As we get closer to Marine Le Pen’s 8pm prime time interview, the French attorney general said she would make her decision on whether to appeal today’s decision “next week,” RTL reported.
Donald Trump has revived his bid for the US to acquire Greenland, threatening to pull all American armed forces out of Europe after it repeatedly pushed back. Arriving at the Nato summit in Ankara on Tuesday, the US president also suggested his commitment to defending Europe had been tempered by political decisions by leaders on immigration and energy. Keir Starmer and European allies have been determined to avoid another public bust-up with Trump over defence spending after a bruising year for Nato, in which the Iran war once again exposed cracks in the alliance. The UK has already pushed back on criticism from the US that some allies are “lagging behind” on funding, with the US president expected to rebuke countries, including the UK, for not making enough progress on hitting the target of spending 3.5% of GDP by 2035. As he arrived in Turkey, Trump suggested that Starmer’s decision to keep out of the war against Iran had contributed to his downfall, whereas the prime minister’s stance had in fact been popular with the British public. “I was very disappointed with Nato. We weren’t treated well because we did something in Iran. We don’t need anybody’s help, but before I asked they said they wouldn’t be there,” the US president told reporters. “In the case of the United Kingdom, the prime minister, I guess he’s no longer there, maybe because of this, it was a very unpopular thing he did. He said ‘no we’ll help after the war is over’. I said, ‘we don’t need that kind of help’.” Reviving an earlier row, Trump also suggested that the disagreement about the ownership of Greenland – which is part of Denmark, a fellow Nato member – had “hurt” his relationship with the military alliance. “Denmark doesn’t spend money to really help Greenland, but it’s an important part for the US, and it’s surrounded by China ships and Russian ships … [It] should be controlled by the US, not by Denmark. And when they wouldn’t go along with it, and with all the money we spend to help them with Russia,” he said. “We don’t have to spend any money; we could remove all of our soldiers out of Europe because, as you probably noticed, Europe’s a very different place than it was 20 years ago … They better be careful with immigration and energy. If they’re not careful with those two things, you’re not going to have a Europe any more.” In response, Rachel Reeves, the UK chancellor, told reporters: “The future of Greenland is up to the people of Greenland and of Denmark, and not up to the US president. I’ve been very clear about that ever since it was first suggested.” Trump also renewed his criticism that Nato allies do not spend enough on defence and are too reliant on the US – an argument European members are attempting to meet head-on by announcing multi-billion-pound defence collaborations. “Why are we spending hundreds of billions of dollars and they’re not there for us? We’ve always been there for them,” he said, although Nato’s mutual defence clause has only ever been triggered after the September 11 attacks on New York, where allies joined US troops in Afghanistan.
Hungarian public media outlets close to Viktor Orbán have suspended broadcasting, the country’s prime minister said as he hailed efforts to dismantle the longtime nationalist leader’s control over information. Péter Magyar, who ousted Orbn in a landslide election victory in April, wrote on Facebook: “A historic day. Today marks the end of propaganda broadcasts on public media platforms. They lied at night, they lied during the day, they lied on every wavelength. That is now over.” A tight grip on the media was a central pillar of Orbán’s 16-year rule, during which he transformed the central European country into a self-styled “illiberal” democracy, pitting it against EU norms. The Kossuth radio station and M1, Hungary’s main public television channel, had halted transmission by Tuesday afternoon, with the latter showing the message: “Public media should not lie. We are sorry for doing it for so long. “Public media now will be reformed so it will be independent and trustworthy. Our news programme is currently suspended. Stay tuned!” it added against a black screen. Kossuth radio’s frequencies were broadcasting a Béla Bartók classical music programme, Agence France-Presse journalists reported, while the websites for M1 and Kossuth were both down. According to a statement from Hungary’s state media umbrella group MTVA, M1 television will resume broadcasting in the evening without news programmes. Other public service programmes will not be affected by the changes. “Another example of Tisza tyranny!” Orbán posted on social media, suggesting that viewers “interested in the truth” should watch the Hír TV channel linked to his Fidesz party instead. Magyar’s Tisza party swept the elections in April, winning a two-thirds supermajority in parliament on the promise of “regime change” and a clean break with the Orbán era. Magyar said after the election that he wanted to create “a truly