PARIS — France’s minority government survived a no-confidence vote on Tuesday, two weeks after taking office, getting over the first hurdle placed by left-wing lawmakers to bring down new conservative Prime Minister Michel Barnier. 

The vote was a key test for Barnier, whose Cabinet is forced to rely on the far right’s good will to be able to stay in power. 

The no-confidence motion was brought by a left-wing coalition, the New Popular Front. It received 197 votes, far from the 289 votes needed to pass. The far-right National Rally group, which counts 125 lawmakers, abstained from voting. 

Following June-July parliamentary elections, the National Assembly, France’s powerful lower house of parliament, is divided into three major blocs: the New Popular Front, French President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist allies and the far-right National Rally party. None of them won an outright majority. 

The no-confidence motion was brought by 192 lawmakers of the New Popular Front, composed of the hard-left France Unbowed, Socialists, Greens and Communists. 

Barnier’s cabinet is mostly composed of members of his Republicans party and centrists from Macron’s alliance who altogether count just over 200 lawmakers. 

Left-wing lawmakers denounced the choice of Barnier as prime minister as they were not given a chance to form a minority government, despite securing the most seats at the National Assembly. This government “is a denial of the result of the most recent legislative elections,” the motion read.
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The European Commission has filed a lawsuit over Hungary’s Sovereignty Protection legislation, saying it violates EU law. Opponents see the law as a threat to the few remaining independent media outlets in Hungary, which rely on international funding sources. VOA’s Eastern Europe bureau chief Myroslava Gongadze reports from Budapest. VOA footage and video editing by Daniil Batushchak.
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Beijing/Paris — China imposed temporary anti-dumping measures on imports of brandy from the EU on Tuesday, hitting French brands including Hennessy and Remy Martin, days after the 27-state bloc voted for tariffs on Chinese-made electric vehicles, or EVs.

China’s commerce ministry said preliminary findings of an investigation had determined that dumping of brandy from the European Union threatens “substantial damage” to its own sector.

France’s trade ministry said the temporary Chinese measures were “incomprehensible” and violated free trade, and that it would work with the European Commission to challenge the move at the World Trade Organization.

In a sign of the rising trade tensions, China’s ministry added in another statement on Tuesday that an ongoing anti-dumping and anti-subsidy investigation into EU pork products would make “objective and fair” decisions when it concludes.

It also said that it was considering a hike in tariffs on imports of large-engine vehicles, which would hit German producers hardest. German exports of vehicles with engines of 2.5 liters or larger to China reached $1.2 billion last year.

France was seen as the target of Beijing’s brandy probe due to its support of tariffs on China-made EVs. French brandy shipments to China reached $1.7 billion last year and accounted for 99% of the country’s imports of the spirit.

As of Oct. 11, importers of brandy originating in the EU will have to put down security deposits mostly ranging from 34.8% to 39.0% of the import value, the ministry said.

“This announcement clearly shows that China is determined to tax us in response to European decisions on Chinese electric vehicles,” French cognac producers group BNIC said in an email.

French President Emmanuel Macron said last week that China’s brandy probe was “pure retaliation,” while EV tariffs were needed to preserve a level playing field.

Shares tumble

LVMH-owned Hennessy and Remy Martin were among the brands hardest hit by the measures, with importers having to pay security deposits of 39.0% and 38.1%, respectively.

The deposits would make it more costly upfront to import brandy from the EU. However they could be returned if a deal is eventually reached before definitive tariffs are imposed.

Both the investigation and negotiations remain ongoing, said an executive at a leading cognac company, who declined to be identified due to the sensitivity of the matter.

Chinese investigators visited producers in France last month and were due to make further site visits, the executive said, while Chinese and EU officials held negotiations on Monday.

The outcome was unclear, however, and doubts around the EU’s willingness to make a deal were emerging, they added.

Shares in Pernod Ricard were down 4.2% at 0839 GMT, while Remy Cointreau’s dropped 8.7% and shares in LVMH fell 4.9%.

