Union européenne

On Wednesday, the Employment and Social Affairs committee adopted its position on new provisions improving EU standards to protect workers from exposure to dangerous substances.
Committee on Employment and Social Affairs

Source : © European Union, 2026 - EP

Le gouvernement recule sur le travail du 1er mai après la fronde des syndicats et de la gauche. Pour Florence Portelli, vice-présidente des Républicains et maire de Taverny (Val-d'Oise), ne pas pouvoir travailler le 1er mai est "une aberration". Sur la crise des carburants, elle estime qu'il faut des "énergies alternatives" et regrette que son parti ne s'empare pas du sujet de l'écologie. Il sera aussi question de la présidentielle de 2027 et de la victoire de Péter Magyar en Hongrie.  

Également dans l'édition de mercredi : l'équipe de Magyar, les plans de Tzitzikostas, la tournée américaine de Dombrovskis, les LUX awards

The post Le baiser de la mort de Trump redonne vie à Meloni appeared first on Euractiv FR.

Written by Colin Murphy with Greta Baltika

The virtual, online world is a significant part of everyday life. As a reflection of modern society, it features a range of criminal behaviour. The internet is a complex system of interconnected computer networks allowing applications to communicate with one another. Through this complexity, it has a simplistic structure with a visible top layer, a deeper content layer and finally, a small but significant dark layer.
This dark layer, known as the dark web, is a less explored and understood part of the web. It contains content that is not searchable and is accessed using a process to maintain anonymity. There are legitimate and appropriate reasons for accessing the dark web, such as activists and whistleblowers avoiding identification. However, it has a reputation for illicit content and activity. This notoriety can be justified, as the dark web, while not unlawful in itself, does contain websites providing access to illegal content and services such as drugs, firearms, stolen data and child sexual abuse material. This online space is being progressively scrutinised by law enforcement agencies, who have become increasingly specialised in countering certain aspects of the dark web, with some notable successes in dismantling cybercrime infrastructure and bringing criminals to justice

Read the complete briefing on ‘Understanding the dark web‘ in the Think Tank pages of the European Parliament.

Kanye West a annoncé mardi le report de son concert prévu le 11 juin à Marseille, face à l'opposition des autorités de la ville et du gouvernement en raison de sorties antisémites et racistes.

The Leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), Yasser Arafat, arrived at UN Headquarters by helicopter. A view of the helicopter, as it approached the North Lawn of the UN campus, on 13 November 1974. But Arafat was denied a US visa for a second visit to the UN in 1988, to address the General Assembly. Credit: UN Photo/Michos Tzovaras

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Apr 15 2026 (IPS)

The United Nations faces two crucial elections later this year: the election of a new Secretary General, with no confirmed date for polling, and the election of a new President (PGA), scheduled for June 2, for the upcoming 81st session of the General Assembly.

In accordance with established geographical rotation, the president for the next session will be elected from the Asia-Pacific Group with two candidates in the running: Dr. Khalilur Rahman of Bangladesh, currently serving as Foreign Minister, and Andreas S. Kakouris, Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Cyprus. A third declared candidate, Riyad Mansour (Palestine), withdrew from the race.

The dual candidacy breaks a longstanding tradition of a single candidate running for the office of PGA from each geographical group.

According to one of the established rules, speeches before the General Assembly were limited to 15 minutes– but rarely enforced.

The longest speech –269 minutes–was credited to Fidel Castro of Cuba at a meeting of the General Assembly on 26 September 1960. But the longest speech ever made at the UN was by V.K. Krishna Menon of India. His statement to the Security Council was given during three meetings on 23 and 24 January 1957 and lasted more than 8 hours.

In a bygone era, the General Assembly was also the center of several politically memorable events in the history of the world body.

When Yasser Arafat was denied a US visa to visit New York to address the United Nations back in 1988, the General Assembly defied the United States by temporarily moving the UN’s highest policy making body to Geneva– perhaps for the first time in UN history– providing a less-hostile political environment and a platform, for the leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).

Arafat, who first addressed the UN in 1974, took a swipe at Washington when he prefaced his statement in Geneva by remarking: “it never occurred to me that my second meeting with this honorable Assembly, since 1974, would take place in the hospitable city of Geneva”.

On his 1974 visit to address the General Assembly, he avoided the hundreds of pro and anti-Arafat demonstrators outside the UN building by arriving in a helicopter which landed on the North Lawn of the UN campus adjoining the East River.

When he addressed the General Assembly, there were confusing reports whether or not Arafat carried a gun in his holster—“in a house of peace” — which was apparently not visible to delegates.

One news story said Arafat was seen “wearing his gun belt and holster and reluctantly removing his pistol before mounting the rostrum.” “Today, I have come bearing an olive branch and a freedom-fighter’s gun. Do not let the olive branch fall from my hand,” he told the Assembly.

Setting the record straight, Samir Sanbar, a former UN Assistant Secretary-General and head of the former Department of Public Information told Inter Press Service (IPS) it was discreetly agreed that Arafat would keep the holster while the gun was to be handed over to Abdelaziz Bouteflika, then Foreign Minister and later President of Algeria (1999-2019).

