Emmanuel Macron, Modi to visit Varanasi; CM Adityanath checks preparations

Ahead of French President Emmanuel Macron and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to this Uttar Pradesh city on Monday, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Friday reached here to take stock of preparations for the high-profile visit.

The visiting dignitaries will reach the Lal Bahadur Shastri Airport here around 10.25 a.m and after a brief break, will fly in a chopper to Dadarkalan in Mirzapur.

Adityanath met district officials and the police top brass and understood the travel plans of the French President and assessed the preparedness of the visit, an official said.

Macron and Modi will partake in the inauguration of a solar plant at Mirzapur for 20 minutes after which they will drive back to the helipad before flying off to the Badlapur and then to the Deen Dayal Handicraft Institute.

Macron will then go to Derek helipad from where he and Modi, who is also the Lok Sabha member from Varanasi, will drive to Assi Ghat on the banks of the holy river Ganga.

Emmanuel Macron accused of hypocrisy over wife's 'First Lady' role

French President Emmanuel Macron has come under fire over plans to give his wife official status as "First Lady" of the country, the media reported.

Macron, who took office in May, is facing accusations of hypocrisy after he was previously outspoken in his determination to rid the French political system of nepotism, reports CNN.

A petition with close to 200,000 signatures has been launched in protest at the decision to give Brigitte Macron an official role with access to public funds, her own staff and office.

"Brigitte Macron currently has a team of two or three aides, as well as two secretaries and two security agents. That's enough," the petition said.

"It is up to the people of France -- and no-one else -- to choose their representatives."

According to the French constitution, the president's spouse does not enjoy an official role, though they do have an office and advisers.

During his presidential campaign, Macron said any role for his wife would not be paid for out of public funds.
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Macron, Trudeau shouldn't be so proud of appointing women to their Cabinets

Appointing a gender-parity Cabinet seems to be the thing to do if you are a rising, progressive and male political star.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau did it in 2015. French President Emmanuel Macron followed this May.

The internet loves it. Trudeau has been the darling of feminists everywhere, and Macron clearly wants to follow in his footsteps. Being a male feminist politician is hip.

Trudeau does a little humble bragging.
Yet my research shows that numerical representation of women is not the silver bullet it has long been considered. What’s more important for achieving meaningful equity is that women control key political resources. In the highest echelon of politics, that means occupying senior Cabinet positions with the greatest financial and staff resources.

When being present is not enough

But what about that famous rallying cry for bringing more women into politics? “If you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu” makes sense intuitively. And, in political systems such as France and Canada, it is in Cabinets where the major policy decisions are being made. Having 50 percent women in a Cabinet seems to signal that women’s concerns are being taken seriously: for example, by passing a gender sensitive budget or addressing implicit sex bias in tax codes.

Unfortunately, research consistently has shown that women are relegated to lower-level or female-friendly Cabinet positions such as health, families, development or sports. Essentially, this means women might have a voice in Cabinet meetings but they cannot move the policy needle in important areas such as foreign affairs, finance or employment.

So how do the Cabinets of Trudeau and Macron measure up? Are they truly feminist – in other words, committed to sharing power equally between men and women? Or are these ostensibly equitable Cabinets mere window dressing? Unfortunately, under both Trudeau and Macron, men still occupy the majority of powerful positions.
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President Emmanuel Macron names Edouard Philippe as French PM

Newly sworn-in French President Emmanuel Macron on Monday named Edouard Philippe, the 46-year-old Mayor of Le Havre city, as his Prime Minister.

Philippe is a member of the centre-right Les Republicains party and is close to Alaine Juppe, the former Prime Minister, reports CNN.

The 39-year-old former investment banker and economy minister was inaugurated on Sunday as the 25th President of France and also the youngest in the nation's history in a ceremony at the Élysee Palace.

Macron is counting on winning votes from centre-right supporters in the legislative elections next month.

His party Le Republique en Marche is scrambling to get 577 candidates together to contest every seat in the country.

Philippe, a lawyer with experience working in the private sector, was born in Rouen and grew up a Left-wing environment.

He was a socialist in his younger days before switching his allegiances to the right.

He has only been a member of Parliament for one term, serving in the National Assembly representing the constituency of Seine-Maritime in Normandy, northern France, since 2012.

He has been Mayor of Le Havre since 2010.

Macron was sworn-in as the President after his landslide victory over far-right National Front leader Marine le Pen, with 66 per cent of the vote in the run-off poll held on May 7.

He is also slated to travel to Germany later on Monday to meet Chancellor Angela Merkel.
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French election: From wannabe to president, how Emmanuel Macron beat Le Pen

After a tense and often antagonistic election campaign, Emmanuel Macron is to become the next president of France. The result is, of course, in all sorts of ways extraordinary. In a little over a year, the 39-year-old former finance minister has gone from being a wannabe to the future tenant of the Elysée Palace. He struck out alone to form his own political movement and while much of the froth surrounding the election has focused on his opponent, the enormity of his achievement needs to be acknowledged and cannot be underestimated. The Conversation

Even before the first round, all the polls had Macron pegged to win the second round 60/40. But then, between the rounds, Le Pen seemed to be nibbling away at Macron’s lead – not by much, but by enough to cause some butterflies among her opponents. Macron appeared lacklustre at a crucial time. Fears of a low turnout and Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s refusal to formally endorse Macron also threw a number of unknowns into the mix.

A high abstention rate would play in Le Pen’s favour, went the reasoning. Her electors, as far as anyone could tell, were more committed. In the end, turnout was indeed lower than expected (and there were 4m spoilt ballots), but it did not hinder Macron. Quite the reverse. With an estimated 65.1% of the vote to Le Pen’s 34.9%, Macron has come away with the second highest second round score in the history of the Fifth Republic.

So, now France has a president whose priorities are to tackle chronic unemployment by relaxing labour legislation and introducing a raft of measures to help young people into work, to reduce primary school class sizes to 12 pupils per teacher, to relaunch the European project in collaboration with France’s partners and to simplify the mind-bogglingly complex tax and pension set-up for French citizens.
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