In her final visit to Moscow before stepping down as leader, German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Friday asked her Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin to free Alexei Navalny from prison on the anniversary of the opposition leader’s poisoning.

Merkel’s trip to Moscow comes exactly a year after a nerve-agent attack on the now-jailed Navalny, whose life was saved by Berlin doctors.

Her aides have made clear that the timing of the meeting is not accidental.

“I demanded from the Russian President that he free Navalny,” Merkel told a Kremlin press conference, standing alongside Putin.

The Russian leader referred to his challenger as “the defendant”. He denied Navalny was jailed for his political activity, saying he was behind bars for “criminal offences”.

“I would ask that the judicial decisions of the Russian Federation be treated with respect,” Putin said, claiming that Russia had an inclusive political system.

Earlier, the German chancellor said it was important for Berlin to continue engaging with Moscow, despite “deep differences” on a range of issues.  

“We have a lot to talk about,” Merkel said, naming several issues on their agenda, including the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan.

Merkel, who grew up in communist East Germany, and Putin, a former KGB agent stationed there, speak each other’s languages.

During the chancellor’s 16 years in power, the pair always kept a dialogue despite strained relations, dampened by issues ranging from alleged cyberattacks to the conflicts in Ukraine and Syria. 

Navalny ‘wrongly’ imprisoned

Merkel has previously blamed Navalny’s near-fatal poisoning on the Kremlin after tests in European laboratories showed Navalny was poisoned using the Novichok chemical weapon.  

Her spokesman Steffen Seibert said the attack had put a “heavy burden” on relations between the two countries. 

Navalny is now held in a maximum security prison colony in Pokrov, 100 kilometres (60 miles) east of Moscow.

This month he was charged with new crimes that could prolong his jail time by three years. If found guilty, he could only be released after 2024, the year Russia is scheduled to hold a presidential election.

Seibert said Navalny had been “wrongly” imprisoned.

In a message from prison posted on his Instagram by his team Friday, Navalny said the 20th of August – when he thought “he died” after losing consciousness on a flight over Siberia – was his “second birthday”.

He thanked his supporters for calling for him to be taken out of Russia for treatment.

“Thanks to you I survived and landed in prison,” he joked, adding “sorry, I could not help myself”. 

Ukraine visit

Both Merkel and Putin said the crisis in Afghanistan had figured prominently during their talks.

In his first comments on the subject since the Taliban takeover, Putin said the world community should prevent the “collapse” of the country and ensure “terrorists” do not enter neighbouring countries from Afghanistan.

He said the world must accept the fact that the Taliban now control Afghanistan, criticising the “irresponsible policy” of imposing “outside values” on the war-torn country.  

Merkel and Putin also discussed the simmering conflict in eastern Ukraine and the authoritarian crackdown in Russia-allied Belarus.

Germany has been a major player in efforts to broker peace in eastern Ukraine and Merkel expressed hope that peace talks on the conflict between Kiev and pro-Russia separatists would continue after she leaves power.

She told Putin that “even if the progress isn’t as fast as we hoped”, the peace talks should be kept “alive”.

Merkel is set to meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kiev on Sunday.

Source: AFP

The Green Pass will be required to enter restaurants, cinemas, museums and indoor sports venues starting on Friday.

Italy’s cabinet Thursday made the coronavirus health pass obligatory for teachers as well as passengers on public transport, including domestic flights, ferries and long-distance trains.

The Green Pass, which is an extension of the EU’s digital Covid certificate, will already be required from Friday to enter cinemas, museums and indoor sports venues, or eat indoors at restaurants.

The health certificate proves bearers have either been vaccinated with at least one dose, have recovered from Covid-19 within the past six months, or have tested negative in the previous 48 hours.

Under the new decree law, school and university staff will need the pass, as will university students.

Staff without passes for five days straight will be suspended and have their pay frozen, Italian media said.

‘Italians remarkably disciplined and accepting’

Education minister Patrizio Bianchi told a press conference that over 86 percent of school personnel had been vaccinated, and that the number may be closer to 90 percent.

Health minister Roberto Speranza called on families to give the jab to children over 12 years old, and said teenagers would be eligible for cut-price rapid covid detection tests.

The green pass will be obligatory on domestic flights, trains and some ferry services from September 1.

