Frédéric Leclerc-Imhoff, 32, was accompanying the evacuation of civilians from a zone in eastern Ukraine on Monday when what was reportedly a bomb from Russian artillery fire struck the vehicle he was travelling in.
French President Emmanuel Macron, addressing the European Parliament in Strasbourg, said Ukraine's application to join the European Union, launched in February soon after Russia's invasion of the country, 'would take several years indeed, probably several decades'.
French far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen, who will face incumbent Emmanuel Macron in a final round of the elections on April 24th, has close ties to the Kremlin while her party has received significant funding from Russian banks, wants France to leave NATO, seeks to weakenn the EU, and is opposed to sanctions against Russian oil and gas exports.
Speaking in a television interview about Russian killings of civilians in Ukraine, French President Emmanuel Macron said the Russian army had clearly committed war crimes but cautioned against describing the atrocities involving 'brotherly' peoples as 'genocide', prompting Ukraine's president Volodymyr Zelensky to retort that Macron's reaction was 'painful'.
The French far-right presidential election candidate Marine Le Pen, who will face Emmanuel Macron in a deciding vote between the two on April 24th and who has previously shown support for the Kremlin over its conflict with Ukraine, has said she is opposed to sanctions on Russian oil and gas.
Poland on Friday summoned France's ambassador over French President Emmanuel Macron's comment that Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki is 'a far-right anti-Semite who bans LGBT people', made in reaction to Morawiecki's criticism of Macron's repeated talks with Vladimir Putin, which he likened to negotiating with Adolf Hitler.
Father Patrick Desbois, 66, who has spent two decades researching and publishing the facts of mass killings, from the lesser known atrocities of WWII to the massacre of Yazidis by the so-called Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, and is now collecting testimonies of the horrific events unfolding in the war in Ukraine.
General Eric Vidaud is reportedly leaving his post after Paris failed to accurately predict – in contrast with western allies – that Russia would launch a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Fighters have been arriving from all corners of the planet to help defend Ukraine itself against the Russian invasion. Mediapart has been told that these foreign fighters include around 150 from France. The authorities in Paris meanwhile worry there could be a repeat of the problems seen during the Syrian war when French fighters went to combat Bashar al-Assad's regime – and came back radicalised. Sébastien Bourdon and Matthieu Suc report.
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