France

---

marcron calls snap election after EU losses 7 24 fr rt does well as does far left

an 1 26?

undress over a million? women and kids? grok?

French authorities raid Paris offices of Elon Musk's X

---

gmail 7 24 not sure how morano fits here

speed of human-induced global warming has never been higher - MSN

MSN

... a 'nonstarter': Marc Morano. 03:12. Idea of transitioning energy to solar and wind is a 'nonstarter': Marc Morano. Fox Business. 53.

for or the second consecutive year, an international consortium of fifty researchers, mainly involving scientists from CEA, CNRS, Mercator Océan international, and Météo-France in France, has updated the key indicators of global climate change. Their findings are alarming: the results show that global warming due to human activities is advancing at a rate of 0.26°C per decade, the highest pace since records began.

As 2023 ranks as the hottest year on record, a group of 50 international scientists including Valérie Masson-Delmotte, Sophie Szopa, Aurélien Ribes, Karina von Schuckmann, and Pierre Friedlingstein, from several French organizations (CEA, CNRS, Mercator Océan international, Météo-France, IPSL-ENS, Paris Saclay) have published their second annual report on global climate change indicators in the scientific journal Earth System Science Data.

Once again this year, the study's conclusions reveal that warming due to human activities continues to increase, reaching 1.19°C over the last decade (2014-2023) compared to the pre-industrial period, surpassing the 1.14°C estimated between 2013 and 2022 (as indicated in last year's report).

The analysis also shows that the residual carbon budget, i.e., the amount of carbon dioxide that can be emitted before causing global warming of 1.5°C, is now only about 200 billion tonnes (approximately 220 billion tons), equivalent to five years of current emissions. In 2023 alone, human-induced warming reached 1.3°C.

This figure is lower than the overall warming observed during the same year (1.43°C), demonstrating that natural climate variability, particularly the El Niño phenomenon, also played a role in the record temperature of 2023.

gfx]

Key planetary climate indicators 2023 © CEA, CNRM, Météo France, CNRS.

This report also presents new information on the effects of reducing sulfur emissions, particularly those from the global maritime transport industry. These emissions have a cooling effect on the climate by directly reflecting sunlight back into space and promoting the formation of more reflective clouds. The continued decrease in these emissions has reduced this effect. Although this phenomenon was offset last year by particle emissions due to wildfires in Canada, the cooling induced by particle emissions will continue to decline in the long term, the report's authors highlight.

"A rapid reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, 70% of which are caused by fossil fuel combustion (oil, natural gas, and coal), will limit the level of global warming we will eventually experience. At the same time, we need to build more resilient societies. The devastation caused by wildfires, drought, floods, and heatwaves that the world experienced in 2023 must not become a new norm," says Professor Piers Forster, director of the Priestley Centre for Climate Futures at the University of Leeds (UK) and coordinator of the study.

Another key finding: high levels of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions also affect Earth's energy balance: ocean buoys and satellites are tracking unprecedented heat fluxes in the oceans, ice sheets, soils, and Earth's atmosphere. This heat flux is 50% higher than its long-term average.

"This second annual update after the 6th IPCC report highlights the intensification of human influence on the climate, with an even faster rate of heat accumulation due to human activities, and breaks down how temporary modulation by natural climate variability (particularly El Niño), in addition to human-induced warming, led to the record planetary temperature observed in 2023. The severity of the effects observed this year (which are not addressed in our article), related to extreme heat on land and at sea, extreme precipitation, drought, and wildfires, on ecosystems, populations, infrastructures, and the economy, sadly shows clearly why every increment of additional warming matters." declares Valérie Masson-Delmottte, climatologist at CEA.

The conclusions of this report should inform and guide the strengthening of climate action plans that all countries around the world have committed to present to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) by 2025, in order to reduce emissions and adapt to the effects of climate change.

---

mma 5 23

In a conspiracy theory-laden segment, Fox Business seemed to openly plagiarize a recent article from its corporate cousin, the New York Post, while praising “the top five anti-Soros political leaders” supposedly resisting billionaire George Soros, whose philanthropic and political donations have turned him into a boogeyman among right-wing media.

