Residents of Jenin, in the occupied West Bank, are taking stock after nine days of what they say has been the most intense and sustained Israeli military operation in their city since October 7.

Witnesses describe it as a Gaza-style campaign, with widespread destruction of infrastructure, severed water and electricity supplies, and people rationing food for fear of going outside. It has been the deadliest period in the West Bank since November, according to the UN.

The military withdrew from Jenin and Tulkarem on Friday, according to residents. But an Israeli security source said that “the overall operation in Jenin is not over, it is only a pause.”

Though the war in Gaza has attracted most attention, Israel’s military has persistently and increasingly brought unsparing military tactics to the West Bank.

Israel’s security forces on August 28 launched what they dubbed a “counterterrorism operation” in Jenin, Tulkarem, and Tubas, in the northern West Bank. It has come to be known as Operation Summer Camps.

“We will not let terrorism in Judea and Samaria raise its head,” the head of the Israel Defense Forces, Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi, said during a visit to Jenin over the weekend, using the biblical names for the West Bank commonly used in Israel.

Residents say Jenin has been left transformed and scarred.

“It felt like Gaza,” 36-year-old Lina Al Amouri said by telephone from Jenin. She and her husband fled several days into the IDF incursion, but went back when they heard rumors that the operation had quieted.

“When we returned yesterday, we saw that all the streets were destroyed,” she said. “Soldiers were everywhere, continuing to bulldoze everything around them, not just the streets.”

“We heard many gunshots, and then we received news that my mother-in-law’s nephew had been shot seven times near the camp. They let him bleed until he died and prevented ambulances from reaching him.”

The IDF has previously said that it often must impede ambulances to check for militants.

Eight children killed

Nearly 700 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank since October, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Ramallah and the UN, whose figures do not distinguish between militants and civilians.

Since the Israeli operation began last Wednesday, 39 Palestinians have been killed, the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Ramallah reported. Among them were at least nine militants, according to public statements from Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Eight children have also been killed according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.

He left home on Friday to get food and attend Friday prayers. On his way back, Arafat said, he was gunned down in the street, where he lay for hours as he bled out.

The Israeli military has severely restricted access to the city since its operation began, so international media have had to rely on residents, local journalists, and social media video for independent information about the operation.

Journalists this week said that they were fired on by the Israeli military during a raid in Kafr Dan, near Jenin. Mohammed Mansour, a journalist for WAFA, was injured when the car he was driving was struck by gunfire, according to video of the aftermath and his employer.

Armored bulldozers also daily used heavy duty plows to tear up roads. The military says this is necessary to unearth improvised explosive devices planted under the tarmac. But the tactic has caused significant infrastructure damage, leaving many roads impassable.

The UN says that since October, Israeli authorities have “destroyed, demolished, confiscated, or forced the demolition” of 1,478 structures in the West Bank. Jenin’s mayor said that more than 70% of his city’s critical infrastructure has been destroyed.

While deadly ground raids in the West Bank were a regular occurrence before Hamas’ brutal October 7 attack, air strikes – though not entirely unheard of – were extremely rare. When in July 2023 Israel used a drone to launch airstrikes as part of a large operation in Jenin, it made headlines around the world. Not a single Palestinian in the West bank was killed by an air strike in the preceding three years, according to the UN.

‘Don’t play with us’

Since October, such strikes have become a near-daily occurrence. And their use has dramatically ramped up in recent weeks. The UN says that of all deaths by Israeli air strikes since October, nearly a third came in August alone.

“No place in Palestine is safe, not just Gaza,” Health Minister Majed Abu Ramadan said during a visit to Jenin on Thursday – the first time a Palestinian official visited the city since Israel’s operation began. “We witness the occupying enemy repeating the systematic destruction I saw before, targeting both human life and infrastructure.”

Brigadier General Nitzan Nuriel, who ran the counter-terrorism bureau of the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office until 2012, and now serves in the reserves, said that Operation Summer Camps was launched to send a message to Israel’s adversaries.

“The message to the other side is, ‘Don’t play with us. Don’t think that if we are very much down in the south and probably we are going to be busy up in the north, we will not be able to take care of what’s going in Judea and Samaria.’”

The Israeli military, Halevi said during his visit to Jenin, will go “city to city, camp to camp, with excellent intelligence, very good operational capabilities, very strong aerial intelligence support, and above all, with very moral and determined soldiers and commanders.”

