1, May 2017
Blair to ‘get his hands dirty’ with UK politics again 0
Former British prime minister Tony Blair has announced his plan to “get his hands dirty” with domestic politics again, 20 years after beating John Major to enter Downing Street.
In an interview with the Daily Mirror newspaper published on Monday, Blair said he is returning to politics in order to fight against the UK leaving the European Union (EU).
Blair led the Labour Party to a landslide victory on May 1, 1997 – two decades ago today — ending its 18 years in opposition and winning 418 seats, the most the party has ever held. He led Labour from 1994 to 2007.
Blair said he will not be standing in the June general elections, but added that he wanted to launch a political movement to formulate the policy debate as Britain begins its two-year-long complex negotiations to leave the EU.
The 63-year-old, whose ten-year tenure as the British PM was marred by his controversial decision to join the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq, admitted that he would face intense criticism for returning to politics.
Source: Presstv
2, May 2017
French PM warns of EU death if Le Pen wins presidency 0
French Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve has warned that the European Union will not survive if far-right leader Marine Le Pen becomes president.
“The European Union, weakened by Brexit, would not be able to withstand the new shock that would be constituted by the arrival in power in France of a government that is openly europhobic,” wrote Cazeneuve in a column in the Liberation newspaper on Tuesday.
He further called on the country to vote for front-runner Emmanuel Macron in the decisive May 7 presidential run-off.
Macron, 39, and Le Pen, 48, won the first round of voting in the presidential election on April 23. Macron finished first on 24 percent, ahead of Le Pen with 21.3 percent.