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Appeals court set to rule on whether Marine Le Pen can run in next French presidential election - Europe live

We are getting first lines from the Paris court, with the judge confirming Le Pen is guilty of misusing public funds, but changing her ineligiblity to hold public office to 45 months, with 30 months suspended. This means theoretically she could run in the election. However, she will also get a three-year jail sentence with two years suspended and one year of wearing an electronic tag, and a €100,000 fine. For what it’s worth, she has previously repeatedly said she would not run if she would have to wear an electronic bracelet during the campaign. “If I’m allowed to be a candidate but am effectively prevented from campaigning freely, then you understand that wouldn’t be possible,” Le Pen said in an interview last week.

‘A very angry gay man’: activist’s 11-year fight to overturn Trinidad’s homophobic laws reaches final hurdle

An LGBTQ+ rights activist will make legal history this week when his decade-long battle to remove Trinidad’s homophobic laws culminates at the privy council in London, which remains the Caribbean island’s final court of appeal. When Jason Jones takes his case to its judicial committee, it will be the first time that judges at the centuries-old British institution have ever decided a case to decriminalise same-sex intimacy – in this case ruling on sections of Trinidadian law that derive from the “buggery law” introduced by the UK to its colonies during the British empire. Those archaic laws, officially enacted in Trinidad in 1925 and carried into its 1986 Sexual Offences Act, were struck from the statute book in 2018, when the high court judge Devindra Rampersad ruled that they infringed upon Jones’s right under Trinidad’s constitution to privacy and equality before the law. But the landmark ruling was challenged by the then Trinidadian government and overturned on appeal, recriminalising anal sex between consenting men. “Britain’s Buggery Act was enacted in 1533 and its slave trade began in 1562. Slavery was abolished in 1807 but we are still fighting. We are the only people still criminalised for our protected identities,” said Jones. “I began this journey in 2015. It’s been lonely. I’ve lost all my family and most of my friends. People said I was crazy and it was impossible.” Jones has, however, won many new friends and supporters along the way. His 2018 victory inspired Trinidad’s inaugural pride event and legal challenges by activists in other countries, notably India. Six Caribbean LGBTQ+ organisations have entered submissions supporting his case. The laws date back to the reign of Henry VIII, when a medieval ecclesiastical law was passed after the break with Rome into civil law, making “the detestable and abominable vice of buggery” subject to the death penalty. Britain abolished the law in 1967 and has since pardoned gay men prosecuted under it. But it remains in place in many former British territories – a legacy that Jones says affects people’s everyday lives and forced him to leave his homeland in the 1980s and settle in London. Jones began his case against his country incensed by broken promises to tackle homophobia at the 2015 Commonwealth heads of government meeting. He had the backing of the late Jonathan Cooper, a former colleague of Keir Starmer, whose Human Dignity Trust set the ball rolling. “I’m nothing special,” Jones told a meeting at parliament in May, convened by Bell Ribeiro-Addy MP and attended by lawyers and LGBTQ+ activists, including the former Love Island winner Amber Rose Gill, whose father is Trinidadian. “I dropped out of college. I survived HIV. All I am is a very angry gay man. I think about all the friends and lovers I’ve lost over the last 40 years. This is a dream we couldn’t dream back then.” The final decision will rest with a panel of five judges, including outgoing supreme court president, Lord Reed, and will hinge upon interpretations of the statutes – the savings law clauses – that carried over existing British laws into newly independent states, such as Trinidad and Tobago in 1962, in order to facilitate the smooth transition of judicial sovereignty, and still protects them from challenge. Jones’s case argues, however, that since British laws against sodomy were repealed by Trinidad in 1986 and replaced with new and harsher laws, including extending the prohibition of anal sex to women, the savings law clause protections cannot apply. James Hulmes, Jones’s senior counsel, said that since 1986, when the Trinidadian parliament repealed previous legislation and enacted the Sexual Offences Act, it went far beyond simply repealing and re-enacting. “It was a new piece of legislation,” Hulmes said. “It increased the penalties and changed the definitions in material ways. The preserved laws went out the window when Trinidad brought in fundamentally different laws that are not captured by the savings clause.” Remarkably, in a case titled Attorney General of Trinidad and Tobago v Jason Jones, the country’s former attorney general Anand Ramlogan will represent Jones as his lead barrister. Ramlogan, who once represented the Trinidadian government but will now argue against it, said: “This appeal is about more than the rights of one individual or community. It concerns a fundamental constitutional principle: that every citizen is entitled to the equal protection of the law, regardless of sexual orientation.” He pointed to the “profound historical irony” that removing these “relics of our colonial past” requires asking judges from the country that imposed the laws whether they can “continue to survive under the constitution of an independent democratic nation”. He added: “Homosexuality remains a divisive issue within our society, and successive governments have been reluctant to embark upon reform in the face of religious and cultural opposition.” But while religious opposition is self-evident – the Trinidad and Tobago Council of Evangelical Churches has joined the case to oppose Jones – most Trinidadians support gay rights, and the Equal Opportunity Commission, a government body, joined the case to support Jones. Trinidad has gay cabinet ministers, a transgender senator, LGBTQ+ icons and national treasures. The prime minister, Kamla Persad-Bissessar, vowed in her first term to “put an end to all discrimination based on gender or sexual orientation.” The privy council set its own anti-discrimination precedent last year, upholding legislation legalising same-sex civil partnerships in the Cayman Islands after a similarly tortuous case brought by the couple Chantelle Day and Vickie Bodden Bush. Rights organisations welcomed the finding as a positive break from a previous judgment denying same-sex marriage in Bermuda, which lawyers claimed placed the religious rights of the majority over those of a minority sexual orientation. That case is now before the European court of human rights. The privy council’s judgment, expected in September, will mark the end of a long fight for Jones. He said: “I’m getting out of the cut and thrust of advocacy. I’ve done my bit. “I’ll focus on developing programmes to train the next generation of Jason Joneses. Most activists turn to activism through desperation, not inspiration. I want to inspire.”