Duha Turkman, 18 years old, sheltered with her sister at an aunt’s house for a week when the operation began, too scared to go outside because of the Israeli snipers they saw on surrounding rooftops.

“We tried to conserve food as much as we could,” she said. “We were eating very little, had no water, and no electricity.”

Suddenly, on the seventh day, Israeli soldiers burst through their door, she said. A video taken by Turkman shows shrapnel pockmarking the stairwell of the house. They soon fled to an uncle’s house elsewhere in the city.

“When we look at Gaza, we realize that we have been going through this for nine days, and it is already incredibly difficult for us,” she said. “We can only imagine what the people in Gaza are enduring. The situation here mirrors Gaza with airstrikes, bulldozing, and it doesn’t seem like the situation will change anytime soon.”

At least 17 students have been killed and 14 injured following a fire in an elementary school dormitory in central Kenya.

The inferno occurred late Thursday at the Hillside Endarasha Academy in Kieni, in the country’s Nyeri county, Resila Onyango, a spokesperson for the Kenya National Police Service said. She added their bodies had been “burnt beyond recognition.”

She was unable to confirm whether the fire was under control, saying those details would be established by teams on the ground.

Kenyan President William Ruto on Friday offered his condolences. Describing the incident as “devastating news,” Ruto said “our thoughts are with the families of the children who have lost their lives in the fire tragedy at the Hillside Endarasha Academy in Nyeri County,” in a post on X.

“I instruct relevant authorities to thoroughly investigate this horrific incident. Those responsible will be held to account,” his post continued, adding his government was “mobilizing all the necessary resources to support the affected families.”

The Kenya Red Cross also posted a statement Friday, saying it would provide “psychosocial support services to the pupils, teachers and affected families.”

The statement added that 11 children have so far been taken to hospital, with the area of the fire cordoned off by police.

Kenya Red Cross, alongside a “multi-agency response team,” is currently on the ground responding add has set up a tracing desk at the school, the statement continued.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

China is ending most foreign adoptions of its children, leaving hundreds of American and other foreign families with pending applications in limbo.

Since the early 1990s, China has sent tens of thousands of adoptees overseas – with about half arriving in the United States – as its draconian one-child policy forced many families to abandon children, especially girls and babies with disabilities.

But in recent decades, as China’s economy boomed and births slowed, international adoptions of Chinese children have declined in number. Since the Covid-19 pandemic began, they have largely been on hold.

Now the Chinese government is officially ending the program – which it said is in line with global trends, but also comes as officials try to reverse the country’s sharply declining birthrates and avert a looming demographic crisis.

China’s Foreign Ministry announced Thursday that no more Chinese children would be sent abroad for adoption. The only exceptions will be for foreigners adopting the children or stepchildren of blood relatives in China.

“This is in line with the spirit of relevant international conventions,” the ministry’s spokesperson Mao Ning told a regular news conference. “We are grateful for the desire and love of the governments and adoptive families of relevant countries to adopt Chinese children.”

The ban raises uncertainty for hundreds of American families currently in the process of adopting children from China.

The US embassy in Beijing is seeking clarification in writing from China’s Ministry of Civil Affairs on the new directive, the State Department said Thursday, according to the Associated Press.

In a phone call with US diplomats in China, Beijing said it “will not continue to process cases at any stage” other than those covered by an exception clause, AP reported.

“We understand there are hundreds of families still pending completion of their adoption, and we sympathize with their situation,” the State Department said.

More than 160,000 Chinese children have been adopted into families all over the world since China officially opened its doors to international adoption in 1992, according to China’s Children International, an international organization created by and for Chinese adoptees. About half of these children have been adopted to the US.

Between 1999 and 2023, American parents adopted 82,674 children from China, accounting for 29% of all US adoptions, according to data from the US State Department.

China suspended international adoptions in 2020 during the pandemic to “ensure the health and safety” of the children, according to a notice from the US State Department on intercountry adoptions from China at the time.

No Chinese children were sent to the US for adoption in 2021 or 2022. Last year, 16 children were adopted from China, according to the US State Department.

Beijing scrapped its decades-long and highly controversial “one child” policy after realizing the restriction had contributed to a rapidly aging population and shrinking workforce that could severely distress the country’s economic and social stability.