On the May 15 edition of Fox Business’ Varney & Co., host Stuart Varney and correspondent Ashley Webster discussed what Varney described as “a group of conservative leaders” who want to “limit George Soros' influence on politics” in their home countries. Webster then went on to praise four foreign leaders from conservative and right-wing populist political parties — Poland's Jarosław Kaczyński, Albania's Belind Këlliçi, Italy's Giorgia Meloni, and France's Bruno Retailleau — as well as Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, all of whom he described as “fighting back” against Soros.

Webster’s claims against Soros are reminiscent of the conspiratorial pablum continuously spewed by Soros-obsessed commentators in the United States. He remarked that the leaders say Soros seeks to “destabilize” countries from within by “promoting liberal values” and progressive prosecutors, and pushing "mass migration" to “undermine national sovereignty” — all concepts that have been endlessly promoted by Fox News and other right-wing outlets[ vid 5 15]

webster concluded his litany by brazenly declaring that Soros “believes that only by upending the status quo can a more perfect liberal, globalist society emerge.” The "globalist" modifier here is a now-notorious antisemitic reference casually employed by right-media media.

Bizarrely, the segment never mentioned the New York Post article from which it was clearly drawn (even repeating some exact language), even though the piece’s author, Miranda Devine, was the featured guest on the segment immediately preceding. Devine instead used her time to promote another obsession of right-wing fabulist media personalities: Hunter Biden’s laptop.

VAN-OOF

This e-bike ad was too intense for French TV. Now it’s blowing up online.

By Alexandria Herr on Jul 7, 2020

A commercial for a Dutch e-bike has been censored in France. The offense? Creating a “climate of anxiety” about the car industry. The 45-second ad for Dutch e-bike company VanMoof, titled “Time to Ride the Future,” features a gleaming black car reflecting images of smokestacks, traffic gridlock, and car crashes; the car then melts away into a tar-like goo, revealing the silhouette of a sleek electric bike.

[vid] the advertisement was blocked by the Autorité de Régulation Professionnelle de la Publicité, a “self-regulatory” advertising industry group that greenlights all French advertising. According to VanMoof, the ARPP justified their decision by saying that the advertisement violated the group’s rules by exploiting feelings of fear and suffering and “creating a climate of anxiety.”

VanMoof shot back at ARPP in a blog post last week, pointing out that all the images reflected in the car’s bodywork were public domain, archival documentary footage. “If everyday footage of real world transport is going to create a ‘climate of anxiety’, maybe someone should try to do something about that world,” VanMoof copywriter Peter Gigg wrote. “Y’know… by offering alternative means of transportation. Or something.”

In an interview with French news channel Franceinfo, Stéphane Martin, the chairman of the ARPP, said, “We cannot afford to put entire sectors in a bad light. That is an important precondition for fair competition.”

The decision to block the ad comes after French President Emmanuel Macron announced an $8.8 billion plan to bail out the French car industry after car sales plummeted during global COVID-19 lockdowns. Meanwhile, bike sales are booming; VanMoof’s sales in France from February to April are nearly double that of the same period last year.

Ironically, the ARPP’s decision to censor the VanMoof ad may bring it more attention than it ever would have gotten otherwise. After a spate of articles about the controversy, the YouTube video of the ad has 1.8 million views, and counting.

https://www.alternet.org/2020/02/white-extremists-are-on-the-rise-around-the-world-emboldened-by-heroes-and-hate-music/

(AFP) – They may lack centralised organisation or even a common goal, but white supremacists encouraged by the exploits of extremist “heroes” canonised on social media pose an ever-growing security threat, analysts say. After nine people in Germany were killed by a gunman with “a very deeply racist attitude,” the country’s interior minister on Friday warned that the far right still posed a “very high” security threat.The shootings on Wednesday at a shisha bar and a cafe in the city of Hanau were the latest in a growing list of attacks in the West attributed to self-appointed defenders

...

