French President Emmanuel Macron has hinted at watering down a controversial pension reform in what his election rival Marine Le Pen described as a ploy to win coveted votes from the left.
It came as former president Nicolas Sarkozy became one of the most high-profile figures to urge voters to put aside party differences and back the centrist Mr Macron over the far-right Ms Le Pen.
The two final-round opponents have begun a two-week sprint to gather votes from the 17 million people who backed other candidates in the first round, with 7.7 million of those supporting hardline left-winger Jean-Luc Melenchon.
Ms Le Pen’s camp wants to seduce those voters by opposing the president’s plans to raise the state pension age from 62 to 65 to increase productivity and cut the cost of France’s expensive welfare state.
The president has been promising pension reform since his first campaign in 2017, but his proposals sparked protests from the Yellow Vest movement and were eventually shelved during the coronavirus pandemic.
Although the move to 65 is in Mr Macron’s manifesto for the next five years, he said on his first day of campaigning for the April 24 second round he was willing to push it back until 2030 if “people are too anxious” to do it sooner.
Lowering the threshold to 64 is not out of the question because 65 “is not a dogma”, he said as he answered questions in one of Ms Le Pen’s northern heartlands.
Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire, a supporter of Mr Macron, separately said the move to 65 would not be scrapped but “there will be options for discussing details”.
The softer line was taken by rival camps as an attempt to persuade left-wing voters to go the polls, after Mr Melenchon told his supporters not to give “one single vote” to the far right but stopped short of endorsing Mr Macron.
“It's a manoeuvre by Emmanuel Macron to try to win over, or at least to mitigate the opposition of the left-leaning voters,” Ms Le Pen told France Inter radio on Tuesday.
Manuel Bompard, the head of the Melenchon campaign, suggested a referendum on pensions as he voiced dissatisfaction with both remaining candidates’ stances on the issue.
Mr Melenchon supports reducing the pension age to 60, an idea Ms Le Pen once supported but which she has largely backed away from in favour of keeping it at 62.
“I tell Macron this: If he really wants to appeal to our voters... he has to make a clear commitment,” said Mr Bompard.
The president’s camp has sought to turn public attention to Ms Le Pen’s hard-line views and a record of Kremlin-friendly statements that have come back into the limelight since Russia invaded Ukraine.
Sarkozy support
Mr Sarkozy, the president from 2007 to 2012 whose centre-right Republicans were eliminated in Sunday’s first round, cited the war in Ukraine as part of his reasoning for supporting Mr Macron this time.
“I believe he has the necessary experience faced with a grave international crisis… and his commitment to Europe is clear and unambiguous,” said Mr Sarkozy.
He urged voters to show “republican values” by uniting against Ms Le Pen as they have done in the past, amid concerns that this habitual dam-building against the far right is no longer a certainty.
Mr Macron won 28 per cent of votes in the first round. Ms Le Pen won 23 per cent, with Mr Melenchon scoring a higher-than-expected 22 per cent.
Although nearly all second-round polls have shown Mr Macron in the lead, some have him only a few points ahead and all suggest a far narrower race than when the same two candidates faced off in 2017.
Mr Macron won by a landslide that year after his new centrist party upended French politics, leaving the mainstream left and right struggling for survival.
Valerie Pecresse, the defeated candidate from Mr Sarkozy’s party, on Monday issued an appeal for donations after failing to reach the 5 per cent threshold necessary for campaign debts to be reimbursed by the state.
MATCH INFO
Liverpool 4 (Salah (pen 4, 33', & pen 88', Van Dijk (20')
Leeds United 3 (Harrison 12', Bamford 30', Klich 66')
Man of the match Mohamed Salah (Liverpool)
Famous left-handers
- Marie Curie
- Jimi Hendrix
- Leonardo Di Vinci
- David Bowie
- Paul McCartney
- Albert Einstein
- Jack the Ripper
- Barack Obama
- Helen Keller
- Joan of Arc
COMPANY PROFILE
Initial investment: Undisclosed
Investment stage: Series A
Investors: Core42
Current number of staff: 47
The specs
Engine: 6.2-litre supercharged V8
Power: 712hp at 6,100rpm
Torque: 881Nm at 4,800rpm
Transmission: 8-speed auto
Fuel consumption: 19.6 l/100km
Price: Dh380,000
On sale: now
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Electric scooters: some rules to remember
- Riders must be 14-years-old or over
- Wear a protective helmet
- Park the electric scooter in designated parking lots (if any)
- Do not leave electric scooter in locations that obstruct traffic or pedestrians
- Solo riders only, no passengers allowed
- Do not drive outside designated lanes
Dhadak 2
Director: Shazia Iqbal
Starring: Siddhant Chaturvedi, Triptii Dimri
Rating: 1/5
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
War 2
Director: Ayan Mukerji
Stars: Hrithik Roshan, NTR, Kiara Advani, Ashutosh Rana
Rating: 2/5
Shubh Mangal Saavdhan
Directed by: RS Prasanna
Starring: Ayushmann Khurrana, Bhumi Pednekar
The specs
AT4 Ultimate, as tested
Engine: 6.2-litre V8
Power: 420hp
Torque: 623Nm
Transmission: 10-speed automatic
Price: From Dh330,800 (Elevation: Dh236,400; AT4: Dh286,800; Denali: Dh345,800)
On sale: Now
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Killing of Qassem Suleimani
The specs
Engine: 4.0-litre flat-six
Torque: 450Nm at 6,100rpm
Transmission: 7-speed PDK auto or 6-speed manual
Fuel economy, combined: 13.8L/100km
On sale: Available to order now
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Sinopharm vaccine explained
The Sinopharm vaccine was created using techniques that have been around for decades.
