches,” Xu says. Cheng Wanhui, an official for the local government in Beijing’s hi-tech zone of Zhongguancun, says that the authorities are “paying close attention to the social issues AI brings, as well as potential ethical concerns.” “The key is for everyone to shift their mindset, see AI as a tool, and learn how to apply it in their future work,” Cheng says. Recent court rulings have awarded compensation to white-collar workers laid off by their firms to be replaced by AI. But many workers fear the AI uptake will be a barrier to them being offered a job in the first place. Tian Zemin, a cinematographer who works in Beijing, has worked in the film industry for nearly two decades. But now he’s out of work. “I spent six gruelling years working my way up to become a cinematographer, only to be replaced by a piece of software,” he wrote in a social media post about AI. “I thought I would spend my whole life in this industry. But the emergence of AI has made me feel a huge shock for the first time,” he tells the Guardian. Many of Tian’s peers are losing out as AI becomes more widely adopted across the film industry. His own rate as a freelancer is now 40% of what it was in 2019. Tian said he’s been shocked at AI’s progress. Last year, it made shonky, weird looking avatars. Now it can make convincing digital clones who have the range to carry a feature length film. “We have barely had time to react,” Tian says. Many analysts believe that China, where the government exerts significant control over the private sector, will be better placed than the US to contain the fallout from AI-related job losses. Beijing could for example instruct companies to comply with hiring quotas, Xu says. But for Tian, protections may not come soon enough. “We could be replaced at any moment,” he says. “Perhaps the only thing we can do is adapt as quickly as possible, and try to find the corner that AI still cannot replace – but that corner is getting smaller and smaller.” Additional research by Yu-chen Li