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Kuwait Times
13-07-2025
- Politics
- Kuwait Times
Amir begins landmark trip to France
Visit underscores deep-rooted ties, reflects mutual desire to enhance cooperation KUWAIT: His Highness the Amir Sheikh Meshal Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah is set to embark on an official visit to France on Sunday, marking his first such visit to the European nation since assuming office. The visit underscores the deep-rooted ties between Kuwait and France and reflects the mutual desire of both nations' leaderships to further enhance cooperation across various fields. Kuwaiti-French relations date back to August 28, 1961, when Paris designated its ambassador in Beirut as its envoy to Kuwait and established commercial representation in the Gulf state. Diplomatic relations were formally established in 1967, paving the way for decades of growing partnership. Over the past seven decades, bilateral ties have witnessed consistent development, reaching a peak during the 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. France, under the leadership of the late President François Mitterrand, strongly condemned the aggression, affirming Kuwait's sovereignty as non-negotiable and dispatching 18,000 troops to join the international coalition for Kuwait's liberation. Throughout the years, senior leaders from both sides have exchanged visits to reinforce this robust partnership. The late Amir Sheikh Jaber Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah visited France on multiple occasions, most notably in September 1989 to strengthen cooperation, and again in October 1990 and October 1991 to rally support and express gratitude for France's firm stance during Kuwait's occupation. In November 2006, he held talks in Paris with then-President Jacques Chirac, focusing on advancing bilateral ties. In January 2017, the then First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Sheikh Sabah Khaled Al-Hamad Al-Sabah participated in the Paris-hosted international peace conference on the Middle East. More recently, on April 24, French Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs Jean-Noël Barrot visited Kuwait and held discussions with Foreign Minister Abdullah Al-Yahya, resulting in the signing of several agreements and memoranda of understanding across a range of sectors. The Kuwait Embassy in Paris also took part in the Gulf Vision Conference 2025, held under the patronage of French President Emmanuel Macron. The event aimed to deepen France's engagement with GCC countries amid evolving global economic dynamics and shared aspirations for broader economic cooperation. France remains one of Kuwait's major European partners and investors, particularly in energy, infrastructure, transport, health and cosmetics. French companies represent nearly half of all European firms operating in Kuwait. Bilateral agreements have laid a strong foundation for cooperation, beginning with a taxation treaty signed in 1973 and a landmark investment protection agreement ratified in 1989. In June 2017, both sides signed a protocol for implementing tax treaty measures. France is also a leading exporter to Kuwait in sectors such as luxury goods, automotive, food, aviation, and personal care. On the defense front, France is considered a key strategic ally. In August 1992, Kuwait and France signed a comprehensive defense agreement that includes provisions for mutual defense against external threats, joint military exercises, and exchange of expertise. A further agreement was signed in December 2006 to reinforce defense cooperation. In the health sector, collaboration has been growing steadily. A delegation from Nice University recently visited Kuwait to explore avenues for medical cooperation and knowledge exchange. In April 2025, Minister of Health Dr Ahmad Al-Awadhi signed a memorandum of understanding with France's renowned Gustave Roussy Hospital. Scientific and cultural collaboration also forms a cornerstone of bilateral relations. Several agreements have been signed to boost the number of Kuwaiti students in French universities, promote joint cultural initiatives, and facilitate academic and artistic exchange. The upcoming visit by His Highness the Amir is expected to further consolidate these historic ties and open new avenues for strategic cooperation between the two nations. — KUNA
LeMonde
13-06-2025
- Business
- LeMonde
Tax equity means taxing the ultra-wealthy
Ever since French President François Mitterrand established a wealth tax in 1982, the debate over increasing taxes on high incomes has shaped the political landscape and ideological divides. This recurring controversy resurfaced on Thursday, June 12, when the Sénat rejected a bill aimed at taxing the assets of ultra-wealthy individuals. The bill, which was adopted by the Assemblée Nationale after a first reading, was firmly rejected by the upper house of Parliament, which is dominated by the right and centrist parties. Though it had little chance of being successfully passed, it raised a pertinent question: Is it acceptable for average French citizens to have their incomes taxed at nearly twice the rate, proportionally, as a billionaire? While the average French taxpayer faces a combined tax rate (both income tax and welfare contributions) of 50%, the figure drops to 27% for a billionaire. This disparity, which was highlighted in a 2023 study by the Institute for Public Policy (IPP), is explained by ultra-wealthy individuals' ability to use tax optimization techniques. Although legal, these mechanisms lead to the