An estimated 6,000 people, many dressed in white, gathered behind a 'Justice for Mehdi' banner

European leaders are meeting in South Africa to discuss alternatives to a US plan to end Russia’s war in Ukraine

US officials to hold high-level talks in Brussels amid unhappiness in Washington at slow action on July deal

The EU and US are set to restart trade negotiations next week after a two-month pause to try to settle unresolved sticking points in their controversial tariff deal struck in July.

The US commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, and trade representative Jamieson Greer will hold high-level meetings in Brussels on Monday with ministers, EU commissioners and industry bosses.

The brand, which evokes nostalgia and pride, hit its €5m fundraising target within hours and orders have soared

Drop a Duralex glass and it will most likely bounce, not break. The French company itself has tumbled several times in the past two decades and always bounced back, but never quite as spectacularly as when, earlier this month, it asked the public for money.

An appeal for €5m (£4.4m) of emergency funding to secure the immediate future of the glassworks took just five hours and 40 minutes to reach its target. Within 48 hours, the total amount pledged had topped €19m.

Some teachers and pupils voice concerns about pilot programme after government’s agreement with OpenAI

Secondary school teachers in Greece are set to go through an intensive course in using artificial intelligence tools as the country assumes a frontline role in incorporating AI into its education system.

This week, staff in 20 schools will be trained in a specialised version of ChatGPT, custom-made for academic institutions, under a new agreement between the centre-right government and OpenAI.

Exclusive: Kanak leader Christian Tein, who was freed from prison in June, says France is ‘deliberately dragging out’ re-issue of his passport

A pro-independence leader from the French overseas territory of New Caledonia has accused the French government of “deliberately dragging out” his passport application, preventing him from flying home after his release from prison.

Christian Tein, an Indigenous Kanak leader, was arrested in New Caledonia in June 2024 over allegations that he had instigated the deadly pro-independence protests that had taken place on the island a month earlier.

This week’s local elections are the latest reminder that when social democrats move rightwards, they’re making a mistake

• Cas Mudde is the author of The Far Right Today

After more than 100 years, Copenhagen no longer has a Social Democrat mayor. Sisse Marie Welling, the new lord mayor, represents neither the mainstream right nor the far right but the Green Left (Socialistisk Folkeparti, known as SF). This should be a major wake-up call for centre-left parties across Europe. After more than a decade taking the wrong lessons from Denmark, it is finally time to learn the right lesson: copying the far right not only fails to turn on far-right voters, it also turns off progressive voters.

The 21st century has so far seen two simultaneous electoral developments in western Europe: the decline of social-democratic parties and the rise of far-right parties. This has created the powerful narrative that social democrats are losing votes to the far right, in particular because of their (alleged) “pro-immigration” positions. And although research shows that their voters mainly moved to centre-right and green parties, social-democratic parties have been chasing this mythical “left behind” voter ever since.

Cas Mudde is the Stanley Wade Shelton UGAF professor of international affairs at the University of Georgia, and author of The Far Right Today

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

Chernihiv residents say they are without power for 14 hours a day as they gather in ‘invincibility points’ to charge up and warm up

Valentyna Ivanivna showed off her new head torch. It was a present from her grandson, she said. Most evenings she wears it while doing household chores: cooking dinner, washing up and stacking plates. “It’s impossible to plan anything without power. You can’t even invite people round for a cup of tea because the kettle won’t work. It’s stressful and exhausting for everyone,” she explained.

Ivanivna lives in Chernihiv, an ancient Ukrainian city known for its early medieval cathedrals. The border with Belarus and Russia is a short drive away, across a landscape of pine forests, villages with geese and the occasional wandering moose. In 2022, Russian troops invaded and occupied most of the oblast. They bombed and laid siege to Chernihiv, pulling out after six weeks and rolling north.

Russia’s president says US-led plan ‘could form the basis of a final peace settlement’, bolstering concerns in Europe about one-sided nature of US-brokered deal. What we know on day 1,368

• See all our Russia-Ukraine war coverage