Companies that cooperated with China’s investigation were hit with security deposit rates of 34.8%, with that imposed on Martell the lowest at 30.6%.

Pernod Ricard, Remy Cointreau and LVMH did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The measures could mean a 20% price rise for consumers in China, said Jefferies analysts, reducing sales volumes by 20%.

Remy, with the greatest exposure to the Chinese market, could see its sales decline by 6%, with Pernod group sales seeing a 1.6% impact, they said.

China is the second largest export market for cognac after the United States but is the industry’s most profitable territory. Difficult economic conditions in both markets have already prompted a sharp decline in cognac sales.

James Sym, fund manager at Remy investor River Global, said despite this, there was no sign that demand for cognac had fundamentally changed, pointing to an uptick in cognac sales in Japan driven by Chinese tourists when the yen was weak.

“That’s obviously a sign that cognac is not out of fashion,” he said, adding volumes – and the companies’ share prices – should recover long-term, although the tariffs would likely hit volumes and margins while in place.

Talks continue

Luxury goods shares fell by as much as 7% on Tuesday, with one trader attributing this to fears that the sector, which is heavily reliant on China, could be next to see trade measures.

The brandy measures follow a vote by the EU to adopt tariffs on China-made EVs by the end of October.

Before the vote in late August, China had suspended its planned anti-dumping measures on EU brandy, in an apparent goodwill gesture, despite determining it had been sold in China at below-market prices.

At the time, the commerce ministry said its probe would end before Jan. 5, 2025, but that it could be extended.

China’s commerce ministry previously said it had found that European distillers had been selling brandy in its 1.4 billion-strong consumer market at a dumping margin in the range of 30.6% to 39% and that its domestic industry had been damaged.

In the EU’s decision to impose tariffs on China-made EVs, the bloc set tariff rates on top of the 10% car import duty ranging from 7.8% for Tesla to 35.3% for SAIC and other producers deemed not to have cooperated with its investigation.

The European Commission has said it is willing to continue negotiating an alternative, even after tariffs are imposed.
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TALLINN, Estonia — A Belarusian-American has had his prison term extended to a total of 13 1/2 years in the latest move in a relentless crackdown on dissent by Belarus’ repressive government, rights activists said Monday.

Yuras Zyankovich, a lawyer who has dual Belarusian and U.S. citizenship, has been held behind bars since 2021. He was convicted on accusations of plotting to assassinate Belarus’ authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko and seize power and given an 11-year sentence in September 2022. He then had six months added to his sentence later that year.

In August, a court in Belarus handed Zyankovich, 46, an additional two-year sentence on charges of “malicious disobedience to the prison administration,” according to the Viasna human rights group, a ruling that became known only now.

The authorities have denied Zyankovich access to a lawyer since March.

Zyankovich repeatedly went on hunger strike and his health has seriously deteriorated in custody, according to Viasna, which said that he faced harassment and intimidation by prison authorities.

Last month, Zyankovich featured in a propaganda film aired by state television that described the purported plot he was convicted of.

The U.S. Embassy in Belarus condemned airing the documentary and rejected the “baseless claims” it contained in a statement in September. It emphasized that it will “continue to advocate for the improved welfare of this detained American.”

In 2020, Belarus was rocked by its largest-ever protests following an election that gave Lukashenko a sixth term in office but was condemned by the opposition and the West as fraudulent. According to Viasna, 65,000 people have been arrested since the protests began and hundreds of thousands have fled Belarus.

Belarus has more than 1,300 political prisoners in Belarus, according to Viasna, including the group’s founder and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Ales Bialiatski.
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The European Union is braced for retaliation from China after the bloc voted Friday to impose tariffs on the import of Chinese electric vehicles, which Brussels says receive unfair state subsidies. As Henry Ridgwell reports, there’s speculation that Beijing could target individual European countries that voted for the measures.
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London — The European Union is bracing for retaliation from China after the bloc voted last week to impose tariffs on the import of Chinese electric vehicles, or EVs, amid speculation that Beijing could seek to target individual European countries that voted for the measures.