Incidentally, when anti-Arafat New York protesters on First Avenue shouted: “Arafat Go Home”, his supporters responded that was precisely what he wanted—a home for the Palestinians to go to.

Although Arafat made it to the UN, some of the world’s most controversial leaders, including Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, Syria’s Hafez al-Assad and his son Bashar al-Assad, and North Korea’s Kim il Sung and his grandson Kim Jong-un never made it to the UN to address the General Assembly.

Ernesto “Che” Guevara, Minister of Industries of Cuba, addresses the General Assembly on Dec. 11, 1964. Credit: UN Photo/TC

Meanwhile, when the politically-charismatic Ernesto Che Guevara, once second-in-command to Cuban leader Fidel Castro, was at the UN to address the General Assembly sessions, back in 1964, the U.N. headquarters came under attack – literally. The speech by the Argentine-born Marxist revolutionary was momentarily drowned by the sound of an explosion.

The anti-Castro forces in the United States, reportedly backed by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), had mounted an insidious campaign to stop Che Guevara from speaking. A 3.5-inch bazooka was fired at the 39-storeyed Secretariat building by the East River while a vociferous CIA-inspired anti-Castro, anti-Che Guevara demonstration was taking place outside the U.N. building on New York’s First Avenue and 42nd street.

But the rocket launcher – which was apparently not as sophisticated as today’s shoulder-fired missiles and rocket-propelled grenades – missed its target, rattled windows, and fell into the river about 200 yards from the building. One newspaper report described it as “one of the wildest episodes since the United Nations moved into its East River headquarters in 1952.”

As longtime U.N. staffers would recall, the failed 1964 bombing of the U.N. building took place when Che Guevara launched a blistering attack on U.S. foreign policy and denounced a proposed de-nuclearization pact for the Western hemisphere. It was one of the first known politically motivated terrorist attacks on the United Nations.

After his Assembly speech, Che Guevara was asked about the attack aimed at him. “The explosion has given the whole thing more flavor,” he joked, as he chomped on his Cuban cigar.

When he was told by a reporter that the New York City police had nabbed a woman, described as an anti-Castro Cuban exile, who had pulled out a hunting knife and jumped over the UN wall, intending to kill him, Che Guevara said: “It is better to be killed by a woman with a knife than by a man with a gun.”

Meanwhile, in 2004, when the Organization of African Unity (OAU), the predecessor to the present African Union (AU), barred coup leaders from participating in African summits, Secretary-General Kofi Annan singled out the OAU decision as a future model to punish military dictators worldwide.

Annan went one step further and said he was hopeful that one day the General Assembly would follow in the footsteps of the OAU and bar leaders of military governments from addressing the General Assembly.

Annan’s proposal was a historic first. But it never came to pass in an institution where member states, not the Secretary-General, reign supreme.

The outspoken Annan, a national of Ghana, also said that “billions of dollars of public funds continue to be stashed away by some African leaders — even while roads are crumbling, health systems are failing, school children have neither books nor desks nor teachers, and phones do not work.” He also lashed out at African leaders who overthrow democratic regimes to grab power by military means.

Meanwhile, some of the military leaders who addressed the UN included Fidel Castro of Cuba, Col Muammar el-Qaddafi of Libya, Amadou Toure of Mali (who assumed power following a coup in 1991 but later served as a democratically elected President), and Jerry Rawlings of Ghana (who seized power in 1979, executed former heads of state but later served as a civilian president voted into power in democratic elections). As the International Herald Tribune reported, Rawlings was “Africa’s first former military leader to allow the voters to choose his successor in a multi-party election”.

In October 2020, the New York Times reported that at least 10 African civilian leaders refused to step down from power and instead changed their constitutions to serve a third or fourth term – or serve for life.

These leaders included Presidents of Guinea (running for a third term), Cote d’Ivoire, Uganda, Benin, Burkina Faso, Central African Republic, Ghana and Seychelles, among others. The only country where the incumbent was stepping down was Niger.

Condemning all military coups, the Times quoted Umaro Sissoco Embalo, the president of Guinea-Bissau, as saying: “Third terms also count as coups”

Back in 1977, a separatist activist/lawyer from London, Krishna Vaikunthavsan, who was campaigning for a separate Tamil state in Sri Lanka, surreptitiously gate-crashed into the UN, and virtually hijacked the General Assembly when he walked to the GA podium ahead of Sri Lanka’s Foreign Minister ACS Hameed, the listed speaker, and lashed out at his government for human rights violations and war crimes.

When the President of the Assembly realized he had an interloper, he cut off the mike within minutes and summoned security guards to bodily eject the intruder from the hall. And as he walked up to the podium, there was pin drop silence and the unflappable Hameed, unprompted by any of his delegates, produced a riveting punchline.

“I want to thank the previous speaker for keeping his speech short,” he said, as the Assembly, known to tolerate longwinded and boring speeches, broke into peals of laughter.

Meanwhile, a security officer once recalled an incident where the prime minister from an African country, addressing the General Assembly, was heckled by a group of African students. As is usual with hecklers, the boisterous group was taken off the visitor’s gallery, grilled, photographer and banned from entering the UN premises.