To arrest the falling birth rate, the Chinese government announced in 2015 that it would allow married couples to have two children. But after a brief uptick in 2016, the national birth rate has continued to fall.

Policymakers further relaxed limits on births in 2021, allowing three children, and ramped up efforts to encourage larger families, including strengthening maternity leave and offering tax deductions and other perks to families.

But those efforts have yet to see results amid changing gender norms, the high cost of living and education, and looming economic uncertainty.

“It reduced the threat of an enemy offensive. We prevented them from acting. We moved the fighting to the enemy’s territory so that [the enemy] could feel what we feel every day,” Syrskyi said, in a rare interview that offered a candid assessment of the war.

Last month, Ukrainian forces stormed into Kursk in a cross-border incursion that caught even American officials by surprise. It signaled that, despite Russia’s advantage in terms of men and armor, its military has vulnerabilities.

In what is the most detailed explanation of the rationale behind the incursion, Syrskyi outlined the key objectives of the operation: to stop Russia from using Kursk as a launchpad for a new offensive, to divert Moscow’s forces from other areas, to create a security zone and prevent cross-border shelling of civilian objects, to take prisoners of war and to boost the morale of the Ukrainian troops and the nation overall.

Speaking to Amanpour at an undisclosed location near the frontline, the general, who took over as army chief in February, said Moscow moved tens of thousands of troops to Kursk, including some of its best airborne assault troops.

And while admitting that Ukraine was under immense pressure in the area around Pokrovsk, the strategic city that has for weeks been the epicenter of war in eastern Ukraine, Syrskyi said his troops have now managed to stall the Russian advances there.

“Over the last six days the enemy hasn’t advanced a single meter in the Pokrovsk direction. In other words, our strategy is working.” he said.

“We’ve taken away their ability to maneuver and to deploy their reinforcement forces from other directions … and this weakening has definitely been felt in other areas. We note the amount of artillery shelling as well as the intensity of the offensive have decreased,” he said.

‘The frontline is my life’

Speaking to Amanpour just after inspecting the frontlines on Thursday, Syrskyi said that there’s no doubt that Ukraine is outgunned and outmanned as it tries to defend itself against the Russian aggression.

“The enemy does have an advantage in aviation, in missiles, in artillery, in the amount of ammunition they use, of course, in personnel, tanks, infantry fighting vehicles,” he said.

But Syrskyi also said the fact that Russia has such a material advantage has forced Ukraine to become smarter and more efficient in the way it’s fighting the war.

“We cannot fight in the same way as they do, so we must use, first of all, the most effective approach, use our forces and means with maximum use of terrain features, engineering structures and also, to use technical superiority,” he said, highlighting Ukraine’s advanced drone program and other home-grown high-tech weaponry.

Syrskyi was named Ukraine’s commander in chief in February, after President Volodymyr Zelensky fired Gen. Valerii Zaluzhnyi. He took over at a particularly difficult time for Ukraine.

The months-long delays in the delivery of US military assistance caused critical ammunition shortages.

At the same time, Ukraine was struggling to replenish its troops, exhausted and diminished after fighting Russia’s relentless offensive for two years.

Syrskyi said recruiting more soldiers was a priority. The Ukrainian government then passed a controversial mobilization law, requiring all men between 18 and 60 to register with Ukraine’s military and to carry their registration documents on them at all times – an effort to make the recruitment process more transparent and fair.

Syrskyi admitted his troops are heading to the battlefield after receiving less training than he’d like them to.

“Of course, everyone wants the level of training to be the best, so we train highly qualified professional military personnel,” he said. “At the same time, the dynamics at the front require us to put conscripted servicemen into service as soon as possible,” he added, explaining that new recruits get one month of basic military training followed by half a month to a full month of more specialized training before they are sent to fight.

Syrskyi told Amanpour that the delays in US military assistance did cause major setbacks on the battlefield and led to a slump in morale – something he admitted was still an issue.

He said he takes frequent trips to the frontlines and makes sure he spends time with his troops.

“We speak the same language … we understand each other no matter who I am talking to – whether this is an ordinary soldier, a rifleman, for example, or a brigade commander, or a battalion commander,” he said.

“I have been in this war since 2014,” he said, referring to Russia’s incursion into the Donbas 10 years ago. “In other words, the frontline is my life. We understand each other, I know all the problems that our servicemen, soldiers, and officers experience,” he added.

