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French President Macron slapped during trip to south, two people arrested

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3 years ago

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French President Emmanuel Macron was slapped in the face by a man on Tuesday during a visit to a small town in southeastern France, an incident that prompted a wide show of support for French politicians from all sides.

The French president was greeting the public waiting for him behind barriers in the town of Tain-l’Hermitage after he visited a high school that is training students to work in hotels and restaurants.

A video shows a man slapping Macron in the face and his bodyguards pushing the man away as the French leader is quickly rushed from the scene.

A bodyguard, who was standing right behind Macron, raised a hand in defence of the president, but was a fraction of a second too late to stop the slap. The bodyguard then put his arm around the president to protect him.

Macron just managed to turn his face away as the attacker’s right hand connected, making it seem that he struck more of a glancing blow than a direct slap.

French news broadcaster BFM TV said two people have been detained by police.

The man, who was wearing a mask, appears to have cried out “Montjoie! Saint Denis!”, a centuries-old royalist war cry, before finishing with “A bas la Macronie”, or “Down with Macron”.

In 2018, the royalist call was cried out by someone who threw a cream pie at far-left lawmaker Éric Coquerel. At the time, the extreme-right, monarchist group Action Française took responsibility for that action. Coquerel on Tuesday expressed his solidarity with Macron.

‘Isolated event’

In an interview with the Dauphiné Libéré newspaper later Tuesday, Macron played down the incident, which had made nationwide headlines, calling it an isolated incident perpetrated by an “ultra-violent” individual.

“I am doing fine. We must put this incident, which I think is an isolated event, into perspective,” he said, and added: “Let’s not let isolated events, ultra-violent individuals… take hold of the public debate: they do not merit it.”

Speaking at the National Assembly, Prime Minister Jean Castex was more forceful in his reaction. “Through the head of state, that’s democracy that has been targeted,” he said in comments that prompted loud applaud from lawmakers from all ranks, who stood up in a show of support.

“Democracy is about debate, dialogue, confrontation of ideas, expression of legitimate disagreements, of course, but in no case it can be violence, verbal assault and even less physical assault,” Castex said.

Far-right leader Marine Le Pen firmly condemned on Twitter “the intolerable physical aggression targeting the president of the Republic”.

Visibly fuming, she said later that while Macron is her top political adversary, the assault was “deeply, deeply reprehensible”.

Former President François Hollande of the Socialist Party tweeted that the assault is a “unbearable and intolerable blow against our institutions … The entire nation must show solidarity with the head of state”.

Looming elections

Less than one year before France’s next presidential election and as the country is gradually reopening its pandemic-hit economy, Macron, a centrist, last week started a political “tour de France”, seeking to visit French regions in the coming months to “feel the pulse of the country”.

Macron has said in an interview he wanted to engage with people in a mass consultation with the French public aimed at “turning the page” of the pandemic – and preparing his possible campaign for a second term.

The attack follows mounting concerns in France about violence targeting elected officials, particularly after the often-violent Yellow Vest economic protest movement that repeatedly clashed with riot officers in 2019.

Village mayors and lawmakers have been among those targeted by physical assaults, death threats and harassment.

But France’s well-protected head of state has been spared until now, which compounded the shockwaves that rippled through French politics in the wake of the attack.

Macron, like his predecessors, enjoys spending time in meet-and-greets with members of the public. Called “crowd baths” in French, they have long been a staple of French politics and only very rarely produce shows of disrespect for the head of state.

A bystander yanked then-President Nicolas Sarkozy’s suit during a “crowd bath” in 2011 and his successor, Hollande, was showered with flour the next year, months before winning the presidential election.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP and AP)

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JD Vance breaks polling records in the worst way

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2 days ago

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July 25, 2024

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.,..Has a net-negative approval rating following the Republican National Convention, CNN found.

Vice-presidential nominees typically receive a ratings bump after their party’s convention, but Sen. JD Vance is bucking the tradition.

On the heels of last week’s Republican National Convention, the Ohio senator is the least-liked vice-presidential candidate since 1980, CNN found in a polling analysis. It noted the data applied to nonincumbents.

Since 2000, vice-presidential nominees typically have had a net-positive rating immediately following the convention, at plus 19 points. Vance, however, is polling at minus 6 points just one week after accepting the vice-presidential nomination and officially embarking on the campaign trail , the network found.

The freshman lawmaker’s lower-than-normal approval ratings are not an anomaly, as Vance has long polled behind other Republicans.

Vance heavily underperformed in his 2022 Ohio Senate race, at least compared with how other Republicans performed in the state that year. Vance defeated his opponent, then-Democratic Rep. Tim Ryan, by only 6 percentage points. In comparison, Republican Gov. Mike DeWine crushed his Democratic opponent, former Dayton Mayor Nan Whaley, by 25 percentage points in that same cycle.

“The JD Vance pick makes no sense from a statistical polling perspective,” Harry Enten, a CNN political-data reporter, said.

Vice President Kamala Harris’ team sent out a press release gloating about the numbers.

“We’d like to be the first to congratulate JD Vance on making history as the least popular VP pick, well…ever,” it said.

The press release went on to list some of Vance’s policies, with the first one being his previous support for a nationwide abortion ban.

The Atlantic’s Tim Alberta tweeted Monday that e ver since President Joe Biden ended his reelection campaign and endorsed Harris to become the Democratic presidential nominee, some members of Trumpworld have questioned whether Vance remains a wise running mate . President Donald Trump faltered with suburban voters in 2020, and Vance’s selection was widely seen as an appeal to base voters instead of one geared toward attracting more swing voters.

