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French Greens face crisis after failed presidential bid

11 Apr 2022 12 Apr 2022

France’s Greens were facing a financial and political crisis on Monday after a deeply disappointing presidential election saw their candidate finish sixth and struggle to put climate change on the national agenda

Yannick Jadot from the Europe Ecology-The Greens party (EELV) was eliminated in Sunday’s first round with a score of around 4.6 percent, following a campaign that never gathered momentum.

Under French campaign financing rules, only candidates who score above 5.0 percent have their expenses reimbursed by the state, leaving the Greens with a huge hole in their accounts.

“The situation is critical and the fact that we came below the bar of five percent puts us in a very, very difficult situation,” national secretary Julien Bayou told France Inter radio on Monday.

He appealed for donations from those who backed the party, as well as others “who would have liked to vote for Yannick Jadot and perhaps voted for another candidate.”

“We need this support to be able to continue to ensure the ecology movement lives on,” Bayou added.

President Emmanuel Macron finished top in Sunday’s vote on around 27.6 percent followed by far-right leader Marine Le Pen on 23.4 percent, with the pair set to contest a run-off vote scheduled for April 24.

EELV was not the only party appealing for financial help on Monday, with the once-mighty right-wing Republicans also facing a 7.0-million-euro ($7.6 million) hole in their finances after their candidate, Valerie Pecresse, scored just under 5.0 percent on Sunday.

The performance from Jadot, a former Greenpeace executive, spelled bitter disappointment for his party which was hoping to build on successes in local elections last year which saw them sweep major cities from Lyon to Bordeaux.

Germany’s historically more powerful Green party entered government after elections last year and controls several ministries and key posts in the cabinet, including the foreign minister role.

– ‘Enormous disappointment’ –

Adding to tensions, the office of the EELV in the western city of Nantes was attacked during election night by individuals who threw projectiles at the windows and daubed the word “traitors” on the door.

Jadot after the election urged supporters to vote for Macron against Le Pen in the run-off and had also refused to give way in the campaign to allow hard-left candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon a better chance of making the final round.

Jadot scored slightly better than the last ecologist candidate to stand — Eva Joly with 2.3 percent in 2012 — but less well than Noel Mamere in 2002 who secured 5.25 percent despite the stakes for the planet being much higher in 2022.

In a concession speech on Sunday night, Jadot said his programme sought to respond to the challenges posed by climate change, as well as growing economic inequalities in France.

“It’s an understatement to say that these vital challenges — vital for our country, vital for us and our children — were largely ignored in a campaign that was confiscated,” he said.

The Covid-19 pandemic overshadowed the start of campaigning before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine changed the dynamic completely, making foreign policy and the rocketing cost of living key issues for voters.

Jadot was also eclipsed by Melenchon, who put a big emphasis on the environment during his campaign.

Remi Lefebvre, a French political scientist at the University of Lille in northern France, told AFP before the vote that the Greens had been “the enormous disappointment of this campaign.”

“The problem with the greens is its social base,” he explained. “They can’t reach working-class people because the greens are not seen as reassuring.”

Low-income families often see their pitch as boiling down to “they’re going to ask us to tighten our belts even more”, Lefebvre said, while the educated, urban middle classes tended to vote for Macron.

Jadot, calling on his 1.5 million voters on Sunday to back Macron in the second round to bar the far-right from power, pointed out his differences with the president.

He said the vote “is not approval for your responsibility in the fracturing of the country due to your inaction on the climate, your social failures, conformism and democratic contempt.”

French bank Societe Generale to sell Russia unit to oligarch

11 Apr 2022 12 Apr 2022

French banking group Societe Generale said on Monday it was ceasing activities in Russia and selling its Rosbank unit to an investment firm founded by an oligarch close to the Kremlin.

The exit will cost the firm 3.1 billion euros ($3.4 billion).

Hundreds of foreign companies, from financial firms to fast-food restaurants, have pulled out of Russia since the February 24 invasion of Ukraine.

But French firms, which are the biggest foreign employers in Russia, have been among the slowest to withdraw, prompting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to urge them to leave during an address to the French parliament on March 23.

