The pomp and pageantry of the State Opening of Parliament at the Palace of Westminster in London traditionally takes longer than the speech itself.

But for nine short minutes on Tuesday, Britons were given a glimpse of their future without Queen Elizabeth II as head of state.

Ill health and old age forced the 96-year-old monarch to withdraw from outlining her government’s legislative agenda for only the third time since her reign began in 1952.

Instead it fell to her eldest son Prince Charles, 73, to deputise, in the most important state engagement yet in his record-breaking time as her heir.

When his mother dies, he will be king and opening parliament for a new session will be one of his most important constitutional duties as head of state.

Other than the last-minute change of personnel, there was little to distinguish the ceremony from previous ones in the putative “mother of all parliaments”.

Two mounted divisions of the Household Cavalry regiment formed a “secure passage” for the limousine carrying Charles and his wife Camilla from Buckingham Palace.

The red-coated Queen’s Body Guard of the Yeoman of the Guard — the “Beefeaters” — kept watch. Liveried parliamentary and government officials processed.

A ceremonial search of the cellars of parliament was conducted — a throwback to when a gunpowder plot was foiled before the opening of 1605.

The door of the House of Commons was slammed shut in the path of Black Rod, an official from the unelected upper House of Lords, to symbolise the independence of the elected lower chamber from the monarchy.

One member of parliament was held “hostage” at Buckingham Palace to ensure the safe return of the monarch, another throwback to more troubled times.

Elected members of parliament from the House of Commons are invited to the unelected upper chamber House of Lords to listen to the Queen’s Speech

Elected members of parliament from the House of Commons are invited to the unelected upper chamber House of Lords to listen to the Queen’s Speech Aaron Chown POOL/AFP

Then MPs filed into the Lords, their daywear in contrast to the peers in red and white ermine robes, to listen to the speech.

‘God save the Queen’

Charles, dressed in the ceremonial uniform of admiral of the fleet, complete with a sheathed sword, arrived to a trumpet fanfare.

The Prince of Wales has had a lifetime to prepare, showing no sign of nerves, smiling and occasionally stopping to chat as he made his way to the chamber and the platform bearing the consort’s throne.

Camilla sat to his left and his eldest son, Prince William, 39, to his right, getting his first taste of an occasion he will also have to perform one day.

The raised golden throne of the monarch, who was said to be watching on television from home, was removed. In its place was the crown on a velvet cushion.

At 11:34 am (1034 GMT), Charles began reading his mother’s words, written for her by the government.

“My Government’s priority is to grow and strengthen the economy and help ease the cost of living for families,” he read.

“My Government will level up opportunity in all parts of the country and support more people into work.

“My Ministers will continue to support the police to make the streets safer, and fund the National Health Service to reduce the COVID backlogs.

Queen Elizabeth II, who has been head of state since 1952, was said to have watched the ceremony on television from home.

“In these challenging times, my Government will play a leading role in defending democracy and freedom across the world, including continuing to support the people of Ukraine.”

At 11:43 am it was over. As he left, a military band played the national anthem, “God Save the Queen”.

Source: AFP

Prince Charles will replace his 96-year-old mother Queen Elizabeth II at Tuesday’s ceremonial opening of the UK parliament, Buckingham Palace said Monday, citing the monarch’s ongoing mobility issues.

“The Queen continues to experience episodic mobility problems, and in consultation with her doctors has reluctantly decided that she will not attend the State Opening of Parliament,” the palace said in a statement on the eve of the pomp-filled event.

“At Her Majesty’s request, and with the agreement of the relevant authorities, The Prince of Wales will read the Queen’s Speech on Her Majesty’s behalf,” it added, referring to her eldest son and heir to the throne, Charles.

The palace added that the Queen’s eldest grandson, Prince William, the Duke of Cambridge and next in the line of succession, would also attend the elaborate State Opening of Parliament ceremony.

As head of state, the Queen usually presides over the annual event, reading out her government’s legislative programme in an address from a gilded throne in the House of Lords.

But Buckingham Palace had not confirmed her attendance in the run-up to this year’s spectacle, which culminates in the so-called Queen’s Speech at around 11:30 am (1030 GMT) on Tuesday.

The monarch has rarely been seen in public since spending an unscheduled night in hospital in October last year, and has complained of difficulties standing and working, as well as a bout of Covid.

She has missed only two state openings during her record-breaking 70-year reign, in 1959 and 1963, when she was pregnant with Prince Andrew and then Prince Edward.

