Keyword: Edouard Philippe

French prime minister Édouard Philippe went to the site more than 60 years after the communists' shock victory in the battle there.

Qutting: interior minister Gérard Collomb in Marseille, May 24th, 2018. © REUTERS/Jean-Paul Pelissier

After ten days of open crisis at the highest echelons of state, President Emmanuel Macron was on Tuesday October 2nd, 2018, forced to accept the resignation of interior minister Gérard Collomb – just hours after refusing it. Prime minister Édouard Philippe will become interim interior minister in the short term. Coming weeks after the resignation of high-profile environment minister Nicolas Hulot, this new departure further weakens the government, as Pauline Graulle, Manuel Jardinaud and Ellen Salvi report.

Former sports minister Laura Flessel with President Emmanuel Macron. © Reuters

When the former fencing champion Laura Flessel resigned as sports minister earlier this week her departure was initially put down simply to “personal reasons”. Later it emerged that she and her husband face a possible investigation over tax fraud in relation to a company they own. The government, however, has refused to say when it first became aware of possible issues over the minister's tax affairs. Antton Rouget investigates.

Prime Minister Édouard Philippe has asked ministers to discuss plans ahead of a possible exit of Britain from the European Union without mutual agreement terms, and to prepare measures necessary to mitigate difficulties 'linked with this unprecedented challenge', including facilitating the stay of British citizens currently living in France and ensuring smooth border controls.

Interviewed about his budgetary plans for 2019, French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe said 4,500 public sector jobs would be shed next year when pensions and family and housing benefits will no longer be pegged to inflation, while also forecasting economic growth of 1.7 percent, down on previous predictions.

Chief of staff Alexis Kohler and PM Edouard Philippe, both members of the Le Havre Supervisory Board from 2010 to 2012. © LCI

Contrary to what he has stated, President Emmanuel Macron's chief of staff Alexis Kohler has not always revealed his family links to the Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC), and in his duties as a senior public servant has not always stood aside from issues involving the giant Italian-Swiss shipping firm. Official documents from the major French port of Le Havre, seen by Mediapart, show that Kohler took part in discussions and votes concerning the company while he sat on the port's Supervisory Board as a civil servant from 2010 to 2012. Laurent Mauduit and Martine Orange investigate.

The Macron Method: union leaders says the government talks a lot but says nothing. © Reuters

On Monday April 9th France's National Assembly is due to begin examining the government's proposed legislation for a “new railway agreement”. Yet the consultations with the unions about this new pact are still going on. Those unions - whose members began the latest round of two-day rail strikes on Sunday April 8th - are now dismissing the talks with the government as a “farce” and intend to step up their action. Their aim is to expose what they see as a deliberate method employed by President Emmanuel Macron's government: one of talking but not saying anything and of listening without hearing. Ellen Salvi examines the workings of the Macron Method.

Latest reform proposals from President Macron's government include electing 15% of lawmakers via a proportional representation system.

President Emmanuel Macron and a chicken at the Paris farm show, the Salon de l’Agriculture, February 24th, 2018. © Reuters

Emmanuel Macron has always insisted he is not worried about opinion polls and that, as head of state, he is willing to court unpopularity to do what he considers right for France. That has not stopped him basing his political strategy around what the public says, sometimes playing off the polls against critics of his reforms – even if that risks dividing the French people. Ellen Salvi looks at the French president's approach to public opinion.

Men are still paid on average 9% more than women in France despite equal pay laws going back 45 years.

Édouard Philippe told the World Government Summit, known as the 'Davos of the Gulf', in Dubai that government's aim was to fix France.

Unions described it as a 'massive public-sector jobs cut plan in disguise' which did not augur well in a country still with 'mass unemployment'.

Prime minister Édouard Philippe has sought to clarify plans after aid and emergency agencies accused government of planning mass expulsions.

Government says it will lower the speed limit on two-lane highways to 80 kilometres per hour from 90 kilometres (55 miles) per hour.

French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe is at the centre of controversy over his decision to charter a luxuriously equipped Airbus plane at a cost of 350,000 euros to fly him and his staff back to France from Japan, leaving a French air force jet at his disposition to return empty, which he said was because of night-flight comfort and the need to return early to Paris before President Emmanuel Macron left on a foreign trip.