Key events<\/p>\n <\/p>\n 25m ago<\/p>\n West should ‘learn from the men of Ancient Greece’, says Rubio in Athens speech<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n 2h ago<\/p>\n Poll shows majority of French people supports high school protests, demands, but uncertain about their future<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n 2h ago<\/p>\n ‘Impunity must end,’ Le Pen says, as she offers her support to police over student protests<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n 2h ago<\/p>\n Housing activists at Madrid encampment pin wary hopes on Spain\u2019s early election<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n 3h ago<\/p>\n French high school protests continue – in pictures<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n 3h ago<\/p>\n Over 6,600 arrests since French high school protests started, French minister says<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n 4h ago<\/p>\n French interior minister rejects allegation of heavy-handed police response to student protests<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n 5h ago<\/p>\n French trade union backs calls for further street protests on Thursday<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n 5h ago<\/p>\n Nearly 460 schools affected across France as student protests continue<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n 6h ago<\/p>\n Aftermath of Russian strikes on Ukraine \u2013 in pictures<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n 7h ago<\/p>\n At least seven people injured in a suspected knife attack at a school in Poland – reports<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n 7h ago<\/p>\n France’s Kagan and Japan’s Soai awarded the 2026 Nobel chemistry prize<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n 7h ago<\/p>\n Nobel prize in chemistry about to announced<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n 8h ago<\/p>\n Russia ‘pursuing a deliberate strategy of terror,’ EU’s von der Leyen says<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n 8h ago<\/p>\n Death toll from overnight Russian attacks on Ukraine rises to 15<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n 8h ago<\/p>\n Rubio highlights close ties with Greece ahead of ‘major speech’ on democracy and west’s decline<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n 8h ago<\/p>\n Ukraine hit two Russian oil facilities in ‘just responses’ to Russian strikes, Zelenskyy says<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n 9h ago<\/p>\n Bulgaria halts search efforts for crew of ship sunken by drone attack<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n 9h ago<\/p>\n Overnight Russian attacks on Ukraine – in pictures<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n 9h ago<\/p>\n At least 11 dead, 34 injured after ‘vile’ attack on Ukraine on Putin’s birthday, Zelenskyy says<\/p>\n <\/a>West should ‘learn from the men of Ancient Greece’, says Rubio in Athens speech<\/p>\n US secretary of state Marco Rubio called for the nations of the West to return to their civilizational roots and restore the values that drove the rise of Europe<\/a> and North America to global dominance for centuries in a speech in Athens.<\/p>\n Rubio said: \u201cIt has become fashionable today to believe that enlightened foreign policy means prioritizing the \u2018global community\u2019 over one\u2019s own people. And I think here, too, we have much more to learn from the men of Ancient Greece. They knew that there was nothing selfish or wrong about loyalty to your nation, nor anything selfish or wrong about fighting to defend its interests above all else.\u201d<\/p>\n Rubio also urged Europe to uphold its traditional values.<\/p>\n \u201cToday, we find ourselves at a crossroads.<\/p>\n \u201cThe next decade will write the story of the next century. The course we take will determine whether the West maintains its place at the head of the world, or resigns itself to a future of atrophy, and servitude, and decline. We will either choose to act now or lose the choice to act at all.\u201d<\/p>\n Macro Rubio delivers speech in Athens Photograph: Mark Schiefelbein\/ReutersShare<\/a><\/p>\n Updated at\u00a012.56 EDT<\/p>\n France summoned Iran\u2019s ambassador over what foreign ministry spokesperson Pascal Confavreux described as an Iranian disinformation campaign targeting France\u2019s secondary school student protest movement.<\/p>\n The envoy was told of the \u201cabsolutely unacceptable\u201d nature of false content disseminated online by official Iranian foreign ministry accounts, Confavreux said in a statement, adding that Tehran\u2019s October 6 summons of the French ambassador was baseless.