Trump’s campaign spent months perfecting its attacks against Biden and has now had to shift its messaging, as Harris poses a different electoral threat from her predecessor. While Biden was struggling to rally young voters and minority voters around his reelection campaign, Harris is more popular with those groups and presents a major upside for Democrats, as they need a high Gen Z and millennial turnout to remain competitive in the key battleground states .

There’s also evidence that Republicans will closely monitor polling over the next two weeks beyond Vance’s low likability ratings, as a Trump pollster said Harris could get a numbers bump following her expected ascent to the top of the Democratic ticket.

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Donald Trump’s Losing Election Poll for First Time in Over a Month

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2 days ago

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July 25, 2024

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Former President Donald Trump is losing a Reuters/Ipsos poll for the first time since May as Vice President Kamala Harris gains ground.

Harris has become the Democratic frontrunner after President Joe Biden announced his withdrawal from the race on Sunday, following weeks of pressure from prominent party leaders. Democrats quickly coalesced around Harris, who appears to have enough delegates to win the party’s nomination at the Democratic National Convention (DNC) in August.

Trump has led both Harris and Biden in the polls for months, but Democrats say Harris will be able to run a robust campaign in key battleground states over the next several months, arguing that earlier polls may not be indicative of her potential as a presidential candidate.

A Reuters/Ipsos poll released Tuesday shows Harris now leading Trump by two percentage points—44 percent to 42 percent. Trump has led every other Reuters poll throughout June and July against both Biden and Harris.

When independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was included in the poll, Harris’ lead grew to four points, with 42 percent of respondents backing her compared to 38 percent supporting Trump and 8 percent backing Kennedy, Reuters reported.

The poll was conducted on July 21 and July 22, after Biden announced he is stepping out of the race, among 1,241 U.S. adults, according to Reuters.

Trump had not trailed in a Reuters poll in nearly two months. A May 31 Reuters poll found Biden and Trump tied among all respondents, while Biden led by two points—41 percent to 39 percent—among registered voters.

Meanwhile, a Reuters poll conducted from July 15 to July 16 found Harris and Trump tied, each receiving 44 percent. A poll conducted from July 1 to July 2 found Trump leading by one point—39 percent to 38 percent—over the vice president. The same poll showed Trump and Biden tied, each receiving 36 percent of the vote among all respondents.

Another Poll Shows Harris’ Support Increase

Elsewhere, a YouGov/Yahoo News poll released on Tuesday also showed Harris’ gaining support.

The poll, conducted among 1,743 adults from July 19 to July 22, found Harris and Trump tied, each receiving support from 46 percent of respondents. Notably, part of this poll was conducted before Biden ended his campaign.

A YouGov/Yahoo News poll conducted among 1,176 registered voters from June 28 to July 1 found Trump leading by two points—47 percent to 45 percent.

Newsweek reached out to Harris’ spokesperson and the Trump campaign for comment via email.

Harris kicked off her campaign on Monday, visiting the Wilmington, Delaware, headquarters where she addressed campaign issues such as reproductive rights, which Democrats view as a winning issue ahead of November.

On Tuesday, Harris traveled to Wisconsin, a key battleground state. She is set to be joined by Wisconsin Democratic Senator Tammy Baldwin, who is up for reelection and notably did not appear with Biden in a visit to the state earlier in July.

o be back in Wisconsin to speak about what is at stake in this election—and how we will defeat Donald Trump and his extreme Project 2025 agenda,” Harris wrote in a post to X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.

Meanwhile, Republicans are seeking to ramp up attacks against Harris, criticizing her record on immigration and seeking to tie her record to Biden, who has faced struggling approval ratings among Americans.

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FBI Is Not Fully Convinced Trump Was Struck by a Bullet

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2 days ago

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July 25, 2024

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FBI Director Christopher Wray revealed during a marathon testimony on Wednesday that investigators still do not know if former President Donald Trump was grazed by a bullet or a piece of shrapnel during his attempted assassination.

Twice during the hours-long session, Wray told lawmakers that the FBI was still working to determine what exactly struck the former president on his right ear during a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. “My understanding is that either it [a bullet] or some shrapnel is what grazed his ear,” Wray told Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-Calif.).

Later during the hearing, Committee Chair Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) asked Wray if investigators knew where all eight bullets fired by Thomas Matthew Crooks ended up after the shooting.

“There is some question about whether or not it was a bullet or shrapnel that hit his ear, so it is conceivable, as I sit here right now, I don’t know whether that bullet, in addition to causing the grazing, could have also landed somewhere else,” Wray testified.

Jordan did not follow up with any questions about the shrapnel.

Speaking at the Republican National Convention just days after the assassination attempt, Trump said the bullet “came within a quarter of an inch of taking my life.”

“I heard a loud whizzing sound and felt something hit me really, really hard on my right ear,” the former president described the scene.

Trump’s former White House physician, Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-Texas), later told a conservative talk show that he examined the wound in the days immediately after the shooting. “It [the bullet] was far enough away from his head that there was no concussive effect from the bullet, and it just took the top of his ear off.”

As the investigation into the assassination attempt continues, Wray offered the committee some new insights—including the revelation that Crooks tried to research how far away the shooter was from former President John F. Kennedy when he was assassinated in 1963.

Trump responded with a post on Truth Social while the hearing was still taking place, calling for Wray to resign—but not for anything he said about the assassination attempt. Instead, Trump lambasted the FBI director for claiming that he found his interactions with President Biden “uneventful and unremarkable.”

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