Societe Generale is heavily involved in Russia, with exposure of 18.6 billion euros. Of that, 15.4 billion euros was linked to Rosbank, a heavyweight in the Russian banking sector, in which Societe General is the main shareholder.

Shares in Societe Generale ended the day 5.0 percent higher.

“Societe Generale ceases its banking and insurance activities in Russia,” the firm said in a statement.

It also announced “the signing of a sale and purchase agreement to sell its entire stake in Rosbank and the Group’s Russian insurance subsidiaries” to Interros Capital, an investment firm founded by one of Russia’s richest oligarchs, Vladimir Potanin.

Potanin, who is close to President Vladimir Putin, is also the co-owner of Russian mining giant Norilsk Nickel.

“With this agreement, concluded after several weeks of intensive work, the group would exit in an effective and orderly manner from Russia, ensuring continuity for its employees and clients,” Societe Generale said.

The bank said it expected the deal to be completed in the coming weeks and that it was subject to approval from regulators.

The bank said it would write off some two billion euros of the net book value of the divested activities and take a further 1.1-billion-euro non-cash hit.

“One could criticise the decision to sell to this type of buyer but on the other hand there weren’t many people queuing up to buy,” an expert who declined to be identified told AFP.

He said the conditions under which the sale had taken place had been “very complicated” and “limited to candidates already in situ”.

Societe Generale had held talks with other prospective buyers, a source close to the bank told AFP.

– ‘Great resistance’ –

In a separate statement, Interros said that “the conditions for the deal have been approved by the government commission on control over foreign investment in the Russia Federation”.

“Interros intends to do the maximum efforts to develop Rosbank,” Potanin said in his company’s statement.

“The main objective is to maintain the stability of Rosbank, as well as create new opportunities for its clients and partners,” he said.

In a statement, Rosbank said it was “certain” that the firm would maintain its stability thanks to its “expertise” and reliance on “international expertise”.

The Russian bank said it built “great resistance” to economic turmoil due to its “well-thought-out risk policy” as well as its balanced loan portfolio and diversified liquidity base.

Meanwhile, Societe Generale’s auto leasing subsidiary, ALD, said it would not enter into new commercial transactions in Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus.

Since Zelensky’s speech to the French parliament, auto giant Renault suspended operations at its Moscow factory and hinted that it might divest its majority stake in domestic car giant AvtoVAZ, while French sports retailer Decathlon halted sales at its stores in Russia.

Another major French company singled out by Zelensky, supermarket chain Auchan, has decided to stay, citing the “human” cost of leaving.

The Western exodus followed the invasion and a slew of Western sanctions on Russia, including the freezing of $300 billion of the country’s foreign currency reserves abroad.

Russia has since faced the risk of defaulting on its debt.

24 dead in Philippines landslides, flooding

11 Apr 2022 14 Apr 2022

At least 24 people have been killed in landslides and flooding across central and southern Philippines, authorities said Monday, after tropical storm Megi dumped heavy rain and disrupted travel ahead of the Easter holidays.

More than 13,000 people fled to emergency shelters as the storm pounded the region Sunday, the national disaster agency said, flooding houses, inundating fields, cutting off roads and knocking out power.

The central province of Leyte was among the hardest hit, with landslides leaving 21 people dead in four villages, Baybay City disaster officer Rhyse Austero told AFP.

Leyte’s death toll adds to another three people killed on the main southern island of Mindanao, the national disaster agency said.

Photos posted on Facebook and verified by AFP show several houses buried in mud up to the rooftops in Bunga, one of the affected villages in Leyte.

“Yesterday the rain was so hard, it was non-stop for more than 24 hours,” resident Hannah Cala Vitangcol told AFP.

The 26-year-old teacher fled with her family to a hotel Monday after waking to find nearby homes had been covered in an avalanche of mud.

“I was crying because I know the people buried there and I was also scared because there were mountains behind our house,” she said.

Baybay City council member Mark Unlu-cay posted photos on Facebook showing survivors from another village, Kantagnos, being treated in hospital.