tax system becoming, beyond a certain threshold, regressive. To address this, Gabriel Zucman, the economist who inspired the bill, supported by Olivier Blanchard, former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund, and Jean Pisani-Ferry, the architect of Emmanuel Macron's 2017 economic platform, has recommended creating a 2% minimum wealth tax on households whose net worth exceeds €100 million. In total, the measure targets 1,800 taxpayers. This is a narrow tax base, but one that could potentially generate between €15 billion and €25 billion in revenue. The tax would not only apply to income streams that largely evade taxation, but also to professional assets, which have, so far, been tax-exempt. Some side effects should not be overlooked: For example, the founders of young companies, the market valuation of which pushes their creators into the ultra-wealthy category, may not have access to the liquid assets needed to pay such a tax. Market valuations are virtual, and can fluctuate rapidly, which could complicate the process of calculating the tax. Tax exile is another concern. However, to put this argument in perspective, Zucman has cited studies that show that when a wealth tax is introduced, the number of people who leave the country to avoid it remains marginal. However, this level of wealth tax has never been tried, and the demographic in question is also the most able to relocate abroad. "Do you really think that if France alone introduces a tax on wealth over €100 million, people will politely stay to be taxed?" said President Emmanuel Macron on May 13, arguing for a global, coordinated initiative. The problem is that such an endeavor will take a long time to come to fruition, even though it was put on the G20's official agenda in 2024. At a time when reducing France's debt has become a collective necessity and requires effort from everyone, the debate must continue without either the left or the right spouting condemnations on the issue. To suggest that a tax on billionaires would solve the country's public finances all by itself is a fantasy, but defending the status quo, on the grounds that the richest individuals are not restricted by borders, is harmful for the fragile social contract that still unites the French people.
LeMonde
09-06-2025
- Politics
- LeMonde
Le Monde Group's 2024 accounts mark a landmark year
In 2024, the year marking Le Monde 's 80 th anniversary, Le Monde Group experienced a landmark period in many respects. First, with new records for the number of subscribers to our editorial offerings, which propelled our paid circulation to unprecedented levels. To put these results in the broader context of our evolution since our founding in December 1944, we presented the curve of our paid circulation in France and internationally at our most recent supervisory board meeting, certified monthly by independent bodies. This annual average, now including our digital subscribers, has reached over 530,000 copies per day – well above the previous peak of 440,000 in 1978, during the legislative elections preceding the election of former French president François Mitterrand. In the long term, three essential factors form the basis of our readers' trust and loyalty. The independence of our journalism – committed to values but not partisan – toward all forms of power, starting with those held by political leaders; the particular focus devoted to covering major events, both international and French; and the determination to break our own stories through investigation and reporting. The increasing attention paid over the years to our readers – their lives, interests and habits – has not only led us to continually expand our editorial offering but also to embrace digital platforms early on. These platforms now drive our success, enabling us to reach far beyond our borders to engage with more diverse and younger audiences. All three of these factors were fully at play in 2024, enabling us to respond to an intense, often violent and always uncertain news cycle, while continuing to innovate and broaden the scope of our editorial coverage. Our visibility has attracted its share of criticism, but more importantly, it challenges the defeatist narrative that has long surrounded the print press. Far from being doomed to decline, print media can thrive when it strives to strengthen its newsroom and defend free journalism. Individual and collective honors This success was reflected in 2024 by several major awards from our profession. Le Monde was especially honored to see two of its journalists win the Albert Londres Prize: Lorraine de Foucher, for her reporting and investigations on the Mazan rape case, on migrant women who are victims of rape, on victims of the pornography industry, on young girls exploited for sex in the southern French city of Perpignan and on teenage hitmen; and Martin Untersinger, for his book Espionner, mentir, détruire ("To Spy, To Lie, To Destroy"). These two awards recognize not only the talent of our journalists and their ability to explore new facets of reality, but also the transformation of Le Monde 's newsroom, whose staff has nearly doubled in less than 15 years. There were also collective awards. Le Monde 's circulation performance was recognized with two stars awarded by the ACPM (Alliance pour les Chiffres de la Presse et des Médias, the independent body certifying French press circulation). The first reflects the largest increase in paid circulation in 2024 in the daily press sector; the second, especially meaningful to us, rewards sustained success – that is, a growth