balanced, objective news service”. In one of his first decrees as prime minister, he ordered a “comprehensive and immediate” review of public service media and its financing. Tuesday’s suspension of the broadcasters came shortly after Magyar’s government replaced the management of state TV and radio. Besides public media, the new administration has also targeted private outlets owned by Orbán-allied business people. At TV2, one of Hungary’s top private broadcasters, the main news anchors have been replaced and its news director pushed out since Magyar’s election victory. On taking power in 2010, Orbán and Fidesz systematically turned state media into government mouthpieces, weaponising outlets to promote themselves and their allies while vilifying purported enemies including the philanthropist George Soros and the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Hungary fell to 74th place in 2026 from 23rd in 2010 in Reporters Without Borders’ press freedom index, as government efforts left swathes of the country in a parallel information reality. During the election campaign, state media demonised Magyar as a puppet of Brussels, an absentee father and a traitor. As a candidate, he vowed to suspend state media coverage, describing it as a “factory of lies” whose coverage was akin to propaganda from North Korea and Nazi-era Germany. Under Orbán, an estimated 80% of the media landscape was controlled by Fidesz loyalists, including state media and private outlets. They were set against embattled independent media, whose journalists nevertheless uncovered scandal after scandal. Several of the Fidesz-linked private media companies are expected to survive the change of government, as they remain popular, analysts said. Their influence, however, may be hemmed in by more competition, while their editorial line may evolve with the change in government. Agence France-Presse and Reuters contributed to this report
Volodymyr Zelenskyy has argued for Ukraine to be allowed to join Nato at its annual summit – saying it would be wrong to exclude a country that had built up strong defences in its long struggle against the Russian invasion. The Ukrainian president said his country had developed almost all the weapons it needed, and now only required European help in developing an alternative to the US Patriots to protect against ballistic missile attack. “I have a question for you. Do you really believe it? Do you really believe it would be right to leave outside Nato, a country and a people with this level of defensive capability?” Zelenskyy said at Nato’s defence industry forum. “If we already have these capabilities, if Ukrainians already know how to fight like this, then it does make sense for these capabilities to become a part of the alliance’s collective defence that would make all of us stronger,” he added. Ukraine is in the fifth year of fighting off the invasion by its larger neighbour. The conflict has reached the point where Russia’s rate of advance has ground to a crawl and Kyiv is able to attack economic targets as far afield as Siberia. A senior Nato official briefed that Russian forces had advanced 3.79 sq km a day in June, a quarter the rate a year ago, and that the invaders were continuing to take 30,000 to 35,000 casualties a month. However, Ukraine’s aspiration to become a member of Nato remains far off, with allies including the US not interested in allowing a country at war with nuclear-armed Russia to become part of the western military alliance. The Ukrainian president will be a guest at a leaders’ dinner on Tuesday evening at the Turkish presidential palace compound in Ankara, and is due to meet Donald Trump on Wednesday lunchtime for a bilateral meeting. Trump spoke separately to Zelenskyy and the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, at the weekend amid growing hopes the US president would renew mediation efforts to end the war. “I think they both want to make a deal. ... I think we’re going to get it settled, hopefully soon,” Trump said as he met the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan Zelenskyy highlighted how the long war had transformed his country’s industrial capabilities, noting that on Monday Ukrainian drones had “broken through Russia’s defences” and struck an oil refinery in Omsk, Siberia, 1,680 miles (2,700km) from its border. “We have completely eliminated the very idea of Russia having a strategic rear,” Zelenskyy said in his speech at the Nato forum. Russia, he said, had believed for a long time that its vast size meant it had safe zones for military-industrial production beyond the reach of its near neighbours. He said new Ukrainian missiles and drones – “the technology of fighting at a distance” – represented “a revolutionary change” in warfare, though he added “we take no pride in this”, because it had been forced on the country in order “to defend our country, our people, our children”. Ukraine had reached the point where it had raised the interception rate of Shahed drones to “more than 90%”, Zelenskyy said, and was improving its ability to knock out incoming cruise missiles – but he acknowledged that Russia’s most potent weapon