The toppling of the Barnier government after just three months in office would present President Emmanuel Macron with an unenviable dilemma over how to go forwards and who to appoint in his place.
The National Assembly is due to debate two motions brought by the hard-left and far-right in a standoff with Barnier over the budget, which saw the premier force through the social security budget without a vote.

The far-right National Rally (RN) of three-time presidential candidate Marine Le Pen is expected to vote for the motion put forwards by the left, giving it enough numbers to pass.
Asked on French television if there was a chance his government could survive Wednesday’s vote, Barnier replied: “I want this and it is possible. It depends on the MPs.
“I think it is possible that there is this reflex of responsibility where – beyond political differences, divergences, the normal contradictions in a democracy – we tell ourselves that there is a higher interest,” he said.

But most analysts believe the government is doomed with the far-right teaming up with the left in an unholy alliance.
‘Political fiction’
The turmoil follows snap elections called by Macron in the summer which aimed, without success, to halt the march of the far right, and left no party or faction in parliament with a majority.

Barnier took office with the far right under Le Pen holding a sword of Damocles over its head, with the ability to topple the administration.

No new elections can be called for a year after the previous legislative polls, narrowing Macron’s options. Some have even suggested the president, who is on a state visit to Saudi Arabia, could resign.
But Macron rejected calls to resign to break the political impasse, saying such a scenario amounted to “political fiction”.

“It doesn’t make sense… it’s frankly not up to scratch to say these things,” Macron told reporters on the sidelines of the visit to Saudi Arabia.

“It so happens that if I am before you, it is because I was elected twice by the French people. I am extremely proud of this and I will honour this trust with all the energy that is mine until the last second to be useful to the country,” added Macron, who is due to serve until 2027.
Several prominent opposition figures and even some voices closer to the presidential faction have suggestion resignation could be Macron’s only viable option.

‘Unbearable cynicism’
Macron also accused Le Pen’s RN of “unbearable cynicism” in backing the motion which threatens to topple the government of Barnier.

“We must not scare people with these things, we have a strong economy,” he added.
While most commentators predict that the left and far right will team up to bring down the government, Macron appeared to hold out some hope saying he could “not believe” that the no-confidence motion would we passed against the government.

Candidates for the hot seat as premier are few and far between, with loyalist Defence Minister Sebastien Lecornu and Macron’s centrist ally Francois Bayrou possible contenders.

If the government falls, it would be the first successful no-confidence vote since a defeat for Georges Pompidou’s government in 1962, when Charles de Gaulle was president.
The lifespan of Barnier’s government would also be the shortest of any administration of France’s Fifth Republic which began in 1958.

Some observers have suggested that Le Pen, 56, is playing a high-risk game and seeking to bring down Macron before his term ends by ousting Barnier.

Le Pen is embroiled in a high-profile embezzlement trial. If found guilty in March, she could be blocked from participating in France’s next presidential election, scheduled for 2027.

She has insisted, however, that the party’s hardline stance was entirely due to a budget that would make the French poorer.

By following the “catastrophic continuity of Emmanuel Macron” the prime minister “could only fail”, she wrote on social media.

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An air strike blamed on Israel on Iran’s consular annex building in Damascus on April 1, 2024 killed, according to Tehran, seven members of the Revolutionary Guards, including two of top rank.
The recent killings are only the latest in a long list.In December 2023, a commander died in Syria in an attack blamed on Israel, a year after a colonel was killed, also in Syria.

In May 2022, Sayyad Khodaei, a member of the Quds Force, the unit in charge of the Guards’ external operations, was gunned down by two motorcyclists on his way home in Tehran. According to the New York Times, Israel told the United States that it was responsible for the hitjob.

General Hassan Moghadam, responsible for armament programmes, was killed in an explosion at a munitions depot in November 2011 close to Tehran, in an operation blamed on the United States and Israel.
Iran’s nuclear programme
Israel has also been accused of carrying out targeted assassinations against several high-ranking Iranian physicists, often linked to Tehran’s nuclear programme. Among them are nuclear physicist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, killed in November 2020 and presented after his death as a vice minister of defence.

