Far-right candidate Marine Le Pen(supported by both Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin) and centrist Emmanuel Macron clashed over their vision of France's future, the euro and ways of fighting terrorism in an ill-tempered televised debate on Wednesday before Sunday's run-off vote for the presidency.

The two went into the debate with opinion polls showing Macron, 39, with a strong lead of 20 percentage points over the National Front's Le Pen, 48, in what is widely seen as France's most important election in decades.

For Le Pen, the two-and-a-half hour debate, watched by millions, was a last major chance to persuade voters of the merits of her program which includes cracking down on illegal immigration, ditching the euro single currency and holding a referendum on EU membership.

However, 63 percent of viewers found Macron more convincing than Le Pen in the debate, according to a snap opinion poll by Elabe for BFMTV, reinforcing his status as favorite to win the Elysee on Sunday.

In angry exchanges, Le Pen played up Macron's background as a former investment banker and economy minister, painting him as heir to the outgoing unpopular Socialist government and as the "candidate of globalisation gone wild."

He savaged her flagship policy of abandoning the euro, calling it a fatal plan that would unleash a currency war, and he accused her of failing to offer solutions to France's economic problems such as chronic unemployment.

Read more: Macron, Le Pen clash on euro, terrorism, in French pre-election TV showdown | Reuters

Germany and Russia: Chancellor Merkel faces President Putin in tense Sochi press conference

Merkel and Putin: an intelligent exchange of viewpoints

Chancellor Angela Merkel said she was not worried about the possibility of Russian meddling with the upcoming election in Germany.

"I am not the kind of a person that is easily scared," she told reporters at a joint press conference with Vladimir Putin in Sochi on Tuesday.

Berlin would take "decisive action" if fake news were distributed, Merkel added, citing the examples of thefictional rape of a Russian girl or claims against German troops in Latvia.  Merkel expressed confidence that Germans "will be able to campaign amongst themselves, without interference."

In turn, Russia's Putin dismissed the allegations about political meddling in the West as "rumors."

"We never interfere in the political life and the political processes of other countries and we don't want anybody interfering in our political life," he said.

Merkel traveled to Sochi on Tuesday for her first visit in two years, as part of her tour ahead of the upcoming G20 summit in Hamburg. Relations between Berlin and Moscow deteriorated following the Crimea crisis which started in 2014, and Germany and Russia are at odds over conflicts in Syria and Ukraine.

Merkel also urged Putin to "use his influence" to protect gays in the Muslim-dominated Russian republic of Chechnya. Recently, Russian activists reported that state authorities were rounding up gays and torturing them, and several were allegedly killed in the crackdown.

Additionally, the German leader stressed the right of anti-government forces to hold rallies against the Kremlin, after scores of protesters were arrested.

Putin responded by praising the Russian security forces, saying they were "more reserved and liberal" than many of their European colleagues who used "tear gas and batons" to disperse protest.

"Thankfully, we had no need for this so far," he said.

Note EU-Digest: Regardless of the differences there are in  the relationship between many of the EU countries and Russia, there is a mutual respect and civility for each others viewpoints . 

Comparing the Trump Administrations high level meetings, Press conferences, interviews and Presidential Public appearances  these past three months in light of this recent Merkel -Putin Sochhi  Press meeting, one can certainly call it a "night and day difference".

It has been reported that the US  President during his first 100 days in office made 213 false statements.

 Watching and listening to these two Heads of State intelligent composed and articulately answered responses to difficult questions, at least can give us all some hope again that  there still is a chance to solve political problems regardless of Donald Trump. 

Read more: Chancellor Merkel faces President Putin in tense Sochi press conference | News | DW.COM | 02.05.2017

France: Remember how Hillary lost ? - Beware Macron - Le Pen could win by doing a Trump on you

Macron beware: "It ain't over till (or until) the fat lady sings"

Politico reports: "Marine Le Pen needs a perfect political storm to help her win the French presidency on Sunday.

She aims to provoke it by kicking up rage at her centrist rival, discouraging leftists from voting and winning over millions of disappointed conservatives by convincing them that her plans for the European Union are less worrying than they might think.