remained a problem. On Monday, at least 15 people were killed in Kyiv after 23 Russian ballistic missiles pounded the capital. None of the missiles were intercepted because of a shortage of US Patriot interceptors, stocks of which have dwindled dramatically after the US attacked Iran in the spring, leading to a war in the Middle East. “The one thing we still need to do here in Europe is build a strong defence against Russian ballistic missiles,” Zelenskyy said, adding: “I believe Europe urgently needs its own capability to produce anti-ballistic systems and the missiles they require,” because there were not enough US Patriots. The Center for Strategic and International Studies thinktank estimates that between 1,060 and 1,430 Patriot interceptor missiles were used during the Iran war. Each takes two years to make and the US defence contractor Lockheed Martin makes about 600 a year of the most sophisticated PAC-3 version. Russia has been increasing its production of missiles and drones. A senior Nato official said at the summit that “Russia launched about 8,300 munitions [at Ukraine] in May alone; 8,150 drones and 211 missiles”, while Ukraine had responded by launching 10,000 long-range drones on Russia in the same month. Ukraine had knocked out about 20% of Russia’s oil-refining capacity with its deep strike campaign, the official said, while the use of medium-range drones to strike Russian logistics meant its hold on Crimea had weakened. “We’ve all seen the reports about state of emergency being declared in Crimea,” the official said. Zelenskyy was speaking at a Nato industry event, at which alliance members were announcing more than $50bn in arms deals, supported by increased defence spending agreed under pressure from Trump. A year ago Nato members agreed to lift defence spending to 3.5% of GDP by 2035.
Qatar has warned Iran it will bear full legal responsibility after three tankers, including a Qatari LNG vessel, were struck within hours in the strait of Hormuz. All three vessels were struck close to Oman which had suggested a new shipping corridor close to its coastline – a proposal opposed by Iran, which wants to charge ships using the waterway. Iran blamed the US for the incident on Thursday, saying that Washington’s efforts to open up new routes through the strait constituted a breach of the memorandum of understanding signed by the US and Iran. Iran claims the memorandum is specifically worded to leave Iran, in consultation with Oman, to manage the reopening of the strait with the aim of commercial traffic in the strait returning to pre-war levels within 30 days. At a briefing in Tehran, Iranian foreign ministry officials insisted Iran had a right to impose fees on all ships using the strait. “Securing the strait for navigation for safe passage is itself a service”, said the foreign ministry spokesman, setting terms for the long term management of the strait that are likely to be rejected by Oman and western shipping interests. The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations centre (UKMTO)said the Qatari tanker, Al Rekayyat, was hit near Limah, Oman, as it tried to travel south out of the strait toward the Gulf of Oman In a Mayday call, the Al Rakayyat crew was heard sending out a message “we’re being hit by a drone top of port side near engine room”. It was the first time that a Qatari ship has been struck since the start of the war between the US and Iran on 28 February. Qatar has been acting as a key mediator in the talks, but the Qatar foreign ministry spokesman, Majed al-Ansari, called it a “serious and explicit violation” of international law and said Qatar would hold Iran fully responsible for the act of aggression. Iran’s foreign ministry claimed that the memorandum left Iran alone to manage the reopening the strait over the 30 days. The spokesman said: “But the US has been trying somehow to open new routes.” He also rejected a proposal from Oman to build a new authority for the strait modelled on Malacca and Singapore Strait where fees are charged only for specific navigational services not including security. “For a long time we have beengenerous enough not to ask for anything. Providing security is costly and Iran and Oman have been doing that for a long time. So from now on we’re going to ask for necessary costs when we provide related services, including securing the safe passage.” The official told the Guardian: “When you provide in the English Channel you call it deep sea piloting, for instance, you call it different names, but that’s the same.” But deep sea pilotage in busy waterways is regarded as voluntary. Iran will face the criticism that it is demanding ships pay a compulsory fee or risk being attacked by Iran – a situation close to a protection scheme. Iran argues the strait became a contested waterway due to American aggression. Iran’s foreign ministry also firmly rejected proposals from France and the UK that they start to de-mine and secure the southern route through the Strait close to the Oman shore. The spokesman said: “When France and others said they were ready to help, we said ‘no thank you’ – this is for Iran to do it and we know how to do it.”