Emboldened by 'heroes' and hate music, white extremists on the rise

AFP

Didier LAURAS

,AFP•February 21, 2020

[A day after nine people were killed by a gunman with "a very deeply racist attitude," Germany's interior minister warned that the far right still posed a "very high" security threat (AFP Photo/Odd ANDERSEN)

Paris (AFP) - They may lack centralised organisation or even a common goal, but white supremacists encouraged by the exploits of extremist "heroes" canonised on social media pose an ever-growing security threat, analysts say.

After nine people in Germany were killed by a gunman with "a very deeply racist attitude," the country's interior minister on Friday warned that the far right still posed a "very high" security threat.

The shootings on Wednesday at a shisha bar and a cafe in the city of Hanauwere the latest in a growing list of attacks in the West attributed to self-appointed defenders of a "white race" perceived to be under threat from migration, globalisation and Islam.

From Christchurch to Pittsburg, Halle to El Paso, militants have been emboldened by a narrative of hatred spread on the internet with an ease that observers find worrying.

"This digital ecosystem is fuelling a cumulative momentum, which serves to lower 'thresholds' to violence for those engaged in this space, both in the United States and elsewhere," Graham Macklin, assistant professor at the Center for Research on Extremism at the University of Oslo, said in a recent article.

One attack "encourages and inspires another, creating a growing 'canon' of 'saints' and 'martyrs' for others to emulate," he wrote -- noting that Norwegian neo-Nazi Anders Behring Breivik, who massacred 77 people in 2011, had become "an aspirational figure" for many.

Internet a 'facilitator' -

According to the Soufan Center, a global security think-tank, white supremacism has entered a phase of globalisation driven by niche websites popular among neo-Nazis, such as Gab and 8chan, and even the so-called "white power" music scene.

"White supremacy extremists rely on a diverse set of techniques to radicalise potential recruits," it said in a recent report, with attackers "lionised" on such platforms "as heroes, martyrs, 'saints,' 'commanders' and other honorifics."

White extremists do not share a single, common goal -- some seek self rule, others the expulsion of minorities -- but all believe their "race" to be under threat.

Many adherents to transnational white supremacy extremism hold millenarian and apocalyptic beliefs about an imminent race war, with some ardent believers in the end of time and influenced by elements of Christian identity," Soufan said.

Some believe their governments are conspiring with minority populations to bring about their demise -- the so-called Great Replacement theory, based on the title of a 2011 book by French writer Renaud Camus.

Anais Voy-Gillis, an extreme right specialist at the French Institute of Geopolitics, said: "The current context, with notably the migrant crisis of 2015, has surely contributed to the radicalisation of many people who are now ready to cross over to action."

Not only fringe sites are used to spread messages of fear, hate, and racial superiority.

The gunman who attacked two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, last March, killing 51 Muslim worshippers, live-streamed his attack live on Facebook.

A few months later, an anti-Semitic attack in the east German city of Halle, which claimed two lives, was posted on the streaming platform Twitch.

"There are many radical groups in the world and the internet is a facilitator for them to get together nationally and even internationally," Voy-Gillis told AFP.

- 'Exporter' of white supremacism -

In Europe, a well-organised coordination of far-right efforts seems unlikely, for now.

Last June, a French parliamentary committee conducted an analysis of far-right groups in the country, including attempts to make contact with like-minded organisations elsewhere in Europe, notably in Germany, Greece, Belgium, Italy, Britain, Spain and Austria.

At the time, the boss of France's DGSI domestic intelligence service Nicolas Lerner told investigators the chances were "extremely limited" that these movements would have the ability to work together at a European level.

But within a country's borders, the threat is real.

German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer said Friday that right-wing extremism was the "biggest security threat" facing his country, as he announced a more visible police presence and bolstered surveillance at mosques, train stations, airports and borders.

In the United States, an FBI report last November showed that 65 percent of "lone wolf" perpetrators of terror attacks where white.

Nearly a fifth (19 percent) of 52 such attacks committed in the United States between 1972 and 2015 were motivated by ideologies "advocating for the superiority of the white race," it found.

