PRESS REVIEW – Tuesday, November 3: We look at reactions and analyses in Poland, where pro-European Prime Minister Donald Tusk is involved in a standoff with the nationalist president over the composition of the constitutional court. In other news, there’s fresh outrage at big tech, after Google went rogue in Finland and cut down 250,000 trees for data centre projects. Finally, cheese is France’s most stolen food product, and it’s the stuff of cold, calculated crime.
The front page of Fakt in Poland asks whether the Polish president’s inviolability was violated, when a line of judges tried to physically block him from entering the constitutional court last week. With the prime minister and president’s respective parties at odds, including over the make-up of this high court, the Financial Times asks how pro-EU Prime Minister Donald Tusk‘s government can “restore the rule of law after eight years of state capture [by the president’s Law and Justice party] without resorting to extralegal methods itself”.
Politico explains that Tusk is acting in the name of EU law, but his detractors in the Law and Justice party accuse him of backing a coup. The Wall Street Journal says this is reflective of a wider crisis in Europe, reminiscent of past disputes between altar and throne: is a constitution the ultimate authority within a nation? Or is it subject to higher EU-level laws? Gazeta Wyborcza suspects that the nationalists hope to topple Tusk through this row, while a political scientist interviewed in Rzeczpospolita fears the far right may rally crowds to storm the court itself, with the offices of the prime minister nearby.
Le Monde is covering the outrage in Finland, after Google jumped the gun on environmental impact studies and razed 250,000 trees across 530 hectares for data centre projects. They insist they thought their subsidiary had all the necessary permissions, but the subsidiary is now under investigation for environmental degradation. In other AI news, new research by the BBC says four “hyperscale” data centres planned in the UK could torpedo the country’s plans to reach net zero by 2050, as they may be powered by gas-fired power plants. If so, they would generate more greenhouse gas emissions than Manchester, Liverpool and Southampton combined.
An investigation by Investigate Europe, meanwhile, gives cause for caution about the quality of data centre jobs, saying the push for “tech sovereignty” is increasingly dependent on exploiting migrant workers. One worker was electrocuted into a five-day-long coma in Belgium, while workers in Sweden were crowded into accommodation with no heating through sub-zero winters, with one Romanian worker even contracting tuberculosis. Violations in Sweden have even seen Microsoft data centre workers win €1.3 million in court.
Finally, cheese has become a hot commodity in the criminal underworld. One particular heist in the French Pyrenees saw the theft of 250 wheels of sheep’s cheese for a value of €25,000. According to The Times, cheese is now the most stolen foodstuff in France, since it carries lesser penalties than, for instance, narcotics trafficking.
You can catch our press review every morning on France 24 at 7:20am and 9:20am (Paris time), from Monday to Friday.
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