EU rejects suspending biometric border controls despite 20 ‘difficult spots’

The EU has rejected calls by airports and airlines to suspend the implementation of new fingerprinting and facial recognition border controls even though it admits there are “20 difficult spots” with queue chaos. With only a week to go before the peak summer holiday season starts, EU officials admit the new entry/exit system (EES) is “not perfect” but will tell travel industry representatives that a full suspension is “not needed” and “not possible”. Under the EES, non-EU passengers have to register fingerprints and facial images the first time they enter the Schengen zone and then have their biometrics verified every time they leave and re-enter. Airlines and airport representatives and the International Air Transport Association (Iata) last week demanded a suspension of the new controls until next summer amid fears of chaos in holiday hotspots. Iata said passengers were experiencing “delays and missed connections” in Portugal, Spain, Italy, Greece and Belgium, while last week last week Ryanair warned last week of “queue chaos” in airports including popular holiday destinations such as Málaga, Alicante and Palma. However, EU officials say it is impossible to have the system open in some countries and not in others as it would lead to the “unfortunate situation of travellers stranded at border crossings”. This could happen, for example, if a passenger from Britain entered the Schengen area at a border where the new controls were operational but left via a border where they were not. In this instance they would be at risk of being registered as overstaying their 90-day travel allowance in any 180-day period and refused entry on a future trip. The EU is also reportedly delaying the introduction of a separate pre-authorisation visa system known as the European travel information and authorisation system, similar to the US Esta system, according to the Financial Times. Officials said that out of the 1,500 border crossing points, only 20 were “difficult spots” and it would put pressure on those member states responsible to put measures in place to ease the pressure. One of the sites with the worst delays was a small regional airport where 3,000 passengers arrived an hour and could not be assessed quickly because of space, officials revealed. Lisbon had already eased its queues by deploying extra workers and 50 new Frontex border agency staff were being stood up in Brussels airport, officials said. “I think we have recurrent progressive improvements everywhere,” an EU official added. The controls have been eight years in the making and were designed to address weakness in border controls exposed by the terror attacks in Brussels and Paris in 2015 and 2016. The introduction of system was delayed many times before it finally began last October, but with options for member states to opt out while the technology and the logistics of fingerprinting passengers were tested. Under the new EES regulations, airports and ports can temporarily suspend the system if queues become unmanageable, but that opt-out is due to end in September. So far “no member states have requested” a suspension beyond September, something the travel industry wants. The EU, however, says the system is already bearing the results it was designed to achieve. It has captured 110m journeys in and out of the Schengen area, and about 44,500 people have been refused entry. These include passengers trying to re-enter the bloc illegally either because they have overstayed a visitor allowance or because they were trying to enter on a second passport or false travel documents. Previously a passenger with dual nationality, for example, could have beaten the 90-day visitor allowance in any one 180-day period by using their second passport. Under the new system fingerprinting or facial recognition can detect if they are overstayers. EU officials revealed that the biggest reason for refused entry was “no appropriate justification of visit or stay”. The second biggest cohort of refusals, some 9,000, was people who had overstayed their 90-day visitor allowance. More than 1,000 people were stopped at the border because they were “considered a threat to internal security”, while 300 were caught using false passports or travel documents. Issues with French technology have been blamed for delays in full implementation of the system at Eurotunnel, which has invested £80m in infrastructure that is yet to be fully switched on. Under the plans French border officials were due to have an iPad or tablet to hand to the driver and passengers to verify fingerprints and or facial images, but this has not yet been launched. A time-saving mobile app developed by Frontex that would allow passengers to upload some data before they leave home is only fully operational in Sweden and partially in Portugal.

