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☆ French Protesters March Against Macron’s Pension Overhaul on May Day
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-01 | by ( Matthew Dalton | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Protesters in Marseille, France, on Monday. Photo: Jeremy Suyker/Bloomberg NewsPARIS—French protesters took to the streets on May Day in a nationwide demonstration against President Emmanuel Macron and his unpopular overhaul of France’s pension system. Unions sought to use the traditional workers’ day march as a moment to voice the nation’s anger over the pension law, which raises the retirement age from 62 to 64 by 2030. Mr. Macron passed the law in March without approval by the legislature, invoking a provision of the French constitution that gives the president such powers.

☆ Macron Fuels Debate, Protests in France Over Presidential Power
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-13 | by ( Matthew Dalton | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

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☆ Macron Proposes Bonus for Workers in Bid to Calm Pension Protests
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-22 | by ( Matthew Dalton | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

PARIS—President Emmanuel Macron stood by his overhaul of France’s pension system on Wednesday but proposed several measures for workers—including bonus payments for employees of companies that buy back shares—in a bid to calm an escalating protest movement against his government. In his first public remarks since pushing through the overhaul last week without a vote in Parliament, Mr. Macron said the law and its centerpiece, raising the retirement age from 62 to 64 by 2030, were needed to fix a pension system that would become unaffordable in a matter of years. He said he wanted the law’s provisions to enter into force by the end of this year, defying polls that show the public is largely opposed to the overhaul.

☆ France’s Macron to Face No-Confidence Votes Over Pension Overhaul
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-17 | by ( Noemie Bisserbe | Matthew Dalton | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

PARIS—French President Emmanuel Macron is expected to face no-confidence votes early next week aimed at bringing down his government and killing his overhaul of France’s pension system. A group of centrist lawmakers opposed to Mr. Macron filed a no-confidence motion on Friday with the backing of at least 58 members of the National Assembly, the lower house of parliament. Far-right National Rally also put forward its own no-confidence motion against the government on Friday.

☆ France’s Macron to Face No-Confidence Vote Over Pension Overhaul
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-17 | by ( Noemie Bisserbe | Matthew Dalton | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

PARIS—French President Emmanuel Macron is expected to face a vote of no confidence early next week aimed at bringing down his government and killing his overhaul of France’s pension system. A group of centrist lawmakers opposed to Mr. Macron filed a no-confidence motion on Friday with the backing of at least 58 members of the National Assembly, the lower house of parliament.

☆ Europe’s Drought Deepens, Threatening Agriculture and Industries
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-17 | by ( Matthew Dalton | Photographs Jordi Ruiz Cirera For The Wall Street Journal | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

MONTLUEL, France—A rainy, cool climate has sustained fisheries in this region north of Lyon for eight centuries, filling up hundreds of man-made ponds that are France’s main source of freshwater fish. This year, however, many of the ponds are nearly empty after an exceptionally dry and warm stretch of weather that has lingered across much of Europe since last summer. The farmers expect to raise half as much fish as they did last season and lay off workers who usually help with the catch.

☆ French March in Seventh Round of Protests Against Emmanuel Macron’s Pension Overhaul
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-12 | by ( Matthew Dalton | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Protesters marched Saturday through the streets of Lille, France, during a demonstration over a proposed pension overhaul. PARIS—Around 368,000 people marched against President Emmanuel Macron ’s proposed pension overhaul on Saturday, a drop in turnout for the seventh round of national protests against Mr. Macron’s plan. Saturday’s protest comes after unions stepped up their fight against the pension overhaul on Tuesday, rallying 1.28 million people into the streets in one of France’s largest protests in decades. The far-left CGT and other big French unions said Tuesday’s protest would begin an open-ended strike until the government drops the pension overhaul.

☆ France’s EDF Lost $19 Billion After Nuclear Outages
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-17 | by ( Matthew Dalton | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

EDF’s nuclear reactors normally export large amounts of electricity across Western Europe. PARIS— EDF SA lost around $19 billion last year after outages at its nuclear reactors left the state-controlled power company—and much of Western Europe—more exposed to the energy crisis sparked by the war in Ukraine. Pipe corrosion found at around 10 of EDF’s 56 nuclear reactors led it to shut down more than half of them over the summer. As a result, EDF was forced to buy electricity on Europe’s wholesale power market, where prices had soared because of Russia’s decision to cut shipments of natural gas to the continent.

☆ Europe Sets Rules for Producing Green Hydrogen
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-13 | by ( Matthew Dalton | Kim Mackrael | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

The European Union issued strict regulations for what qualifies as renewable hydrogen under its clean-energy transition plan, shaping how companies are expected to deploy billions of euros of investments in hydrogen factories in the coming years. Governments around the world are looking to hydrogen to help replace fossil fuels in industrial processes and electricity generation. Current supplies of hydrogen are largely produced from cracking open molecules of natural gas. The U.S., Europe and other countries are planning to invest hundreds of billions of dollars on factories that use electricity to power machines called electrolyzers, which produce hydrogen by splitting open molecules of water.

