News about Francois Hollande

The deputizing of French President Emmanuel Macron on a state visit by Edward and Sophie on Monday's 120th anniversary of the Entente Cordiale underscores the inability of allowing him to welcome him. With French soldiers taking part in Changing the Guard for the first time and his ambassador playing a key role, Emmanuel must be asking when Charles will give him the nod. During the late monarch's reign, his predecessors made a record five state visits, with every president from de Gaulle in 1960 to Sarkozy in 2008. Francois Hollande was never asked. Is Macron also to be denied the honour?

Theodore Luhaka, 28, (left), was arrested in 2017 while still 20 in Aulnay-sous-Bois (right), during which he was assaulted with a baton, beat, and drenched with tear gas. During the arrest, one of the policemen, Marc-Antoine Castelain, beat Luhaka with a deadly anal blast, leaving him with serious anal wounds, as well as a four-inch gash to his large intestine. Castelain was accused of raping Luhaka with the baton, but police said the 22-year-old was mistakenly injured after his trousers 'came down on their own' when he was struck on the backside. Those rape charges have since been dismissed in the lawsuit that sparked intense demonstrations in Paris at the time. 'The blow I gave was compliant with police laws and legitimate,' Castelain, 34, told the court in the Paris suburb of Bobigny today.

Jacques Delors, a former EU Commission president and key figure in the euro currency's creation, has died, according to his daughter. On Wednesday, the 98-year-old died in his sleep in his Paris apartment. Delors, a zealous promoter of post-war European integration, served as president of the European Commission for three terms, longer than any other holder of the office from January 1985 to 1994.

EPHRAIM HARDCASTLE: When King Charles meets French President Emmanuel Macron, the British politician most recently whispering into his ear would have been Sir Keir Starmer. The fact that Macron hasn't been invited for the traditional carriage ride down the Mall at the halfway point of his second and final term is considered a "slight" at the Elysee Palace.

EPHRAIM HARDCASTLE: Fingers crossed that Rishi Sunak has more success after wheeling King Charles out for a Windsor Tea with EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen than former Prime Minister Theresa May. Maybot sent senior royals across the bloc with no apparent success, floundering as a result of Brexit. Just two months before William and Kate were sent to Paris to charm Francois Hollande, Emmanuel Macron replaced him. And Charles and Camilla went to Ireland to woo Taoiseach Enda Kenny, who was suitably impressed.

The winners of a recent cartoon competition in which participants were encouraged to draw the most offensive caricatures of Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei are included in Charlie Hebdo (pictured right). The competition was billed as a demonstration of support for the anti-government demonstrations that are currently rocking Iran. One of the finalists depicts a turbaned cleric drowning in blood, while another depicts Khamene clinging to a massive throne above the protesters' raised fists. Other scenes depict more vulgar and sexually explicit scenes. Hossein Amirabdollahian, Iran's foreign minister, vowed a'decisive and effective reaction' to the cartoons' publication, which he said insulted Iran's religious and political leaders. Cartoons mocking Islamists have appeared in the paper for a long time, and critics maintain that they are greatly insulting to Muslims. In 2015 (pictured inset), two French-born al-Qaida militants assaulted the newspaper's office, killing 12 cartoonists, and the newspaper has been the subject of numerous assaults over the years.