It was the same percentage as attackers motivated by radical Islamist doctrine.

"For almost two decades, the United States has pointed abroad at countries who are exporters of extreme Islamist ideology," Russell Travers, acting director of the National Counterterrorism Center, said in November.

"We are now being seen as the exporters of white supremacist ideology; that's a reality with which we are going to have to deal," he said. yahoo

https://www.yahoo.com/news/france-probes-alleged-monsanto-files-opinion-makers-215448544.html

oppo

paris (AFP) - France has opened an preliminary enquiry into alleged illegal files put together for US pesticides maker Monsanto on the views and pliability of hundreds of high-profile figures and media outlets.

Paris judicial police will carry out the probe following a complaint by the daily Le Monde and one of its journalists, whose names appear on the list, the Paris prosecutors office said.

Two anti-pesticide NGOs -- Foodwatch and Generations Futures -- are also preparing to lodge legal complaints over the alleged lists.

The investigators will look into the possible "collection of personal information by fraudulent, unfair or illicit means".

US giant Monsanto allegedly had public relations agency Fleishman Hillard draw up the files on the opinions of the targeted people and media bodies on the controversial weedkiller glyphosate and on genetically modified crops as well as their propensity to be influenced in their opinions.

Figuring on the list are politicians, scientists, journalists -- including four from AFP (Agence France-Presse). Information was collected on their views on pesticides and on Monsanto as well as their leisure pursuits, addresses and phone numbers, according to the France 2 public television channel.

Some of the names were listed under categories such as "priority targets" and "potential allies to recruit", according to reports.

France's former environment minister Segolene Royal, whose name was said to appear on the lists, said the allegation "says a lot about the methods of lobbyists... they carry out spying, infiltration, seek to influence, sometimes financially I imagine", adding that other companies are likely to indulge in similar practices.

Glyphosate developer Monsanto was convicted in the United States in 2018 and 2019 of not taking necessary steps to warn of the potential risks of Roundup -- their weed killer containing the chemical, which two California juries found caused cancer in two users.

German pharmaceutical firm Bayer, which bought Monsanto last year, announced last month that over 13,000 lawsuits related to the weed killer have been launched in the US.

There was no reaction late Friday from Bayer or Fleishman Hillard to the opening of the French investigation.

https://www.ecowatch.com/bayer-secret-list-of-monsanto-critics-2636999291.html

no lnx

'Huge Victory': French Court Finds Monsanto Guilty of Poisoning Farmer

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/04/12/huge-victory-french-court-finds-monsanto-guilty-poisoning-farmer

A Changing Climate Means A Changing Society. The Island Press Urban Resilience Project, Supported By The Kresge Foundation And The JPB Foundation, Is Committed To A Greener, Fairer Future. This Op-Ed Was Originally Published December 13, 2018 In G rist.

When tourists began their annual flock to Paris for vin rouge and holiday shopping last month, a rag-tag, politically unaffiliated group donning yellow safety vests showed up with different plans. A proposed fuel tax, seen as another blow against workers by a government in thrall to elites, set off a rampage in the most elegant streets of Paris. The “Yellow Vests” protests (gillets jaunes) continued for weeks and sparked solidarity marches across Europe, even after President Emmanuel Macron promised to halt the tax.

Thousands of miles above the demonstrations, world leaders flew to the U.N. climate talks known asCOP 24 in Katowice, Poland to solidify the 2015 Paris Accord. President Trump jumped on the opportunity to scapegoat efforts to tackle climate change as the Yellow Vests’ motivation, tweeting, “Maybe it’s time to end the ridiculous and extremely expensive Paris Agreement. The Paris Agreement isn’t working out so well for Paris.”

The Yellow Vests, however, are concerned about the climate, despite their protest of a fuel tax, and their list of 42 demands calls for a fairer transition to a low-carbon economy for workers. Their issue is with how it’s done, while Trump’s view casts climate change as a preoccupation of the privileged, an either-or struggle between the environment and the economy.