Speranza said the pass — which has sparked protests in some quarters — was key to curbing rising Covid-19 cases, and he urged Italians to carry on getting vaccinated.

“The numbers are encouraging, with 70 million (vaccine) doses administered,” Speranza said, adding that the use of the green pass would “avoid closures and protect freedom”.

The minimum quarantine period for people who test positive for the virus or have been in contact with a COVID-19 patient was reduced for those who have been vaccinated, from 10 to 7 days.

Italy was the first country in Europe to make it obligatory for doctors and health workers in the public and private sector to get vaccinated or face being banned from working directly with patients.

A group of 300 Italian health workers has gone to court to try to get the obligation overturned.

(AFP)

Germany and France will begin offering a third COVID-19 vaccine booster shot to the most vulnerable members of their populations starting in September, disregarding a WHO appeal to delay third doses until more people in poorer countries are vaccinated.

Germany and France will go ahead with COVID-19 vaccine boosters from September, disregarding an appeal by the World Health Organisation (WHO) to hold off until more people are vaccinated across the globe.

The decision to press ahead with booster shots despite the strongest statement yet from the WHO highlights the challenge of dealing with a global pandemic while countries try to protect their own citizens from the more infectious Delta variant.

French President Emmanuel Macron said France was working on rolling out third COVID-19 vaccine doses to the elderly and vulnerable from September.

“A third dose will likely be necessary, not for everyone straightaway, but in any case for the most vulnerable and the most elderly,” Macron said on his Instagram account.

Germany intends to give boosters to immunocompromised patients, the very elderly and nursing home residents from September, the health ministry said.

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called on Wednesday for a halt to vaccine boosters until at least the end of September, saying it was unacceptable for rich countries to use more of the global vaccine supply.

High-income countries administered around 50 doses for every 100 people in May, and that number has since doubled, according to WHO. Low-income countries have only been able to administer 1.5 doses for every 100 people, due to lack of supplies.

“I understand the concern of all governments to protect their people from the Delta variant. But we cannot accept countries that have already used most of the global supply of vaccines using even more of it,” Tedros said.

Germany rejected those accusations, saying it would also donate at least 30 million vaccine doses to poorer countries.

“We want to provide the vulnerable groups in Germany with a precautionary third vaccination and at the same time support the vaccination of as many people in the world as possible,” the ministry said.

Macron’s government is trying to step up France’s vaccination programme as the country faces a fourth wave of the virus and street demonstrations in protest against the government’s COVID policies.

France and Germany have so far given at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine to 64.5% and 62% of their respective populations, with 49% of the French and 53% of Germans fully-vaccinated.

(REUTERS)

Chancellor Angela Merkel visited flood-ravaged areas of Germany on Sunday to survey the damage and meet survivors after days of extreme rainfall in western Europe left at least 183 people dead and dozens missing.

Merkel travelled to the village of Schuld in Rhineland-Palatinate state, one of the two hardest-hit regions in western Germany where the swollen Ahr river swept away houses and left debris piled high in the streets.

“We are by your side,” Merkel told residents of the small town Adenau, calling the situation there “terrifying”.

The chancellor said she was overwhelmed by the “surreal, eerie” devastation she had seen.

“It is shocking – I can almost say that the German language doesn’t have words for the destruction that has been unleashed,” she told reporters.

Merkel also pledged that a short-term relief programme would be launched by the government on Wednesday.

At least 156 people have died since Wednesday in Germany’s worst flooding in living memory, police said in an update Sunday morning. In Rhineland-Palatinate state alone, police reported 110 dead and 670 injured.

At least 27 people have also lost their lives in neighbouring Belgium.

Today I went to Rochefort and Pepinster. I saw the devastation caused by the floods.

My heart ached as I met people who have lost their homes, the savings of a lifetime.

Rescue crews in both countries were sifting through rubble to find victims, often in dangerous conditions.

The historic downpours also battered Switzerland, Luxembourg and the Netherlands.

As the waters began to recede in Rhineland-Palatinate and neighbouring North-Rhine Westphalia (NRW), concern shifted south to Germany’s Upper Bavaria region, where heavy rains inundated basements and swelled rivers and creeks late Saturday.

One person died in Berchtesgadener Land, a spokeswoman for the Bavarian district told AFP.