Le Pen knows that victory remains a long shot. Six days before the final vote, polls show her trailing rival Macron by 15 to 20 percentage points, a wider gap than the one separating Donald Trump from Hillary Clinton at this stage in the U.S. race. Le Pen needs to win over millions of new votes to win, a tough sell for a lifetime outsider. Most of the French don’t see it happening: just 15 percent see Le Pen as “la présidente,” according to an Ifop poll last week.

Whatever the odds, Le Pen will fight hard until the last minute. But she is also hoping for a nod from fate. One major chance for Le Pen to change the race’s dynamic is a live debate Wednesday when she plans to “expose” her rival as a banker working against France.

Le Pen campaigned ahead of the election’s first round on the idea that she was offering voters a binary choice between “economic patriotism” over unbridled globalization.

The problem was that the message was lost on many of her core voters. Le Pen bled support for the first three months of the year. Her first-round score of around 21 percent came in several percentage points below what polls were predicting for her last January.

The analysis by her party’s own experts reportedly showed that the choice between globalization and economic patriotism — free trade and open borders versus Le Pen’s plans for withdrawal from trade agreements and more border restrictions — presented a too-abstract choice and one significantly misinterpreted by the party’s core supporters, made up of working class voters, party officials told POLITICO. Some missed the precise meaning of globalization and misunderstood “economic patriotism” as meaning that Le Pen meant rolling back checks and balances in the French Republic.

Enter a much simpler message: Le Pen is the candidate who will protect the French.

Devised by Le Pen’s strategic campaign committee and chief polling analyst Damien Philippot (the brother of influential party VP Florian Philippot), it’s an ultra-simple idea that can appeal to both right- and left-wing voters.

“We needed something that got to everyone,” said Bertrand Dutheil de la Rochère, a senior campaign aide. “She has to talk to the Left and the Right at the same time. But she can’t ask left-wingers to switch off the TV while she talks to the Right, so we came up with protection.”

“It’s the same message as before  — but simpler. And it speaks to everyone because first and foremost the French want to be protected by the state against competition, against terrorism, against mass immigration.”

Addressing supporters in Villepinte near Paris Sunday, Le Pen vowed to be the “president who protects” French citizens, “notably women,” but also the environment, national borders and “the solidarity that exists between all French people.” The message, tailored for mass appeal, is a departure from earlier speeches that emphasized a clash with Brussels and targeted Macron — whom she called “the candidate of finance.”

Here is a guide to Le Pen’s strategy for the final days.

1) Le Pen campaigned ahead of the election’s first round on the idea that she was offering voters a binary choice between “economic patriotism” over unbridled globalization.

The problem was that the message was lost on many of her core voters. Le Pen bled support for the first three months of the year. Her first-round score of around 21 percent came in several percentage points below what polls were predicting for her last January.

The analysis by her party’s own experts reportedly showed that the choice between globalization and economic patriotism — free trade and open borders versus Le Pen’s plans for withdrawal from trade agreements and more border restrictions — presented a too-abstract choice and one significantly misinterpreted by the party’s core supporters, made up of working class voters, party officials told POLITICO. Some missed the precise meaning of globalization and misunderstood “economic patriotism” as meaning that Le Pen meant rolling back checks and balances in the French Republic.

Enter a much simpler message: Le Pen is the candidate who will protect the French.

Devised by Le Pen’s strategic campaign committee and chief polling analyst Damien Philippot (the brother of influential party VP Florian Philippot), it’s an ultra-simple idea that can appeal to both right- and left-wing voters.

“We needed something that got to everyone,” said Bertrand Dutheil de la Rochère, a senior campaign aide. “She has to talk to the Left and the Right at the same time. But she can’t ask left-wingers to switch off the TV while she talks to the Right, so we came up with protection.”

“It’s the same message as before  — but simpler. And it speaks to everyone because first and foremost the French want to be protected by the state against competition, against terrorism, against mass immigration.”

