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Former Prime Minister of New Zealand and special envoy for the Christchurch Appeal Jacinda Ardern arrives at the 5th Christchurch Appeal Summit, co-chaired by her and French President Emmanuel Macron at the Elysee Palace in Paris, on Nov. 10, 2023.

Firas Abdullah/ABACAPRESS.COM via Reuters

Call to crack down on terrorist content

After a gunman murdered 51 people in a New Zealand mosque in 2019, streaming the massacre on social media, then-Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and French President Emmanuel Macron brought government leaders and technology companies together, asking them to crack down on online extremism. Now, AI companies are getting in on the act.
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Fallout from riots in France
Fallout from riots in France | Quick Take | GZERO Media

Fallout from riots in France

Ian Bremmer's Quick Take: Hi, everybody, and a happy Fourth to you. Just a couple of days in Nantucket. Very enjoyable. And wanted to talk a little bit about a place that is a little less enjoyable right now, which is France.

You've seen massive riots across the country over almost a week, the worst in nearly 20 years in France, which is really saying something for that country. Social protest is basically taken as sport and riots are frequent. But even in that context, this has been notable and exceptional. What what sparked it off has nothing to do with extending pensions from 62 to 64. Those were major demonstrations across the country, but basically just shut down the economy for a period of time. Not so much violent protests. No, these violent riots and lootings and the like were set off by the French police gunning down a 17 year old French boy about Algerian descent. He was trying to get away from the police. They were trying to stop him. The police immediately said that he was killed in self-defense, that he was trying to run the police over. That turned out very quickly to be a lie because there was video capturing the French gunning at him as he was trying to get away and that it's kind of a George Floyd type situation in France. The response is deeply political. In other words, what you believe about who is responsible depends very little on the facts of the case and overwhelmingly on where you happen to stand politically. On the one hand, you've got Muslims that are seen by the right in France as taking over French identity, as not really being French. Big structural problems in France, in the suburbs outside of the wealthier French cities where most of the Muslim population lives. A lot of drug trafficking there, a lot of violent crime, a lot of poverty. If you ask the average French citizen what percentage of the population is Muslim, on average, they respond by saying a third, which is insane. It's actually some 10%. But that sensibility gives you a sense of how this is played on the right politically in France.

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French riots highlight policing problem
TITLE PLACEHOLDER | Europe in :60 | GZERO Media

French riots highlight policing problem

Carl Bildt, co-chair of the European Council on Foreign Relations and former prime minister of Sweden, shares his perspective on European politics.

Does France have a policing problem?

Well, I mean, primarily they got a riot problem. This is a third major wave of severe riots that President Macron is facing. The first was the "yellow vests," as they were called. The second was the protest over pension reforms, which was more overtly political. And this has been triggered by the police killing a young guy in a Paris suburb a couple of days ago. It's a severe issue. They do have a police problem, although substantially less than we find in the United States. Let's see what happens. President Macron has been forced to cancel his important visit to Berlin in order to focus on these issues. Let's see what happens. It's a rather French phenomenon.

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US intel leak could cause problems in Putin's Russia
US intel leak could cause problems in Putin's Russia | Europe In :60 | GZERO Media

US intel leak could cause problems in Putin's Russia

Carl Bildt, former prime minister of Sweden, shares his perspective on European politics from Washington, DC.

What's been the fallout from President Macron's visit to China?

Confusion might perhaps be the most diplomatic way of phrasing it. Because whatever he meant to say, he phrased it in such a way that it gave rise to a lot of misunderstanding. It was interpreted, not least on this side of the Atlantic, as a fundamentally different policy on Taiwan. That is not the case. We have fundamentally the same policy in Europe and the US on Taiwan, the One-China policy, not support for Taiwan independence, strong support for Taiwan's democracy, and a resolute opposition to any attempts at changing the status quo by force. That would have been a better way of phrasing it from President Macron side.

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Macron's China visit hasn't moved Xi on Ukraine
Macron's China visit hasn't moved Xi on Ukraine | Europe In :60 | GZERO Media

Macron's China visit hasn't moved Xi on Ukraine

Carl Bildt, former prime minister of Sweden, shares his perspective on European politics from Tabiano Castello, Italy.

What's the fallout from President Macron's visit to China?

That remains to be seen. There is still no sign, really, of him managing to move Xi Jinping on the issue of Russia's aggression against Ukraine. President Xi has not yet made that telephone call to President Zelensky that he said he was going to do. He says he's going to do it at some point in time. But whether some point in time is tomorrow or one year from now is left open, so remains to be seen.

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Why Netanyahu relented to protests in Israel, but France's Macron didn't
Why Netanyahu relented to protests, but Macron didn't | World In :60 | GZERO Media

Why Netanyahu relented to protests in Israel, but France's Macron didn't

Ian Bremmer shares his insights on global politics this week on World In :60.

Why did Netanyahu end up backing down to protests in Israel, but not Macron in France?

Well, they are two different countries. But really, in Israel, they hadn't yet pushed the reform through. At this point, Netanyahu hasn't said he is given up on it. He said he's waiting for 30 days. Now, he might not be able to get it through, but still, it wasn't like it was passed and then he said, "Too much. Now, I've got to undo it." Where in the case of Macron, he had already gotten the vote in the upper house. He'd already forced it through, avoiding the lower house through a constitutional measure, which meant that essentially he had already gotten the agreement and then he was dealing with massive demonstrations. Which, by the way, the demonstrations themselves not super popular in France, even though the pension reform is strongly opposed, so I'm not surprised by that.

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French protests strengthen the far right & far left
French protests strengthen the far-right & far-left | Europe In :60 | GZERO Media

French protests strengthen the far right & far left

Carl Bildt, former prime minister of Sweden, shares his perspective from Venice, Italy, on the French protests and Boris Johnson's Partygate fallout.

What's really happening in France?

It's a very difficult situation. Protests all over the place. The political landscape is fractured. What's going to happen in the National Assembly is everyone's guess. And it is, for the moment, strengthen both the far right and the far left, with the center of French politics imploding. Difficult situation for Macron. Let's hope that he gets through it.

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Israeli constitutional crisis despite compromise attempts
Israel's new government and the battle for constitutional change | Europe In :60 | GZERO Media

Israeli constitutional crisis despite compromise attempts

Carl Bildt, former prime minister of Sweden, shares his perspective from Jerusalem on the protests in Israel and France.

What is really happening in Israel?

Well, it is really a profound crisis. It is cultural. We might argue it is political. It's got to be constitutional. The new government of Prime Minister Netanyahu, very much to the right, is trying to change the constitutional legal order of the country, and that is heavily opposed by large segments of Israeli society. The president has been trying to broker compromises failed, the crisis was only deepened to the detriment of the society and strength of Israel.

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