“It seems like the entire community… was badly hit by the landslide and the riverflow,” he said.

Unlu-cay said he feared the death toll could rise after receiving reports that other villages had also been inundated by the waves of earth and mud.

Philippine Coast Guard and police personnel rescued people from their homes in the flooded town of Abuyog, carrying residents onto orange stretchers laid on floating boats.

– First major storm in 2022 –

Tropical storm Megi — known in the Philippines by its local name Agaton — is the first major storm to hit the disaster-prone country this year.

Whipping up seas, it forced dozens of ports to suspend operations and stranded nearly 6,000 people at the start of one of the busiest travel periods of the year.

The Philippines re-opened to fully vaccinated tourists from most countries in February after lifting most Covid-19 restrictions, and Easter is a popular holiday for domestic tourists.

The storm comes four months after a super typhoon devastated swathes of the archipelago nation, killing more than 400 people and leaving hundreds of thousands homeless.

Rai, the strongest typhoon to hit the Philippines last year, intensified faster than expected, officials said previously.

Scientists have long warned that typhoons are strengthening more rapidly as the world becomes warmer because of human-driven climate change.

The Philippines — ranked among the most vulnerable nations to its impacts — is hit by an average of 20 storms every year.

In 2013, Typhoon Haiyan was the strongest storm ever to have made landfall, leaving over 7,300 people dead or missing.

Indian software provider TCS sees strong earnings, record orders

11 Apr 2022 12 Apr 2022

India’s largest software exporter Tata Consultancy Services reported strong quarterly earnings on Monday as demand for digital services brought in orders worth a record $11.3 billion.

Net profit at the IT giant rose to 99.26 billion rupees ($1.3 billion) in the three months ending March 31, which was 7.4 percent higher than in the same period last year.

Sustained demand across business segments pushed revenues 15.8 percent higher year-on-year to 505.91 billion rupees, crossing 500 billion for the first time.

“It’s been a very strong year and we are quite happy about the way we have executed this rebound post-pandemic,” chief executive and managing director Rajesh Gopinathan said in a media briefing.

“One of the biggest positives in this quarter has been the total volume of deals signed,” Gopinathan added.

The Mumbai-headquartered company said the value of its order book stood at $11.3 billion at the end of March, its highest ever.

This includes two large deals worth more than $1 billion each, Gopinathan told reporters.

The company — one of India’s largest private employers — hired more than 35,000 employees in the quarter to help meet demand and combat high attrition.

TCS was at the forefront of an IT boom that saw India become a back office to the world as firms in North America and Europe subcontracted work, taking advantage of a skilled English-speaking workforce.

The company earns more than 80 percent of its revenues from Western markets.

Its overseas growth in the quarter was led by North America, which contributed half of its business and saw revenue growth of 18.7 percent year-on-year.

“North America is the big story of the year,” Gopinathan said, adding that Britain, continental Europe and Latin America also clocked double-digit revenue growth.

TCS, India’s second-most valuable firm by market size, announced a final dividend of 22 rupees per share.

Shares in the firm closed 0.26 percent higher in Mumbai ahead of the release of the results.

French bank Societe Generale to sell Russia unit to oligarch

11 Apr 2022 11 Apr 2022

French banking group Societe Generale said Monday it was ceasing activities in Russia and selling its Rosbank unit to an investment firm founded by an oligarch close to the Kremlin.

The exit will cost the firm 3.1 billion euros ($3.4 billion).

Hundreds of foreign companies, ranging from financial firms to retailers and fast-food restaurants, have pulled out of Russia since the February 24 invasion.

“Societe Generale ceases its banking and insurance activities in Russia,” the firm said in a statement.

Potanin, who is close to President Vladimir Putin, is also the co-owner of Russian mining giant Norilsk Nickel.

“With this agreement, concluded after several weeks of intensive work, the Group would exit in an effective and orderly manner from Russia, ensuring continuity for its employees and clients,” Societe Generale said.

The bank said it expects the deal to be completed in the coming weeks and that it was subject to approval from regulators.

Societe Generale shares fell following the announcement but bounced back later in the day.