In Austria, emergency workers in the Salzburg and Tyrol regions were on high alert for flooding. The historic town centre of Hallein, near the German frontier, was under water.

“Heavy rains and storms are unfortunately causing severe damage in several places in Austria,” Chancellor Sebastian Kurz said on Twitter. Merkel has called the floods a “tragedy” and pledged support from the federal government for Germany’s stricken municipalities.

Speaking alongside US President Joe Biden at the White House on Thursday, Merkel said her “heart goes out to all of those who in this catastrophe lost their loved ones”.

The government has said it is working to set up a special aid fund, with the cost of damage expected to reach several billion euros.

The scale of the flood impact was gradually becoming clear in Germany, with damaged buildings being assessed, some of which will have to be demolished, and efforts under way to restore gas, electricity and telephone services.

In some areas, soldiers used armoured vehicles to clear the debris clogging streets.

In North-Rhine Westphalia, divers were sent in to search submerged homes and vehicles.

Local authorities in NRW and Rhineland-Palatinate said dozens of people remain unaccounted for across both states.

They have stressed, however, that disruption to communication networks made a precise assessment difficult, and the real number of missing could be lower.

Roger Lewentz, interior minister for Rhineland-Palatinate, said more than 670 people were injured.

“I’ve lived here my whole life, I was born here, and I’ve never seen anything like it,” said Gregor Degen, a baker in the devastated spa town of Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler near Schuld.

Across the border in Belgium, the death toll jumped to 27 with many people still missing.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Prime Minister Alexander de Croo visited the flooded areas of Rochefort and Pepinster together on Saturday.

“Europe is with you,” von der Leyen tweeted afterwards. “We are with you in mourning and we will be with you in rebuilding.”

Belgium has declared Tuesday a day of official mourning.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP)

German emergency responders were on Friday still searching for hundreds of missing people after the worst floods in living memory killed at least 81 in the country’s west.

“I fear that we will only see the full extent of the disaster in the coming days,” Chancellor Angela Merkel said from Washington, where she met with President Joe Biden.

Catching residents of several regions unaware and leaving destruction and despair in their wake, the masses of water were dubbed the “flood of death” by top-selling daily Bild.

Neighbouring Belgium counted at least nine dead, while Luxembourg and the Netherlands were also severely affected by the torrents of water, with thousands evacuated in the city of Maastricht.

But Germany’s toll was by far the highest at 81, and likely to rise with large numbers of people still missing in North Rhine-Westphalia and Rhineland-Palatinate, the hardest-hit states.

“It is a catastrophe. There are dead, missing and many are still in danger,” says Malu Dreyer, President of German state of Rheinland Pfalz, hit by devastating floods.

In the devastated Ahrweiler district of Rhineland-Palatinate around 1,300 people were unaccounted for, although local authorities told Bild the high number was likely down to damaged phone networks.

Regional interior minister Roger Lewentz told broadcaster SWR that “we believe there are still 40, 50 or 60 people missing, and when you haven’t heard for people for such a long time … you have to fear the worst.”

“The number of victims will likely keep rising in the coming days,” he added.

‘Disaster’

What’s more, continuing rain is forecast for parts of the west, where water levels in the Rhine river and its tributaries are rising dangerously.

Around 1,000 soldiers have been deployed to help with rescue operations and rubble-clearing in affected towns and villages.

Streets and houses under water, overturned cars and uprooted trees could be seen everywhere the floodwaters had passed, while some districts were cut off from the outside world.

In Ahrweiler several houses collapsed completely, leaving the impression the town had been struck by a tsunami.

At least 20 people had been confirmed dead in Euskirchen, one of the worst-hit towns just to the north.

Its normally spick and span centre had been turned into a heap of rubble, with house facades torn off by the rushing floods.

Adding to the town’s woes, a nearby dam remains at risk of giving way.

“My empathy and my heart go out to all of those who in this catastrophe lost their loved ones, or who are still worrying about the fate of people still missing,” Merkel told reporters in Washington.

She said her government would not leave those affected “alone with their suffering”, adding that it was doing its “utmost to help them in their distress”.

Pensioner Annemarie Mueller, 65, looking out at her flooded garden and garage from her balcony, said her town of Mayen had been completely unprepared for the destruction.

“Where did all this rain come from? It’s crazy,” she told AFP, recalling the floodwater crashing through her street during the night.

