France

Legislative budget season is proving difficult as deputies are set to reject the 2027 spending plan after amending it into what they now call an incoherent text. The executive branch must now find a way to navigate the impasse following the significant alteration of the document on the assembly floor. Among the changes are new VAT rates for electricity and pay television, though the outcomes of these provisions remain uncertain.

The Justice Ministry reports that nearly 5,000 people were detained during recent protests, with 329 now incarcerated for violence. While the interior minister justifies using anti-terrorism measures against demonstrators by citing an insurrectional context, critics argue this equates social movements with terrorism and treats citizens as enemies of the state. The streets may be cooling regardless; only 1% of high schools remain blocked as the student movement fades.

The storied BHV department store has entered judicial receivership, having lost 90% of its revenue in the year since it was sold to a new owner. In the courts, the parents of a four-year-old girl known for decades only as the Unknown Girl of the A10 have appeared for trial, 39 years after her body was left by a motorway. Separately, investigators found the man behind the Trappes racist attack had spent a decade training with the pump-action shotgun used in the shooting.