PARIS: UK premier Keir Starmer was welcomed warmly Thursday in Paris by French leader Emmanuel Macron, as the new center-left British government seeks to relaunch post-Brexit ties with Europe.
Paris is the second leg of Starmer’s trip to key EU capitals, after the prime minister visited Berlin and announced treaty talks alongside Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
Macron strode out to meet Starmer for a demonstrative hug, slapping the recently-elected leader’s back and shaking his hand.
French presidents usually wait beside uniformed Republican Guards standing rigidly to attention at the top of the steps in the presidential palace’s courtyard when welcoming visitors.
The pair have plenty to discuss.
Like Germany, France is a key security partner for Britain — Paris and London hold permanent seats on the UN Security Council and are Western Europe’s only nuclear-armed powers.
The two countries share strong support for Ukraine in its fight against Russian invasion since 2022.
More fraught is the issue of migrants crossing the Channel to the UK on boats, which the two countries’ security forces have cooperated for years to try to contain.
The issue was the first aim singled out by Starmer in a statement released ahead of the France visit, alongside stoking economic growth.
Migrant arrivals in Britain reached a record high in the first six months of the year, according to London, adding 18 percent year-on-year to reach 13,500 people.
Since the beginning of the year, 25 people have died in often dangerously-overcrowded craft, twice as many as in the whole of 2023.
Reaching a new level of cooperation with the EU as a whole may be more elusive than the treaty Starmer hopes to strike with Germany by year’s end.
He has made a classic choice of interlocutors in Scholz and Macron as the heads of the EU’s traditional Franco-German power couple.
But both are in a weakened state that may limit their influence on cross-Channel dealmaking.
Scholz heads a shaky three-party coalition set for a drubbing in three regional elections next month and unlikely to survive next year’s national ballot.
Macron is struggling to come up with a candidate for prime minister after a July snap election produced a hopelessly hung parliament — a stark contrast to Starmer’s unassailable majority.
France’s Macron hosts Starmer as UK seeks to reset Europe ties
https://arab.news/ycf6w
France’s Macron hosts Starmer as UK seeks to reset Europe ties
- Macron strode out to meet Starmer for a demonstrative hug, slapping the recently-elected leader’s back and shaking his hand
- French presidents usually wait beside Republican Guards standing to attention at the top of the steps in the presidential palace’s courtyard when welcoming visitors
European bird flu spike due to record wild birds cases, EFSA says
- Outbreaks typically peak in autumn as migratory birds head south
- For humans, bird flu infected 19 people in four countries, Cambodia, China, Mexico and the US
PARIS: An unprecedented number of bird flu outbreaks among wild birds and their wide geographic spread are driving an early and strong wave of the disease in Europe this year, the European Food Safety Authority said on Thursday.
Highly pathogenic avian influenza has led to the culling of hundreds of millions of farmed birds in recent years, disrupting food supplies and increasing prices. Human cases remain rare.
Outbreaks typically peak in autumn as migratory birds head south, but this season saw earlier cases, killing many wild birds, mainly common cranes along the German, French, and Spanish routes as well as a large number of waterfowl.
Between September 6 and November 28, 2,896 highly pathogenic avian influenza H5 virus detections — mostly H5N1 — were reported in domestic birds in 29 countries in Europe, with 442 in poultry and 2,454 in wild birds, EFSA said in a report.
“We are currently seeing an unprecedented sharp increase in the highly pathogenic avian influenza virus detections, mostly in wild birds,” Lisa Kohnle, scientific officer at EFSA, told Reuters.
Poultry outbreak numbers were similar to previous years but five times higher than in 2023, and almost double those of 2021. Turkiyes were the most affected.
“What is interesting for poultry is that in previous years those epidemics were characterised by a lot of farm-to-farm spread,” Kohnle said. “This year it seems we mostly have introduction from wild birds.”
For humans, bird flu infected 19 people in four countries (Cambodia, China, Mexico and the US), killing one in Cambodia and one in the U.S, EFSA said. All cases involved exposure to poultry or poultry environments.
Bird flu outbreaks in mammals were fewer than in 2022 and 2023, but remain a concern due to potential mutations that would make it transmissible between humans.
Kohnle said detections were likely to keep rising, although high wild bird mortality could prompt tighter farm controls and help slow the virus’s spread.