<\/p>\n \u201cThese undignified provocations must cease,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Iran on Tuesday summoned France\u2019s envoy in Tehran over the ongoing student protests, accusing Paris of the \u201cviolent treatment\u201d of demonstrators and of extensive human rights violations, according to Iranian state media.<\/p>\n Share<\/a><\/p>\n Back to the protests in France<\/a> and the administrative court has suspended the ban on gatherings around 45 schools in Haute-Garonne, Occitanie, seeing it as an attack on the freedom to demonstrate, BFMTV reported.<\/p>\n The ban \u201cis neither appropriate nor proportionate and whose necessity is not established, constitutes a serious and manifestly illegal infringement of the freedom of demonstration and the freedom of assembly,\u201d the administrative court of Toulouse said in its decision.<\/p>\n Share<\/a><\/p>\n Russian missiles and drones struck Ukrainian cities including Kyiv, Pryluky and Kremenchuk overnight on Tuesday. Two people were killed in Kyiv, while a strike destroyed an apartment block in Pryluky, in Ukraine\u2019s northern Chernihiv region, killing at least nine people including three children.<\/p>\n European Union envoys on Wednesday approved about 1,650 new Russia sanctions listings.<\/p>\n EU diplomats told Reuters on Tuesday that the majority would be focused on the country\u2019s military industrial complex.<\/p>\n Share<\/a><\/p>\n Following the attack on a teacher in La Ciotat who was doused with gasoline during student protests, three 16-year-olds will appear before the Marseille juvenile court in February 2027, newspaper Liberation reported.<\/p>\n Share<\/a> More from the Greek capital where visiting US Secretary of state, Marco Rubio, has been dominating the news.<\/p>\n In a day packed with talk of energy and defense, gas \u2018corridors\u2019 and trade, counterterrorism and US military bases – all earning Greece the encomium of being the region\u2019s \u201cpillar of stability\u201d according to Rubio \u2013 it is the foreign policy chief, himself, who has made the news.<\/p>\n Rubio\u2019s decision to use the trip to deliver a major address \u201con democracy and its future\u201d from the ancient Pnyx has imbued the visit with an air of excitement.<\/p>\n Until last night it was far from sure that the US secretary of state would have access to the setting because of security reasons.<\/p>\n Only hours before more than 1,500 protestors, appalled by the war in Iran, had marched through the streets of central Athens waving banners declaring him persona non grata.<\/p>\n Excerpts of Rubio\u2019s address released by the State department suggest he will focus on the shared values that have united Americans and Europeans in what has also been described as a rallying cry for \u201ca great renewal of the Western spirit.\u201d<\/p>\n But there are also fears the US secretary of state may use the setting to make a speech in the spirit of the blistering attack on Europe issued by Vice President JD Vance at the Munich Security conference last year. The speech is scheduled to take place in the next half hour.<\/p>\n Marco Rubio in Athens Photograph: Louiza Vradi\/ReutersShare<\/a><\/p>\n Updated at\u00a011.40 EDT<\/p>\n Poll shows majority of French people supports high school protests, demands, but uncertain about their future<\/p>\n A new Elabe poll for BFMTV shows<\/a> that 55% of French people support the high school protests.<\/p>\n Students gather behind makeshift barricades made of trash bins and metal barriers near Sciences Po Paris in Paris. Photograph: Umit Donmez\/Anadolu\/Getty Images<\/p>\n While 35% oppose the movement, 10% say they have no clear view.<\/p>\n Support for the students\u2019 demands is even higher, with 72% considering them legitimate \u2013 a view shared by majorities across the political spectrum, from left to right.<\/p>\n However, the public is far more divided over what should happen next: 55% believe students have made their point and should end the protests, while 27% think they should carry on.<\/p>\n Share<\/a>‘Impunity must end,’ Le Pen says, as she offers her support to police over student protests<\/p>\n French far-right National Rally leader Marine Le Pen offered her strong support for the police, saying \u201cimpunity must end,\u201d and \u201cthose who vandalise our schools, and their parents when they are minors, must pay for the damage they cause.\u201d<\/p>\n Marine Le Pen, far-right party National Assembly (RN) candidate in France’s 2027 presidential election, speaks with reporters in Cournon d\u2019Auvergne, central France. Photograph: Alain ROBERT\/SIPA\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n \u201cThe French people should no longer have to finance the vandals,\u201d she told reporters<\/a> on a visit to Cournon-d\u2019Auvergne.<\/p>\n She also said the police should have the support of the nation, and \u201cnot face constant accusations from those in power,\u201d as she chose to use the protests to criticise the French president, Emmanuel Macron.<\/p>\n \u201cWhile the far left spreads false accusations to stoke violence, Emmanuel Macron once again chooses to undermine those who protect the French people,\u201d she said.<\/a><\/p>\n Le Pen leads the presidential polls ahead of next year\u2019s election, with 33-34% of vote share in the first round, well ahead of \u00c9douard Philippe and Jean-Luc M\u00e9lenchon at around 16-18%.<\/p>\n Share<\/a>Housing activists at Madrid encampment pin wary hopes on Spain\u2019s early election European community affairs correspondent In other news, at a makeshift lunch counter tucked within a maze of tents at a housing protest camp in Madrid, S\u00e9lpide San Luis pointed to the dizzying pace of change.<\/p>\n Tarps shelter a protest camp from the rain in Madrid’s Puerta del Sol square as demonstrators demand political action to halt evictions and address the housing crisis after an 87-year-old woman was evicted from her home, in Madrid, Spain. Photograph: Violeta Santos Moura\/Reuters<\/p>\n \u201cWe built a city in a week,\u201d said the 26-year-old, whose videos documenting<\/a> day-to-day life at the encampment have attracted tens of thousands of views on social media, as she pointed to the more than 1,200 tents set up in the central Puerta del Sol square.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have urban planning, the streets have names and we\u2019ve put surveillance systems in place. And thanks to what we\u2019re doing here, media have not stopped talking about the issue of housing \u2013 something that we\u2019ve been trying to get on the agenda for so long.\u201d<\/p>\n This week marked another significant moment for the impromptu movement.<\/p>\n After days of protests and encampments that have sprouted up across the country after the eviction from of 87-year-old Maricarmen Abascal<\/a> from her home, the Socialist prime minister, Pedro S\u00e1nchez, announced a snap general election<\/a> in response to rightwing parties torpedoing emergency legislation to tackle the housing crisis.<\/p>\n People walk past a protest camp in Madrid’s Puerta del Sol square as demonstrators demand political action to halt evictions and address the housing crisis after an 87-year-old woman was evicted from her home, in Madrid, Spain. Photograph: Violeta Santos Moura\/Reuters<\/p>\n Housing campaigners vowed to keep up the pressure. \u201cThe power of the people has ushered in a new era,\u201d said Alicia del R\u00edo, of the Madrid Tenants\u2019 Union, as she floated plans for a general strike in November.<\/p>\n \u201cAn election campaign is now beginning that will be deeply shaped by the housing issue. So we ask the members of parliament, are you going to introduce the measures that people are demanding \u2013 ones demanded by the majority of voters<\/a> across all parties \u2013 or are you going to continue to be the lackeys of the rentier economy?\u201d<\/p>\n The election, which did not have to held until August 2027, is a high-stakes gamble<\/a> for S\u00e1nchez. Polls suggest the most likely outcome will be a rightwing coalition between the People\u2019s party and the far-right, anti-immigration Vox party.<\/p>\n Share<\/a>French high school protests continue – in picturesProtesters shout slogans and hold placards in a street during a blockade of Sciences Po university in Paris. Photograph: Sarah Meyssonnier\/ReutersA protester holds a French flag behind a barricade to block the Boulevard Saint-Germain during a blockade of Sciences Po university in Paris. Photograph: Sarah Meyssonnier\/ReutersStudents face policemen near Sciences Po University as they protest against under-resourced schools, in Paris. Photograph: Thibault Camus\/APStudents on Boulevard Saint Germain during a demonstration outside Science Po in Paris, France. Photograph: Blondet Eliot\/ABACA\/ShutterstockShare<\/a>Over 6,600 arrests since French high school protests started, French minister says<\/p>\n The interior minister, Laurent Nu\u00f1ez, has also provided the latest figures on arrests and injuries across the country.<\/p>\n A total of 6,629 people have been arrested since the protests began.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, 761 police officers and gendarmes have been injured, alongside 215 students and 89 members of teaching staff.<\/p>\n Share<\/a>French interior minister rejects allegation of heavy-handed police response to student protests<\/p>\n French interior minister Laurent Nu\u00f1ez rejected allegations of police brutality in their response to on-going French student protests, saying officers only intervene when there is damage or violence.<\/p>\n Addressing French lawmakers, he said the protest movement was \u201cunprecedented\u201d because of \u201cvery serious violence,\u201d franceinfo reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n French riot police apprehend a protester amid clashes on the Boulevard Saint-Germain during a protest outside Sciences Po university in Paris. Photograph: Sarah Meyssonnier\/ReutersShare<\/a><\/p>\n Ukraine\u2019s agriculture minister said his country would not agree to EU membership if that would entail permanent restrictions on farm subsidies and exports of agricultural products.<\/p>\n The response comes a day after the European Commission proposed a special arrangement that would limit financial support and restrict exports, such as wheat, from Ukraine.<\/p>\n \u201cTransitional periods are a normal part of EU enlargement… Permanent restrictions on access to the single market are an entirely different matter,\u201d Taras Vysotsky said in a statement to AFP.<\/p>\n \u201cUkraine cannot agree to such an approach.\u201d<\/p>\n The government in Kyiv had not yet received any official proposal, which is due to be discussed by EU leaders at a summit next week, he added.<\/p>\n Share<\/a><\/p>\n Russia\u2019s health agency said on Wednesday that it saw \u201cno epidemic risks\u201d following the reported plague death of a laboratory technician in Siberia last week, as Moscow faced mounting calls for transparency.<\/p>\n \u201cMore than 90 percent of contacts have completed medical observation. No health disorders associated with infectious pathology were detected,\u201d health watchdog Rospotrebnadzor said in a statement, stressing that \u201cthere are no epidemic risks for the population of Irkutsk and the Irkutsk region\u201d.<\/p>\n Share<\/a>French trade union backs calls for further street protests on Thursday<\/p>\n There are no signs of the French protests going away any time soon.<\/p>\n A protester holds a placard reading \u201cGeneration Six \u2013 Seven re-enacts May 68″ behind a barricade to block the Boulevard Saint-Germain during a blockade of Sciences Po university in Paris, France. Photograph: Sarah Meyssonnier\/Reuters<\/p>\n The left-wing CGT trade union, France\u2019s second-largest, said it would rally behind the student union\u2019s call for further street protests on Thursday.<\/p>\n \u201cThe CGT will continue to shoulder its responsibilities in supporting the young people who have mobilised and protecting them from violence and police repression,\u201d a CGT statement said.<\/p>\n Share<\/a>Nearly 460 schools affected across France as student protests continue<\/p>\n In France<\/a>, nearly 460 schools are affected by continuing protests today, just over a half of those that joined the \u201cday of mobilisation\u201d yesterday, the French education ministry said.<\/p>\n Once again, there are reports of localised clashes with police, including outside Sciences Po university in Paris, where police forces destroyed a barricade raised by the protesters.<\/p>\n Students block the road outside Sciences Po during a protest in Paris, France. Photograph: Tom Nicholson\/Getty ImagesPolice spray tear gas as they clash with students on Boulevard Saint-Germain during a protest outside Sciences Po in Paris, France. Photograph: Tom Nicholson\/Getty ImagesFrench riot gendarmes attempt to move protesters behind a barricade to block the Boulevard Saint-Germain amid clashes during a protest outside Sciences Po university in Paris. Photograph: Sarah Meyssonnier\/ReutersShare<\/a><\/p>\n Updated at\u00a007.38 EDT<\/p>\n Aftermath of Russian strikes on Ukraine \u2013 in picturesEmergency services work to rescue residents from under the debris at the site of an apartment building which was hit by a Russian missile strike in the town of Pryluky in the Chernihiv region, Ukraine. Photograph: Valentyn Ogirenko\/ReutersPeople carry a casualty, as emergency services work to rescue residents from under the debris at the site of an apartment building which was hit by a Russian missile strike in the town of Pryluky in the Chernihiv region, Ukraine. Photograph: Valentyn Ogirenko\/ReutersSpecialists remove the debris of a Russian missile that fell in a residential neighbourhood of Kyiv during a night of Russian missile attacks. Photograph: Thomas Peter\/ReutersShare<\/a><\/p>\n Updated at\u00a007.34 EDT<\/p>\n![\"French](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/1791392414_282_5000.jpg\")
French riot police apprehend a protester amid clashes on the Boulevard Saint-Germain during a protest outside Sciences Po university in Paris. Photograph: Sarah Meyssonnier\/ReutersShare<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Explosion](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/3872.jpg\")
Explosion in Kyiv as Russian missiles strike across Ukraine \u2013 videoShare<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Helena](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/helena.jpg\")
Helena Smith<\/p>\n![\"Ashifa](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/Ashifa_Kassam.png\")
Ashifa Kassam<\/p>\n
in Madrid<\/p>\n