Morning mail: Paris riots, energy warning, ethics plan for MPs
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Version 0 of 1. Good morning, this is Helen Sullivan bringing you the main stories and must-reads for Monday 3 December. Top stories France’s President Emmanuel Macron will hold an emergency meeting of senior ministers after central Paris experienced its worst unrest in a decade on Saturday, when about 5,000 masked gilets jaunes (yellow vests) protesters, demonstrating against fuel tax rises, marched down the Champs Élysées. Some carried roses, many shouted: “Macron, resign!” and sang the national anthem. Violence erupted on the margins of the demonstration, as protesters fought running battles with police, set fire to cars, banks and houses and burned makeshift barricades. On Sunday morning trucks began removing burnt cars from the scorched pavements of some of Paris’s most expensive streets. More than 400 people were arrested on Saturday, and 130 people injured, while one protester is in a coma. Across France, more than 75,000 gilets jaunes demonstrated all day on Saturday in cities or blocked roads and toll booths, with some briefly storming the runway at the Nantes airport and others blocking major motorway junctions and targeting prefects’ offices and tax offices. Macron, who has staked his political identity on a vow to never give in to street protests, is under pressure to find a way to calm the growing mood of social revolt. The gilets jaunes movement started in mid-November and has morphed into a broad anti-government and anti-Macron movement challenging inequality and poor living standards. Australia’s biggest energy and business groups are urging the government to abandon its “big stick” approach to energy legislation, warning the divestiture powers the government craves will impede investment and create genuine sovereign risk. Scott Morrison and Angus Taylor threatened to break up Australia’s energy companies if power prices didn’t come down, through legislation due to be introduced to parliament, which is entering its final sitting week. The move has prompted the Australian Energy Council, Australian Industry Group, the Business Council of Australia and others to join together to appeal to the government to abandon its plans. The independent MP Cathy McGowan has unveiled a plan for an ethics commissioner to oversee MPs and their staff. Under the bill, the behaviour of parliamentarians and their staff would be governed by a code of conduct and an independent parliamentary standards commissioner who could refer individuals to a national integrity commission. McGowan would need to win the support of Labor and all seven crossbenchers to get the parliamentary bill debated on the floor of the House. “I am still working on Labor and the government,” she said. “I haven’t given up on government so I will keep talking about it all week.” Israeli police have recommended indicting the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, on bribery charges related to a corruption case implicating the country’s telecom giant, prompting immediate calls for his resignation. The case revolves around suspicions that confidants of Netanyahu promoted regulations worth hundreds of millions of dollars to the Bezeq telecom company in exchange for positive coverage of the prime minister on Bezeq’s subsidiary news website, Walla. The prime minister has denied any wrongdoing, dismissing the accusations as a witch-hunt orchestrated by the media. “The police recommendations regarding me and my wife don’t surprise anyone,” Netanyahu said. “These recommendations were decided upon and leaked even before the investigation began.” Air Force One is flying the casket of George HW Bush to Washington. The 41st president, who died aged 94 on Friday, will lie in state at the US Capitol in Washington. Donald Trump has ordered that flags be flown at half-staff and proclaimed Wednesday a day of national mourning. There will be a state funeral at the National Cathedral on Wednesday, which the White House said the Trumps will attend. On his early return from the G20 summit in Buenos Aires, the president cancelled a press conference “out of respect for President Bush” and ignored a reporter who asked if he regretted any of his comments about Bush or his family. Sport Divock Origi’s bizarre late winner for Liverpool has broken Everton hearts. It was bedlam but, amid all the chaos, an unlikely hero emerged in the shape of Origi, scoring beneath the Kop with one of the more eccentric and ecstatic goals of any Merseyside derby. Perth Glory are a real A-League threat, and it’s because the team is greater than the sum of its parts, writes Richard Parkin. Thinking time The crack appeared a few years ago, and has been creeping towards the Swedish city of Kiruna ever since. Over a century, the miners have tunnelled so deep into the earth – 2km at some points – that they have now undermined the town. The caverns are causing subsidence, weakening the structure of the buildings, and opening a great crack in the earth itself, which grows wider and several metres closer to the city every year. So, in 2004, a plan was hatched. Luossavaara-Kiirunavaara AB, the gigantic state-owned company that operates the mine, would simply move the city – houses and all. Joan Collins suspects her sister Jackie may have been reincarnated as a fly. “Do you believe that little flies or butterflies or something can be old souls, people that you knew? I have this little fly that comes near me all the time. It’s really strange,” she tells Sophie Heawood. “I think it might be my sister,” she says, looking quite serious. The novelist Jackie Collins died three years ago, after seven years of keeping her cancer diagnosis a secret, even from Joan. “It is weird that wherever I go, at least two or three times a week – wherever I am, France, London, here – this little fly comes. Now maybe it’s because the fruit’s rotting in the kitchen!” She laughs. “I don’t know. But anyway … ” her voice goes low and familiar and rather sad, “If it is: hello Jack.” While infertility is an issue for some women with endometriosis, it is not the whole story, writes the public health researcher Kate Young. It is often reported that 30% to 50% of women with endometriosis experience infertility. But better-quality research typically finds about 10% to 13% of women diagnosed with endometriosis are also diagnosed with infertility, which is not that much higher than the 9% found in the general population. So what are the consequences? “To name just a few: stress and worry, pressure to alter one’s life plans, and unintended pregnancy. It is the latter that I became most concerned about after being approached by clinical social worker Brooke Calo at an Australian public health conference.” Media roundup Malcolm Turnbull has urged MPs to “force Scott to an early election because all he’s about is keeping his arse on C1”, in a bid to save Gladys Berejiklian, according to the Australian. In an interview with the Australian Financial Review, meanwhile, the PM has warned an “incredibly cocky” Labor that he is returning to Australia with a “steely resolve and determination” to reverse the Coalition’s fortunes. In addition to an opinion piece with the headline “Liberal party is violently devouring itself amid a torrent of blame and hate”, the Sydney Morning Herald leads with the news that the Labor MP Emma Hussar is facing new allegations from four former staff members. Coming up Scott Morrison arrives home from the G20 leaders’ summit in Buenos Aires, for the final sitting week of the year of federal parliament. Médecins Sans Frontières will release medical data that reveals extreme mental health suffering on Nauru. Supporting the Guardian We’d like to acknowledge our generous supporters who enable us to keep reporting on the critical stories. If you value what we do and would like to help, please make a contribution or become a supporter today. Thank you. 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