Addressing supporters in Villepinte near Paris Sunday, Le Pen vowed to be the “president who protects” French citizens, “notably women,” but also the environment, national borders and “the solidarity that exists between all French people.” The message, tailored for mass appeal, is a departure from earlier speeches that emphasized a clash with Brussels and targeted Macron — whom she called “the candidate of finance.”

2) The protection message is similar to the argument that former President Nicolas Sarkozy made during his failed 2012 bid for re-election — and that may not be a coincidence.

Sarkozy remains popular among conservatives, particularly in the south where Le Pen has room to grow. She knows that many conservatives who backed François Fillon in the first round miss Sarkozy. So Le Pen is giving them Sarkozy with a side of nationalism by co-opting his message. She is also emphasizing campaign proposals that “Sarko” fans will remember: arming municipal cops and changing engagement rules so police can shoot first at perceived threats.

The Sarkozy-signalling is part of a broader plan to sweep up undecided conservatives. Le Pen is set to inherit about 30 percent of votes for Fillon versus 41 percent going to Macron. Thirty percent of Fillon voters remain undecided."

EU-Digest

International Justice: The US has long supported international justice, now it should be subjected to it'

They call him the “dictator hunter”. Reed Brody has been following the bloody trail of infamous political leaders for over 30 years, his latest trophy is Chad’s former president, Hissène Habré. And his next? George W Bush and Henry Kissinger are on his list.

Brody worked with the non-governmental organisation Human Rights Watch (HRW) between 1998 and 2016. He was personally involved in the investigation and preparation of criminal cases against at least four US-backed dictators during the Reagan administration: Augusto Pinochet in Chile, Hissène Habré in Chad, Jean-Claude Duvalier in Haiti, and Ríos Montt in Guatemala.

He has dedicated his life to laying siege to the great political criminals. When in 2012 the panel of judges of the UN Special Court for Sierra Leone considered former Liberian President Charles Taylor responsible for crimes against humanity and war crimes committed between 1991 and 2002 during the conflict in Sierra Leone, which cost the lives of 120,000 people, the HRW’s lawyer issued a warning to the world’s most powerful: “With this verdict, Taylor became the first former head of state convicted by an international tribunal for war crimes and crimes against humanity, after the Nuremberg trial. The same legal logic could be applied to Vladimir Putin or Henry Kissinger.”

Charles Taylor was convicted of having encouraged and provided weapons and logistical support to the Sierra Leonean rebels, a criminal complicity that brings to Brody’s memory Kissinger’s role in the atrocities committed during the Indonesian invasion of East Timor: “East Timor weighs heavy on Kissinger’s conscience.”

Documents made public in 2001 revealed that on December 6, 1975, the day before the invasion of East Timor, US President Gerald Ford and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger gave the green light to the military operation during a meeting in Jakarta with Indonesian dictator General Suharto.

The occupation lasted until 2002 and cost the lives of about 200,000 East Timorese. The US provided the Indonesian military with 90 percent of the weapons used, and Kissinger ensured supplies continued being delivered despite the restrictions imposed by the US Congress, when the invasion had already led to tens of thousands of civilian deaths.

“Unfortunately, the powerful and those they protect continue to escape an international judicial architecture still under development.”

The fight against the impunity of the powerful.

Born in 1953 in New York, the son of a Hungarian Jew who escaped from the German forced labour camps and a militant pacifist mother, Reed Brody soon felt the call to align with the weak.

In the 1970s he campaigned against the war in Vietnam. While most of his colleagues at Columbia Law School integrated into Wall Street’s financial institutions, he insisted on being the “advocate of the persecuted.”

In 1984, he left the position of Assistant Attorney General of the State of New York and headed for Nicaragua, where he collected testimonies of the atrocities committed by the Contras, the guerillas armed by Washington which fought the Sandinistas of Daniel Ortega, then in power.

Based on the testimonies of the victims obtained with the help of Catholic missionaries, he produced a detailed report. Published in 1985 by the New York Times, the document led the US Congress to convene an inquiry and cancel for some time the financing of Nicaragua’s Contras.