The fact is, global climate justice activists push for both — a transition to a green economy that also demands fair pay, localized ownership and care for communities as integral parts of a cleaner world — all proposals in line with the Yellow Vests’ demands. A healthier planet requires an overhaul of our economic system, and workers collaborating with climate justice movements would be doubly powerful. But the connections between them aren’t widely known.

This could be due to the fact that the high-profile decision-makers meeting in Poland don’t represent the entirety of the climate movement. Only weeks after the most alarming Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report yet (calling for emissions cuts of 45 percent below 2010 levels in the next 10 years), world leaders seemed unable to think beyond business-as-usual proposals that allow us to keep pumping carbon into the atmosphere, like carbon trading and geoengineering.

To climate justice activists, who draw from bottom-up solutions rooted in communities hardest hit by climate change, these proposals are non-starters, because they avoid addressing underlying causes of the crisis: Unfettered capitalism built on resource extraction and colonialism, and an addictive, globalized culture of consumption that supports the very leaders of government and business running the U.N. climate negotiations.

The large and growing movement for climate justice focuses on these root causes and pushes for worker-friendly, equitable solutions in climate negotiations worldwide. Take the Global Climate Action Summit last September in San Francisco. Just outside that summit was the parallel “People’s Summit,” held on a glorious day before ash from wildfires blanketed the state. Leaders from Climate Justice Alliance, Grassroots Global Justice, Indigenous Environmental Network and Right to the City Allianceshared stories of displacement as the result of multinational corporate land-grabs, of neighborhoods burdened by pollution from power plants, and of increasingly violent repercussions against those who try to protect their ancestral homelands.

Butthose at the top only benefit when populist groups like the Yellow Vests don’t see just how aligned they are with climate justice. This is why it’s still uncommon to hear the economy and the environment discussed as interconnected problems with interdependent solutions, and why high-level climate conferences continue to churn out lax commitments that maintain the status quo.

Can we imagine a green world in which workers make decisions for how they live? As income gaps increase, as jobs are lost to automation and oil and gas facilities are shut down, it seems obvious that governments and communities should train and deploy legions of skilled workers to build a new, green infrastructure. This could be anything from emissions-free light rail lines that run across North America to local microgrids and urban agriculture. Breaking up the monolithic global corporations that control our fuel and food would change the system; a transition to a new economy would put power back into the hands of the people.

These ideas have been alive in theJust Transition movement in the United States for decades, and they’re making headway thanks to theGreen New Deal recently proposed by Representative-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez from New York. This just transition would cut greenhouse gases while bringing jobs, security and autonomy back to communities, ensuring everyone has access to a good education, clean water, healthy food and safe living conditions.

At the time of this writing, the Yellow Vests are splintering, with protests spreading across Europe and more radical factions acting out with violence. We’ve seen rising populism all over the world devolve into outlets for rage, often taking dangerous racist and nationalist tones. To stop that destructive cycle, Yellow Vests and climate justice activists must make common cause.

Corporate interests may dwarf them now, but imagine if these two movements came together. They’d be unstoppable.

SAMANTHA HARVEY

Samantha Harvey is a fellow with EDGE Funders Alliance. She is also on the board of the Center for Diversity and the Environment.

France Suspends Gas Tax as Trump Falsely Blames Paris Agreement for Riots

French President Emmanuel Macron announced plans Tuesday to suspend an increase in fuel tax in response to growing pressure from protestors. Over the weekend, Macron canceled plans to attend COP24 amidst increasing tension in France.

Keep reading...

President Emmanuel Macron announced plans Tuesday to suspend an increase in fuel tax in response to growing pressure from protestors. Over the weekend, Macron canceled plans to attend COP24 amidst increasing tension in France.

President Donald Trump on Twitter Tuesday evening conflated Macron's decision with a rejection of the Paris agreement, calling the accord "fatally flawed" while also retweeting a demonstrably false tweet from a right-wing pundit claiming that "radical leftist fuel taxes" are prompting the French to chant "'we want Trump'... through the streets of Paris."