Woman suspected of Monaco bombing found shot dead near Kyiv

A woman suspected of carrying out last week’s bomb attack in Monaco that seriously injured a Ukraine-born business tycoon has been found shot dead near Kyiv, in the latest twist in a case that has shaken the wealthy Mediterranean principality. Ukrainian prosecutors said on Tuesday the woman had been found with a gunshot wound to the head and that two men had been arrested in connection with the case, including an officer with Ukraine’s military intelligence agency (HUR) and a former law enforcement officer. On Friday, Interpol issued a red notice for 39-year-old Anastasiia Berezovska, a Ukrainian national who speaks German. The notice – a request to law enforcement agencies worldwide to locate and provisionally arrest a suspect pending extradition – said Berezovska was wanted by Monaco on charges of attempted murder, placing an explosive device in a public place with criminal intent, and criminal conspiracy. Prosecutors said in a statement that Berezovska received cryptocurrency payments from the two men who were later arrested, leading investigators to treat them as “individuals potentially involved in the attempted murder in Monaco”. They added that the serving HUR officer was “acting on his own initiative” and did not inform his superiors about his contacts with Berezovska. Prosecutors also released footage showing a blood-stained “torture chamber”, containing hammers and other equipment, which they said was discovered during searches of the men’s properties. The Guardian could not independently verify the prosecutors’ account. The affair could prove politically costly for Kyiv. Any evidence linking members of Ukraine’s intelligence services to a bombing on European soil would be deeply damaging, coming as President Volodymyr Zelenskyy arrived at a Nato summit on Tuesday seeking to shore up western support while Russia continues its deadly bombardment of Ukrainian cities. Prince Albert II of Monaco previously condemned the bombing as “an odious act” and said all the principality’s security services had been mobilised. The victims have not been officially identified, but police and judicial sources told French media they were Vadym Iermolaiev, 58, a businessman originally from Ukraine who now holds Cypriot citizenship, his girlfriend and their son. Iermolaiev and his partner were taken to hospital with serious injuries, while the child sustained minor injuries. French prosecutors allege Berezovska, who had been living in Germany, disguised herself as a man before placing an explosive device in the entrance hall of the family’s apartment building in Monaco. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Iermolaiev had been living in Monaco as part of a group of wealthy Ukrainian businessmen and politicians that independent Ukrainian media labelled the “Monaco battalion”. Ukraine imposed sanctions on Iermolaiev in 2023, alleging he had maintained business links with Russian entities operating in Ukrainian territories occupied by Moscow, including Crimea, which Russia illegally annexed in 2014. Monaco’s deputy prosecutor said last week that the suspected attacker fled the principality on foot into neighbouring France before travelling by car to Germany via several European countries, including Italy. Ukraine has carried out numerous lethal operations involving explosive devices against senior Russian military officers and Kremlin-backed Ukrainian officials inside Russia, but there is no established precedent for such attacks on European territory. Last week, German prosecutors accused Ukrainian “state authorities” of ordering the 2022 explosives attack on the Nord Stream gas pipelines linking Russia with Europe.

