By El Latino Newsroom
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France’s prime minister on Monday tore into U.S. President Donald Trump’s Oval Office thrashing of Volodymyr Zelenskyy, calling it a staggering show of “brutality” that aimed to humiliate Ukraine’s leader and bend him to the will of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The extraordinarily frank criticism from Prime Minister François Bayrou, speaking in a parliamentary debate on Ukraine, diverged from the more nuanced tone that French President Emmanuel Macron has adopted in the wake of the clash at the White House on Friday and dropped the diplomatic niceties that customarily mark French-U.S. relations.
“On Friday night, in the Oval Office of the White House, a staggering scene unfurled before the lenses of the entire world, marked by brutality, a desire to humiliate, with the goal of making Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy fold through threats, so that he gives in to the demands of his aggressors,” Bayrou said.
“All this was summed up in one phrase before the planet’s cameras: ‘Either you find a deal with Putin or we will abandon you,’” Bayrou said, apparently referring to Trump’s comments in the Oval Office.
Trump’s similar words to Zelenskyy were “you’re either going to make a deal or we’re out.”
Continuing his speech to France’s parliament, Bayrou added: “For the honor of democratic responsibility, for the honor of Ukraine and, I dare say, for the honor of Europe, President Zelenskyy did not fold and I think we can show him our appreciation.”
Lawmakers got to their feet in the National Assembly chamber to applaud.
In opening the parliamentary debate, Bayrou said that Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and its diplomatic fallout have left Europe in grave peril. He spoke of “an historic situation that in our eyes is the most serious, the most destabilized, the most dangerous of all those that our country and our continent have experienced since the end of World War II.”
The French prime minister said that the Oval Office scene — where Zelenskyy was berated both by Trump and U.S. Vice President JD Vance before being asked to leave the White House — left “two victims.”
The first, Bayrou said, was Ukraine’s security.
The second was both the trans-Atlantic relationship with traditional American allies and Washington’s image, he said. Bayrou said that the Oval Office scene “compromised another fundamental alliance: the one that the United States had with themselves, their history, and with a certain ideal of defending the law, of defending the weak against the forces of tyranny.”
Bayrou has been Macron’s prime minister since December. Although Bayrou doesn’t speak directly for the presidency, the veteran French politician has long been a crucial partner for Macron.
In opening his address to parliament, Bayrou said that he was speaking for Macron’s government.
UKRANIAN
Soon after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy left the White House on Friday after an astonishing Oval Office blowout with President Donald Trump, Ukrainians rallied around Zelenskyy as a defender of his country’s interests.
The shouting match that unfolded in the final minutes of the highly anticipated meeting between the two leaders seemed to dash, at least for now, Ukrainian hopes that the United States could be locked in as a reliable partner in helping fend off, and conclude, Russia’s three-year onslaught.
The exchange, which saw a frustrated Zelenskyy lectured by Trump and Vice President JD Vance over what they saw as his lack of gratitude for previous U.S. support, delighted officials in Moscow, who saw it as a final breakdown in relations between Washington and the Ukrainian leader.
But many Ukrainians seemed unfazed by the blowout between Zelenskyy and Trump, expressing a sense that the Ukrainian leader had stood up for their country’s dignity and interests by firmly maintaining his stance in the face of chiding from some of the world’s most powerful men.
Nataliia Serhiienko, 67, a retiree in Kyiv, said she thinks Ukrainians approve of their president’s performance in Washington, “because Zelenskyy fought like a lion.”
“They had a heated meeting, a very heated conversation,” she said.
But Zelenskyy “was defending Ukraine’s interests.”
The meeting at the White House was meant to produce a bilateral agreement that would establish a joint investment fund for reconstructing Ukraine, a deal that was seen as a potential step toward bringing an end to the war and tying the two countries’ economies together for years to come.
But as Zelenskyy and his team departed the White House at Trump’s request, the deal went unsigned, and Ukraine’s hopes for securing U.S. security backing seemed farther away than ever.
