Bernard Cazeneuve at the Elysée on Monday, a harvest of gold medals at the Paralympic Games, the death of six Israeli hostages… The five news items to remember from the weekend

Emmanuel Macron to meet Bernard Cazeneuve on Monday morning

Emmanuel Macron will receive Bernard Cazeneuve on Monday morning at the Elysée Palace as part of his consultations with a view to appointing the new prime minister, the former socialist prime minister confirmed to the Monde. While his name has been circulating for several days as a possible prime minister, “Bernard Cazeneuve is not asking for it, but if he does so, it is out of duty and to avoid additional difficulties for the country”Mr. Cazeneuve’s entourage specifies. The president will also receive former heads of state François Hollande and Nicolas Sarkozy.

On Saturday, in Blois, in Loir-et-Cher, Olivier Faure insisted, during his closing speech of the summer university of the Socialist Party, on the persistent danger of the extreme right to better repeat his call for the unity of his movement and the left. In Levens, in the Alpes-Maritimes, Eric Ciotti announced the creation of a new political party: the Union of the Right for the Republic.

In Flixecourt, in the Somme, LFI MP François Ruffin considered that “If Emmanuel Macron does not set limits for himself, the Assembly will have to set limits for him by all means”. Finally, in Loyettes, in Ain, the resigning Prime Minister, Gabriel Attal, took advantage of a meeting with a hundred Renaissance activists to mock the socialists who “refuse” a socialist head of government and the Republicans who also do not want him to join their ranks.

Paralympic Games: Emeline Pierre, Dorian Foulon, Marie Patouillet and Tanguy de La Forest in gold

On Saturday, France won a third gold medal in these Paralympic Games thanks to its track cyclist Dorian Foulon in the 4,000m individual pursuit (C5). Also in track cycling, Alexandre Léauté and Gatien Le Rousseau both won the bronze medal. In swimming, the Portal brothers brought two additional medals (silver and bronze) to the French delegation, in the 400m freestyle (S12). The first medal in athletics, bronze, was won by Antoine Praud in the 1,500m (T46). Table tennis brought two bronze medals to France.

On Sunday, Emeline Pierre, Marie Patouillet and Tanguy de La Forest brought France their fourth, fifth and sixth Paralympic titles in para swimming, para cycling track and para shooting, in an already medal-packed day. France won six medals on Sunday, with two bronze in para rowing and silver for Heidi Gaugain, who was in the final of the para cycling pursuit against Marie Patouillet. In total, France won twenty-three medals, including six titles, and this total could increase further with athletics and swimming in the evening. It currently goes back to 5^e place on the medal table.

Israel-Hamas war: six hostages found killed in the Gaza Strip

The bodies of six hostages kidnapped during the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023 in southern Israel have been found in the Gaza Strip, including that of Israeli-American Hersh Goldberg-Polin, announced on Saturday evening the President of the United States, Joe Biden, saying he was “devastated and outraged”. It is about « Carmel Gat, Eden Yerushalmi, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Alexander Lobanov, Almog Sarusi et Ori Danino »the Israeli army said in a statement. Five of them had been kidnapped at the Nova techno music festival. Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said the hostages had been “killed in cold blood by Hamas just before we got to them”.

« [Benyamin] Netanyahu abandoned the hostagescastigated the Hostages and Missing Families Forum (HMFM), an organization that brings together relatives of those abducted on October 7, which announced several demonstrations at the end of the day Sunday, notably in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. For its part, the Histadrut, a powerful Israeli trade union center, decreed a “general strike” for Monday in order to force the government of Benjamin Netanyahu to reach an agreement for the release of the hostages.

In addition, three police officers, two men and a woman, were killed on Sunday in a “armed attack” in the south of the West Bank, an occupied territory where the Israeli army is carrying out a vast operation “anti-terrorist”Israeli rescue services and law enforcement reported. On Saturday, the Israeli army announced the death of one of its soldiers in the West Bank, where fighting is now concentrated in the Jenin refugee camp, a stronghold of Palestinian armed groups.

Germany: Far-right wins regional election for the first time in Thuringia

The German far right has won its first regional election in Thuringia. The Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, led by Björn Höcke, won, according to initial estimates, with between 30.5% and 33.5% of the vote.

In neighbouring Saxony, the party is neck and neck with the conservative CDU for first place, according to exit polls, with between 30% and 31.5% of the vote. Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats have suffered another electoral setback, with an estimated score of between 6.5% and 8.5% in both states.

An AfD victory in a regional election is a first in the country since the post-war period, because even though it is unlikely that the party will lead a government, the other parties have consistently refused to form a coalition with it. It further undermines the chancellor’s unpopular coalition government with the Greens and the liberal FDP, a year before the 2025 general election.

The elections in Thuringia and Saxony come just over a week after the triple stabbing murder of a Syrian man in the western city of Solingen shocked the country and reignited a heated debate over immigration. AfD leaders have sought to capitalise on the shock of the attack, accusing successive federal governments of sowing the seeds of « chaos »The alleged assailant, suspected of links to the jihadist organisation Islamic State (IS), had managed to avoid an expulsion order.

Henri Leclerc, lawyer and human rights defender, has died

Henri Leclerc died at the age of 90, Saturday in Paris, after seventy years at the bar and as many years of stubborn defense of freedoms. Mr. Leclerc was one of the last giants of his time, and when the rumor spread, in the courts or tribunals, that he was going to plead, colleagues, magistrates, students, slipped discreetly into the room to learn from the old master.

The world of justice, in mourning, paid tribute to him. Like many other lawyers on Saturday evening on X, the former figure of the bar and resigning Minister of Justice, Eric Dupond-Moretti, paid tribute to his memory: “We are losing a tireless defender of freedoms whose commitment and talent will have marked the bar and all our justice system.” “The Lion King is dead and we are orphans. Henri an exceptional man, a faithful friend and a mentor. An inestimable loss, in these troubled times when his intelligence and his ardent passion for law and equality will be missed.”deplored on X Malik Salemkour, honorary president of the Human Rights League (LDH).

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