Tehran teemed with Khamenei mourners, but divisions – and demands for change – remain

As the multipurpose, multinational funeral of Iran’s former supreme leader Ali Khamenei moved to the Jamkaran mosque in the holy city of Qom, and then to Najaf in Iraq, Iran’s leadership was weighing the mandate it had been given by the millions who have taken to the streets of Tehran over the past three days. Some hailed the moment as a referendum from the streets showing support for the clerical establishment, and called for the strategy of confrontation with the west to be intensified. Others said it was more about a wider national pride that was conditional on demands for change and an end to the war being met. Overall, government sources believe they have successfully managed to organise mass shows of support, without disorder or signs of coercive manipulation that the western media – permitted into Iran for the occasion along with social media influencers – had been unable to ignore. The same appeared to be true in Qom, where Khamenei’s body had been flown in by helicopter and the Jamkaran mosque reached capacity seven hours before morning prayers started. The prayer was read in a choking voice by Ayatollah Javadi Amoli, a leading Iranian conservative philosopher. *** An inevitable numbers game has begun over the turnout at the funeral. Estimates for the Tehran leg vary from 350,000 to 35 million, confirming humanity’s tendency to see what it wants to see. The Financial Times, to the pleasure of the government, reported that as many as 12 million people attended. But at a minimum the support in Tehran bore comparison to the funeral of Iran’s first supreme leader, Ruhollah Khomeini, in 1989, when between 5 and 7 million people from a population of 53 million took to the streets. Undoubtedly, successive false turns, economic travails and political repression during Khamenei’s 36-year rule damaged the regime’s support base. But it would be off the mark to treat those in the procession as bots in human form or the urban poor in need of a free sandwich. Many were highly educated and wanted to show their opposition to what they regarded as the extrajudicial killing of their leader, regardless of their broader views of the regime. Mohammad Ali Kadivar, an associate professor of international relations at Boston College, a research university in Massachusetts, said the funeral could be best understood as what he termed “a major episode of state-led mobilisation”. He said: “Since 1979, state-led mobilisation has been one of the central pillars of the regime’s power. The state has built a dense infrastructure through mosques, the Basij, schools, universities, workplaces, state media, veterans’ organisations and war commemoration networks. These institutions help the government organise public participation and project images of popular support at critical moments. “Infrastructure is only one part of the story. The Islamic republic also has a real social base. This base is not a majority of Iranian society, and Iran remains deeply divided, but it is large, organised, ideologically committed and consistently open to mobilisation. Funerals, commemorations and wartime gatherings make that support visible. They show that the regime’s presence in the streets is not simply imposed from above; it also draws on constituencies that support the system and see themselves as defending the revolution, the state and the country against external threat.” Reza Nasri, a lawyer close to the Iranian government, said the images were not of a broken people and they confirmed that the US had “never understood what it was dealing with” when it went to war with Iran. “This was one of the largest human gatherings on Earth,” he said. “It’s a civilisation expressing itself in full, with all its grief, its pride and its cohesion. These are millions who chose, freely and defiantly, to pour into the streets to mourn their leader on their own terms.” He said the Trump administration’s strategy “did not radicalise them against their government. It did not hollow them out. It did not manufacture the desperation Washington needed. Four decades of sanctions, two wars in the region, maximum pressure, currency warfare, and a secretary of defence openly threatening boots on the ground, and this is what it produced: a people more visibly unified than almost any nation on Earth can claim to be.” Pursuing a similar theme, Hossein Rouyvaran, a professor of political science at Tehran University, said: “The biggest problem of the west is all their theories are materialistic, but what happens in Tehran is beyond mundane materialism. Millions come to Tehran and sleep in the streets, and that suggests there is a connection between the leader and the people that is not materialistic.” He said the war had changed the social contract. Far from cementing divisions, “those who had been in opposition before are now under the Iranian flag”. *** Some aspects of the canonisation of Khamenei have teetered on the absurd. The justice minister, Amin Hossein Rahimi, for instance, said the judiciary had laid the groundwork for Iranians to file lawsuits and complaints with court lawyers in domestic and international forums over “mental and psychological harm resulting from the loss of the leader”. More seriously, Rouyvaran said the marches would legitimise the government and give it a freer negotiating hand with the US. But the government has its fractures, and with so much yet to be negotiated, including the ceasefire in Lebanon, the governorship of the strait of Hormuz and the monitoring of Iran’s civil nuclear programme, it is possible the advocates of confrontation will gain the upper hand. Activity around the strait over the past 48 hours, including gunfire aimed at Qatari LNG tankers, suggests Iran is not fully relaxing its grip on the strategic waterway. The foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi – seen riding helmetless on a motorbike to the funeral procession – knows he also has to ride a political tiger in the form of demands for revenge ringing in the streets. Responding to Donald Trump’s familiar threats to annihilate Iran in an afternoon, Araghchi acknowledged the importance of the crowd. “Millions of proud Iranians rallied in unity to honour Grand Ayatollah Khamenei and his legacy,” he said. “Neither them nor our brave armed forces are moved by any threats. Paragraph 13 of the memorandum of understanding is clear: negotiations on final deal will not commence if threats continue. Honour your signature.” Abdollah Ramezanzadeh, a retired assistant professor in the faculty of law and political science at Tehran University, expressed concern over “the stage-managing efforts by state TV to seek revenge and reject negotiation and peace”. He added: “If they’re coordinated and part of a psychological warfare strategy, that’s good, but if they’re a deliberate project by extremists to drag the country into war and render negotiations ineffective, stop them, as they’re targeting the very foundation of the country.” Hesamoddin Ashna, an adviser to the reformist former president Hassan Rouhani, said: “If we cherish that national presence [then] we [should] consider the united and diverse nation as the holder of power, and employ justice and rationality to witness the resurgence of Iran once again.” Some argued that if the funeral was a true affirmation of national cohesion, the past presidents Mohammad Khatami, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Rouhani would not have been excluded from the ceremonies. Another absentee was Ali Asghar Hijazi, the deputy chief of Khamenei’s office and one of the officials closest to him for three decades. It is said that after the bombing of Khamenei’s residence, he was one of those opposed to the elevation of Khamenei’s son, Mojtaba, as his successor on the grounds that, according to Khamenei’s will, his children did not have the right to enter politics. All that can be said for now is that the battle for the soul of Iran, subterranean and in the streets, is entering a new phase.