☆ French Protests Against Macron Expected to Draw Hundreds of Thousands
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-11 | by ( Matthew Dalton | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

PARIS—French unions organized a new round of protests against President Emmanuel Macron ‘s pension overhaul on Saturday, aiming to draw more people into the streets on the weekend rather than ask workers to strike for the fourth time in less than a month. More than a million people protested during the first strike organized last month, disrupting schools, factories and transport across the country. This week, however, numbers dipped to around 757,000, according to French authorities. Union leaders said the movement was losing steam because workers couldn’t afford repeated strikes.

☆ Journalist Who Cried ‘No to War’ on Russian TV Fled to France
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-11 | by ( Matthew Dalton | Noemie Bisserbe | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Marina Ovsyannikova described her departure from Russia at a press conference in Paris on Friday. PARIS—Marina Ovsyannikova, a Russian journalist who denounced the Ukraine war on a Kremlin-owned television station, has been living in France after being smuggled out of Russia last fall, she said at a press conference Friday in the French capital. Ms. Ovsyannikova had been living under house arrest in Moscow and fitted with an electronic bracelet. Russian authorities in August had charged her with spreading false information for staging an antiwar protest near the Kremlin the month before.

☆ French Protests Against Macron Pension Plan Draw Hundreds of Thousands
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-11 | by ( Matthew Dalton | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

PARIS—Nearly a million French marched in the streets against President Emmanuel Macron ’s pension overhaul on Saturday, signaling that the opposition movement to Mr. Macron’s plans was holding up in a fourth round of nationwide protests. Labor unions organized the demonstrations on the weekend to draw more people into the streets rather than ask workers to strike for the fourth time in less than a month. More than a million people protested during the first strike organized last month, disrupting schools, factories and transport across the country.

Solar panels are seen in Sicily, Italy. Europe wants to significantly increase its solar-power capacity by the end of this decade. As Europe ends its dependence on Russian natural gas, the region wants solar energy to become its prime source of electricity by 2030. One challenge will be achieving that without creating an energy dependency on China. Chinese companies now control over 80% of the solar supply chain worldwide, dominating the production of panels and their components.

☆ French Union Cuts Power to Pressure Macron on Pensions
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-27 | by ( Matthew Dalton | Noemie Bisserbe | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

The CGT is gearing up for another round of protests against a proposed pension overhaul. PARIS—To fight President Emmanuel Macron’s pension overhaul, France’s most militant labor union is pursuing a radical strategy: cutting electricity to his political supporters and the wealthy while handing out discounted power and gas to the public. During a nationwide strike last week, members of the far-left CGT union who work in the energy sector cut power to the office of a lawmaker from Mr. Macron’s party for more than three hours. On Monday, CGT energy workers in Marseille manipulated electricity and gas meters to cut bills for bakers who were protesting in the French port city against high energy prices. CGT’s leadership called such moves a “Robin Hood” operation and said they would continue as the country prepares for another national protest on Tuesday.

☆ How Europe Escaped a Looming Energy Crisis
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-14 | by ( Matthew Dalton | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Unseasonably warm winter weather has been a challenge for Austria’s ski resorts but helped Europe limit its gas consumption. PARIS—Only a few months ago, Russian officials were taunting Europe about a brutal winter to come, and the continent was bracing for an energy crisis of historic proportions. Then Europe made an odds-defying escape—at least for now.

☆ Tourism and Manufacturing Fight for the Future of Power in Europe
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-02 | by ( Matthew Dalton | Photographs Matilde Viegas For The Wall Street Journal | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

SAN CIPRIAN, Spain—Europe’s plans to install wind and solar power are accelerating in the wake of the invasion of Ukraine, which drove up natural-gas prices sharply. They’re running into opposition from residents and officials who say a wave of new projects will harm the region’s landscapes, cultural sites and valuable tourism industry. In the Galician countryside of northwest Spain, Maria Martin and her husband opened an inn six years ago offering vacationers a tranquil refuge. The ocean is a few miles away, and the Basilica de San Martiño de Mondoñedo, Spain’s oldest cathedral and an attraction for pilgrims walking the famed Camino de Santiago, lies in the same valley.

☆ France’s Restart of Nuclear Reactors Eases Blackout Fears
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-15 | by ( Matthew Dalton | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

PARIS—France has restarted five nuclear reactors over the past week and cut electricity consumption sharply, easing fears the country will have to resort to rolling blackouts this winter. French officials have been racing to restart the reactors after a rash of outages pushed the country’s nuclear generation to the lowest level in decades, compounding the energy crisis facing Europe after Russia slashed natural-gas deliveries in the wake of its invasion of Ukraine. The government of President Emmanuel Macron warned last month that it might have to impose targeted power cuts during periods of peak demand this winter to avoid widespread blackouts.