“It made such a loud noise and given how fast it came down, we thought it would break the door down.”

Four people are still missing in Belgium and the army has been sent to four of the country’s 10 provinces to help with rescue and evacuations.

With homes under water since Wednesday, people from resort town Spa were being put up in tents.

The swollen Meuse river “is going to look very dangerous for Liege”, a nearby city of 200,000 people, said Wallonia regional president Elio Di Rupo.

Climate change?

The storms have put climate change back at the centre of Germany’s election campaign ahead of a September 26 parliamentary poll marking the end of Merkel’s 16 years in power.

Germany “must prepare much better” in future, Interior Minister Horst Seehofer said, adding that “this extreme weather is a consequence of climate change”.

Because a warmer atmosphere holds more water, climate change increases the risk and intensity of flooding from extreme rainfall.

In urban areas with poor drainage and buildings located in flood zones, the damage can be severe.

Political candidates were quick to open a bidding war on climate following the floods.

North Rhine-Westphalia premier Armin Laschet, the conservative running to succeed Merkel, called for “speeding up” global efforts to fight climate change, underlining the link between global warming and extreme weather.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP)

Ireland said on Tuesday it will restrict indoor drinking and eating in bars and restaurants to those who are fully vaccinated against COVID-19 or who have previously been infected by it due to concerns about the Delta variant.

The country joins a handful of places in Europe to introduce the measure, including Austria, Denmark, and Israel, while Moscow has brought in similar restrictions.

Irish Prime Minister Micheal Martin, who announced a general slowdown of the easing of public health restrictions, said that health officials told him they thought that the variant made indoor hospitality too dangerous for the unvaccinated.

“The safest way to now proceed with a return to indoor hospitality is to limit access to those who have been fully vaccinated or have recovered from COVID infection,” Martin said.

Only 41% of Ireland’s adult population has been vaccinated, with 65% having received one dose, the health minister said on Monday. A senior health official earlier this month said some in their 20s may have to wait until September for a first dose.

Indoor venues such as theatres and concert venues may also face restrictions, Martin later told journalists.

Deputy Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said that the only other option to a vaccine verification system which had been presented to the government by Irish health officials was closing indoor hospitality for the foreseeable future.

“The alternative is not a delay of a few weeks … the alternative is a prolonged delay until we reach herd immunity, and with new variants very likely, we just cannot say when that would be,” Varadkar told a press briefing.

Varadkar said that while people would “feel it is divisive, that they are being left outside”, the government felt it was the least bad option.

Bars, restaurants, and cafes have been closed in Ireland for much of the past 16 months, with the latest national lockdown in place since late December. Outdoor dining and drinking has been allowed since June 7. The country also has some of the strictest travel restrictions in the European Union.

Ireland has the fifth highest rate of COVID-19 infections of the 31 countries monitored by the European Centre for Disease Control.

Martin said indoor dining would now not be reopened on Monday as planned but would be delayed until a new system of vaccine certification has been implemented.

Health Minister Stephen Donnelly said the details of the verification had not been finalised but might involve a QR code readable by a smartphone.

Source: REUTERS

Britain’s health minister Matt Hancock quit on Saturday after he was caught breaking Covid-19 rules by kissing and embracing an aide in his office, enraging colleagues and the public who have been living under lockdown.

In the latest scandal to rock a government that has overseen one of the highest official death tolls from the pandemic, Hancock wrote to Prime Minister Boris Johnson to resign, saying he had let people down.

An increasing number of his fellow Conservative lawmakers had privately called for him to go after the Sun newspaper published photos on Friday of the married minister embracing a woman whom he had appointed to a taxpayer-funded role to scrutinise his department.

“Those of us who make these rules have got to stick by them and that’s why I’ve got to resign,” the 42-year-old said in a video on Twitter.

Hancock had been at the centre of the government’s fight against the pandemic, routinely appearing on television to tell people to follow strict rules and to defend his department against criticism of its response to the crisis.

He will be replaced by Sajid Javid, a former finance minister with widespread government experience but new to health. Javid was forced out of the Treasury in early 2020 when he lost a power battle with Johnson’s then most senior ally, Dominic Cummings.

He will be tasked with helping the state-run health service recover from the pandemic and to deal with any future infection waves. Cases have started to rise in the last month.