“This is an inactivated vaccine. Simply what it means is that the virus is taken, cultured and inactivated," said Dr Nawal Al Kaabi, chair of the UAE's National Covid-19 Clinical Management Committee.
"What is left is a skeleton of the virus so it looks like a virus, but it is not live."
This is then injected into the body.
"The body will recognise it and form antibodies but because it is inactive, we will need more than one dose. The body will not develop immunity with one dose," she said.
"You have to be exposed more than one time to what we call the antigen."
The vaccine should offer protection for at least months, but no one knows how long beyond that.
Dr Al Kaabi said early vaccine volunteers in China were given shots last spring and still have antibodies today.
“Since it is inactivated, it will not last forever," she said.
Keane on …
Liverpool’s Uefa Champions League bid: “They’re great. With the attacking force they have, for me, they’re certainly one of the favourites. You look at the teams left in it - they’re capable of scoring against anybody at any given time. Defensively they’ve been good, so I don’t see any reason why they couldn’t go on and win it.”
Mohamed Salah’s debut campaign at Anfield: “Unbelievable. He’s been phenomenal. You can name the front three, but for him on a personal level, he’s been unreal. He’s been great to watch and hopefully he can continue now until the end of the season - which I’m sure he will, because he’s been in fine form. He’s been incredible this season.”
Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s instant impact at former club LA Galaxy: “Brilliant. It’s been a great start for him and for the club. They were crying out for another big name there. They were lacking that, for the prestige of LA Galaxy. And now they have one of the finest stars. I hope they can go win something this year.”
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The biog
Simon Nadim has completed 7,000 dives.
The hardest dive in the UAE is the German U-boat 110m down off the Fujairah coast.
As a child, he loved the documentaries of Jacques Cousteau
He also led a team that discovered the long-lost portion of the Ines oil tanker.
If you are interested in diving, he runs the XR Hub Dive Centre in Fujairah
Day 5, Dubai Test: At a glance
Moment of the day Given the problems Sri Lanka have had in recent times, it was apt the winning catch was taken by Dinesh Chandimal. He is one of seven different captains Sri Lanka have had in just the past two years. He leads in understated fashion, but by example. His century in the first innings of this series set the shock win in motion.
Stat of the day This was the ninth Test Pakistan have lost in their past 11 matches, a run that started when they lost the final match of their three-Test series against West Indies in Sharjah last year. They have not drawn a match in almost two years and 19 matches, since they were held by England at the Zayed Cricket Stadium in Abu Dhabi in 2015.
The verdict Mickey Arthur basically acknowledged he had erred by basing Pakistan’s gameplan around three seam bowlers and asking for pitches with plenty of grass in Abu Dhabi and Sharjah. Why would Pakistan want to change the method that has treated them so well on these grounds in the past 10 years? It is unlikely Misbah-ul-Haq would have made the same mistake.
Benefits of first-time home buyers' scheme
- Priority access to new homes from participating developers
- Discounts on sales price of off-plan units
- Flexible payment plans from developers
- Mortgages with better interest rates, faster approval times and reduced fees
- DLD registration fee can be paid through banks or credit cards at zero interest rates
A Cat, A Man, and Two Women
Junichiro Tamizaki
Translated by Paul McCarthy
Daunt Books
Cricket World Cup League 2
UAE squad
Rahul Chopra (captain), Aayan Afzal Khan, Ali Naseer, Aryansh Sharma, Basil Hameed, Dhruv Parashar, Junaid Siddique, Muhammad Farooq, Muhammad Jawadullah, Muhammad Waseem, Omid Rahman, Rahul Bhatia, Tanish Suri, Vishnu Sukumaran, Vriitya Aravind
Fixtures
Friday, November 1 – Oman v UAE
Sunday, November 3 – UAE v Netherlands
Thursday, November 7 – UAE v Oman
Saturday, November 9 – Netherlands v UAE
MORE ON THE US DEMOCRATIC PRIMARIES
GROUPS AND FIXTURES
Group A
UAE, Italy, Japan, Spain
Group B
Egypt, Iran, Mexico, Russia
Tuesday
4.15pm: Italy v Japan
5.30pm: Spain v UAE
6.45pm: Egypt v Russia
8pm: Iran v Mexico
Infiniti QX80 specs
Engine: twin-turbocharged 3.5-liter V6
Power: 450hp
Torque: 700Nm
Price: From Dh450,000, Autograph model from Dh510,000
Available: Now
Specs
Engine: Electric motor generating 54.2kWh (Cooper SE and Aceman SE), 64.6kW (Countryman All4 SE)
Power: 218hp (Cooper and Aceman), 313hp (Countryman)
Torque: 330Nm (Cooper and Aceman), 494Nm (Countryman)
On sale: Now
Price: From Dh158,000 (Cooper), Dh168,000 (Aceman), Dh190,000 (Countryman)
Volvo ES90 Specs
Engine: Electric single motor (96kW), twin motor (106kW) and twin motor performance (106kW)
Power: 333hp, 449hp, 680hp
Torque: 480Nm, 670Nm, 870Nm
On sale: Later in 2025 or early 2026, depending on region
Price: Exact regional pricing TBA
The specs
Engine: 2.0-litre 4-cyl, 48V hybrid
Transmission: eight-speed automatic
Power: 325bhp
Torque: 450Nm
Price: Dh359,000
On sale: now
The specs
Engine: 2.0-litre 4cyl turbo
Power: 261hp at 5,500rpm
Torque: 405Nm at 1,750-3,500rpm
Transmission: 9-speed auto
Fuel consumption: 6.9L/100km
On sale: Now
Price: From Dh117,059
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Zayed Sustainability Prize