The EU is divided on the issue, with 10 member states in favor in Friday’s vote, five countries voting against the measures and 12 abstaining.

After the vote, China’s Commerce Ministry said it opposed the planned tariffs, calling them “unfair, non-compliant and unreasonable.”

Cognac

France is among the countries that pushed for the EU to adopt the tariffs. Makers of French cognac, a type of brandy, fear that Beijing will now seek to target their product, after China launched an anti-dumping probe earlier this year.

That investigation concluded in August that dumping had occurred on the Chinese market, but Beijing chose not to impose any tariffs at that stage, a decision widely seen as an attempt to defuse tensions with Europe.

The EU’s decision to impose EV tariffs could provoke China into reversing its decision, according to Anthony Brun, president of General Union of Cognac Producers.

“We are of course quite worried, because today, China is our second-biggest market. It represents more than one-third of our volumes that are exported for more than 250 years now. Knowing that we will potentially be imposed with a tax of around 40% tomorrow — that would potentially mean the disappearance of this market, because our competitors will not be targeted with the same tax,” Brun told the Reuters news agency, adding that the French government had seemingly chosen to sacrifice his industry.

“Because France is leading the way on this policy, they will seek to target a product that concerns France exclusively,” he said.

German cars

Germany, the EU’s biggest economy, voted against the tariffs. German carmakers also fear Beijing’s retaliation.

“The European automotive industry — and especially Germany’s — lives from exports. Seventy percent of our jobs depend on it. The current decision could lead to new trade conflicts, to a spiral of protectionism, with tariffs being responded to with further tariffs. And that is a disadvantage for us,” said Hildegard Mueller, president of the German Association of the Automotive Industry, in an interview with Reuters.

China has already opened investigations into the import of European pork and dairy products, which could disproportionately hit some EU member states that voted in favor of the electric vehicle tariffs.

‘No right to retaliate’

Beijing’s intentions aren’t yet clear, according to Sander Tordoir, a senior economist at the Centre for European Reform.

“The European Commission followed the World Trade Organization’s rules in designing the countervailing duties on Chinese electric vehicles,” Tordoir wrote in an email to VOA. “As a result, China in principle has no right to retaliate, but that does not mean Beijing won’t anyway. Berlin’s very visible opposition to the tariffs means Beijing may target its retaliation on exports of, say, French brandy or Spanish pork, not German cars. But one cannot exclude that China will anyway discriminate against EU or German-built cars.”

In a statement issued after Friday’s EU vote, the Chinese Ministry of Commerce pledged to “take all measures” to safeguard Chinese companies — but added that negotiations would continue.

Negotiations

Both Brussels and Beijing are keen to find a compromise — and both want to avoid a trade war, according to Julia Poliscanova of the Transport and Environment policy research group in Brussels, which advocates for greener transport.

“We shouldn’t underestimate how important the European market is also for China. Ultimately, the EU market provides the opportunity for the bulk of Chinese EV exports,” Poliscanova said. “So, China needs the EU as much as we need China. And that’s why I think there will be some sort of ‘friendlier’ retaliation or friendlier actions as such.

“Given the huge oversupply or overcapacity in China and the desire and the need for a lot of Chinese companies — battery makers, EV makers — to go global, I believe the European market will still be very attractive to them,” she said.

Economist Tordoir is less optimistic.

“It is hard to judge how likely negotiations will succeed. By pressing ahead with the EV tariffs in the interim, the EU has shown that it is serious,” he said. “Reportedly under discussion is an idea to set voluntary minimum prices — a kind of surcharge — to offset the market-distorting Chinese subsidies on electric vehicles. But it is not clear how these would be monitored, enforced or how the scheme would be made WTO-compliant, which the EU clearly cares about.”