Bombs explode near Damascus hotel housing Macron on Syria visit

Explosions rocked Damascus near the hotel where French president, Emmanuel Macron, was staying on Tuesday, wounding at least 18 people, Syrian authorities said. Macron was in the presidential palace for a meeting with the Syrian president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, when two improvised explosive devices detonated near the Four Seasons hotel where Macron was reported to be staying. The Four Seasons hosts UN staff and foreign diplomats and is one of the most well-guarded facilities in the Syrian capital. The explosions did not interrupt Macron’s visit, Syrian state media said, publishing pictures of the French and Syrian presidents embracing in the presidential palace. But the explosions were a setback for Syria’s new rulers, who have sought to project an image of stability and have sought to attract foreign investors since the toppling of the former president Bashar al-Assad in December 2024. Macron is the first major western leader to visit Syria since Assad was forced out, and his meeting with Sharaa in Damascus was viewed as a major recognition of Sharaa. Sharaa and his ministers have worked hard to distance themselves from their pasts as Islamist fighters in Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, which grew out of al-Qaida. France has been one of the most supportive western governments of Sharaa’s rule, pushing the US to drop sanctions on Syria and playing a key role in mediating between Syria and Israel. Macron has been accompanied by an economic delegation, including Jacques Saadé, the head of the shipping conglomerate CMA CGM, who has Syrian origins. The French president is expected to sign memorandums of understandings with Syria in an attempt to boost investor confidence in the war-battered country, which is struggling to lift itself out of economic malaise. A video of one of the explosions on Tuesday showed Syrian police officers standing around what appeared to be a bin before the bin suddenly exploded, wounding four officers. The Syrian interior ministry said another IED was placed in a parked car and that 18 people were wounded in total. The interior ministry said an investigation was under way to determine who was responsible for the attack. Last Thursday an IED placed in a busy cafe near the Justice Palace in Damascus killed at least 10 people and wounded more than 20. No group has claimed responsibility for that attack. Syria has recently struggled with attacks from various armed groups, including Islamic State and groups linked to the former Assad regime. Damascus had been largely spared from violence until last week, even as other areas of the country saw kidnappings and assassinations as the new government tried to assert itself. Besides security, the economic malaise created by 14 years of war and crushing sanctions is the main challenge facing postwar Syria. About 90% of people in Syria live in poverty and the country’s infrastructure is in desperate needs of repairs as a result of the war. Basic services such as electricity are inconsistent in parts of the country, including Damascus.