But about five years later, one of the hecklers returned to the UN —this time, as foreign minister of his country, and addressed the world body.

This article contains excerpts from a book on the United Nations titled “No Comment – and Don’t Quote Me on That” authored by Thalif Deen, Senior Editor at Inter Press Service news agency. A former member of the Sri Lanka delegation to the UN General Assembly sessions, he is a Fulbright scholar with a Master’s Degree in Journalism from Columbia University, New York, and twice (2012-2013) shared the gold medal for excellence in UN reporting awarded annually by the UN Correspondents Association (UNCA). The book is available on Amazon. The link to Amazon via the author’s website follows: https://www.rodericgrigson.com/no-comment-by-thalif-deen/

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Les relations se sont brusquement tendues ces dernières semaines entre Israël et le gouvernement italien de Giorgia Meloni, pourtant l'une des alliées les plus sûres de l'État hébreu en Europe. Ces tensions ont été notamment suscitées par les tirs essuyés au Liban par des soldats italiens de la Force intérimaire des Nations unies au Liban (Finul). L'Italie a en effet annoncé, lundi 13 avril, qu'elle met un terme à l'accord de défense qui la relie à Israël.

Un Parisien a remporté mardi un tableau de ​Picasso d'une valeur d'un million d'euros lors de la troisième édition d'une tombola ayant pour prix une oeuvre ​de ‌l'artiste et dont les recettes ⁠sont versées à une oeuvre caritative.

Au terme de deux ans d'enquête, Begoña Gomez, l'épouse du Premier ministre espagnol, a été formellement inculpée de détournements de fonds, trafic d'influence, corruption et appropriation illicite, selon une décision de justice rendue publique lundi 13 avril 2026. Une affaire de plus qui touche l'entourage proche de Pedro Sanchez.

Choisi conjointement par les citoyens et les députés européens, le film "Sorda" de la réalisatrice espagnole Eva Libertad a remporté le Prix LUX du public 2026.
Commission de la culture et de l'éducation

Source : © Union européenne, 2026 - PE

Chosen jointly by EU citizens and MEPs, Spanish director Eva Libertad’s film “Deaf” has won the 2026 LUX Audience Award.
Committee on Culture and Education

Source : © European Union, 2026 - EP

Chosen jointly by EU citizens and MEPs, Spanish director Eva Libertad’s film “Deaf” has won the 2026 LUX Audience Award.
Committee on Culture and Education

Source : © European Union, 2026 - EP

Les eurodéputés et les États membres de l'Union européenne se sont entendus, lundi 13 avril 2026, pour doubler les droits de douane sur l'acier importé en Europe. Cette mesure a pour but de protéger l'industrie européenne, un secteur en difficulté face à l'afflux de la production chinoise à bas prix.

Length of video : 60'

Disclaimer : The interpretation of debates serves to facilitate communication and does not constitute an authentic record of proceedings. Only the original speech or the revised written translation is authentic.
Source : © European Union, 2026 - EP

La cour spéciale d'assises des Bouches-du-Rhône a condamné mardi Gabriel Ory, une figure présumée de la DZ Mafia, à 25 ans de réclusion pour avoir aidé à la préparation d'un double assassinat en 2019. Elle a en revanche acquitté Amine Oualane, autre chef désigné de l'organisation criminelle.

Le cimentier Lafarge a été reconnu coupable de financement du terrorisme en Syrie le 13 avril. L’ancien patron de cette entreprise du CAC 40 a été condamné à une peine de prison de 6 ans, une décision appelée à faire date selon Cannelle Lavite, invitée de France 24 et co-directrice du département entreprises et droits humains au ECCHR. Selon elle, ce jugement est historique et montre que les multinationales comme Lafarge ne sont pas des acteurs apolitiques, et ont des obligations éthiques à respecter. Elle dénonce également le cynisme de la défense lors du procès, tandis qu’une autre instruction est toujours en cours pour déterminer d’éventuels crimes contre l’humanité.

Durée de la vidéo : 90'

Clause de non-responsabilité : L'interprétation des débats facilite la communication mais ne constitue en aucun cas un enregistrement authentifié des débats. Seuls le discours original ou la traduction écrite révisée du discours original peuvent être considérés authentiques.
Source : © Union européenne, 2026 - PE

Le lobby des compagnies aériennes exhorte l'UE à suspendre la tarification du CO2 et à procéder à des achats groupés de kérosène

The post La crise du kérosène, « principale préoccupation » de l’UE alors que la guerre en Iran se poursuit appeared first on Euractiv FR.

La responsable européenne de l'égalité appelle à la mise en œuvre au niveau national de la législation européenne existante

The post Lahbib exclut toute nouvelle législation européenne sur l’égalité de genre appeared first on Euractiv FR.

Le gouvernement français a finalement renoncé à faire évoluer la loi sur le travail le 1er-Mai en France, renvoyant le projet de loi à 2027. Ce jour férié, chômé et payé, reste donc inchangé, ce qui est considéré comme une victoire pour les syndicats. Les explications de Flore Simon, journaliste de France 24.