Hancock’s departure also marks an embarrassment for Johnson after he said on Friday that he had accepted Hancock’s apology and considered the matter to be closed.

He said on Saturday he was sorry to receive the resignation.

“You should be immensely proud of your service,” he wrote in reply to Hancock. “I am grateful for your support and believe that your contribution to public service is far from over.”

The Sun had shown Hancock kissing the aide in his office last month, at a time when it was against the rules for people to have intimate contact with a person outside their household.

Time to go

Conservative lawmakers said many of them had told the party they could no longer support him.

The opposition Labour Party had also questioned whether Hancock had broken the ministerial code: the woman, a long-time friend, was appointed as a non-executive director to scrutinise the running of his department.

Media reports said on Saturday she had now quit.

Labour leader Keir Starmer said on Twitter that Hancock was right to resign, but added: “Boris Johnson should have sacked him.”

With 128,000 deaths and one of the deepest economic contractions on record, Britain has been convulsed by the pandemic and Hancock had been heavily criticised. In the early months his department struggled to deliver testing and protective equipment for hospital staff treating patients.

However, the government has been boosted by a rapid rollout of vaccines, with 84% of adults having had one dose and 61% both, well ahead of most countries.

While cases have started to rise – up 18,000 on Saturday – vaccines appear to have weakened the link between infections and deaths and most restrictions could be dropped by July 19.

Despite the improving situation, the revelations around Hancock had sparked accusations of hypocrisy. They also reignited the charge that Johnson’s government is beset by cronyism.

Hancock had last year welcomed the resignation of a senior scientist who broke restrictions in a similar manner. He had also been faulted for awarding Covid contracts to companies with close ties to government. He had said there was a need to act fast.

His case also had echoes of an incident last year when Cummings broke lockdown rules. Johnson’s decision to retain him sparked fury across the country and damaged the government’s standing.

On that occasion, ministers and lawmakers voiced their support for Cummings in a coordinated effort. In contrast, few if any defended Hancock on Saturday.

A source in Downing Street said Hancock had not been pressured to resign. He said in his letter to Johnson he wanted to apologise to his family and spend time with his children.

(REUTERS)

Several people were killed and others injured on Friday in the southern German city of Wuerzburg, police said, with media reporting a knife attack.

“The attacker was overpowered after the police used firearms. There are several injured as well as fatalities,” said police on Twitter, without giving details on the suspect’s motives.

German news outlets reported that the suspect had attacked people in the city-centre with a knife.

Police were able to arrest the man after shooting him in the leg, the Bild newspaper reported, adding that at least three people were killed and six others injured.

While the motive and full identity of the perpetrator have not yet been established, Germany has been on high alert after several deadly Islamist extremist attacks.

Suspected Islamists have committed several attacks in Germany in recent years, the deadliest being a truck rampage at a Berlin Christmas market in December 2016 that killed 12 people.

The Tunisian attacker, a failed asylum seeker, was a supporter of the Islamic State jihadist group.

More recently, one man was killed and another seriously injured in an Islamist knife attack in the city of Dresden in October.

A 20-year-old Syrian jihadist in May received a life sentence for the homophobic attack.

In August, six people were injured in a series of motorway accidents in Berlin in what prosecutors described as a suspected Islamist attack.

The number of Islamists considered dangerous in Germany rose sharply between 2015 and 2018, according to security services.

But numbers have declined since then, with just 615 considered dangerous by the latest count — compared with 730 in January 2018.

On top of that, there are also 521 people “who have attracted the attention of the security services but have not yet reached the stage of being considered dangerous”.

Chancellor Angela Merkel has allowed in more than one million asylum seekers since 2015 — a decision that has driven the rise of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, which charges that the influx spells a heightened security risk.

But beyond Islamist attacks, there have been other assaults by knife-wielding people.

In October 2017, a knife-wielding man randomly attacked passersby in central Munich, lightly injuring eight people. Police excluded terrorism as a motive after detaining the suspected perpetrator.

(AFP)

Thousands of people in Madrid are protesting the Spanish government’s plan to issue pardons to a dozen separatist leaders who were convicted for their roles in a failed push for the Catalonia region’s independence, the biggest challenge to the country’s unity in recent history.