She has cut back on numerous public appearances in recent months, and last week the palace announced she will not attend this summer’s royal garden parties, usually a regular feature in her yearly diary.

The monarch recently returned to Windsor Castle after a week-long break on her Sandringham estate in Norfolk, eastern England, where she marked her 96th birthday in private on April 21.

Royal tradition since the 18th century has also seen the monarch have a second, official birthday, typically celebrated in warmer weather in June.

This year’s official birthday coincides with her Platinum Jubilee, and four days of public events from June 2 to 5 to mark her record-breaking 70th year on the throne.

Source: AFP

Emmanuel Macron was re-elected as the president of France on Sunday with more than 58 percent of the vote. As international leaders offered their congratulations, rival political parties say they are preparing to do battle ahead of French parliamentary elections in June.

European Council chief Charles Michel, as well as the prime ministers of Belgium and Luxembourg, were among the first to congratulate Macron, followed by many of the bloc’s 27 leaders. 

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said French voters “have sent a strong vote of confidence in Europe today,” adding: “I am happy that we will continue our cooperation.”

Political parties in France led by La France Insoumise (France Unbowed or LFI) and Rassemblement National (National Rally or RN) are preparing to battle it out in legislative elections on June 12 and 19.

French voters head to the polls on Sunday in the second and final round of the country’s presidential election, with President Emmanuel Macron and his far-right challenger Marine Le Pen facing off in a rematch of their 2017 duel.

Macron, 44, topped the first round of the election on April 10 with 27.8% of votes cast. The pro-European incumbent is aiming to become the first president to win re-election since Jacques Chirac in 2002.

Le Pen, who took 23.1% of the first-round vote, is making her third run for the presidency. The 53-year-old nationalist leader is hoping to become the first woman to hold the job.

First exit polls are expected at 8pm Paris time (GMT+2) when the last polling stations close in Paris and other cities. Until then, French media are barred from quoting candidates or publishing polls to ensure they don’t influence voters.

Some 48.7 million are registered to vote, though pollsters have warned that turnout could be lower than in the first round, when one in four abstained from voting.

Source: France 24

Britain will send migrants and asylum-seekers who cross the Channel thousands of miles away to Rwanda under a controversial deal announced Thursday as the government tries to clamp down on record numbers of people making the perilous journey.

“From today… anyone entering the UK illegally as well as those who have arrived illegally since January 1 may now be relocated to Rwanda,” Prime Minister Boris Johnson said in a speech near Dover in southeastern England.

“Rwanda will have the capacity to resettle tens of thousands of people in the years ahead,” Johnson said.

He called the East African nation with a sketchy human rights record “one of the safest countries in the world, globally recognised for its record of welcoming and integrating migrants.”

Johnson was elected partly on promises to curb illegal immigration but has instead seen record numbers making the risky Channel crossing.

He also announced that Britain’s border agency would hand responsibility for patrolling the Channel for migrant boats to the navy.

“The Royal Navy will take over operational command from Border Force in the Channel with the aim that no boat makes it to the UK undetected,” Johnson said, announcing extra funds for boats, aircraft and surveillance equipment to help detain people-smugglers at sea.

“This will send a clear message to those piloting the boats. If you risk other people’s lives in the Channel, you risk spending your own life in prison,” he said.

More than 28,000 people arrived in Britain having crossed the Channel from France in small boats in 2021.

Around 90 percent of those were male and three-quarters were men aged between 18 and 39.

The Rwanda plan swiftly drew the ire of opposition politicians who accused Johnson of trying to distract from his being fined for breaking coronavirus lockdown rules, while rights groups slammed the project as “inhumane”.

Ghana and Rwanda had previously been mentioned as possible locations for the UK to outsource the processing of migrants, but Ghana in January denied involvement.

Instead, Kigali on Thursday announcing that it had signed a multi-million-dollar deal to do the job, during a visit by British Home Secretary Priti Patel.

“Rwanda welcomes this partnership with the United Kingdom to host asylum seekers and migrants, and offer them legal pathways to residence” in the East African nation, Foreign Minister Vincent Biruta said in a statement.

“This is about ensuring that people are protected, respected, and empowered to further their own ambitions and settle permanently in Rwanda if they choose,” said Biruta.

The deal with Rwanda will be funded by the UK to the tune of up to 120 million pounds ($157 million, 144 million euros), with migrants “integrated into communities across the country,” it said.

Backlash

Refugee Action’s Tim Naor Hilton accused the government of “offshoring its responsibilities onto Europe’s former colonies instead of doing our fair share to help some of the most vulnerable people on the planet”.