WTO rules

The EU argues that the EV tariffs will protect the European car industry, which it says employs 14 million people across the bloc.

“The purpose has been to establish, or rather re-establish, a level playing field so that the goals pertaining to electric vehicles and overall green goals, let’s say for the EU, can be achieved in a fair way,” European Commission spokesperson Olof Gill told reporters Friday. “We do not and we never have wanted to impose tariffs in this case for the sake of imposing tariffs. What we want is to remove the injurious subsidization.”

Brussels believes the EV tariffs don’t breach World Trade Organization or WTO rules.

“The tariffs are very differentiated [according] to the company and based on the individual levels of subsidization,” auto industry analyst Poliscanova said. “I think that is what makes those tariffs actually quite compatible from what I understand with WTO rules.”

US tariffs

The United States in August quadrupled its tariff on Chinese electric vehicle imports to 100%. U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai said such measures are sometimes necessary.

“The goals that we’re trying to accomplish: One is to level the playing field for our industries and our workers. The second one is to ensure that the United States economy, for our workers and our producers, can stay vibrant, that especially when it comes to critical industries that we know are strategic for our collective future, that the United States can continue to be a producer, a player, and that the jobs in these industries will be good jobs,” Tai told Agence France-Presse on October 3.

Canada also imposed a 100% tariff on Chinese EVs from the beginning of October, alongside 25% import tariffs on steel and aluminum. Beijing has filed an ongoing appeal against the Canadian measures at the World Trade Organization.
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washington — Media groups have welcomed the life sentence handed to a French jihadi linked to the 2015 Charlie Hebdo attack.

A French court last week found Peter Cherif guilty of “belonging to a criminal organization” in connection to his work with al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, according to AFP.

Cherif, 42, is suspected of training Chérif Kouachi, one of the people who carried out a deadly attack on staff at the French satirical magazine on Jan. 7, 2015.

“This is a very important verdict on the global level,” Pavol Szalai, of media watchdog Reporters Without Borders, or RSF, told VOA. “It shows that not only the justice for assassination of media professionals can be served, but that it can also go beyond the sentencing of the direct perpetrators.”

Szalai told VOA that Cherif was in the “middle of the chain of command” in planning the attacks.

In the trial, prosecutors called Cherif a “jihadist through and through” and a “cornerstone of planning” for the attacks.

Cherif was not charged with complicity in the Charlie Hebdo attack. Instead, prosecutors used a broader terrorism claim, according to AFP.

“I feel like I’ve taken part in a rigged match,” Nabil El Ouchikli, Cherif’s defense lawyer, was cited as saying.

The decision to sentence Cherif to life in prison was made “in view of the seriousness of the acts,” the president of the court said at the sentencing.

Eight members of Charlie Hebdo’s editorial staff, along with a former journalist visiting their office, a maintenance worker, a police officer and a police bodyguard died in the attack.

Kouachi and his brother stormed an editorial meeting and opened fire on the media outlet’s Paris office. It was the largest massacre of media professionals in France since World War II, according to Szalai.

The assailants were killed during a gunfight with police on January 9.

The 2015 attack stemmed from “religious intolerance” of journalists and Charlie Hebdo’s work, Szalai said.

Attila Mong, from the Committee to Protect Journalists, said that all perpetrators, no matter their level of involvement, should be brought to justice.

“This latest verdict sends an important message to violent extremists that they will not have the last word and their attempts to silence free speech will not prevail,” Mong told VOA in an email.

More than 1,600 journalists have been killed since 1993, according to the UNESCO observatory of killed journalists. However, only one in 10 of such cases result in a conviction.

Although Szalai called France’s verdict “good news for press freedom,” he said in most cases of slain journalists they have yet to secure justice. Many times, an intermediary is punished but those higher up in the chain of command are not, he told VOA.

He cited the case of Daphne Caruana Galizia, an anti-corruption reporter murdered seven years ago in Malta.

In that case, several people have been charged but there has yet to be a trial for the alleged mastermind.

