What to expect from France’s second round of parliamentary elections

Marine Le Pen’s right-wing National Rally (RN) topped the first round of French parliamentary elections, winning 33.4% of the votes. The New Popular Front leftist coalition came in second, securing 27.99%, while President Emmanuel Macron's center-right alliance Ensemble took third place with 20.04%.

The runoff of the snap election is set for July 7, and here is how it will work:

🔸In constituencies where no one candidate won outright in the first round, the top two candidates go forward to a second round, along with anyone else who won support from more than 12.5% of locally registered voters.
🔸French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal has stated that Macron's centrist coalition will withdraw around 60 of its candidates to allow other contenders have a chance to defeat the RN.
🔸Candidates heading into the run-off have until Tuesday evening to decide whether to stand down.
🔸Whoever gets the most votes in the second round wins the constituency seat.

What are post-round 2 scenarios?

🔸If another political party or alliance other than Macron’s centrist alliance gets a majority, the president will be forced to appoint a prime minister belonging to that new majority. The result will be a power-sharing arrangement, dubbed a ‘cohabitation.’
🔸Under this ‘cohabitation’, the French government could potentially implement policies that diverge from the president’s stance.
🔸There is no certainty that Jordan Bardella, the President of the National Rally, will become the Prime Minister. Bardella has made it clear that he will not accept the position unless the RN is able to secure an absolute majority.
🔸In the history of France, the last such cohabitation (1997-2002) was under Jacques Chirac, with domestic policy issues effectively in the hands of then socialist prime minister Lionel Jospin, while the conservative French president dealt with matters of foreign and defense policy.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

UK military unprepared for ‘conflict of any scale’, ex-defence official said

The UK armed forces cannot adequately defend its territory and are not prepared for “a conflict of any scale,” the FT noted, citing the UK Ministry of Defense ex-official Rob Johnson.

According to him, UK forces operate on the basis of the "absolute minimum", which allows them to carry out only peacekeeping and humanitarian operations, as well as the evacuation of civilians from combat zones and some anti-sabotage measures.

"In any large-scale operation, we will quickly run out of ammunition... Our defenses are too weak and we are not prepared to fight and win an armed conflict of any scale," Johnson said.

He added "the UK has reached a situation where it cannot adequately defend its homeland."

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🎥 Russian specialists are studying the guidance and flight correction system of the US-made ATACMS tactical ballistic missile, an expert told Sputnik.

"There are three ring laser gyroscopes [in the missile's guidance system]. They allow the missile to stay on a configured ballistic trajectory. [There is also] a GPS antenna, thanks to which correction [of the missile] is made at the primary and final stages of the ballistic trajectory. We can analyze the operation of the missile systems at the entire stage of the flight trajectory," the expert said.

The United States began providing ATACMS ballistic missiles to Ukraine in 2023. The missiles are manufactured by Lockheed Martin and have a caliber of 610 millimeters, a length of 4 meters, and a weight of 1.6 tonnes. The flight range of the Block 1 modification is 165 kilometers (102 miles).

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🎥 Party for kids?

Drag queen deliberately pulls kids out of the crowd to dance at Seattle Pride Parade.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🎥 Watch Russian forces pound New York with FAB-3000 guided bomb

Russian military correspondents have shared a video showing a strike against Ukrainian strongholds in the Donbass town of New York.

The Russian army has been advancing along the front line near the town of Gorlovka for more than a week already, fighting close to Toretsk and storming the town of New York.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

The Russian Federation Council’s Committee on Foreign Affairs has unanimously endorsed suspending the Russian delegation's participation in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), a source told Sputnik.

The decision was made because Russian MPs and senators had faced repeated instances of visa discrimination, being unreasonably denied entry to EU countries to participate in assembly sessions. As a result, the Russian delegation was actually deprived of their voting rights.

Earlier, Russia’s top diplomat, Sergey Lavrov, pointed out that the OSCE was not an organization that Russia could rely on.

The OSCE is a regional intergovernmental organization focused on security, with member states in Europe, North America, and Asia. It was established to encourage greater participation by national parliaments.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

❗Russia, as Belarus is concerned by the gathering of Ukrainian troops to the Belarusian border, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov stated.

🧡 Subscribe to @SputnikInt

Other statements from Kremlin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov:

🔸 Russia's deployment of medium- and short-range missiles is a sensitive issue, but some information about this may appear, as President Putin is raising this issue;

🔸 Russia is closely monitoring the elections in France, "trends outlined earlier are being confirmed";

🔸 Accreditation denial at the NATO Summit in Washington, DC, is an infringement of the rights of Russian media.

🧡 Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🎥 Israeli security forces released the director of the Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza, Muhammad Abu Salmiya, and about 50 other prisoners. On the video, Salmiya is greeted by his family.

