Author: Press Room

Published on 20/09/2026 – 21:12 GMT+2 French President Emmanuel Macron declared that France and Canada are “two great independent nations who want to stay that way” during a joint news conference with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney on Sunday. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT The bilateral summit—held in the French territory of Saint Pierre and Miquelon, located just off Canada’s Atlantic coast—comes against the backdrop of increasingly strained relations between the two nations and the United States. Carney stated that the time had come to significantly strengthen ties with France and the European Union. His comments follow a high-profile visit to Brussels and…

The Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni has announced that a bill focused on schools is about to be put before the Council of Ministers, with the aim of introducing bans on wearing burqas and niqabs in the classroom and imposing a limit on the number of foreign students in each class. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT The ban on covering one’s face in public places has previously been introduced in several European countries, including France and Belgium, and more recently, it has also been applied in Austrian schools. In other countries, such as Spain and Poland, freedom of conscience and religion is protected…

Published on 20/09/2026 – 11:16 GMT+2•Updated 11:27 French President Emmanuel Macron hailed France’s relationship with Canada during a trip to Saint Pierre and Miquelon this weekend. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT Macron is visiting the French overseas collectivity from 19 to 21 September and is due to meet with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney there on Sunday. Speaking to reporters from the archipelago, which sits just off the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador, Macron said the goal of the visit was to help the territory “turn a new page” and gently pushed back on suggestions that the trip was intended to make…

Published on 20/09/2026 – 13:43 GMT+2 Germans are heading to the polls on Sunday in two state elections that could prove decisive for Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s future. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT In Berlin, Merz’s ruling Christian Democratic Union (CDU) is facing a close fight against Die Linke, which has strong support among young people and has pledged measures to tackle the housing crisis. In the coastal state of Mecklenburg–Western Pomerania in northeastern Germany, the main race is between the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and the hard-right, anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD). The AfD comes into Sunday’s vote fresh off the back of…

Published on 20/09/2026 – 12:34 GMT+2 Ukrainian forces launched their “largest-scale attack” on Moscow since the war in Ukraine began, the city’s mayor said on Sunday. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT In a post on Telegram, Sergey Sobyanin reported that Russian air defences had shot down more than 1,600 drones across the country since Saturday, 450 of which he said had been heading towards the capital. “Several drones reached the territory of the Moscow refinery, and one struck a residential building. There were no fatalities,” he wrote. Moscow Oblast governor Andrey Vorobyov said two people had been killed in attacks across the wider…

Welcome back to this newsletter, written en route from Strasbourg to Brussels, after a week of parliamentary coverage. In case you missed it, Mark Carney stole the show and Canada is our new associate BFF, whatever that means. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT It’s easy to be cynical about the Canadian Prime Minister, but anyone who makes an intellectual effort citing Goethe on a Thursday morning gets my attention amid the sea of poor orators that populate the annual State of the Union (the EU’s, to be clear). Carney chose his references deliberately, reaching for Faust right off the bat. One can only…

Published on 19/09/2026 – 21:04 GMT+2 Dutch riot police clashed on Saturday with around 500 far-right protesters in the centre of The Hague, using baton charges, specialist dogs, and water cannon to disperse the crowd after violence erupted. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT Demonstrators pelted officers with fireworks and other projectiles, shouted anti-semitic chants, and performed Nazi salutes during the “We Are The People” rally, which was organised to protest government policies on immigration and asylum. “We’re losing our country. We’re literally losing our country to mass migration,” 31-year-old mechanic Thijs Jansen told news agencies at the scene. Protesters had intended to march…

On Sunday, Berliners will vote to elect a new state parliament, the Abgeordnetenhaus, alongside the regional vote in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. The race is wide open: the Left party and the CDU are neck and neck in the latest polls, both at around 20-23%, with the AfD at 18% and the Greens at 16% close behind. The SPD, with 10-12%, is now clearly below its 2023 result. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT That means it is also unclear what the political landscape will look like after the vote. According to recent surveys, the current black-red coalition of the CDU and SPD would no longer…

Published on 19/09/2026 – 19:01 GMT+2 General Carsten Breuer, Germany’s chief of defence, was selected on Saturday as the next head of NATO’s military committee, the alliance’s supreme military authority and a primary advisory body to its political leadership. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT Military chiefs from the 32-nation alliance elected Breuer during a meeting in Copenhagen, the current chair, Italian Admiral Giuseppe Cavo Dragone, announced in a post on X. Breuer will assume the role in July 2027, succeeding Dragone for a three-year term that aligns with NATO’s strategic efforts to bolster deterrence against potential Russian aggression by 2029. Alongside the Supreme…

Around 150 metres below the water’s surface, west of the Norwegian island of Fedje, a fragment of German wartime history lies on the seabed. A submarine called U-864 has been resting there for more than eight decades, broken into two parts, surrounded by sediment and a cargo that still poses an environmental problem today. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT U-864 is an exceptional case: according to historical records, large quantities of mercury were probably on board, with a Japanese order mentioning 1,867 containers. If the entire shipment had been loaded, that would correspond to between about 65 and 67 tonnes. However, the exact…