Similarly, after the 2018 Slovakia murder of an investigative journalist and his fiancée, those who carried out the attack are in prison but the suspected mastermind has been acquitted twice. The second acquittal is still awaiting a Supreme Court appeal.

“In none of those cases has complete justice been served,” Szalai said.
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Tirana, Albania — Opposition forces in Albania on Monday were holding a nationwide protest in the country’s capital demanding that the government be replaced by a technocratic caretaker Cabinet before next year’s parliamentary election.

The conservative opposition accuses the leftist government of manipulating earlier voting and of usurping powers, including that of the judiciary.

The Democratic Party of former Prime Minister Sali Berisha has been holding protests at the parliament in the last week after one of their colleagues was convicted of slander and imprisoned, which they considered as being politically motivated.

Ervin Salianji in 2018 demanded the resignation of the then interior minister over allegations of his brother’s illegal activity that later proved to be fabricated. Salianji, who began serving a one-year sentence more than a week ago, has appealed his conviction to the Supreme Court.

The Democrats are asking for a Cabinet made up of technocrats and blaming Prime Minister Edi Rama of the governing leftist Socialist Party of manipulating earlier voting. They have long accused Rama’s Socialists of usurping power, including the judiciary, and have staged violent protests against the government since 2013.

The Democrats also call for Berisha’s release from house arrest which he was put under during an investigation of alleged corruption.

The opposition has called for civil disobedience, starting the protest with a gathering in front of the main government building, where there will be no speeches, and then extending it by blocking traffic at Tirana’s main intersections.

A vehicle tire was burned in front of the presidential office, not far from the main government offices.

Hundreds of police officers, equipped with anti-gas masks, have taken up positions to protect the government’s main institutions. Police have said that traffic is blocked on many streets in downtown Tirana.

The U.S. Embassy in Tirana has warned its citizens to stay away from the protest.

Albania holds a parliamentary election next year.

The European Union and the United States have urged the opposition to resume dialogue with the government, saying violence won’t help the country integrate into the 27-nation bloc.

In 2020, the EU decided to launch full membership negotiations with Albania, and later this month Tirana will start discussions with the bloc on how it aligns with the rule of law, functioning of democratic institutions and the fight against corruption.
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MOSCOW — A Russian court on Monday sentenced a 72-year-old American in a closed trial to nearly seven years in prison for allegedly fighting as a mercenary in Ukraine. 

Prosecutors said Stephen Hubbard signed a contract with the Ukrainian military after Russia sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022 and he fought alongside them until being captured two months later. 

He was sentenced to six years and 10 months in a general-security prison. Prosecutors had called for a sentence of seven years in a maximum-security prison. 

Hubbard, from the state of Michigan, is the first American known to have been convicted on charges of fighting as a mercenary in the Ukrainian conflict. 

The charges carried a potential sentence of 15 years, but prosecutors asked that his age be taken into account along with his admission of guilt, Russian news reports said. 

Arrests of Americans have become increasingly common in Russia in recent years. Concern has risen that Russia could be targeting U.S. nationals for arrest to use later as bargaining chips in talks to bring back Russians convicted of crimes in the U.S. and Europe. 

Also on Monday, a court in the city of Voronezh sentenced American Robert Gilman to seven years and 1 month for allegedly assaulting law enforcement officers while serving a sentence for another assault. 

According to Russian news reports, Gilman was arrested in 2022 for causing a disturbance while intoxicated on a passenger train and then assaulted a police officer while in custody. He is serving a 3 1/2-year sentence on that charge. 

Last year, he assaulted a prison inspector during a cell check, then hit an official of the Investigative Committee, resulting in the new sentence, state news agency RIA-Novosti said. 

The U.S. and Russia in August completed their largest prisoner swap in post-Soviet history, a deal involving 24 people, many months of negotiations and concessions from other European countries, which released Russians in their custody as part of the exchange. Several U.S. citizens remain behind bars in Russia following the swap. 
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