Between 1987 and 1992, Brody worked in Geneva with the International Commission of Jurists and the UN Commission on Human Rights. He was sent by the United Nations to El Salvador in 1994 and to the Democratic Republic of Congo in 1995 and 1997.

In 1998, he had already joined the HRW, and participated in the Rome Conference that validated the Statutes of the International Criminal Court (ICC), the first permanent court of its kind after Nuremberg.

In October of the same year, Augusto Pinochet was detained in London. After being recognised as a party to the litigation and HRW’s Brody sent his reports to the British judges. And when in November Britain’s House of Lords withdrew immunity from the former Chilean dictator, the American lawyer’s fight against the impunity of the powerful reached a new milestone.
The Pinochet precedent

It was after being contacted by Souleymane Guengueng, a political prisoner of the Hissène Habré regime, that Brody began a 17-year pursuit of Habré, accused of 40,000 murders and systematic torture during his eight years as Chad’s president in the 1980s.

Judged in 2015 in Senegal, where he had been living in exile since 1990, the former dictator was sentenced a year later to life imprisonment for crimes against humanity which included torture, rape and sexual slavery.

It was the first process of universal jurisdiction carried out on the African continent, the first in which a head of state was tried in a court of another country.

“Under the Rome Statute, victims are actors of international justice rather than its passive subjects,” says Reed Brody.

It was like this in the Habré case: the testimony of the survivors was decisive for the Senegalese court backed by the African Union to condemn the dictator. The prosecution of Jean-Claude Duvalier for crimes against humanity was possible thanks to the perseverance of survivors such as Boby Duval, who recorded 180 deaths in Fort Dimanche jail cell and journalist Michèle Montas. Likewise, in Ríos Montt’s trial, the prosecution strategy was based on the testimonies of indigenous communities and human rights activists, who identified the survivors.
US resistance

The United States bolsters the existence of a justice system that is applied to other countries in the world and has been a leading contributor to the architecture of an international accountability system. With one exception, Brody points out: “This system should not be applied to the United States. They like the Hague tribunal for Yugoslavia, for Rwanda, Sierra Leone or Cambodia, but not for a court that has unlimited jurisdiction.”

According to the human rights activist, this conviction is shared by most policy makers in Washington. Democrats and Republicans do not appreciate the idea that Washington might find itself constrained in its military strategies by an international law enforced by an international judicial body. “The traditional view of the protection of American interests is that American interests are better protected if the United States is the strongest country and not subject to a system of international rules and regulations.”

US society is not even aware that these things have happened: “When recently, in an interview with Fox News, they asked Donald Trump about Russia, he replied that our country is not so innocent. If we were honest, it was a statement with a sense of reality,” says Brody, adding that “no country that exercises the kind of power the United States exercises, whether the United States, Russia or China, will have an entirely ethical international policy.”

When it became clear in 2011 that the Obama administration did not intend to take any legal action against former President George W. Bush following the US Senate report on the use of torture techniques by the CIA after the 9/11, Reed Brody called on foreign governments to file lawsuits for war crimes against Bush, former Vice President Dick Cheney, former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and ex-CIA director George Tenet for ordering the practice of torture and other crimes.

“Under international law, any government has jurisdiction to try cases of torture and war crimes,” says Brody.

An EU-Digest Special Report of EUronews

US Trump Adm. Environmental Policies: Thousands join worldwide climate marches on Trump's 100th day in office

Thousands of people across Canada, the United States and other countries marked U.S. President Donald Trump's 100th day in office by marching in protest of his environmental policies.

Participants in the Peoples Climate March say they're objecting to Trump's rollback of restrictions on mining, oil drilling and greenhouse gas emissions at coal-fired power plants, among other things.

In Washington, D.C., large crowds on Saturday were making their way down Pennsylvania Avenue, where they planned to encircle the White House. Organizers say about 300 protest marches are taking place around the country, and dozens more in Canada and overseas.