“This grubby cash-for-people plan would be a cowardly, barbaric and inhumane way to treat people fleeing persecution and war,” he said.

Detention Action said that those sent there would “likely face indefinite detention under a government notorious for violent persecution of dissent.”

“At the same time, the UK currently gives asylum to Rwandan refugees fleeing political persecution,” the advocacy group said in a statement.

Scotland’s Health Secretary Humza Yousaf said the plan showed that the Conservative government was “institutionally racist”.

The government “rightly provides asylum and refuge to Ukrainians fleeing war, but wants to send others seeking asylum thousands of miles away to Rwanda for ‘processing’,” Yousaf tweeted.

Australia has a policy of sending asylum seekers arriving by boat to detention camps on the Pacific island nation of Nauru, with Canberra vowing no asylum seeker arriving by boat would ever be allowed to permanently settle in Australia.

Since 2015 the UK has “offered a place to over 185,000 men, women and children seeking refuge (…) more than any other similar resettlement schemes in Europe,” Johnson said.

According to the UN refugee agency, Germany received the highest number of asylum applicants (127,730) in Europe in 2021, followed by France (96,510), while the UK received the fourth largest number of applicants (44,190).

Source:  AFP

French President Emmanuel Macron improved on his 2017 score in Sunday’s first round of the presidential election. But he goes into the April 24 run-off with a starkly diminished reservoir of votes in what large swaths of the country have come to see as a choice of “the lesser of two evils”.

Macron trounced the same far-right candidate in a lopsided contest five years ago, but polls are pointing to a much closer race this time amid widespread dismay at a rematch voters have long said they didn’t want.

Following the first round, Macron is on course to beat Le Pen by 54% to 46%, according to a projection by pollsters Ipsos-Sopra Steria for FRANCE 24. Other polls have suggested the gap could be as narrow as two percentage points. In any case, Macron is polling well below the 66% he won in 2017 against the very same opponent.

In Sunday’s first round, the incumbent president trailed Le Pen in every age category except the over-65s, who voted massively in his favour. Without their support, he wouldn’t even be in the run-off. But the inability to generate enthusiasm among younger voters is just one of Macron’s problems after five troubled years in office and a lacklustre campaign overshadowed by the war in Ukraine.

“Macron’s reservoir of votes is extremely weak,” said Martial Foucault, head of the Cevipof institute in Paris, noting that rivals from the mainstream whose supporters are most likely to rally behind him have been all but wiped off the political map.

“The scores of the Socialist Party (1.7%) and Les Républicains (4.8%) suggest many of their supporters already voted tactically in the first round. And the more ‘Macron-compatible’ among them gave their votes to the incumbent,” Foucault told FRANCE 24. While Macron can also count on the support of voters who backed the Greens’ Yannick Jadot (4.6%) and the Communists’ Fabien Roussel (2.3%), “we’re talking about a very limited pool of voters”, Foucault added.

At the other end of the spectrum, Le Pen can reasonably expect to pick up most of the 7.1% of voters who backed her far-right rival Éric Zemmour and the 2.1% who went for nationalist right-winger Nicolas Dupont-Aignan – with both candidates throwing their support behind her on Sunday night. Their combined total brings the far right’s tally to an unprecedented 32.5% – underscoring a profound shift in the French electorate and pointing to a substantial reservoir of votes for Le Pen ahead of the April 24 run-off.

Source: France 24

French President Emmanuel Macron will face the far right’s Marine Le Pen in a presidential run-off on April 24 after leading the first round on Sunday with 28.5% of the vote to Le Pen’s 23.6%, according to an Ipsos exit poll.

Macron was projected to win 28.5% of the vote, ahead of Le Pen (23.6%) and third-placed Jean-Luc Mélenchon (20.3%), according to projections by our partners Ipsos Sopra Steria.

Some 48.7 million voters were called to the polls for Sunday’s first round. By 5pm, 65 percent of registered voters had cast a ballot, down 4.4 points on the previous election in 2017.

Twelve candidates, from the far left to the far right, were on the ballot for the first round. The two finalists will vie for France’s top job in two weeks’ time, on April 24.

Source: France 24

Russia said Tuesday it would pull out of the Council of Europe after pressure mounted for Moscow to be expelled from the pan-European rights body over its invasion of Ukraine.

Essentially jumping before it was pushed from the Strasbourg-based body, the Russian foreign ministry said it had given notification of its departure to the Secretary General Marija Pejcinovic Buric.