Syrskyi ended the candid interview by thanking Ukraine’s Western allies for their support. Switching from Ukrainian to English, he said: “Together we are stronger. Together we can win.”

Pope Francis has repeated his divisive comments that in some countries people prefer having pets to children, a message that has struck a chord with many conservatives around the world.

The idea has re-entered the American political dialogue in the wake of a resurfaced clip of now-Republican vice-presidential candidate JD Vance criticizing some prominent Democrats as “childless cat ladies.”

Vance, who converted to Catholicism in 2019 and has written about his journey to joining the Catholic Church, also sent a series of emails that called Democratic leaders “childless sociopaths” who “don’t have a direct stake in this country.”

Pope Francis, 87, who is in Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim country, made his remarks to political leaders as part of a 12-day tour of Southeast Asia and the Pacific. He said, “You’re an example for everyone, for all the countries that maybe, and this might sound funny, these families prefer to have a cat or a little dog instead of a child.”

President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo laughed at the remark with Francis turning to him and saying, “it’s true, isn’t it?”

Francis has in the past criticized couples who choose to have pets rather than children, saying this “takes away our humanity.”

He has lamented low birth rates in Europe, particularly on his doorstep in Italy, and has backed plans by three government led by Giorgia Meloni to reverse the trend.

While US President Donald Trump’s running mate and Francis may agree on the importance of having children, the pope’s approach is at odds with Trumpism when it comes to migrants and climate change.

In 2016, Francis described then presidential candidate Trump’s plan to build a wall to stop migrants the US-Mexico border as “not Christian.”

Two loggers have been killed by bow and arrow after allegedly encroaching the land of the uncontacted Mashco Piro Indigenous tribe deep in Peru’s Amazon, according to a rights group.

The group, known as FENAMAD, defends the rights of Peru’s Indigenous peoples. It says tensions between loggers and Indigenous tribes are on the rise and more government protective action is needed.

Two other loggers in the attack were missing and another was injured, FENAMAD said, and rescue efforts were underway.

The rights group, which represents 39 Indigenous communities in the Cusco and Madre de Dios regions in southeastern Peru, said the incident took place on August 29 in the Pariamanu river basin while loggers were expanding their passageways into the forest and came into contact with the reclusive and renowned territorial tribe.

“The Peruvian state has not taken preventive and protective measures to ensure the lives and integrity of the workers who have been gravely affected,” the group said in a statement Tuesday, adding authorities have yet to arrive in the area since the incident.

FENAMAD said the attack happened just 25 kilometers (15.5 miles) from a July incident, when the Mashco Piro again attacked loggers. The group said in their statement that even though they advised the government of the risk of a rise in violence, nothing has been done.

“It’s a heated and tense situation,” said Cesar Ipenza, an Amazon-based lawyer who specializes in environmental law in Peru. “Undoubtedly, every day there are more tensions between Indigenous peoples in isolation and the different activities that are within the territory that they ancestrally pass through.”

There have been several other previous reports of conflicts. In one incident in 2022, two loggers were shot with arrows while fishing, one fatally, in an encounter with tribal members.

In January, Peru loosened restrictions on deforestation, which critics dubbed the “anti-forest law.” Researchers have since warned of the rise in deforestation for agriculture and how it is making it easier for illicit logging and mining.

Ipenaza said some effort has been made by authorities in the area, like mobilizing a helicopter, but overall there has been “little commitment” by Peru’s Ministry of Culture, responsible for the protection of Indigenous peoples.

The Ministry of Culture did not immediately respond to a message Wednesday seeking comment on the attack and their protection efforts.

The attack took place a day before the Forest Stewardship Council suspended the sustainability certification of a logging company for eight months which rights groups and activists have accused of encroaching on the Indigenous group’s land.

“It’s absurd that certifiers like the FSC keep the certification of companies that clearly and openly violate basic human rights and Indigenous rights,” said Julia Urrunaga, director of the Peru program at the Environmental Investigation Agency. “How terrible that people have to keep dying and that it has to be an international scandal for action to be taken.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday was as clear as he has ever been about how he views a ceasefire and hostage agreement with Hamas.

“There’s not a deal in the making,” he told Fox News. “Unfortunately, it’s not close.”

“It’s exactly inaccurate. There’s a story, a narrative out there, that there’s a deal out there.”