More than half of English parents struggle to find accessible holiday clubs for disabled children

More than half of parents struggle to find accessible holiday clubs for their disabled children, hitting family finances and forcing many to quit work altogether, according to a survey by a leading charity. A “stark postcode lottery” dictates who is able to secure a place for their child, according to the national disability charity Sense, which found an estimated 60,000 disabled children are living in areas of England with no holiday club provision for them. The charity sent a series of freedom of information (FOI) requests to every local authority in England last year. Of the 114 who responded, 11 (10%) offered zero holiday club provision, leaving 61,415 youngsters and their families scrambling for help. In total, 57% of the 1,000 parents who took part in the survey said it was difficult to get a place in a holiday club. One in three (32%) said the situation meant they were financially worse off, of those a third (32%) had to reduce their working hours to look after their child, and almost a fifth (16%) had to leave employment. The poll found the struggle to find cover during the holidays also affects wellbeing in parents, with a third (34%) experiencing poor mental health. Melissa Mould, 44, and her husband Andrew Mould, 42, from Merton, south-west London, both work in TV production and are parents to six-year-old twins, Frankie and Otis, and two-year-old Remy. Frankie has cerebral palsy and uses a wheelchair full-time. His mother said it was more difficult and expensive for him to attend holiday clubs, compared with his non-disabled twin. “The logistics of organising summer holiday childcare are so complicated when you have a disabled child – it exhausts me mentally,” she said. “There are endless holiday club options for Otis. For Frankie, there is nothing obvious that he can go to, even though we would be happy to send him to most types of clubs. “I work part-time and we’re lucky that my mum lives close to the school and helps out. I know many families don’t have that support and I can completely see how people end up giving up work, because it’s just not financially viable once you factor in the extra costs.” Natalie Thompson, 39, from Birmingham, works part-time as a freelance HR adviser and is a single parent to Azuriah, aged eight, who is autistic, non-verbal and has global development delay. She said the long summer school holidays cause her financial and emotional anxiety. “There are so few holiday clubs that can meet my son Azuriah’s needs because he requires one-on-one support to keep him safe and happy. “So I’m with him throughout the holidays, from first thing in the morning until last thing at night, nearly every day. “I can’t work full-time because of my caring responsibilities and during the school holidays I can only work very limited hours. That hugely limits my employment options and affects us financially. “The way school holiday care works for disabled children with complex needs like Azuriah is absolute madness. There should be a national framework, so disabled children get the support they need wherever they live – not this postcode lottery.” Harriet Edwards, director of influencing at Sense, said: “Every child deserves the chance to spend the summer with friends, learning new skills and having fun. Yet too many disabled children are missing out simply because accessible holiday clubs aren’t available where they live.” A spokesperson for the Local Government Association, the national membership body for councils in England, said: “Councils recognise the shortage of holiday childcare options for children with special educational needs and disabilities (Send). “We want to continue to work with government to ensure children get the support they need in the Send reforms, which must ensure those needs are met out of school as well as during term-time.”