• Trump signs order to expand drilling in Arctic, Atlantic oceans
• Trump wins victory in effort to roll back Obama climate change efforts

Note-EU-Digest:  the EU hopefully is prepared to act forcefully in what is becoming an ever greater increasing problem in dealing with the US Trump Administrations irresponsible executive orders and decisions, among others, those of combating Global Warming.  

Read more: Thousands join worldwide climate marches on Trump's 100th day in office - World - CBC News

EU Medicines Oversight Body: Spain offers to host EU medicines agency after Brexit - by Ciaran Giles

Competition is heating up among European Union countries hoping to reap some of the benefits of Britain's exit from the EU, with Spain joining the list of nations bidding to host the bloc's medicines oversight body.

Health Minister Dolors Montserrat told a meeting of business representatives and journalists Thursday that Spain believes the Mediterranean port city of Barcelona is the ideal place to house the headquarters of the European Medicines Agency when it relocates from London.

Barcelona has offered its multicolored, aluminum-and-glass Agbar skyscraper as the headquarters. The city was runner-up when London was chosen as EMA headquarters in 1992.

The Netherlands and Portugal are also among several countries presenting bids for the lucrative oversight body. The Portuguese government said Thursday it would propose the capital, Lisbon, which is already home of the EU drug agency and the EU maritime safety agency.

The medicines agency, employing about 900 people, is one of the biggest EU institutions with an annual budget of more than 300 million euros ($325 million).

The EU is also expected to relocate the European Banking Authority as part of Brexit. It isn't known when the bloc will decide on where each body's new headquarters will be.

The EMA evaluates, supervises and monitors medicines developed for use in the EU and coordinates with around 1,600 companies.

Read more: Spain offers to host EU medicines agency after Brexit - ABC

French Presidential Elections: EU MEPs act to strip Le Pen of immunity in fake jobs case

Le Pen and Putin during their recent meeting in Moscow

The European Parliament launched a procedure to lift immunity of French far-right leader Marine Le Pen on Wednesday (26 April) over claims she misused funds.

The assembly's president Antonio Tajani announced that a request from French judges had been forwarded to its legal affairs committee. The process is scheduled to begin in June.

The move comes as Le Pen, an anti-EU politician who has been an MEP since 2004, campaigns for the second round of the French presidential election on 7 May.

French judges requested her immunity be lifted at the end of March over claims of undue payments to members of her National Front (FN) party.

The parliament alerted the EU's anti-fraud office, Olaf, in 2015 after it discovered that about 20 people paid as assistants to FN MEPs were also listed as working at the party's headquarters near Paris.

According to a report leaked by French media earlier this year, Olaf found that Le Pen signed work contracts for her bodyguard and her head of cabinet assistant. It said the contracts could constitute a "misappropriation of funds, or fraud and use of fraud".

Last September, Le Pen was asked by the parliament to repay €339,946 to cover the salaries of the two assistants.

Paris judges opened a case against the FN over embezzlement, organised fraud, forgery, and undeclared work. They searched the party's headquarters in February.

Le Pen's head of cabinet, Catherine Griset, was charged a few days later.

According to Le Monde newspaper, judges found a document that could prove that the FN established a system to fund the party with EU parliament money.

"In the coming years, we can manage only by making large savings thanks to the European Parliament and if we obtain additional transfers," FN treasurer Wallerand de Saint Just wrote in a note to Le Pen, according to Le Monde.

On Thursday, the AFP press agency said parliament told judges the cost of the alleged fake jobs between 2012 and 2017 was €4,978,122.

Le Pen has denied any wrongdoing and said that the case was "persecution by political opponents".

She has so far refused to comply with court summonses, but losing her immunity would oblige her to obey.

The EU parliament already lifted her immunity in an unrelated case in March. She is under investigation in France after posting on Twitter, in 2015, pictures of men being tortured and killed by the Islamic State (IS) militant group, to protest against the comparison between IS and her National Front party by a journalist.

Le Pen, who came second in the election first round on Sunday, wants France to leave the euro and has promised to organise a referendum on the country's EU membership.

Read more: MEPs act to strip Le Pen of immunity in fake jobs case