Scientist Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, who was working on the Natanz nuclear site, and Majid Shahriari, the founder of Iran’s nuclear society, as well as particle physics professor Massoud Ali Mohammadi were others killed over the years. Israel has also been accused of sabotaging Iranian nuclear installations, mainly the Natanz complex to the south of Tehran.

On April 11, 2021, the site saw a small explosion, according to Iran’s atomic energy agency.

The New York Times reported that Israel played a part in the “strong blast” that apparently took out the internal electric system supplying uranium enrichment centrifuges.

Another “accident” also hit Natanz in July 2020, in what Iran’s atomic agency had said was a “sabotage”.

In September 2010, a cyberattack using the Stuxnet virus took out the enrichment centrifuges at Natanz.

Iran accused Israel and the United States, while information security experts also pointed the finger at Washington.
Iran’s allies
Iran’s allies too have found that Tehran is not always safe shelter.

Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh was killed on July 31 in Iran’s capital in an attack blamed on Israel. He was in Tehran to attend the inauguration ceremony of Iran’s new president Masoud Pezeshkian.

Iranian petrol
In March 2021, the Wall Street Journal, citing US and Middle East officials, reported that Israel had in 2019 targeted at least a dozen vessels travelling to Syria and in most cases, transporting Iranian petrol.

The report said Israel had deployed underwater mines in the assault.

Through 2021, Israel and Iran accused each other of naval sabotages.

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The specifics of the job reductions were not immediately known, the source said on condition of anonymity. The division employs 35,000 people.

Airbus declined to comment.The European company is the world leader for telecommunications satellites but it has faced a drop in demand.The group’s net profit fell by 46 per cent to 825 million euros ($900 million) in the first half of the year, dragged down by a massive writedown in its space business.

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It has already opened an office in London and another in Dublin. The public launch of ChatGPT in late 2022 catapulted the firm into the global spotlight. ChatGPT allows users to generate human-like text documents from simple conversational prompts.

OpenAI also makes programs that produces images and is working on a video generator. The firm raised $6.6 billion in cash and secured a $4 billion credit line earlier this month, propelling it to a reported $157 billion valuation.

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The 1936 work in Chinese ink, gouache and watercolour, was destined as a cover for The Blue Lotus, the fifth volume of the Belgian journalist’s adventures. But it never sat on any book store shelves because it was rejected for being too expensive to reproduce on a wide scale – a victim of its own rare craftsmanship.

“They had to do a four-colour process printing, with an additional colour. (But the publisher) thought that the comic albums were already expensive. Reproducing this cover art would increase the production costs,” said comics expert Eric Leroy at Art Curial auction house by the Champs-Elysees avenue.

As the name “Blue Lotus” suggests, the art workplaces Tintin in Asia. A huge red dragon appears on a black background by the Belgian reporter’s petrified face. It is a prized addition to the universe of Tintin, the subject of recent shows in London and Barcelona, a 2011 Hollywood adaptation, a videogame and an app.

In “Blue Lotus,” Tintin travels to China during the 1931 Japanese invasion to investigate and expose – along with his dog Snowy – Japanese spy networks, drug-smuggling rings and other crimes.

But the huge interest in this work has raised a host of questions among French media regarding the work’s provenance – whether it was a gift to the son of Tintin’s printer or a drawing simply never returned to the artist.

There is no question, however, of its authenticity. On Thursday, Hergé, whose real name was Georges Remi, could break the record for the most expensive piece of comic book art at 2.6 million euros that was previously set by himself.

“We set the previous record for the ‘Pages de Garde’ in 2014 ..it would be fair for this piece to break this record. Hergé had done only five comic covers using this technique of direct color so it’s very rare,” Leroy said.

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The number of visitors will be limited, meanwhile, face mask are compulsory for the children aged over 11. Guests will also have to use the stairs since lifts are out of use until July 1. Only eight people will be allowed into the elevators at a time.

The tower, completed in 1889, receives about seven million visitors every year – approximately three-quarters of them from abroad – according to its website.

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