The decision draws the curtain on Russia’s quarter century membership of the Council of Europe (COE) and also opens the way for Moscow to reimpose the death penalty if the authorities decide.

The so-called “Ruxit” from the Council of Europe means that Russia will no longer be a signatory to the European Convention on Human Rights and its citizens will no longer be able to file applications to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).

It is only the second time in the history of the Council of Europe that a member state has announced it has quit the body after Greece walked out temporarily in the late 1960s.

Russia was suspended from all its rights of representation a day after tens of thousands of troops entered Ukraine on February 24.

The body’s parliamentary assembly was Tuesday also expected to pass a resolution urging the committee of ministers — the COE’s main decision making body — to start a procedure to expel Russia.

Buric “received formal notification from the Russian Federation of its withdrawal from the Council of Europe”, the body’s spokesman Daniel Holtgen confirmed.

Ukraine’s Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal had on Monday demanded that Russia be immediately expelled, saying it had no right to remain a member after sending troops to the pro-Western country.

Eyes on death penalty

The Russian foreign ministry posted a statement on “launching the procedure to exit the Council of Europe” on its Telegram account, adding it had “no regret” about leaving.

Russia joined the Council of Europe in 1996.

The ministry said its exit would “not affect the rights and freedoms of Russian citizens” and that “the implementation of already adopted resolutions of the European Court of Human Rights will continue, if they do not contradict Russia’s Constitution”.

It claimed that EU and NATO member states within the Council of Europe had turned the organisation into an “instrument for anti-Russian policies”.

Russia’s exit will mark a major change for the ECHR which acts as a court of final instance when all domestic avenues are exhausted.

Cases brought by Russian citizens have piled up at the ECHR accounting for 24 percent of the current cases, such as those concerning dissident prisoner Alexei Navalny.

No member state has ever been expelled from the Council of Europe, which was created in 1949 and has 47 member states including Russia.

Moscow’s move has one precedent — when it was under military rule Greece walked out of the body in 1969 to avoid being expelled. Athens then rejoined in 1974 after the fall of the junta.

Not using the death penalty is a precondition of COE membership, and former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev, now deputy national security council chief, had evoked bringing back capital punishment if Russia left the body.

Medvedev had described Russia’s suspension as “a good opportunity to restore a number of important measures to prevent especially serious crimes — such as the death penalty… which is actively used in the US and China”.

Russia has observed a moratorium on the death penalty since 1996 though it has never formally abolished the practice.

Belarus, the only European country to still use the death penalty and Moscow’s ally, is not a member of the organisation.

A Russian exit will also deprive the COE of nearly seven percent of its annual budget, around 500 million euros ($545 million).

But Buric told AFP this month she had received “reassuring” signals from several member states, including France and Germany, ready to guarantee the financial sustainability of the organisation.

Source: AFP

EU leaders gathered at Versailles for a two-day summit starting Thursday on how to address Russia’s invasion of Ukraine amid calls from Kyiv for a fast-tracked path to membership in the European bloc.

EU leaders doused Ukraine’s hopes gaining membership of the European Union quickly on Thursday, as they met to urgently address the fallout of the Russia’s invasion.

The meeting at the palace of Versailles was set to be the high point of France’s six-month EU presidency, but President Emmanuel Macron is instead leading a crisis summit following Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s brutal disruption of decades of stability in Europe.

The Ukraine war and the EU’s energy supply were to dominate the two-day meeting, with leaders sitting down for dinner in the same Hall of Mirrors where Western allies carved out a new map of Europe in 1919 after World War I.

“Europe will change even faster and stronger with the war (in Ukraine)”, Macron said as he greeted his counterparts at the former residence of France’s Sun King, Louis XIV.

The 27 heads of state and government met as fighting raged for a 15th day in Ukraine, with an outcry over the bombing of a maternity hospital in the besieged Ukrainian city of Mariupol.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky described the attack as a Russian “war crime”. Moscow denied carrying it out, calling it a “staged provocation” by Ukraine.

Macron dubbed it a “disgraceful act of war”, with leaders from across the bloc condemning the atrocity and Spain calling it a “war crime” that demanded punishment.

The conflict has seen a swell of support in the EU for Ukrainian President Zelensky, but leaders used the talks to reiterate that a speedy track to membership was impossible.

“There is no such thing as a fast track,” Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said as he arrived for the talks.

“I want to focus on what can we do for Volodymyr Zelensky tonight, tomorrow, and EU accession of Ukraine is something for the long term, if at all,” he added.

