France, Germany vow closer ties with new bilateral treaty

Paris 2025 World Expo bid withdrawn

PARIS, Jan 21, (Agencies): French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel have pledged to agree on a new French-German treaty this year to deepen cooperation between the two countries.

In a joint statement Sunday, both leaders say they will seek closer economic ties and convergence on tax issues.

They also want to develop a common diplomatic approach, boost cooperation on foreign affairs and security including the fight against terrorism, and “defend more effectively French-German common interest and values.”

Macron

World Expo bid withdrawn:

France’s prime minister Edouard Philippe has decided to withdraw Paris’s candidacy to host the 2025 World Expo.

In comments published Sunday by weekly newspaper Le Journal du Dimanche, Philippe said he has doubts about the economic viability of the project and fear unexpected additional expenses in the context of public budget cuts.

He also stresses the lack of private partners involved in the project.

The remaining candidates for the 2025 World Expo are Yekaterinburg in Russia, Osaka in Japan and Baku in Azerbaijan.

Man charged with ‘terror’:

French authorities on Saturday charged a 33-year-old man, who had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State in a video, with planning a terror attack, judicial sources said.

The man, who was not known to police, was arrested near the southern city of Nimes on Tuesday. Bomb making materials were found in his house but there was no indication of the targets he was planning to attack, they said.

“This is the first attack foiled this year,” a source close to the investigation told AFP.

The man was charged with “associating with terrorist criminals” and placed in custody.

“The investigation started when police saw on social media and attempt by a man in the Nimes region with Islamist leanings trying to procure a weapon,” the source close to the investigation said.

Prison strike continues:

A weeklong French prison strike sparked by a spate of inmate attacks on guards looks set to enter a second week after unions on Saturday rejected proposals to end the standoff.

A solution to the crisis had looked to be inching closer after two of France’s three major prison unions — CGT and Ufap-Unsa — suspended a protest action to put fresh proposals on security and employment to staff after a week of tension.

But by Saturday evening both those unions said their members had rejected the proposals as they called for a “total blockage” of prisons on Monday.

The strike has seen guards across the country down tools following a string of attacks by inmates and scuffles at jails, including Europe’s biggest, Fleury-Merogis just south of Paris.

A third major union, FO, did not join the talks and called for an even tougher stance after rejecting a draft agreement proposing the creation of 1,100 guard jobs over four years, “including a first tranche of 100 jobs from 2018”.

Currently, the prison service employs 28,000 guards in 188 establishments holding about 78,000 prisoners.