In a shocking revelation that has sent ripples through the international community, French sex offender Marc Pelicot has claimed that the man who abused his ex-wife knew she was asleep at the time of the assault. This case has not only drawn international attention but has also sparked a conversation within Malta, a country with…
**Dead on a Foreign Shore: How a Migrant’s Tragedy in France Echoes in Malta’s Living-Rooms** By 7 a.m. on Tuesday, the WhatsApp forwards had already landed in Birkirkara, Żabbar and Sliema: a blurred photo of a young man in soaked denim, face turned to the sky on a windswept Normandy beach. By noon, Maltese Facebook…
Valletta wakes up to a Mediterranean thunder-clap this morning: Nicolas Sarkozy, the man who once shook hands with every EU leader inside Fort St Angelo and promised Malta a “new era of Franco-Maltese solidarity”, is now Prisoner Sarkozy, sentenced to five years—three of them behind bars—for corruption and influence-peddling over a coveted Monaco judgeship. In…
**France’s Palestinian Flag Ban Sparks Debate in Malta: A Mediterranean Mirror on Free Speech** Valletta’s balconies were fluttering with tricolours last June when Malta celebrated Freedom Day, but imagine if the government had told mayors to pull them down. That scenario—unthinkable here—has just played out in France, where Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin warned local councils…
# France Braces for Disruption on Day of Anti-Macron ‘Anger’: What Malta Can Learn From French Protest Culture Valletta’s morning commuters may grumble about traffic on Triq ix-Xatt, but across the Mediterranean, France is preparing for a different kind of gridlock. As French unions call for a nationwide day of “anger” against President Emmanuel Macron’s…
France’s Manufactured Drama: How Parisian Protests Echo in Valletta’s Cafés By Luke Caruana, Hot Malta correspondent Valletta – When French President Emmanuel Macron rammed through his pension reform without a parliamentary vote last month, Maltese commuters scrolling their phones on the 8-a.m. ferry from Sliema to the capital saw the same looping footage: burning barricades…
From the balconies of Valletta’s Upper Barrakka Gardens, where French tourists often pose for selfies against the azure sweep of the Grand Harbour, news of Paris’s political earthquake landed with unexpected resonance. On Tuesday, French Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne was toppled by a no-confidence vote in the Assemblée Nationale—only the second time since 1962 that…
Valletta cafés were buzzing this morning as news broke that France’s parliament is expected to topple Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne in a no-confidence vote later today. For Maltese sipping their pastizzi and kafè lattes along Republic Street, the unfolding drama in Paris feels both distant and oddly familiar—another European capital wrestling with the same question…