Luxembourg’s Prime Minister Xavier Bettel warned against giving Kyiv the impression that “everything can happen overnight”.

‘Biggest issue’

Even before the war, Macron’s ambition for the summit was to lay down a path to strengthen Europe’s stature on the world stage.

The issue took greater significance with Russia’s war on the bloc’s eastern edge and leaders were to explore ways to shore up Europe’s self-reliance in a starkly more dangerous world, especially on energy.

The conflict has seen energy prices skyrocket, threatened the economy and sparked a pressing discussion on where Europeans can turn for gas and oil.

The EU imports about 40 percent of its natural gas from Russia with Germany, Europe’s biggest economy, especially dependent on the energy flow, along with Italy and several central European countries.

About a quarter of the EU’s oil imports also come from Russia.

Europe’s dependency on Russian energy even caused the first crack in the West’s unified response to Putin’s aggression, with the EU this week shying away from a ban on Russian oil imports implemented by the United States and Britain.

According to a draft of the meeting’s final declaration, the 27 leaders will cautiously agree to “phase out” the bloc’s dependency on Russian gas, oil and coal.

‘Resolutely invest’

The EU leaders will also try to advance on ways Europe can gain independence in highly sensitive sectors, including semiconductors, food production and most notably defence.

Collective security in the European Union is primarily handled by the US-led NATO alliance, but France, the EU’s biggest military power, would like the bloc to play a bigger role.

Since Russia’s belligerence against its pro-EU neighbour, bloc members have approved a total of half a billion euros in defence aid to Ukraine.

Berlin dramatically broke with long-standing doctrine when it announced it will plough 100 billion euros into national defence.

In view of the challenges, “we must resolutely invest more and better in defence capabilities and innovative technologies”, the leaders were expected to say.

Source: AFP

French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday announced he would run for a second term in the April French presidential election, seeking a mandate to steer the euro zone’s second-largest economy through the fallout from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the Covid-19 pandemic.

Macron announced his bid for the 2022 presidential election with a “letter to the French” which began with the recent challenges the country has faced during his first five-year term.

“Over the past five years, we have faced many trials together. Terrorism, the pandemic, war in Europe: rarely has France been faced with such an accumulation of crises,” the letter, which was published in several newspapers, began.

“We have not succeeded in everything,” Macron continued. “There are choices that, with the experience I have acquired, I would no doubt make differently. But the transformations undertaken during this mandate have enabled many of us to live better, and France to gain in independence. And the crises we have been experiencing for the past two years show that this is the path that must be followed.”

The letter then stated his intent to run for a second term. “I am asking for your confidence for a new mandate as president of the Republic. I am a candidate to…respond to the challenges of the century. I am a candidate to defend our values…I am a candidate to continue to prepare the future of our children and our grandchildren.”

The French  president, who has been at the centre of diplomacy over Ukraine, left his official declaration to the last minute with the deadline set by the authorities at 6 pm (1700 GMT) on Friday.

While there was always little suspense about the 44-year-old’s intentions, his candidacy announcement was repeatedly delayed because of the crisis in eastern Europe that has seen Macron take a prominent role in diplomatic talks.

Nearly a month before the April 10 first round of the presidential election Macron has yet to engage in any official campaigning and scrapped a rally planned in Marseille this weekend due to the Ukraine crisis.

Rivals ‘boxing on their own’

Ahead of Friday’s deadline for candidates to stand, polls widely show him as the front runner, with the war turning the attention to foreign policy rather than the domestic issues favoured by his opponents.

“In a crisis, citizens always get behind the flag and line up behind the head of state,” said Antoine Bristielle, a public opinion expert at the Jean-Jaurès Foundation, a Paris think tank.

“The other candidates are inaudible. In every media, all anyone is talking about is the invasion,” he told AFP.

One ruling party MP told AFP this week the Ukraine crisis meant that Macron’s rivals were “boxing on their own”, while several polls have shown his personal ratings rising.

The former investment banker admitted in a national address on Wednesday night that the crisis had “hit our democratic life and the election campaign” but promised “an important democratic debate for the country” would take place.

The latest IFOP poll for Paris Match, LCI and Sud Radio on Thursday showed Macron and far-right candidate Marine Le Pen leading in the first round and qualifying for the run-off with Macron getting 28 percent and Le Pen securing 17 percent.

The figures for the April 24 runoff showed Macron securing 56.7 percent of the vote against Le Pen.

Source: REUTERS