The demonstration on Sunday was organized by a civil society group to promote a united Spain and took place at a central square that has become a symbol for far-right political rallies.

Leaders of the center to far-right political opposition to Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez planned to join the protest at Colón Square, which boasts one of Spain’s largest national flags.

Sánchez hasn’t announced pardons for the 12 political and civil society leaders who in October 2017 pushed ahead with a banned referendum on Catalonia breaking away from Spain and then declared the northeastern region’s independence based on the vote.

But the prime minister has defended taking such a move as a way to bring Catalans and Spaniards closer together after the divisive prosecutions that put most of the Catalan leaders behind bars.

Sánchez is also facing criticism in his own Socialist camp, where the potential pardons are seen as a risky political gamble. While more than 60% of Spaniards oppose the pardons and only 29.5% back them, according to a recent poll for El Mundo newspaper, surveys conducted in Catalonia show support of 60% to 70%.

Detractors say the separatists have not shown any remorse for their defiance of the Spanish Constitution and that Sánchez is making concessions to them in exchange for support from Catalan lawmakers in the national parliament.

Tensions over secession grew in earnest a decade ago amid the economic hardship of the Great Recession and discontent over Spain’s opposition to more autonomy for the Catalan-speaking region of 7.5 million people.

The issue has also dominated the political debate at the national level and contributed to the rise of the nationalist Vox party, which has become the third-largest political force in the Spanish Congress.

Source: AP

Prosecutors called Thursday for a 18-month jail sentence for a man who slapped French President Emmanuel Macron across the face this week as he appeared for a fast-track court hearing in southeast France.

Damien Tarel, a 28-year-old medieval history enthusiast, has been in custody since the assault on Tuesday and risks a maximum three-year jail sentence and a fine of 45,000 euros ($55,000).

Speaking at court in the town of Valence, prosecutor Alex Perrin called for an 18-month prison term after describing the slap as “absolutely unacceptable” and “an act of deliberate violence”.

Under French law, prison sentences of less than two years can be converted into non-custodial punishment, meaning it is unlikely that Tarel would spend time behind bars even if the court followed the prosecution’s plea.

The long-haired history buff and board games enthusiast told investigators that he “acted instinctively and without thinking” after waiting for Macron outside a school in the village of Tain-l’Hermitage.

In court, he expressed sympathy for the anti-government “yellow vest” movement and said that he and two friends had considered throwing an egg or a cream pie at the head of state during his visit to the Drome region, according to the BFM news channel.

“Macron represents the decline of our country,” he told the court.

Tarel, unemployed and living on benefits with his disabled girlfriend, said he had been annoyed by Macron’s decision to come to greet him — “an electoral tactic that I didn’t appreciate”, BFM reported.

In a video of the incident, a smiling Macron can be seen striding towards a crowd of onlookers including Tarel who are being kept behind a barrier.

– Social media –

Macron has shrugged off the assault, calling it an “isolated event”, and he has vowed to continue meeting voters despite concerns for his personal security.

Asked about it again during an interview on Thursday with BFM, he called it a “stupid, violent act” and suggested it was a consequence of the poisonous atmosphere found on social media.

“You get used to the hatred on social media that becomes normalised,” he said. “And then when you’re face-to-face with someone, you think it’s the same thing. That’s unacceptable.”

Leaders across the political spectrum have united in condemning the slap, with many seeing it as a symptom of the fraught political climate and declining standards of public debate just weeks from regional elections and 10 months from presidential polls.

“The political climate is turning to vinegar. It’s dangerous what’s happening,” senior leftist MP and regional election candidate Clementine Autain told France Info.

Others saw the assault as a sign of how Macron, a reformist former investment banker, continues to inspire visceral rejection from many French people.

His presidency was rocked by the anti-government “yellow vest” protests in 2018-2019, which were driven in part by anger at his economic reforms as well as his abrasive personality.

Macron, 43, whose personal ratings have risen recently, is expected to seek a second term next year.

Polls show him holding a narrow lead over his main rival, far-right leader Marine Le Pen.

Other modern French presidents have been targeted in shootings, including post-war leader Charles de Gaulle and Jacques Chirac.

In 2011, right-winger Nicolas Sarkozy had a security scare in southwest France when he was grabbed violently by the shoulder by a 32-year-old local government employee.

Source: AFP