in sales, with an increase of 141,444 copies per day since 2020. Another Groupe Le Monde publication, the weekly Courrier International, led by Claire Carrard and François-Xavier Devaux, also received two ACPM awards: one star for the highest growth in paid circulation among magazines, and another for sustained success between 2020 and 2024. Thanks to steady growth in paid circulation, the Courrier International now ranks as the top French magazine for its portfolio of digital subscribers. The second spot in this ranking is now held by another of the group's weeklies, Télérama, which in 2024 continued to revamp its editorial approach and significantly invest in coverage of streaming platforms, especially through its website and app. This strong digital transition, under the leadership of Valérie Hurier and Fleur Lavedan, positions Télérama for a future that reflects the loyalty shown by its subscribers for decades. Finally, La Vie, the group's third weekly, made a mark in summer 2024 with the publication of an investigation revealing accusations of sexual assault against Abbé Pierre. A drive for diversification In recent years, our group has gradually diversified its activities by creating or co-organizing events to reach new audiences, such as our student fairs or the "Nos Futurs" ("Our Futures") event in Rennes, which features debates and workshops on major societal issues like climate and artificial intelligence. The year 2024 also saw the launch of the Le Goût de M festival, which in March brought together more than 5,000 people with the team from M Le magazine du Monde. Our magazine will celebrate its 15 th anniversary in 2026 and will mark the occasion with another edition of this festival. This drive to diversify our editorial production will also be illustrated in a few months by the publication of a book, then a graphic novel and finally a documentary in 2026 – all based on the series of articles by Philippe Broussard, deputy editor-in-chief of Le Monde, dedicated to the "unknown photographer of the Occupation," published in summer 2024. This series was a tremendous success with our readers and now justifies, as we intend to do more often, presenting it in other formats to new audiences. Faced with an advertising market paralyzed since the announcement of the dissolution of the Assemblée Nationale (lower house of France's parliament) in June 2024, the group's advertising division, M Publicité, managed to limit its decline to 3% by drawing on 7% growth in digital revenue and a 27% increase in special projects linked to the Olympic Games and our events. This advertising business, strictly governed by a charter that clearly distinguishes between advertising formats and editorial content, generates 20% of the group's revenue and is a structural component of our business model, offering our readers and subscribers carefully selected advertising in both print and online. Despite the market share captured by digital players, this revenue remains essential for our sustainability. Another highlight of the year came in March 2024, when Le Monde announced the signing of the first agreement between a French media outlet and OpenAI, the publisher of ChatGPT. A year on, Le Monde remains the only French media group to have signed such a deal and is among about 15 global groups with which OpenAI has entered into a multi-year partnership. The agreement governs OpenAI's use of our content while strictly protecting the rights of publishers and copyright holders. In line with the charter we adopted in 2023 governing our use of AI, it guarantees fair visibility for our content on a platform widely used by younger generations, gives us direct access to a technology that is revolutionizing media habits and establishes fair compensation for training OpenAI's model and using our content in responses provided to users. On this last point, we ensured that this revenue stream would be treated as neighboring rights, thus entitling journalists to a share as provided by law. In 2024, we reached an agreement with trade unions setting the redistribution rate at 25% – a proportion now adopted by several other media groups, far exceeding what others had tried to impose. Most recently, another agreement with the company Perplexity, signed in mid-May, completed our initiatives in the field of artificial intelligence, in the same spirit and under the same conditions. This collective momentum, the steady growth of our digital audience and these new AI partnerships all contributed to the group's revenue growth and to our 2024 results. Le Monde Group's accounts, approved by the supervisory board on May 13, showed revenue of €309.5 million for 2024, EBITDA (operating cash flow) of €26.2 million and net income before tax of €10.6 million. Recapitalized in 2010 thanks to the joint investment of Pierre Bergé, Xavier Niel and Matthieu Pigasse, Le Monde Group has recorded a profitable operating result every year since 2015 and, since 2016, has consistently posted a positive net result. This profitability is the foundation of our independence. It has enabled sustained and ongoing investment in our newsrooms and in innovation. Furthermore, in 2024, the group's profit contributions from Le Monde (€7.5 million) and our magazine division (€8.4 million) converged, with comparable profitability thresholds and a more balanced distribution between the group's two pillars. It is up to us, collectively, to continue along this path to strengthen the quality, independence and innovation standards of a rigorous editorial offering worthy of the trust you place in us.