Yet as the Ukrainian leader was set to return to Kyiv empty handed, his support at home seemed undiminished.
Vitalyna Tarasova, a 43-year old English teacher in Kyiv and the widow of a Ukrainian soldier, told The Associated Press that Trump and Vance’s treatment of Zelenskyy amounted to humiliating “all the dead and all these children who have lost their parents” in the war-weary country.
“My husband was a military pilot. He burned alive, his plane was shot down… So yesterday they spat at him, at me, at my children, and it was very painful to watch,” she said.
As two drones struck Ukraine’s second-largest city Kharkiv on Friday night, the head of the region which sits on the border with Russia, Oleh Syniehubov, praised Zelenskyy.
He said the president held strong to his insistence that no peace deal could be made without assurances for Ukraine’s security against future Russian aggression.
“Our leader, despite the pressure, stands firm in defending the interests of Ukraine and Ukrainians. … We need only a just peace with security guarantees,” Syniehubov said.
Kyiv resident Artem Vasyliev, 37, said he had seen “complete disrespect” from the United States in the Oval Office exchange, despite the fact that Ukraine “was the first country that stood up to Russia.
“We are striving for democracy, and we are met with total disrespect, toward our warriors, our soldiers, and the people of our country,” said Vasyliev, a native of Russian-occupied Luhansk in eastern Ukraine.
Vasyliev criticized the U.S. president for what he said was a failure to recognize the human cost of Russia’s invasion, saying Trump “doesn’t understand that people are dying, that cities are being destroyed, people are suffering, mothers, children, soldiers.”
“He cannot understand this, he is just a businessman. For him, money is sacred,” he said.
NICARAGUA
The Nicaraguan government has dismantled the last remaining checks and balances and was “systematically executing a strategy to cement total control of the country through severe human rights violations,” a panel of United Nations experts warned Wednesday.
The report by human rights experts is the latest and strongest rebuke of the government of President Daniel Ortega and first lady and now co-president Rosario Murillo, which has for years cracked down on dissent and civil society.
The crackdown started with violent government repression of 2018 protests. Since then, the Nicaraguan government “has deliberately transformed the country into an authoritarian state,” the experts said. The crackdown has forced tens of thousands of people to flee the country in exile.
“The state and the ruling Sandinista party have virtually fused into a unified machine of repression with domestic and transnational impact,” said Jan Simon, chair of the U.N. Group of Experts, in a statement. “Ortega and Murillo operate a wide intelligence machine, surveilling the population and selecting the targets for the violation of rights, acting as ‘the eyes and ears’ that allow (the Nicaraguan government) to obtain and maintain total control over people.”
The Nicaraguan government did not respond to a request for comment.
The experts said that the final democratic blow was dealt last month with a constitutional reform passed by the Nicaraguan congress, which is firmly controlled by Ortega and Murillo’s Sandinista party.
The reform, which entered into force on Feb. 18, effectively put all branches of government under the power of the presidency, and also officially made Ortega and Murillo “co-presidents,” which would guarantee presidential succession for Murillo and their family.
The reform also expanded the presidential term to six years from five in a move that further consolidated the family’s firm grip on power.
The report by UN experts said that in addition to government control, Ortega and Murillo have expanded their use of arbitrary detention, forced expulsions, confiscation of private property and stripping their opposition of Nicaraguan citizenship.
The experts said they compiled a list of people they believed were responsible for the repression, which will be shared with the Nicaraguan government and made public through the UN Human Rights Council. They also urged the international community to take legal action and expand targeted sanctions against those individuals, and provide greater protections for Nicaraguan exiles.
URUGUAY
Yamandú Orsi, a telegenic left-leaning former mayor and history teacher, took office as Uruguay’s new president on Saturday, at the helm of a government that has pledged to strengthen the social safety net while reversing years of economic stagnation.
The inauguration of Orsi, 57, marks the return of Uruguay’s Broad Front — a center-left mix of moderates, communists and hardline trade unionists — after a five-year interruption by the country’s outgoing conservative president, Luis Lacalle Pou.