☆ Climate Change Summit Leaves Hope for Limiting Global Warming
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-28 | by ( Matthew Dalton | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

PARIS—Governments left the United Nations climate summit this month with new doubts that global temperature increases can be limited to 1.5 degrees Celsius from preindustrial levels—but also with hope that a more realistic goal, 1.7 degrees, is within reach. The target of 1.5 degrees Celsius—or 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit—has been the north star of U.N. climate negotiations since it was enshrined in the 2015 Paris accord. The deal calls for governments to cut greenhouse-gas emissions to levels that climate scientists estimate can limit warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius compared with preindustrial levels, with the ambition of keeping it below 1.5 degrees.

☆ At COP27, Poorer Countries Secure Climate-Damage Fund Without Pledging Faster Emissions Cuts
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-20 | by ( Matthew Dalton | Stacy Meichtry | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

SHARM EL SHEIKH, Egypt— Poorer countries secured a deal at United Nations climate talks to create a fund for climate-related damage as part of a broader agreement that failed to yield faster cuts in global emissions. The accord at the COP27 summit in this Egyptian seaside resort hands a victory to poorer nations that have demanded that money since the first U.N. climate treaty was signed three decades ago.

☆ COP27 Sets Up Climate-Damage Fund for Poorer Nations but Rejects Faster Emissions Cuts
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-20 | by ( Matthew Dalton | Stacy Meichtry | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

SHARM EL SHEIKH, Egypt— Poorer countries secured a deal at United Nations climate talks to create a fund for climate-related damage as part of a broader agreement that failed to yield faster cuts in emissions sought by wealthy nations to avert more severe global warming. The accord at the COP27 summit in this Egyptian seaside resort hands a victory to poorer nations that have demanded that money since the first U.N. climate treaty was signed three decades ago.

☆ U.S. Climate Funding Shortfall Hampers Bid to Cut Developing Countries’ Emissions
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-19 | by ( Matthew Dalton | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

SHARM EL SHEIKH, Egypt—The West’s diplomatic push at the United Nations climate summit faces a major obstacle: the long-running struggle inside the U.S. to deliver funds for the developing world’s response to global warming. The U.S. has lagged behind other wealthy countries in providing funds for poorer countries to cut emissions and adapt to the effects of climate change. The Trump administration sharply cut climate finance in its budgets. The Biden administration has promised to boost climate finance to $11.4 billion annually, but its request in last year’s budget was cut from $2.7 billion to $1 billion during Senate negotiations amid Republican opposition.

SHARM EL SHEIKH, Egypt — Governments from more than 190 countries struck a deal Saturday to set up a fund that would pay for climate-related damage in vulnerable countries, officials said, handing a victory to poorer countries that for years have pushed for the move and removing a major sticking point in United Nations climate talks. Negotiators representing developed and developing countries agreed to the measure in the final hours of the COP 27 United Nations climate summit held in this Egyptian seaside resort.

SHARM EL SHEIKH, Egypt—A deal was struck at United Nations climate talks on Saturday to set up a fund that would pay for climate-related damage in countries deemed particularly vulnerable, officials said, handing a victory to poorer nations that have pushed for the move for years and removing a major sticking point in broader negotiations to address global warming. The fund would earmark money for what is known as loss and damage: When rising seas, more powerful storms and other effects that scientists link to climate change cause destruction that is sudden or potentially irreparable.

☆ Europe, Canada Willing to Back Climate Damage Fund—but Only If China Helps Pay
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-18 | by ( Matthew Dalton | Stacy Meichtry | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

SHARM EL SHEIKH, Egypt—The European Union and Canada are willing to back the creation of a fund that would pay for damage linked to climate change in the most vulnerable countries—but only if wealthier developing nations such as China contribute. The proposal, made by the EU at United Nations climate talks in Egypt, calls into question China’s status as a developing economy that traditionally receives climate funds from the wealthy world. China has been pushing for this climate-damage fund as part of a coalition of 133 developing countries.

☆ COP27 Talks Weigh Who Should Pay for Climate Damage to Poor Countries
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-16 | by ( Saeed Shah | Matthew Dalton | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Negotiators at the U.N. climate summit are working out the details of a proposal for wealthy countries to pay developing ones for some of the damage from extreme weather that scientists say is associated with global warming. The plan suggests the money could flow through a variety of channels, including a new facility to help countries deal with floods, storms, drought and other natural disasters believed to be made worse by climate change, according to a draft text released by negotiators. If the plan survives until the final agreement this week, it could be the most significant development of this year’s COP27 meeting in Egypt.

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