"There's no viable solution to reducing emissions on the scale needed in France without a price on carbon pollution as well as complementary policies, but a process that is not developed in an inclusive manner is destined to fail," said Pierre Cannet, head of climate and energy at WWF-France. "[The] announcement that the French government is freezing carbon tax shows that they put the cart before the horse by not addressing the social measures necessary for a just transition."

As reported by Vox:

While the protests may have started over the fuel tax, they have since morphed into a broader indictment of Macron's handling of the French economy and his perceived elitist disregard for the effects his policies are having on France's working class.

...

Trump's disregard for the truth and active attempts to create his own reality—and to convince his supporters of that imagined reality—are nothing new.

But the fact that the sitting president of the United States either does not understand or is deliberately misrepresenting the basic dynamics of a massive political crisis roiling one of America's closest allies is deeply disturbing.

French Environment Minister Quits Over Government's Inadequate Green Policies

France Approves World's First Ban on Fracking and Oil Production

The French parliament passed a law on Tuesday that bans exploration and production of all oil and natural gas by 2040 within mainland France and all overseas territories.

Under the new law, France will not grant new permits or renew existing licenses that allow fracking or the extraction of fossil fuels.

http://www.alternet.org/environment/nicolas-sarkozy-proposes-carbon-tax-us-goods-if-trump-pulls-out-paris-climate-deal

Former French President Nicholas Sarkozy suggested Europe impose a carbon tax on all U.S. products if President-elect Donald Trump pulled the country out of the Paris climate change agreement.

Over 100 countries have ratified the 2015 Paris deal to curb carbon emissions in an effort to tackle climate change. Trump, a climate change denier, promised to withdraw from the agreement during his campaign.

Speaking to French broadcaster TF1, Sarkozy said late Sunday: “Donald Trump has said – we’ll see if he keeps this promise -- that he won’t respect the conclusions of the Paris climate agreement. Well, I will demand that Europe put in place a carbon tax at its border, a tax of 1-3 percent, for all products coming from the United States, if the United States doesn’t apply environmental rules that we are imposing on our companies.”

Sarkozy, who is running for presidency again, also reportedly warned that Europe cannot afford to be “weak” or “naïve” when it comes to free movement of people and trade, referring to Trump’s promises of putting the American worker first and preventing jobs from going to foreign employees.

President-elect Donald Trump delivers remarks at the Shale Insight energy conference in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Sept. 22, 2016. Photo: REUTERS/JONATHAN ERNST

Trump is looking for a quick exit from the Paris deal, Reuters reported Sunday, citing an anonymous source who is part of the president-elect’s transition team. The source said the real estate mogul was looking for ways to bypass the four-year procedure to exit the agreement.

“It was reckless for the Paris agreement to enter into force before the election,” the source, who works with Trump on international energy and climate policy, said.

Trump, during his campaign, called President Barack Obama’s speech at the Paris climate talks “one of the dumbest things I’ve ever seen, or perhaps most naïve.”

The outgoing president said in November last year, “When it comes to climate change, that hour is almost upon us. But if we act here, if we act now, if we place our own short-term interests behind the air that our young people will breathe, and the food that they will eat, and the water that they will drink, and the hopes and dreams that sustain their lives, then we won’t be too late for them.”

Trump, who was then a frontrunner in the Republican race, told CNN: “I think one of the dumbest statements I’ve ever heard in politics, in the history of politics as I know it, which is pretty good, was Obama’s statement that our No 1 problem is global warming.”

http://ecowatch.com/2015/06/16/france-bans-monsantos-roundup-as-environmental-groups-push-who-for-stronger-safety-standards/

http://ecowatch.com/2015/03/25/france-roofs-solar-panels-plants/

France Approves Long-Awaited Landmark Climate Bill http://ecowatch.us7.list-manage2.com/track/click?u=214ab5fbb3f6015d74ffab4ec&id=1cb890c85a&e=c2e8fdabfa

The French bill includes targets to cut fossil fuel and nuclear energy use and boost renewables, and could help...