The doctor noted the Israeli authorities did not bring any charges against him, although they had arrested him back in November 2023.

Video from social media.

🧡 Subscribe to @SputnikInt

Barack Obama believes that Joe Biden cannot win the US presidential election, said Tucker Carlson, quoting his sources.

Is a surprise candidate to replace Biden becoming inevitable?

🧡 Subscribe to @SputnikInt

❗️Russian troops liberated the village of Stepovaya Novoselovka in the Kharkov region, the Russian Ministry of Defense reported. Meanwhile, the settlement of Novopokrovskoe in the Donetsk People's Republic has also been liberated.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

📹 Eight tons of tangerines thrown away by Argentine farmers

The reason is low demand as the country suffers another economic crisis.

If you’re wondering "why not sell them abroad?" or "why not give them to the poor for free?" — ask the country's president Javier Milei, he has some ideas about economics.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

💵 Downhill since Bretton Woods: ‘Unipolar US dollar' degenerated into ‘politically weaponized’ tool

Since the US dollar was made the “de facto steward of the global economic system” by the Bretton Woods Agreement, it has abused that role, Paul Goncharoff, chief manager of the eponymous consulting firm Goncharoff LLC, told Sputnik. The greenback has degenerated into a “unipolar and unreliable […] politically weaponized” tool, he noted.

The creation of BRICS has motivated many countries to make an organized effort to dedollarize and break free from the vicious political cycle, as pointed out by the experienced financial analyst.

“The "extraordinary privilege" enjoyed by the USD as the lead global reserve currency has over time tested the discipline, resolve, and trust of the United States government… It was found wanting, as what should have been economically sound objective decisions steadily degenerated into politically ‘weaponized’ short-term actions that were hugely expensive for the rest of the world,” he said.

The Bretton Woods system which was established 80 years ago today and was in place until 1971, involved all of the world's currencies being pegged to the US dollar, which in turn was pegged to gold. But the mounting US balance-of-payments deficits led to foreign-held dollars exceeding the US gold stock, “much like the significant current balance of payments deficit and debt profile the US is showing today,” Goncharoff noted.

“The more the United States prints and spends USD, the more the rest of the world is expected to invest in US government paper, and subsidize this debt-spending. The BRICS nations and their adherents are advocating for the use of national currencies for cross-border trade, eventually de-linking from the increasingly unipolar and visibly unreliable US Dollar,” the veteran financial expert said.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

The Biden campaign is trying to defend the sagging president by emailing talking points to supporters

US President Joe Biden’s campaign HQ is emailing supporters with a list of arguments they can use to deflect criticism of the head of state's performance in his election debate with Donald Trump.

"If you’re like me, you’re getting lots of texts or calls from folks about the state of the race after Thursday," reads the email. "Maybe it was your panicked aunt, your MAGA uncle, or some self-important podcasters. It’s a tough position to be in, so I thought it might be helpful to send you a few responses."

The letter urges Biden’s supporters to argue with those who say he should drop out of the presidential race by calling it "the best possible way to allow Donald Trump to win."

US media reported that Biden’s family is rallying behind him to stay on the Democrat electoral ticket despite last week’s disastrous debate performance.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

Estonia has begun demolishing tombstones of Soviet soldiers at the Tehumardi cemetery.

The remains of almost 300 Red Army soldiers who died during the liberation of Estonia from the Nazis during the Great Patriotic War were buried there.

Authorities on Estonia’s Saaremaa island decided to destroy 90 graves because the tombstones featured Soviet symbols.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

Ukraine may default on its debts as early as August if authorities cannot agree with creditors on debt restructuring, according to sources quoted by The Economist.

But the British magazine considers such a deal unlikely, warning that a default would be a disaster for prospects for the country’s recovery.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

The Finnish Parliament unanimously approved a deal with Washington to open 15 of its military facilities for possible use by US troops.

The deal means US defense equipment and troops could be stationed in Finland.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, in an interview with Dmitry Kiselev, director-general of Sputnik's parent media group Rossiya Segodnya, has previously said Sweden and Finland’s accession to NATO was a meaningless step — since Russia would simply deploy troops and weapons systems near the Finnish border.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

⚔️ Double fire power against swarms of Ukrainian drones

Russian troops started using twin Kalashnikov PKT tank machine guns against Ukrainian drones near the Kakhovka Reservoir.

Ukrainian UAV attacks have intensified due to good weather, according to Russian soldiers. But the machine guns do an excellent job, shooting down several enemy drones every day.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

❗️Russian FM Sergey Lavrov to take part in UN Security Council work in New York on July 16-17, Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs reported.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🎥 WATCH: Yemeni Houthis released a video of a local-made unmanned boat 'Flood the destroyer' targeting the Transworld Navigator ship in the Red Sea

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt