A divided France votes amid a 'shift to the right'

Has freedom disappeared in France? Romy Strassenburg thinks so. As Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen face off for the role of president, the journalist explains why she's scared — and why others aren't fearful enough.

Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen are the 2022 finalists for French president

DW: You wrote a book entitled "Adieu liberte — How my France disappeared." What was "your" France like?

Romy Strassenburg: Like many young Germans, especially women, I had illusions of what France was all about. I thought it was the land of freedom and "savoir vivre" [the idea of knowing how to enjoy life: Eds.], something I always missed a bit in Germany. Once I started living here, I saw this France disappear very quickly. Or rather, I realized that, on the one hand, it is an illusion. It is a society that functions much more hierarchically than what I knew from Germany. On the other hand, it was a time when freedom disappeared in a very real way. And the 2015 attacks magnified that; it was a very different France. It was only then that I realized how little freedom I actually had here, not least because of my work at Charlie Hebdo. On the other hand, freedom has also disappeared with the increasingly repressive and neoliberal policies that have imposed more and more restrictions.

Incumbent Emmanuel Macron and challenger Marine Le Pen are the two finalists in France's 2022 presidential election

What is currently dividing France?

The gap is extremely wide. Some people really have to figure out how they'll fill their refrigerator at the end of the month. I always like to use the example of the Nutella jar: In 2018, large supermarkets in the countryside had Nutella on sale, and people snapped up the jars. There were videos on social media, and people made fun of the customers, saying, oh God, they eat such unhealthy stuff and they're throwing themselves at the discounts! That's what they were saying in Paris.

However, in interviews, people told my colleagues that for their children, Nutella is a luxury product — the rest of the year, their kids would get substitute spreads. This simple example shows the divide: While some people in Paris judge certain parts of the population, many of them have to count every last cent. Add to that the fact that energy prices are rising very significantly and widening the gap even more.

"There's a real danger Le Pen will make it," says Romy Strassenburg, writer and journalist

What particular fears are currently influencing the presidential election?

I could say it's fear of Marine Le Pen. That would be nice, but unfortunately that's not the case. There is a real danger that she will make it. And the real fear is that people won't get up out of their armchairs to vote against her. For a while, fear of the war in Ukraine was very present. Then everyone once again thought Macron was great because he was the only one you can sort of imagine at international meetings and negotiations. Who wants to see Zemmour [a far-right candidate eliminated in the first round: Eds.] or Le Pen at a summit like that? Who wants her to negotiate with Putin? Few!

Fear of the war in Ukraine and fear of declining purchasing power influenced the election. Now, between the two election rounds, you might think people are afraid of Marine Le Pen becoming president. But unfortunately, the fear isn't so great that I can count on her not making it, as was the case five years ago.

Why has culture played a very minor role in this election campaign, even in the election programs?

Unfortunately, issues like the welfare state, ecology and climate change — which we really should have addressed and which the French listed as priorities in surveys — were hardly addressed in the election programs. As far as I am concerned, that includes culture, too, because the energy transition, for instance, presupposes a certain cultural disposition for such change to happen. People need to want a different social and economic model.

As a writer or musician, you also have to ask yourself, how far out on a limb do I go? What is my role, my task in society? ... I think many artists and performers face the dilemma of "What can I do?" ... My impression is, however, that the artist who opens his mouth and says something has somehow fallen by the wayside a bit, in Germany even more than in France.

How can France develop after the election?

Le Pen would of course be the worst-case scenario. She wants to renegotiate the European treaties, wants more sovereignty. I also don't have much hope when it comes to the Ukraine war ... Let's assume Macron remains in office: The huge success and the presence of the two extreme right-wing candidates and the Republican Valerie Precresse [the candidate of the center-right party: Eds] have changed the political culture in the country. The shift to the right has basically happened.

Romy Strassenburg's book 'Adieu liberte' was published in 2019

Now the question is, how do we manage to counteract this in the next five years? Will the left manage to influence politics and culture, for instance by being strong in the parliamentary elections in June? Everywhere the left has a say, there's more money for culture. There are other books in the libraries, there are other events, there are other people performing in theaters. And that's the bottom line. The presidential election is one thing, but in the end, it's also about who is active and committed locally.

What role do the voters of the eliminated leftist candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon play in the second round of the elections?

Jean-Luc Melenchon was in a stronger position in this election after the first round than he was in 2017. He has said, "Don't vote for the far right!" True, Melenchon did not say, "Vote Macron." But many feared that Melenchon voters now on the left fringe might move to the right fringe. So Melenchon's call might not be such a bad thing.

We're actually already looking ahead to the next election five years down the road; we have already expanded our horizons. Looking at my book "Adieu liberte," if Macron remains in office, I would like him to be so grateful to the voters that he does not restrict freedom even further and instead takes them into consideration.

It is very questionable and dangerous when I, a journalist, am no longer allowed to film a policeman and accompany him on patrol — that is new [a law passed in 2021 restricts capturing images of police: Eds.] Not only female journalists, everyone in civil society whom Macron wanted to draw into his movement has been left out. He has not kept his promise. We can't actually do what we want to do. He has not included women artists and journalists in his project. I'd like to think that the coronavirus crisis and the yellow vests made it difficult, but Macron's record is still devastating in many ways.

The journalist and author Romy Strassenburg won the German-French Journalism Award in 2008 and was editor-in-chief of the German edition of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.

This interview has been translated from German.

From Mumbai to Paris, the cities investing in the planet

This Earth Day, we show how city councils and mayors have stepped up to boldly decarbonize in the face of national government inaction

A vision for a green city: Local governments are creating low-emission cities built for people

On this year's Earth Day, governments who "hold the keys to transform and build the green economy" are being summoned to "invest in our planet." Yet so far, national governments signed up to the Paris Climate Agreement have been slow to facilitate low-carbon economies.

Current emission reduction commitments are on track for an increase of nearly 3 degrees Celsius (5.4 F) of global heating above preindustrial levels — double the 1.5 C threshold for a livable planet. Meanwhile, governments continue to subsidize the fossil fuel industry at three times the rate of clean energy, putting far-reaching emissions cuts out of reach.

The failures are complex, ranging from the long-term influence of the fossil fuel lobby on the national stage to the energy crisis fueled by the invasion of Ukraine, which has states looking to boost non-Russian oil and gas supply.

But local, city and regional governments are stepping up in the wake of sluggish national climate action.

"The difference between cities and national governments is the difference between night and day, between delayers and doers," London mayor Sadiq Khan said of commitments to climate action during last year's COP26 climate conference.

From cities such as Copenhagen, which is promising climate neutrality by 2025 — way ahead of the deadline agreed to in Paris in 2015 — to compact and car-free zero-carbon districts, here are four ways municipal authorities are investing in the planet.

Cities For People: How Paris & Barcelona learned urban planning from Groningen

1. Copenhagen: World's first climate-neutral city?

Back in 2012, Copenhagen's government unveiled a 2025 Climate Plan that had the ambitious goal of creating the world's first carbon-neutral city. The Danish capital remains on track to reach net-zero emissions by 2025, a full 25 years before the national government's 2050 net-zero target.

About 66% of city emissions are attributed to energy, and 34% to transport. It plans to make cuts by tackling energy consumption and production, as well as green mobility. The aim is to reduce emissions by 100% compared to 2005 and increase economic growth by near 25% in the same period through greater investment and job creation. In 2020, Copenhagen had only another 20% in cuts to go to reach its goal, with private cars the main source of remaining carbon pollution in the city.

With electricity and heat the biggest source of CO2, Copenhagen's government is replacing coal, oil and gas with renewable energy. Wind, solar and biomass have already taken up much of this slack, but 50% of the reduction will come simply from energy efficiency — the city has installed a smart energy grid to reduce massive waste across housing, retail and production.

In terms of transport, the Copenhagen government wants at least 75% of trips in the city to be taken on foot, bike or public transport by 2025. Internal combustion engine vehicles will be banned in the city by 2030.

Bicycles will dominate the streets in climate-neutral Copenhagen

2. Mumbai: A South Asian climate leader

When Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi committed to carbon neutrality by 2070 at COP26, it was seen as a promising step from the world's third-biggest CO2 emitter.

But Mumbai, the country's most-populous city, with well over 20 million people in its metropolitan area, is upping this ambition, promising to achieve net-zero carbon emissions two decades ahead of schedule.

The city's first Climate Action Plan was unveiled in March and was created in collaboration with the US nonprofit the World Resources Institute and global urban climate-action initiative C40 Cities.

Acknowledging the need for climate adaptation in a coastal megacity that is highly vulnerable to heat stress and flooding, the plan also calls for the decarbonization of an energy sector responsible for 72% of total city emissions. With an energy grid nearly wholly powered by coal, Mumbai will ramp up solar power in particular to reach a 50% renewables target by 2050. It will also focus on energy efficiency in buildings that make up most energy emissions.

Transport is another key focus, with plans to electrify Mumbai's extensive urban transport network. For a start, it will put over 2,000 electric buses on the road by 2023.

Mumbai is also establishing a zero-landfill waste management plan and planting urban forests throughout the city to mitigate the near 10% of emissions attributed to waste, especially landfills that spew methane.

3. Paris: The 15-minute city

Carbon emissions can be significantly reduced by eschewing high-emission urban sprawl and creating denser, more compact walkable and bikeable cities.

The idea is embodied in the concept of the 15-minute city, with experiments already taking place in the wake of the pandemic to reduce travel time and enable people to live and work locally, including Melbourne's 20-minute neighborhoods and the Paris 15-minute city.

The 15-minute city was central to Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo's 2020 reelection campaign. The traffic-clogged French capital is installing cycle paths on every street, in part by reclaiming 70% of on-street car parking. The aim is to cut air, noise and carbon pollution as part of Paris' 2050 carbon-neutral target.

By expanding co-working hubs and encouraging use of local shops and playgrounds, the city wants to facilitate "hyperproximity" in Paris neighborhoods whereby residents can access all amenities within a relaxed 15-minute stroll or bicycle ride from home.

4. Climate-friendly communities in Freiburg and Seattle

Though city and regional authorities are often beating national governments on climate action, even more can be done at the micro level of self-developed urban housing cooperatives.

In Seattle, an architecture and urbanism firm, Larch Lab, is focused on decarbonized, low-energy urban buildings and "ecodistricts" based on the German idea of "baugruppen," or building groups — meaning housing cooperatives.

Developed by residents rather than developers, the idea is that these sustainable districts will achieve superior building efficiency by employing net-zero energy Passivhaus building standards, which are expensive up-front but more affordable in the long term.

This dream is already alive back in Germany in the district Vauban, a model eco-neighborhood in the pioneering green city of Freiburg. At the forefront of ambitious climate targets, Freiburg is planning a 60% emissions cut by 2030.

Built on the site of a former French barracks in the late 1990s, about 5,600 inhabitants live on car-free, bicycle and pedestrian-friendly streets featuring brightly-colored Passivhaus buildings with rooftop solar power. A biogas power plant fed with local sewage complements electricity needs.

The zero-emissions town, dubbed the greenest in Europe, was developed by Passivhaus architects and a local community group with strong from a municipal government committed to investing in the planet.


EARTH DAY 2021: RESTORE OUR EARTH
Origins in California oil spill
In 1969, over 3 million gallons (11 million liters) of oil were spilled into the ocean in California following an accident at an offshore drilling platform. Inspired by media attention drawn to the pollution, as well as a growing public interest in green issues, US Senator Gaylord Nelson devised an environmental "teach-in" at college campuses in April 1970. This event became the first Earth Day.
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Edited by: Jennifer Collins

Europe saw hottest summer on record in 2021

Countries were hit with "severe and long-lasting" heat waves last summer, EU scientists have revealed in a new report. Experts believe the conditions contributed to wildfires and deadly flooding across Europe in 2021.

The summer heat wave of 2021 contributed to numerous forest fires in the Mediterranean region, including in Pescara in Italy

The summer of 2021 was the hottest summer Europe has experienced on record, EU scientists reported on Friday.

According to the annual report published by the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), the temperature in Europe was 1 degree Celsius above the 1991-2020 average.

Italy even recorded a provisional heat record for the whole of Europe, hitting 48.8 degrees Celsius (119.8 degrees Fahrenheit) in Sicily last August. A particularly bad heat wave in the Mediterranean helped to ignite severe wildfires in Greece, Turkey, and Italy.

Globally, the last seven years have been the warmest on record, C3S reported in January.

The EU scientific information agency's records date back to 1979, but it also uses records from ground stations, balloons, aircraft and satellites going back to 1950.
Record rains led to disaster in Germany

The climate researchers also took a closer look at the flood disaster that hit Germany in mid-July 2021, which claimed the lives of more than 180 people in the western states of Rhineland-Palatinate and North Rhine-Westphalia.

Record rains were recorded on July 14, 2021 over Belgium and western Germany. According to the C3S report, the previous weeks had seen extremely heavy rainfall in the region, so the soil was no longer able to absorb sufficient water.

Following heavy rainfall in July 2021, the Ahr River in western Germany burst its banks and flooded entire villages, including Dernau (pictured above)

The report also found that sea surface temperatures last year in parts of the Baltic and Mediterranean Seas were the highest since satellite records began in the early 1990s.

"Parts of the Baltic were 5 C above average, which is quite a lot," said the report's lead author, Freja Vamborg.
World needs to reduce emissions

Scientists believe that the most catastrophic consequences of climate change can only be averted if global warming is limited to a maximum of 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial times, as countries pledged under the 2015 Paris Agreement.

"We are facing a lot of challenges," said Mauro Facchini, head of the Copernicus Unit at the EU.

According to Facchini, record-breaking temperatures in 2021 and extreme weather made it clear that countries urgently need to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions to avoid further warming that would trigger even more destructive weather events.

dh/nm (dpa, Reuters)

EU agrees deal to tame internet 'Wild West'
AFP - Yesterday 

The European Union early Saturday finalised new legislation to require Big Tech to remove harmful content, the bloc's latest move to rein in the world's online giants.

The Digital Services Act (DSA) -- the second part of a massive project to regulate tech companies -- aims to ensure tougher consequences for platforms and websites that host a long list of banned content ranging from hate speech to disinformation and child sexual abuse images.

EU officials and parliamentarians finally reached agreement at talks in Brussels early Saturday on the legislation, which has been in the works since 2020.

"Yes, we have a deal!," European Commissioner for the Internal Market Thierry Breton tweeted.

"With the DSA, the time of big online platforms behaving like they are 'too big to care' is coming to an end. A major milestone for EU citizens," said Breton, who has previously described the internet as the "Wild West".

"Today's agreement on DSA is historic," European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen tweeted.

"Our new rules will protect users online, ensure freedom of expression and opportunities for businesses. What is illegal offline will effectively be illegal online in the EU."

The regulation is the companion to the Digital Markets Act (DMA), which targeted anti-competitive practices among tech behemoths such as Google and Facebook and was concluded in late March.

The legislation had faced lobbying from the tech companies and intense debate over the extent of freedom of speech.

Tech giants have been repeatedly called out for failing to police their platforms -- a New Zealand terrorist attack that was live-streamed on Facebook in 2019 caused global outrage, and the chaotic insurrection in the US last year was promoted online.

The dark side of the internet also includes e-commerce platforms filled with counterfeit or defective products.

- Obligations for large platforms -

The regulation will require platforms to swiftly remove illegal content as soon as they are aware of its existence. Social networks would have to suspend users who frequently breach the law.

The DSA will force e-commerce sites to verify the identity of suppliers before proposing their products.

While many of the DSA's stipulations cover all companies, it lays out special obligations for "very large platforms", defined as those with more than 45 million active users in the European Union.

The list of companies has not yet been released but will include giants such as Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft, as well as Twitter and probably the likes of TikTok, Zalando and Booking.com.

These players will be obliged to assess the risks associated with the use of their services and remove illegal content.

They will also be required to be more transparent about their data and algorithms.

The European Commission will oversee yearly audits and be able to impose fines of up to six percent of their annual sales for repeated infringements.

Among the practices expected to be outlawed is the use of data on religion or political views for targeted advertising.

Former Facebook employee Frances Haugen caused a huge stir last year when she accused her former bosses of prioritising profits over the welfare of users.

She hailed in November the "enormous potential" of the European regulation project, which could become a "reference" for other countries, including the United States.

However, the European Consumer Organisation (BEUC) fears the text does not go far enough.

It wants a ban on all advertising based on the surveillance of internet users, and random checks on online vendors' products.

aro/mad/lth/mtp/leg

E.U. Takes Aim at Social Media’s Harms With Landmark New Law

The Digital Services Act would force Meta, Google and others to combat misinformation and restrict certain online ads. How European officials will wield it remains to be seen.

Margrethe Vestager and Thierry Breton, top European officials, were among the main policymakers behind the Digital Services Act.

Credit... Thierry Monasse/Getty Images

By Adam Satariano
Adam Satariano, who is based in London, has covered European tech since 2016 and previously reported on Apple and Silicon Valley from San Francisco.

April 22, 2022

The European Union was nearing a deal on Friday on landmark legislation that would force Facebook, YouTube and other internet services to combat misinformation, disclose how their services amplify divisive content and stop targeting online ads based on a person’s ethnicity, religion or sexual orientation.

The law, called the Digital Services Act, is intended to address social media’s societal harms by requiring companies to more aggressively police their platforms for illicit content or risk billions of dollars in fines. Tech companies would be compelled to set up new policies and procedures to remove flagged hate speech, terrorist propaganda and other material defined as illegal by countries within the European Union.

The law aims to end an era of self-regulation in which tech companies set their own policies about what content could stay up or be taken down. It stands out from other regulatory attempts by addressing online speech, an area that is largely off limits in the United States because of First Amendment protections. Google, which owns YouTube, and Meta, the owner of Facebook and Instagram, would face yearly audits for “systemic risks” linked to their businesses, while Amazon would confront new rules to stop the sale of illegal products.

The Digital Services Act is part of a one-two punch by the European Union to address the societal and economic effects of the tech giants. Last month, the 27-nation bloc agreed to a different sweeping law, the Digital Markets Act, to counter what regulators see as anticompetitive behavior by the biggest tech firms, including their grip over app stores, online advertising and internet shopping.

Together, the new laws underscore how Europe is setting the standard for tech regulation globally. Frustrated by anticompetitive behavior, social media’s effect on elections and privacy-invading business models, officials spent more than a year negotiating policies that give them broad new powers to crack down on tech giants that are worth trillions of dollars and that are used by billions of people for communication, entertainment, payments and news.

“This will be a model,” Alexandra Geese, a Green party member of the European Parliament from Germany, said of the new law. Ms. Geese, who helped draft the Digital Services Act, said she had already spoken with legislators in Japan, India and other countries about the legislation.

A deal was expected to be announced by European policymakers in Brussels on Friday, though some warned that the agreement could be delayed if negotiators needed more time.

Since Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation took effect in 2018, little action has been taken against the data-collection practices of large internet platforms.

Credit...Gabriel Bouys/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The moves contrast with the lack of action in the United States. While U.S. regulators have filed antitrust cases against Google and Meta, no comprehensive federal laws tackling the power of the tech companies have been passed.

Yet even as the European authorities gain newfound legal powers to rein in the tech behemoths, critics wondered how effective they will be. Writing laws can be easier than enforcing them, and while the European Union has a reputation as the world’s toughest regulator of the tech industry, its actions have sometimes appeared tougher on paper than in practice.

An estimated 230 new workers will be hired to enforce the new laws, a figure that critics said was insufficient when compared with the resources available to Meta, Google and others.

The staffing figures “are totally inadequate to face gigantic firms and new gigantic tasks,” said Tommaso Valletti, a former top economist for the European Commission, who worked on antitrust cases against Google and other tech platforms.

Without robust enforcement, he said, the new laws will amount to an unfulfilled promise. Mr. Valletti said that even as Europe had levied multibillion-dollar antitrust rulings against Google in recent years, those actions had done little to restore competition because regulators did not force the company to make major structural changes.

“You need skills: engineers, computer scientists, data scientists and the like,” said Mr. Valletti, who is a professor of economics at Imperial College London. “You need a cultural change, both among regulators and regulated firms. That’s the real challenge.”

Lack of enforcement of the European Union’s data privacy law, the General Data Protection Regulation, or G.D.P.R., has also cast a shadow over the new laws.

Like the Digital Services Act and Digital Markets Act, G.D.P.R. was hailed as landmark legislation. But since it took effect in 2018, there has been little action against Facebook, Google and others over their data-collection practices. Many have sidestepped the rules by bombarding users with consent windows on their websites.

“They haven’t shown themselves capable of using powerful tools that already exist to rein in Big Tech,” said Johnny Ryan, a privacy-rights campaigner and senior fellow at the Irish Council for Civil Liberties, who has pushed for tougher enforcement. “I don’t anticipate them showing themselves suddenly to be any different with a new set of tools.”

Amazon declined to comment. Google and Meta did not respond to requests for comment. The companies and industry trade groups have warned that the laws could have unintended consequences, harm smaller businesses and undercut Europe’s digital economy.

Backers of the new laws said they had learned from past mistakes. While enforcement of G.D.P.R. was left to regulators in individual countries — which many felt were overmatched by multinational corporations with seemingly bottomless legal budgets — the new laws will largely be enforced out of Brussels by the European Commission, a major shift in approach.

The final text of the Digital Services Act is not expected to be available for several weeks, and final votes must still be taken, a step largely seen as perfunctory after a deal is announced. But policymakers in the European Commission and European Parliament involved in the negotiations described details of what would be one of the world’s most far-reaching pieces of digital policy.

The law, which would take effect next year, does not order internet platforms to remove specific forms of speech, leaving that to individual countries to define. (Certain forms of hate speech and references to Nazism are illegal in Germany but not in other European countries.) The law forces companies to add ways for users to flag illicit content.

Inspired by the war in Ukraine and the pandemic, policymakers were also considering giving regulators additional power to force internet companies to respond quickly during a national security or health crisis. This could include stopping the spread of certain state propaganda on social media during a war or the online sale of bogus medical supplies and drugs during a pandemic.

Many provisions related to social media track closely with recommendations made by Frances Haugen, the former Facebook employee who became a whistle-blower. The law was expected to require companies to offer a way for users to turn off recommendation algorithms that use their personal data to tailor content.

Meta, TikTok and others would also have to share more data about how their algorithms worked, with outside researchers at universities and civil society groups. The companies would have to conduct an annual risk-assessment report, reviewed by an outside auditor, with a summary of the findings made public.

Policymakers said the prospect of reputational damage could be more powerful than fines. But if the European Commission determined that Meta or another company was not doing enough to address problems identified by auditors, the company could face financial penalties of up to 6 percent of global revenue and be forced to change business practices.

New restrictions on targeted advertising could have major effects on internet-based businesses. The rules would limit the use of data based on race, religion, political views or labor union membership, though there was consideration of allowing a company to continue doing so with a user’s consent. The companies would also not be able to target children with ads.

Online retailers like Amazon would face new requirements to stop the sale of illicit products by resellers on their platforms, leaving the companies open to consumer lawsuits.

Europe’s position as a regulatory leader will depend on enforcement of the new laws, which are likely to face legal challenges from the biggest companies, said Agustín Reyna, director of legal and economic affairs at the European Consumer Organization, a consumer watchdog group.

“Effective enforcement is absolutely key to the success of these new rules,” he said. “Great power comes with greater responsibility to ensure the biggest companies in the world are not able to bypass their obligations.”

NEWS ANALYSIS

As Europe Approves New Tech Laws, the U.S. Falls Further Behind

Federal privacy bills, security legislation and antitrust laws to address the power of the tech giants have all failed to advance in Congress, despite hand wringing and shows of bipartisan support


By Cecilia Kang
Cecilia Kang, who reports from Washington, has covered tech policy since 2007.
April 22, 2022


In just the last few years, Europe has seen a landmark law for online privacy take effect, approved sweeping regulations to curb the dominance of the tech giants and on Friday was nearing a deal on new legislation to protect its citizens from harmful online content.

For those keeping score, that’s Europe: three. United States: zero.

The United States may be the birthplace of the iPhone and the most widely used search engine and social network, and it could also bring the world into the so-called metaverse. But global leadership on tech regulations is taking place more than 3,000 miles from Washington, by European leaders representing 27 nations with 24 languages, who have nonetheless been able to agree on basic online protections for their 450 million or so citizens.

In the United States, Congress has not passed a single piece of comprehensive regulation to protect internet consumers and to rein in the power of its technology giants.

It’s not for lack of trying. Over 25 years, dozens of federal privacy bills have been proposed and then ultimately dropped without bipartisan support. With every major hack of a bank or retailer, lawmakers have introduced data breach and security bills, all of which have withered on the vine. A flurry of speech bills have sunk into the quicksand of partisan disagreements over freedoms of expression. And antitrust bills to curtail the power of Apple, Amazon, Google and Meta, the owner of Facebook and Instagram, have sat in limbo amid fierce lobbying opposition.

Only two narrow federal tech laws have been enacted — one for children’s privacy and the other for ridding sites of sex-trafficking content — in the past 25 years.

“Inertia is too kind of a word to describe what’s happened in the United States; there’s been a lack of will, courage and understanding of the problem and technologies,” said Jeffrey Chester, the executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy, a public interest group. “And consumers are left with no protections here and lots of confusion.”

Antitrust bills to curtail the power of Apple, Amazon, Google and Meta have sat in limbo amid fierce lobbying opposition.

Credit...Callaghan O'Hare for The New York Times

The prospects that any legislation will pass imminently are dim, though regulations at some point are almost inevitable because of the way tech touches so many aspects of life. Of all the proposals currently in front of Congress, an antitrust bill that would bar Apple, Alphabet and Amazon from boosting their own products on their marketplaces and app stores over those of their rivals has the best shot.

A co-author of the bill, Senator Amy Klobuchar, Democrat of Minnesota, said Democratic leaders had promised it would go to a vote by this summer. But even that bill, with bipartisan support, faces an uphill climb amid so many other priorities in Congress and a fierce tech lobbying effort to defeat it.

If history is a guide, the path toward U.S. tech regulation will be long. It took decades of public anger to regulate the railroads through the creation of the Interstate Commerce Commission in 1887. It took nearly 50 years from the first medical reports on the dangers of cigarettes to the regulation of tobacco.

There’s no single reason for the sludge of progress in Congress. Proposals have been caught in the age-old partisan divide over how to protect consumers while also encouraging the growth of business. Then there are the hundreds of tech lobbyists who block legislation that could dampen their profits. Lawmakers have also at times failed to grasp the technologies they are trying to regulate, turning their public foibles over tech into internet memes.

Tech companies have taken advantage of that knowledge blind spot, said Tom Wheeler, a former chairman of the Federal Communications Commission.

“It’s what I call the ‘big con,’ where the tech companies spin a story that they are doing magic and that if Washington touches their companies with regulations they’ll be responsible for breaking that magic,” he said.

In the vacuum of federal regulations, states have created a patchwork of tech rules instead. California, Virginia, Utah and Colorado have adopted their own privacy laws. Florida and Texas have passed social media laws aimed at punishing internet platforms for censoring conservative views.

Amazon, Alphabet, Apple, Meta and Microsoft said they supported federal regulations. But when pressed, some of them have fought for the most permissive versions of the laws that have been under consideration. Meta, for instance, has pushed for weaker federal privacy legislation that would override stronger laws in the state

Tech’s lobbying power is now on full display in Washington with the threat of the antitrust bill from Ms. Klobuchar and Senator Charles E. Grassley, a Republican of Iowa. The proposal passed its first hurdle of votes in January, much to the tech industry’s surprise.

Amazon claimed in television and newspaper ads that an antitrust bill would effectively end its Prime program.

Credit...Roger Kisby for The New York Times

In response, many of the tech companies mobilized an extensive lobbying and marketing campaign to defeat the bill. Through a trade group, Amazon claimed in television and newspaper ads that the bill would effectively end its Prime membership program. Kent Walker, Google’s chief legal officer, wrote in a blog post that the legislation would “break” popular products and prevent the company from displaying Google maps in search results.

Ms. Klobuchar said the companies’ claims were hyperbole. She warned that by fighting the proposal, tech companies might be choosing the worse of two difficult options.

“They are letting Europe set the agenda on internet regulation,” Ms. Klobuchar said. “At least we listened to everyone’s concerns and modified our bill.”

The inaction may appear surprising given that Republicans and Democrats are ostensibly in lock step over how tech companies have morphed into global powerhouses.

“Consumers need confidence that their data is being protected, and businesses need to know they can keep innovating while complying with a strong, workable national privacy standard,” said Senator Roger Wicker, Republican of Mississippi. “The U.S. cannot afford to cede leadership on this issue.”

Lawmakers have also forced many tech chief executives — including Jeff Bezos of Amazon, Tim Cook of Apple, Sundar Pichai of Google and Mark Zuckerberg of Meta — to testify multiple times before Congress in recent years. In some of those televised hearings, lawmakers of both parties have told the executives that their companies — with a combined $6.4 trillion in market value — aren’t above government or public accountability.

“Some of these companies are countries, not companies,” Senator John Kennedy, Republican of Louisiana, said in a January antitrust hearing, adding that they are “killing fields for the truth.”

But so far, the talk has not translated into new laws. The path to privacy regulations provides the clearest case study on that record of inaction.

Since 1995, Senator Edward J. Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, has introduced a dozen privacy bills for internet service providers, drones and third-party data brokers. In 2018, the year Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation took effect, he proposed a bill to require a consumer’s permission to share or sell data.

Mr. Markey also tried twice to update and strengthen privacy legislation for youths following his 1998 law, the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act.

With every effort, industry lobbying groups have denounced the bills as harmful to innovation. Many Republican lawmakers have opposed the proposals, saying they don’t balance the needs of businesses.

“Big Tech sees data as dollar signs, so for decades they’ve bankrolled industry lobbyists to help them evade accountability,” Mr. Markey said. “We’ve reached a breaking point.”
Reining In Big Tech



A Global Tipping Point for Reining In Tech Has Arrived
April 20, 2021

Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google Prepare for Their ‘Big Tobacco Moment’
July 28, 2020

Lawmakers Grill Tech C.E.O.s on Capitol Riot, Getting Few Direct Answers
March 25, 2021

Cecilia Kang covers technology and regulation and joined The Times in 2015. She is the co-author, along with Sheera Frenkel of The Times, of “An Ugly Truth: Inside Facebook's Battle for Domination.” @ceciliakang

A version of this article appears in print on April 23, 2022, Section B, Page 1 of the New York edition with the headline: U.S. Lags As Europe Promotes Tech Laws. 

Loyalists turn on Sri Lanka PM as protest pressure grows

President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has come under increasing pressure to fire members of his powerful family, including elder brother Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa (Photo: AFP/Ishara S Kodikara)

23 Apr 2022 02

COLOMBO: Sri Lanka's beleaguered prime minister came under increased pressure to step down on Saturday (Apr 23), as a Cabinet minister and other senior party members backed street protests calling for resignations over a worsening economic crisis.

Media Minister Nalaka Godahewa announced his support for the thousands outside President Gotabaya Rajapaksa's office who are demanding he and other members of his powerful family quit power.

Sri Lanka is suffering its most painful economic downturn since independence in 1948, with months of lengthy blackouts and acute shortages of food, fuel and other essentials.

The crisis has sparked countrywide protests, with angry demonstrators camped outside Rajapaksa's office for more than three weeks.

Under pressure, the president dropped two of his brothers - Chamal and Basil - and nephew Namal from the cabinet this month, but protesters rejected the changes as cosmetic.

Godahewa, previously a staunch Rajapaksa loyalist, said the president should sack his elder brother, Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa - the head of the family - and allow an all-party interim government to take over.

He said the government had lost its credibility after the police killing of a protester on Tuesday. Godahewa said he had offered his resignation but President Rajapaksa had not accepted it.

"We need to restore political stability to successfully meet the economic crisis," Godahewa said in a statement on his Facebook page.

"The entire cabinet, including the prime minister, should resign and [there should be] an interim cabinet that can win the confidence of all."

INCREASED SECURITY FOR FUNERAL

Police and the military stepped up security in the central town of Rambukkana on Saturday, ahead of the funeral of 42-year-old Chaminda Lakshan, who was shot dead when police broke up a protest against spiralling fuel prices.

Several senior ruling party members, including Dullas Alahapperuma, a former media minister and Cabinet spokesman, have also asked the premier to step down.

"I urge the President to appoint a smaller Cabinet with a genuine consensus representing all parties in parliament for one year maximum," Alahapperuma said on Saturday.

Food, fuel and electricity have been rationed for months and the country is facing record inflation. Hospitals are short of vital medicines and the government has appealed to citizens abroad for donations.

Finance Minister Ali Sabry, who is in Washington to negotiate a bailout from the International Monetary Fund, warned on Friday that the economic situation in the South Asian nation will likely worsen even further.

"It is going to get worse before it gets better," Sabry told reporters. "It is going to be a painful few years ahead."

Scientists find continent Balkanatolia that may explain evolution of mammals


Map showing Balkanatolia 40 million years ago and at the present day. 

Courtesy of Alexis Licht & Grégoire Métais/CNRS

Feb. 22 (UPI) -- Scientists have discovered a lost continent they call Balknatolia wedged between Europe, Africa and Asia that allowed mammals from Asia to colonize Europe earlier than once thought.

Their findings have been published in the March 2022 volume of Earth Science Reviews.

"We know that, around 34 million years ago, Western Europe was colonized by Asian species, leading to a major renewal of vertebrate fauna and extinction of its endemic mammals, a sudden event called the 'Grand Coupure,'" the French, American and Turkish researchers at CRNS who led the study said in a statement. "Surprisingly, fossils found in the Balkans point to the presence of Asian mammals in southern Europe long before the Grande Coupure, suggesting earlier colonization."

Prior to the Grand Coupure, Western Europe and Eastern Asia had separate animal life for millions of years, the statement noted. European forests had Palaeotheres, extinct animals related to present-day horses, and Asia was populated by diverse mammal families that are now found on both continents.

The team of paleontologists reviewed and reassessed earlier discoveries in light of current geological data related to the Eocene region corresponding to present-day Balkans, Europe, and Anatolia, Turkey.

Much of the region "was home to a terrestrial fauna that was homogenous, but distinct from those of Europe and Asia," the review found, the CNRS statement said. "This exotic fauna included, for example, marsupials of South American affinity and Embrithopoda (large herbivorous mammals resembling hippopotamuses) formerly found in Africa. The region must therefore have made up a single land mass, separate from neighboring continents."

The team also found "a new fossil deposit" from Asian mammals in Anatolia, "dating from 38 to 35 million years ago," the statement said. They also found jaw fragments from Brontotheres animals resembling rhinoceroses that died out at the end of the Eocene Epoch.

"All this information enabled the team to outline the history of this third Eurasian continent, wedged between Europe, Africa and Asia, which they dubbed Balkanatolia," the statement continued. "The continent, already in existence 50 million years ago and home to a unique fauna, was colonized 40 million years ago by Asian mammals as a result of geographical changes that have yet to be understood. It seems likely that a major glaciation 34 million years ago, leading to the formation of the Antarctic ice sheet and lowering sea levels, connected Balkanatolia to Western Europe, giving rise to the 'Grand Coupure.'"

Study: Humans interrupting 66-million-year-old relationship among animals


New research published on Thursday finds a link between animal size and diet dating back at least 66 million years, and which shows that herbivores -- like the pictured Sumatran Rhino -- and carnivores tend to be larger, while omnivores and invertivores are generally smaller. 

File Photo by stringer/EPA-EFE

April 21 (UPI) -- Diet and body mass are inextricably linked in vertebrates, but a 66-million-year-old relationship linked to animal evolution and survival is being interrupted by humans, according to new research.

Animals that are exclusively herbivores or carnivores are generally much larger in size than omnivores or invertivores -- animals that only eat invertebrates -- according to the study, published Thursday in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution.

Described as a "roughly U-shaped relationship," University of Nebraska researchers found the pattern has existed for at least 66 million years.

The shape represents carnivores and herbivores on either raised end, with the smaller invertivores and omnivores in the lower middle area of the letter.

Scientists believe that the fundamental feature of past and present ecosystems is being interrupted by humans, who are systematically eliminating the largest carnivores and herbivores from the face of the Earth through extinction.

The consequences of doing so are unpredictable, researchers say.

"We're not sure what's going to happen, because this hasn't happened before," study co-author Will Gearty said in a press release.

"But because the systems have been in what seems to be a very steady state for a very long time, it's concerning what might happen when they leave that state," said Gearty, a postdoctoral researcher at Nebraska.

The plant-based diet of herbivores is relatively poor in nutrition, meaning they often grow very large for the sake of covering more ground to forage more food.

On the other hand, carnivores generally grow large enough to both keep up with and take down those herbivores, keeping their stomachs continually full.

"You can be as big as your food will allow you to be. At the same time, you're often as big as you need to be to catch and process your food. So there's an evolutionary interplay there," Gearty said.

The result of this interplay is the U-shaped distribution of both average and maximum body sizes in mammals, the researchers said.

This U curve stretches back at least 66 million years, to a time when non-avian dinosaurs had just been wiped out, and mammals had yet to diversify and dominate the planet's surface.

"To my knowledge, this is the most extensive investigation of the evolution of body size and especially diet in mammals over time," Gearty said.

Macron lost the French left, but now needs it for victory

French President Emmanuel Macron's campaign slogan is 'All of us' but many on the left call him the 'President of the rich'

 PHOTOS AFP/Ludovic MARIN

Adam PLOWRIGHT with Toni CERDA in Foix
Thu, April 21, 2022,

Despite being a former minister in a Socialist government, French President Emmanuel Macron long ago burned through the goodwill he once had among left-wing voters.

"Last time, we had serious doubts about him, but we said to ourselves that at least he came from the left -- albeit the free-market left," said Zahra Nhili, a 42-year-old business consultant.

She voted for him in the final round of the 2017 election when he faced off against far-right leader Marine Le Pen -- a battle that will be repeated this Sunday.

"We've seen him now. He's clearly from the right," Nhili said.

She was speaking at a trendy artisanal brewery in the western city of Nantes in an area home to green-minded professionals like her, as well as working-class families.

In line with the rest of the city, her district heavily backed Macron's hard-left rival Jean-Luc Melenchon in the first round of presidential elections on April 10.

But while Melenchon finished top in Nantes, a modernising city home to large numbers of students and tech start-ups, the former Trotskyist came third nationwide and was eliminated.

The second round of the election on Sunday will see the top two finishers, Macron and Le Pen, go head-to-head needing more than 50 percent of ballots to win.

Voters like Nhili and her husband Marc are being repeatedly urged to help stop Le Pen.

For decades a so-called "republican front", uniting the mainstream right and left, comes together to keep the far-right out of power.

But Nhili felt like she did her duty in 2017 by voting for Macron and she's adamant she won't do it again -- unless polls show Le Pen with a lead.

"If at the end, it looks like she could get through, we'll go and vote Macron, but my body would suffer to do it," she said. "It's catastrophic what he's done.

"The poor have got poorer and the rich richer."

Riot police fire tear gas in the French city of Nantes -- which voted for the left -- at a protest against the far right ahead of French elections Sunday 

(AFP/Sebastien SALOM-GOMIS)

- 'In their hands' -

Left-wing voters are expected to be crucial in determining the outcome of Sunday's election.

Around 7.7 million voters backed Melenchon in the first round, with another 3.5 million turning out for the Greens, the Socialists and assorted far-left candidates.

All these votes are now up for grabs -- and the old "republican front" is crumbling.

One poll this week by Ipsos-Sopra Steria suggested around a third of Melenchon voters wanted Macron to win, but around a half had yet to make their minds up.

If higher than expected numbers abstained, or backed Le Pen, it could tip a tight race that sees Le Pen trailing Macron by 46 percent to 54 percent in an average of recent polls.

"The left-wing electorate has the outcome of the second round in its hands," said Jerome Fourquet, a political scientist and head of polling at the Ifop research group.

And AFP interviews with voters around France over the last fortnight revealed their indecision and disillusionment.

They also underscored an almost universal dislike of 44-year-old Macron, who came to power on a centrist platform five years ago promising to be "neither of the right nor the left".

"Everything in me is opposed to Emmanuel Macron," said Margot Medkour, head of the left-wing Nantes in Common movement, which operates out of a bar in the city centre. "He's not a rampart against the far right.

"He's been very authoritarian in the way he's exercised power, and he's got real contempt for people," she added. "But Marine Le Pen is not an alternative. I'll go and dirty my hands and vote for him."

Melenchon himself has not urged his followers to back Macron, but has called for "not a single vote" to go to Le Pen.

Yellow vests: A man opposed to French President President Emmanuel Macron awaits him on the campaign trail in northern France (AFP/Ludovic MARIN)

- 'President of the rich' -

Medkour's complaints are typical of the deep well of ill-will on the left towards Macron, a former investment banker who rocketed to power after just two years as economy minister.

Perceptions of him crystallised during his first year as head of state when he cut housing benefits for the poor but slashed wealth taxes for high-earners, earning him the moniker "the president of the rich".

His early tendency to talk down to people -- once telling an unemployed gardener that he could "cross the road" and find him a job -- also stirred deep-lying class resentments in small-town and rural France.

"He was very patronising. I understand that people can't bring themselves to vote for him," said Chloe Dallidet, a 36-year-old Melenchon voter as she sipped a coffee in the old market place of Foix in southwest France.

The surrounding area of Ariege, a mountainous Pyrenean region with higher-than-average unemployment and poverty, also placed Melenchon top, with 26.07 percent.

"If you cross the street here, you won't find a job," 36-year-old salesman Gaetan said of the town where "Neither banker, nor fascist" had been graffitied on a wall in the cobbled centre ahead of Sunday's vote.

Though Macron has since lowered taxes for people of all incomes, and implemented one of the most generous Covid-19 social safety nets in the world to save companies and jobs, his reputation for elitism remains.

Lowering France's chronically high unemployment to a 14-year low, which the president sees as a huge stride against inequality, earns him few admirers on the left.

"I'm fed up with the economy always coming first in front of the environment," complained Antoine Marchand, a 21-year-old medical student at Nantes University.

Others were left outraged by the heavy-handed police tactics used to snuff out anti-government "Yellow Vest" protests in 2018-19, which brought together many Le Pen and Melenchon voters.

The issue of police brutality, like attitudes to racism, has become a crucial political marker in France -- with Macron widely seen as falling on the wrong side by his progressive critics.

Dominique Subra, a retired government official in Foix, said she'd been disgusted by images in 2018 of protesting school children in a commuter town west of Paris who being lined up against a wall by police and made to kneel with their hands on their heads.

"I'll leave my ballot blank, like in 2017, because I've lived through five years under an authoritarian government," she said.

- Le Pen's Muslim vote -

Young people, the green-minded, public sector and unionised workers all voted heavily for Melenchon, who has been likened to a French version of America's ageing left-winger Bernie Sanders.

Multi-ethnic, low-income areas that fringe French cities also voted heavily in favour of the outspoken 70-year-old -- none more so than the northern Parisian suburb of Villetaneuse, a Communist party bastion for a century.

Melenchon won the district, which is home to a large Muslim population, by his largest margin country-wide on April 10 with 65 percent of the vote.

"Everyone here liked Melenchon's programme," said Azdine Barkaoui, a father-of-four on the minimum wage, who agreed with taxing the rich more and Melenchon's embrace of multiculturalism.

Many people were not sure they'd turn out for Macron as they did overwhelmingly in 2017, despite Le Pen's promise to ban the Muslim headscarf in public and exclude foreigners from social security.

"We know that most of the stuff on Islam she'll never be able to implement," said Barkaoui, a practising Muslim, who said he planned to vote for her as the lesser of two evils.

"It's like a dish that everyone says tastes bad but I want to try it for myself," he said of Le Pen, who he thought had been "demonised" by the media.

Le Pen has spent more than a decade trying to distance her party from its reputation for racism and she stressed her "social" programme, which promises to lower the retirement rate to 60.

Macron meanwhile wants to raise it to 65 and to oblige people on unemployment benefits to do 15-20 hours of work or training a week.

Aime Beya, a 51-year-old on long-term sick leave, mentioned Macron's rhetoric on Islam, which some found stigmatising, and multiple mosque closures during a crackdown on radical preachers.

"Le Pen says what the others think to themselves," he told AFP. "I might give her a chance."

adp-tjc/fg

Horses give Irish prisoners hope of a stable life



The equine centre at Castlerea Prison in central Ireland is the first of its kind in Europe 

(AFP/Paul Faith)

Callum PATON
Thu, April 21, 2022,

The purpose-built stables and adjoining paddock stretch almost as far as the high grey, exterior wall of Castlerea Prison in central Ireland.

For the men held at the medium-security jail in County Roscommon, the horses provide an opportunity to learn practical skills -- and develop more compassion through their work.

The new equine centre -- named "Horses of Hope" by the inmates themselves -- is the first of its kind in Europe and was officially opened this week.

On completion of the course, the prisoners will get a nationally recognised certification in horse care -- a potentially beneficial qualification in a country renowned for its love of horses.

"It could be a life-changing opportunity here so you just have to wait and see," one prisoner, whose name was withheld by the prison authorities, told AFP.

"I am just happy that I'm getting this opportunity and I am going to be taking it with both hands," the prisoner, who is serving a stretch of several years for a violent crime, explained.

"At the end of it, if we do well in this, there could be a job opening at a stud farm or other places around the country," he said following his first three weeks on the course.

"It's relaxing. You can't just come out here and expect to go into the stable to a horse that doesn't know you and just thinking he's going to be alright with you. You have to gain their trust."

The Irish government says the scheme gives prisoners an opportunity to turn their lives around (AFP/Paul Faith)

- Skills -

The scheme has been delivered through collaboration between the Irish Prison Service and Ireland's horse racing industry.

Groups of inmates work with horses over a period of 12 weeks, learning horse care skills such as grooming, stable management and first aid.

Similar initiatives have been launched in Australia and the United States, where a real-life programme inspired the 2019 film "The Mustang".

Prisoners who learn to care for horses can go on to make valuable contributions to their communities on release and in some cases gain employment in the equine industry, according to the Irish government.

Charity founder Jonathan Irwin, who has worked in horse racing for decades, provided the impetus for the initiative after he visited a US scheme 30 years ago.

But he said it had taken 26 years before the plan started to come together. "There were a lot of brick walls," he explained.

"I started writing to every minister of justice but most of them never replied because I think they just thought I was some kind of madman."

Inmates learn horse care skills such as grooming, stable management and first aid over a 12-week period (AFP/Paul Faith)

- Excitement -

Ireland's horse racing community has raised over 100,000 euros ($108,500) for the costs of the "Horses of Hope" initiative.

Irwin hopes it will expand over the coming years, extending the stables, which currently hold 10 boxes for retired racehorses.

Already, he said, the programme of equine care was starting to have a positive effect and there was a "sense of excitement that something is being done that's completely different".

"There's a great affinity between the horse and the prisoner, and the prisoner is much more relaxed," he added.

"This has made such a difference already."

Opening the facility, justice minister Helen McEntee said it was "fitting that Ireland should be a leader in this space, particularly given our leadership ... when it comes to the equine industry".

"I have no doubt that our European colleagues will be following suit and will be replicating and imitating what has been done here.

"It is so important that there is an opportunity for rehabilitation, for people to be able to admit where mistakes were made ... and people can be given an opportunity to turn their lives around."

csp/phz/gil

Demolitions in Saudi's Jeddah turn residents into 'strangers'





A $20-billion clearance and construction project stands to displace half-a-million people in Saudi Arabia's second city (AFP/-)

Thu, April 21, 2022

The Saudi doctor still had 15 years left on the loan he used to build his family's "dream" home in Jeddah when bulldozers razed it to the ground, turning his life into "hell".

The operation was part of a $20-billion clearance and construction project that stands to displace half-a-million people in Saudi Arabia's second city –- and has spurred rare expressions of public anger in the kingdom.

Authorities pitch the development as the latest ambitious project of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, one that will replace "slums" with amenities like a stadium, an oceanarium and an opera house.

Yet in coastal Jeddah, where crushed concrete and twisted metal now line affected streets, residents bristle at official descriptions of their lost neighbourhoods as undesirable hotbeds of drugs and crime.

Instead they accuse the government of destroying vibrant, diverse working-class districts that once burnished Jeddah's reputation as the most open destination in the deeply conservative country.

"We have become strangers in our own city. We feel suffering and bitterness," said the doctor, who is now renting accommodation while still paying $400 a month on his personal loan, which is secured against the land the home was built on.

The prospects of renegotiating the loan or claiming compensation remain unclear, added the doctor, who did not want to be identified -- like the other residents in this story -- for fear of retaliation from the authorities.

Paused for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, the demolitions are expected to pick up again in May. Jeddah officials did not respond to AFP's request for comment about the project.

- 'Expelled without warning' -

Often referred to as the "Gateway to Mecca", Islam's holiest city, Jeddah is a lively tourist hub of beachfront restaurants and galleries, that has in past months hosted a major film festival and a Formula One Grand Prix.

Well before Prince Mohammed embarked on a social liberalisation drive to soften his country's extremist image, the city on the Red Sea coast enjoyed a level of freedom that helped give birth to its motto: "Jeddah ghair", or "Jeddah is different".

But the demolitions risk fuelling anti-government sentiment in the 30-plus neighbourhoods that have been targeted, many of which housed a mix of Saudis and foreigners from other Arab countries and Asia.

Evicted residents had been living in the homes for up to 60 years, said ALQST for Human Rights, an NGO.

Some were driven out when their power and water was cut off, or threatened with jail for disobeying an eviction order, it added.

In the city's southern Galil neighbourhood, which saw the first demolitions last October, a resident who gave his name as Fahd said security forces had confiscated mobile phones to prevent footage from getting out.

"We were suddenly expelled from our homes overnight and without warning," he told AFP.

By early this year, though, the news was circulating widely, with the hashtag "#hadad_jeddah", or "Jeddah_demolition" in Arabic, trending on Twitter.

Ali al-Ahmed, a Saudi activist and scholar at the Institute for Gulf Affairs in Washington, has led online efforts to publicise details of the demolitions.

"It is not acceptable to demolish citizens' homes without their consent, and before compensating them at an appropriate price sufficient to move them to a new place," he said.

- 'Felt like doomsday' -

During a recent visit to one neighbourhood rocked by demolitions, an AFP journalist saw multiple blocks where most buildings had been levelled.

On several of those still standing, authorities had written a single word in red: "Evacuate".

A sign instructed residents to leave with their belongings, and advised them to upload documents on a government website to apply for compensation.

The Saudi government has promised to compensate families, and announced in February it would complete 5,000 replacement housing units by the end of the year.

But residents interviewed by AFP, including those evicted early on, said they had so far received nothing and that there was no clear way to assess the value of their destroyed homes.

"Months have passed and I have not received compensation for my home. I went from a homeowner to becoming a tenant struggling to pay his rent," Fahd said.

The ALQST survey also found some residents had not received clear information on how to claim compensation, or even been told it was available.

Officials defend the project, saying it will modernise the city with 17,000 new residential units, while retaining its character.

And they continue to denigrate affected areas, with Jeddah's mayor saying in one televised interview that demolitions hit places that were "a den of crime".

Such descriptions disturb men like Turki, a Saudi native of Jeddah who had been living in the house built by his grandfather, where he himself grew up and where, before the bulldozers and wrecking balls came, he had planned to raise his children.

Turki went back to see what had become of the property, and the scene reduced him to tears.

"The sound of demolition was everywhere," he said. "With rubble everywhere, it felt like doomsday."

ht-rcb/th/hc