Austrian cultural figures have launched a campaign to buy a villa once home to the writer Stefan Zweig after its owner, the automotive magnate Wolfgang Porsche, unexpectedly put it on the market following a row over his plans to build a private tunnel for his car collection. Zweig, the Austrian Jewish writer whose novels inspired the Wes Anderson film The Grand Budapest Hotel, lived in the 17th-century property until 1934 when he was driven out of Salzburg by the Austro-fascist regime and his family was forced to sell it at a rock-bottom price. The Villa Europa, as it was known in his lifetime, was not only the place where he did much of his writing but was also a cultural meeting point for prominent figures, including James Joyce, Thomas Mann and Richard Strauss. It was bought in 2020 for €8.4m (£7.2m) by Porsche, who has put it on the market for €12.7m after undertaking renovations. His plans to build a private 500-metre tunnel to transport his car collection to the house had created a public outcry. Singers, composers and writers are among several thousand people who have signed a petition to the federal and local government, which calls the plans to acquire the Zweig villa “a cultural responsibility to future generations” and an “opportunity to make this unique place publicly accessible and usable … and to make its significance for Austrian and European cultural history tangible for everyone”. Bernhard Fügenschuh, the rector of the University of Salzburg, which he said had the means to secure the villa, said Austria had a moral obligation to keep it as a place of commemoration for Zweig. The university would see itself as an interim owner until others were able to raise the funds, he added. “There’s very much a societal responsibility here. As a university, and as a public institution, we’ve decided to take this on because we believe the window of opportunity is potentially very short,” he said. “This Stefan Zweig villa is, if you will, the most visible symbol of this history, this responsibility, which Austria as a whole carries. And that is why it is so incredibly important.” Fügenschuh said Porsche’s decision to put the villa on the market had provided the city with a rare opportunity after it had in the past tried to buy it and failed. He said the university was in discussions with the federal ministry of women, science and research, which needs to approve the plans. Planning permission to build a tunnel through the Kapuzinerberg, on which the villa is nestled and which caused considerable unrest in Salzburg, is included in the purchase price. However, a new owner would only have until the end of 2028 to utilise it. Zweig described the house as “romantic and impractical”, writing that among its charms was that it was “inaccessible to cars” and could “only be reached by climbing the more than a hundred steps” of the Kapuzinerberg.
A fishing village by Lake Como has imposed fines of up to €200 (£170) for people who wander around with bare chests or in swimwear, in the latest attempt by an Italian holiday destination to crack down on uncouth tourists. Varenna has been feeling the strain from an increasing number of visitors and so authorities were moved to introduce new rules aimed at preserving the village’s appearance and guaranteeing a smidgen of peace and quiet for its year-round population of roughly 650. Walking around the village shirtless or in swimwear – garments that are strictly reserved for lakeside beaches or boat trips on Como – is now banned. Those who fail to comply risk fines of between €50 and €200. Furthermore, tour groups have been limited to no more than 25 people and must not clog Varenna’s narrow cobblestoned streets, while guides have been banned from using loudspeakers. “Varenna is a wonderful village, and we are proud to welcome hundreds of thousands of visitors from all over the world every year,” said Mauro Manzoni, Varenna’s mayor. “However, our residents’ quality of life cannot be sacrificed on the altar of mass tourism.” The rules have been in place for a few days and appear to have been widely embraced by those who live in Varenna, especially the dress code. “On the beach, you can do what you want, but when you’re walking around and go into shops, restaurants, churches, or in the square, you must dress decently,” a shop owner told Mediaset’s TGCom24. Another shop owner said: “It was time; it’s a sound measure. The important thing is to ensure it’s enforced.” Many towns and cities across Italy have imposed similar measures as they manage excessive tourism. In 2022, the then mayor of Sorrento described walking around in swimming gear and bare-chested as “widespread indecorous behaviour” that was tainting the town’s image and so imposed hefty fines. In Liguria’s upmarket coastal town of Portofino, selfies were banned in 2023 and certain areas were designated as “no-waiting zones” to deter tourists from loitering for too long in one spot.