Hamas “don’t agree to anything. Not to the Philadelphi Corridor, not to the keys of exchanging hostages for jailed terrorists, not to anything. So that’s just a false narrative.”

Netanyahu is facing mounting accusations that he has purposefully blocked a deal with Hamas. The Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth, citing a document it obtained, reported that Netanyahu in July effectively spiked a draft hostage and ceasefire deal by introducing a raft of new, eleventh-hour demands.

In the Fox News interview, Netanyahu rejected allegations that he has obstructed a deal.

“The obstacle to the end of this war is Hamas. The obstacle to the release of hostages is Hamas. The ones who butchered in a sling, murdering six people in cold blood, riddling them with bullets and then firing bullets into their heads is Hamas. It’s not Israel. It’s not me.”

Netanyahu was also questioned about reports that the families of American hostages still held by Hamas are lobbying the US Administration to unilaterally seek their loved ones’ release.

“I don’t know,” he said. “You know, I don’t judge the families. They’re going through enormous anguish.”

Initial autopsies of four of the seven victims who died when a superyacht sank in a storm in Italy last month show they died of “dry drowning,” according to authorities.

The phenomenon, also known as “atypical drowning,” means they had no water in their lungs, tracheas or stomachs, said a spokesperson for the lawyer of the captain of the Bayesian, which went down off the coast of the Sicilian port of Porticello on August 19.

The cause of death of the first four victims suggests that they had found an air bubble in the cabin in which five of the victims’ bodies were discovered, and had consumed all the oxygen before the air pocket turned toxic due to carbon dioxide, according to local media reports.

The autopsies of American lawyer Chris Morvillo, his wife Neda Morvillo, Morgan Stanley banker Jonathan Bloomer and his wife Anne Elizabeth Judith Bloomer were carried out on Wednesday at the Forensic Medicine Institute of the Palermo Polyclinic hospital, officials said.

Autopsies on British tech titan Mike Lynch and his 18-year-old daughter are expected to be carried out on Friday.

No date has been set yet for the autopsy of Recaldo Thomas, the ship’s onboard chef – due to the difficulty reaching his family in Antigua.

All seven victims were scanned for injuries last Saturday, which found none had suffered broken bones or other physical injuries that might have contributed to their deaths.

The prosecutor investigating the case first suggested earlier in August the idea that the victims had been searching for an air pocket.

The autopsies are part of the criminal investigation into the ship’s captain James Cutfield, the ship’s machine engineer Tim Parker Eaton and sailor Matthew Griffith, who was on watch the night of the accident. None of the men is in Italy.

They are being investigated for “multiple manslaughter” and for causing a shipwreck, but authorities say this doesn’t mean they will be charged with any crimes. They were allowed to leave the country by the prosecutor in charge of the investigation.

The 56-meter yacht sank within 16 minutes of being struck by a downburst or tornado on the early morning of August 19. The ship will have to be raised for the investigation and to ensure that the 18,000 liters of fuel onboard do not leak into the sea around the port of Porticello near Palermo.

Bids have been sent out for the salvage, which will be paid for by the company of Lynch’s wife Angela Bacares, which owns the yacht.

Toxicology results on the seven victims are expected in the coming days. No alcohol or drug tests were carried out on any of the crew members, the prosecutor said in a press conference after all the victims’ bodies had been recovered.

Lynch and his business partner Sushovan Hussain, who died after being struck by a car in London the day the Bayesian sank, had been acquitted of fraud charges in a US court in June 2024. The charges were related to the sale of their company Autonomy to Hewlett Packard, which has said it will not drop its civil lawsuit for $4 billion in damages now being heard in a UK court.

Russian President Vladimir Putin raised eyebrows Thursday when he expressed his support for US Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential bid, flattering the Democratic nominee with some curiously timed remarks.

“Our ‘favorite,’ if you can call it that, was the current president, Mr. [Joe] Biden. But he was removed from the race, and he recommended all his supporters to support Ms. Harris. Well, we will do so – we will support her,” Putin said Thursday at the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok. “She laughs so expressively and infectiously that it means that she is doing well.”

Putin also criticized former president and current Republican nominee Donald Trump for placing “so many restrictions and sanctions against Russia like no other president has ever introduced before him.”