CTV News
27-05-2025
- Entertainment
- CTV News
Macron's marital shove disappears from French airwaves
In this grab taken from video, France's President Emmanuel Macron prepares to disembark a plane on arrival, in Hanoi, Vietnam, Sunday, May 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Hau Dinh) A quick shove. A split-second clip that would have dominated news for days aired in France for just 24 hours and then it was gone. When a viral video appeared over the weekend showing French President Emmanuel Macron's wife, Brigitte, pushing his face just as he was about to deplane during a visit to Vietnam, not a single French newspaper front page featured it the next morning. Was it because Prime Minister François Bayrou was speaking about the financial efforts the French would have to make under his soon-to-be-unveiled budget? Or that people were detained recently in a string of crypto kidnappings? More likely, it highlighted a cultural divide between France and the Anglosphere – a long-standing French belief that politicians' private lives should be protected. This secret-keeping tradition kept President François Mitterrand's illegitimate daughter hidden for years. It has also meant a delicate silence around other controversial personal lives, like Dominique Strauss-Kahn's notorious womanizing. The former International Monetary Fund chief's arrest on sexual assault charges in New York in 2011 abruptly ended his political career just as he was emerging as a leading presidential contender. The same unwritten rules surfaced in 2014, when Closer magazine published photos of former President François Hollande – disguised by a motorcycle helmet – arriving at the apartment of a friend, where he was reportedly meeting actress Julie Gayet. At the time, Gayet was his girlfriend, even though he still had a live-in partner, Valérie Trierweiler. The story caused a stir, but Hollande's office condemned the 'invasion of privacy,' and the media soon backed off. At a press conference, Hollande faced only one question about his personal life and deflected it with the remark, 'private affairs are dealt with in private,' silencing the throng of French journalists and leaving foreign reporters stunned. So when the video of the Macrons began circulating, the initial media response was swift but short-lived. French outlets played the clip on loop, dissected it briefly, and moved on. But that core rule is now being tested. 'Over time, these kinds of personal stories have become far more difficult to contain than they were 30 or even 20 years ago,' said Thierry Arnaud, an international correspondent and veteran journalist at BFMTV. 'It's true we didn't make a big deal of it, but it's deeply embarrassing for Macron. You're intruding on a couple's intimate moment and it's uncomfortable, both for him and for those watching.' Macron's relationship with Brigitte was always unconventional. They met when he was just 15, and she was his drama teacher at a private school in Amiens. She was 24 years older, married, and a mother of three. What began as mentorship grew into something deeper, and by the time Macron graduated, he had vowed to one day marry her. 'Whatever you do, I will marry you,' he reportedly told her as a teenager. Their story was used as campaign material in 2017, they made a point of making their relationship public, posing in glossy French magazines and describing their marriage as a celebration of an atypical but loving modern family. Any critics were labeled misogynists. 'It was completely a badge of honor at first, a special kind of glamour that added to his (Macron's) image of being daring both politically and personally. He fell in love with his teacher as a teenager and pursued it, come what may. Over time, that picture has eroded,' Arnaud said. After the Vietnam shoving incident, the couple publicly displayed unity that very evening, walking hand in hand through the streets of Hanoi in a clear effort to quell any rumors of domestic discord. But the line between public and private is blurring. Traditionally, the Élysée Palace has maintained a strict policy of never commenting on rumors or politicians' personal lives. However, with the rise of social media and disinformation campaigns they are being dragged into these personal controversies, challenging that long-held stance. In March, conservative commentator Candace Owens revived an absurd conspiracy theory with a YouTube video titled 'Is France's First Lady a Man?' Promoted widely on X, Owens called it 'likely the biggest scandal in political history.' Since then, Owens has produced numerous videos about Brigitte Macron for her 4 million YouTube subscribers, including a multi-part series called Becoming Brigitte. Although the claims are completely baseless and Brigitte Macron has successfully sued two French women for spreading them it has elicited a response from the president. At a Paris event in March 2024, Macron addressed the rumor head-on saying that the worst part of being a president is having to deal with 'the false information and fabricated stories.' 'People end up believing them, and it disrupts your life, even in your most private moments,' Macron said. His words now feel prophetic, with the world speculating on a deeply intimate exchange we may never be let into.
Local France
04-05-2025
- Politics
- Local France
French expression of the Day: Gauche caviar
Why do I need to know gauche caviar? Well firstly you need to establish that you're not being offered a tasty fish snack if someone says this you and it may also come in handy as an insult. What does it mean? Literally translated as 'caviar left' this is actually a derogatory political term roughly equivalent to 'champagne socialist' in English. It's used for people who espouse leftist or socialist values but live the lifestyle of the elites. Advertisement So if you know someone who is always banging on about solidarity with the workers while at the same time splurging on an expensive lifestyle and paying their cleaner the bare minimum this is a good insult to fling at them. There's a fairly heavyweight list of French politicians, artists and intellectuals who have been accused of this, including Dominique Strauss-Kahn (although it's possible that wasn't the worst thing about him), François Mitterrand, Anne Hidalgo, Bernard-Henri Lévy and Françoise Sagan. Alternatives include gauche de salon (drawing room socialist) or gauche Toscane after Tuscany - the favoured holiday destination of a certain type of European elite. Just as in English, there isn't really an alternative for a right-winger who has sold out on their principles. The term droite cassoulet briefly featured in political discourse in 2008 but it was a joke, coined by comedian Anne Roulanoff. Use it like this Vous parlez de solidarité mais en réalité vous n'êtes qu'une gauche caviar - You talk about solidarity but really you're just a champagne socialist Ces politiciens gauche caviar séjournent tous dans des hôtels cinq étoiles - Those champagne socialist politicians all stay in five-star hotels