The French far-right leader Marine Le Pen’s 2027 presidential bid is hanging in the balance as she was sentenced to wear an electronic ankle tag after being found guilty of embezzling European parliament funds. The Paris court of appeal upheld Le Pen’s conviction but shortened her ban on running for elected office, potentially reopening a narrow path for the far-right leader to stand in the 2027 presidential race. However, the court also handed Le Pen a three-year jail term, with two years suspended and one year spent under house arrest in which she must wear an electronic ankle tag for monitoring. This could make a presidential campaign politically and logistically difficult. Le Pen, who heads the anti-immigration the National Rally (RN) party, has previously suggested she would not run if she were handed an adjusted custodial sentence in which her movements were restricted or she had to wear an electronic tag. “If I’m allowed to be a candidate but am effectively prevented from campaigning freely, then you understand that wouldn’t be possible,” Le Pen said in an interview last week. Le Pen, who is a member of parliament for the Pas-de-Calais, was in talks at her party headquarters on Tuesday afternoon on whether she could run for president, and whether she should lodge a further appeal with France’s highest court. Her decision to run could depend on the exact restrictions of an electronic tag. Le Pen has said if she cannot go out at night to meet voters at rallies, it would be hard to campaign. The first step for a person ordered to wear an electronic tag is generally a meeting with a special judge, which can take place within weeks or months. The judge will ask about the person’s work schedule in order to establish when they can leave their home wearing a tag and what time they must return home in the evening and at weekends. Le Pen could request a reduction in the length of the sentence to six months. The far-right figurehead was expected to make her first comments on the verdict on French television news on Tuesday night. The Paris court decided that Le Pen, 57, had played a central role in orchestrating a fake-jobs scam of unprecedented size and duration to embezzle European parliament funds and funnel the money into paying her party in Paris between 2004 and 2016. Le Pen’s ban on running for public office was shortened to 15 months – which she has already served – with the remaining 30 months suspended. She was also given a €100,000 (£85,000) fine. Jordan Bardella, 30, who as party president already handles the day-to-day running of the RN, had been on standby as a potential replacement presidential candidate if Le Pen was unable to run. Patrick Maisonneuve, a lawyer for the European parliament, said outside court that the appeal judges had been clear on politicians’ duty of integrity. He said: “If [Marine Le Pen] does not lodge a further appeal, that means she accepts that she is definitively guilty of embezzlement. Can you run for France’s highest office, the presidency, when you have been found guilty of embezzling public funds? That is a political responsibility.” The leftwing MP François Ruffin said: “The very fact that it even crosses our minds that Marine Le Pen might campaign while wearing an electronic tag is a sign that corruption is accepted in our country.” Manon Aubry, of the radical left La France Insoumise, said: “The RN entered politics with the slogan ‘heads held high, hands clean’. They are leaving it with ‘heads bowed, hands dirty’.” Le Pen had been considered one of the top contenders for the 2027 presidency until last March when, after a first trial, she was barred from running for election for five years with immediate effect. She appealed against last year’s verdict and a fresh trial at Paris’s court of appeal was held this year. State prosecutors summing up the case said Le Pen had been at the centre of a “thought-out”, “centralised” and almost “industrial” system to embezzle European parliament funds. They told the court that taxpayer money allocated to members of the European parliament to pay their assistants based in Strasbourg or Brussels was siphoned off by the party from 2004 to 2016 to pay its own workers in France, in violation of the parliament’s rules. The staff in France had no connection to work undertaken at the European parliament, prosecutors said. The loss to European funds was estimated at €4.8m (£4.2m). The party, then called Front National, made substantial savings through the system, the prosecutors said. The system was well documented in email exchanges and party papers. Le Pen had hoped to run for president for a fourth time next spring when Emmanuel Macron’s two terms in office end. She has twice lost to Macron in the final run-off, in 2017 and in 2022, when she increased her score to more than 41%. Le Pen had said before Tuesday’s verdict that if necessary she would support Bardella, her protege, with “energy, confidence and conviction”, adding: “We never give up.”