Putin’s comments come on the heels of sweeping sanctions announced by the Biden administration to combat a Russian government-backed disinformation effort to influence the 2024 elections and boost Trump’s candidacy.

So what is Putin trying to accomplish?

If the past is any guide, Putin is simply stirring the pot of US domestic politics. In December 2015, Putin praised Trump, calling him the front-runner months before the businessman secured the Republican nomination.

And despite the Russian leader’s vocal support of the Democrats, US Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said on Wednesday that three Russian companies – at Putin’s direction – used fake profiles to promote false narratives on social media. Internal documents produced by one of those Russian companies show one of the goals of the propaganda effort was to support Trump’s candidacy or whoever emerged as the Republican nominee for president, according to an FBI affidavit.

“He is a bright and talented person without any doubt,” Putin said, calling Trump “an outstanding and talented personality.”

Did Putin know something about the 2016 US presidential elections that the pollsters didn’t? No, but the Kremlin leader did little to conceal his dislike of Hillary Clinton, then the likely Democratic nominee.

And when purloined Democratic National Committee emails were leaked just ahead of the Democratic National Convention, Putin did not hide his glee.

While US officials pointed a firm finger of blame at Russia for the hack, Putin denied the Russian state had anything to do with it. And in remarks at the same forum in September 2016, he praised the leak as a sort of service to the voters, saying, “The important thing is the content that was given to the public.”

That content being the embarrassing revelation in the leaked emails that Democratic officials gave preferential treatment to Clinton.

In other words, the whole DNC hack episode supported the Kremlin’s view that American democracy is a sham: Nothing matters but power, everything is decided in smoke-filled rooms, and hectoring countries like Russia about adherence to democracy and human rights is hypocritical.

Putin’s view of the American political system makes even more sense when we are reminded of an insight from exiled Russian political journalist Mikhail Zygar, the author of “All the Kremlin’s Men.”

Zygar noted that Putin loved “House of Cards” – the darkly cynical television series about Washington politics – and even recommended it to his ministers.

“That’s his American politics textbook,” Zygar said in an interview.

It’s also possible that Putin was simply trolling Harris by winking at a consistent insult from Trump about the way she laughs.

So if Putin’s take on US election politics is seen through the lens of “House of Cards,” then, Putin’s support of Harris is a sort of Frank Underwood move: A kind of endorsement poisonous to its recipient.

Additional reporting by Anna Chernova and Christian Edwards.

Michel Barnier, the EU’s former chief Brexit negotiator, has been named France’s new prime minister, the French president’s office says, ending two months of stalemate following inconclusive parliamentary elections.

In a statement on Thursday, the Élysée Palace said: “The President of the Republic has appointed Michel Barnier as Prime Minister. He has to form a united government to serve the country and the French people.”

The statement added that Barnier’s appointment comes after “an unprecedented cycle of consultations” in order to ensure a stable government.

Barnier, 73, a staunch Europhile, is a member of the Republicans party which represents the traditional right. He is best known on the international stage for his role in mediating the United Kingdom’s exit from the European Union.

A 40-year veteran of French and European politics, Barnier has held various ministerial positions in France, including roles as foreign, agriculture and environment ministers. He served twice as a European commissioner as well as an adviser to President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen. In 2021, Barnier announced his bid for presidential elections but failed to garner enough support within his party.

Macron accepted the resignation of former Prime Minister Gabriel Attal and his government in July, after his centrist Ensemble alliance was defeated in the second round of France’s snap parliamentary election. The president has since faced calls from across the political divide to name a new PM. Last week, Macron told journalists during a trip to Serbia he was “making all the necessary efforts” to finalize a name.

Barnier’s prospects for forming a stable government are unclear. Currently, France’s far-right National Rally (RN) is one of the largest parties in parliament following the election in early July. It has previously suggested it could be open to working with Barnier and would not immediately veto him.

Still, RN politician Laurent Jacobelli spoke disparagingly of Barnier, telling French television network TF1: “They are taking out of mothballs those who have governed France for 40 years.”

Barnier served as the chief negotiator during the UK’s exit from the European Union. The lengthy talks between London and Brussels ran from 2016 to 2021 and he is known among Brexiteers in the UK for driving a hard bargain.

Born in January 1951 in a suburb of the Alpine city of Grenoble, Barnier was first elected to parliament at the age of 27.

This is a developing story and will be updated.