Cheers erupted as Orsi recited the oath of office before Congress on Saturday in Uruguay’s capital of Montevideo. Outside the chamber, in the city’s main square, thousands of Uruguayans watching his swearing-in on giant screens shouted in support.
The ceremony came three months after Orsi’s presidential victory in a remarkably civilized election race between two moderates, praised as an antidote to the polarization gripping the region. In his speech, he took a dig at growing disillusionment with democratic norms across Latin America, which has resulted in a shift to the right, from neighboring Argentina to El Salvador.
“We all know well that we have to treasure our democratic construction in times where exclusionary logic and expressions of distrust in traditional politics proliferate,” Orsi said in his inaugural address before a gathering of domestic and foreign leaders at the legislative palace in Montevideo.
He declared: “Let us always be adversaries, but never enemies. And let us distance ourselves as far as possible from cynicism.”
The night before the ceremony, Orsi dined in Montevideo with his like-minded regional counterparts, including Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Colombia’s Gustavo Petro and Chile’s Gabriel Boric.
The friendly scene cemented Orsi as the latest in the region’s swath of allied left-wing leaders — many of whom have struggled in recent years to combat rising inequality and stalling growth.
Many Uruguayans saw Orsi as the nostalgia candidate, recalling the Broad Front’s 15-year rule between 2005 and 2020. During that time, the coalition presided over a historic cycle of economic growth that reduced poverty and cemented the country’s pro-business reputation. The coalition also launched pioneering social reforms that won Uruguay international acclaim, including the legalization of abortion, same-sex marriage and recreational marijuana.
ISRAEL
Israel faced sharp criticism as it stopped the entry of all food and other supplies into Gaza on Sunday and warned of “additional consequences” for Hamas if a fragile ceasefire isn’t extended.
Mediators Egypt and Qatar accused Israel of violating humanitarian law by using starvation as a weapon.
The ceasefire’s first phase saw a surge in humanitarian aid after months of growing hunger. Hamas accused Israel of trying to derail the next phase Sunday hours after its first phase had ended and called Israel’s decision to cut off aid “a war crime and a blatant attack” on a truce that took a year of negotiations before taking hold in January.
In the second phase, Hamas would release dozens of remaining hostages in return for an Israeli pullout from Gaza and a lasting ceasefire. Negotiations on the second phase were meant to start a month ago but haven’t begun.
Israel said Sunday that a new U.S. proposal calls for extending the ceasefire through Ramadan — the Muslim holy month that began over the weekend — and the Jewish Passover holiday, which ends April 20.
Under that proposal, Hamas would release half the hostages on the first day and the rest when an agreement is reached on a permanent ceasefire, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.
The militants currently hold 59 hostages, 35 of them believed to be dead.
National Security Council spokesman Brian Hughes said the United States would support whatever decision Israel makes, without commenting on the new proposal.
Netanyahu said Israel is fully coordinated with the Trump administration and the ceasefire will only continue as long as Hamas keeps releasing hostages.
Saying the ceasefire has saved countless lives, the International Committee of the Red Cross said that “any unraveling of the forward momentum created over the last six weeks risks plunging people back into despair.”
U.N. humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher called Israel’s decision “alarming,” noting that international humanitarian law makes clear that aid access must be allowed.
U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres urged all parties to make every effort to prevent a return to hostilities in Gaza, and called for humanitarian aid to flow back into Gaza immediately and for the release of all hostages, said spokesman Stéphane Dujarric.
Five non-governmental groups asked Israel’s Supreme Court for an interim order barring the state from preventing aid from entering Gaza, claiming the move violates Israel’s obligations under international law: “These obligations cannot be condition on political considerations.”
The war has left most of Gaza’s population of over 2 million dependent on international aid. About 600 aid trucks had entered daily since the ceasefire began on Jan. 19, easing fears of famine raised by international experts.
