France
Le Figaro focused on French Interior Minister Gérard Collomb’s announcement on Tuesday that he planned to resign from his post next May, after the European election, to run for his old job as mayor of Lyon in 2020. Collomb, who previously served as the city’s mayor for 16 years, was one of President Emmanuel Macron’s oldest allies, quitting the Socialists in 2016 to back En Marche. The interior minister earlier this month criticized the French executive’s “lack of humility.” Le Figaro wrote that while the Elysée Palace wants to “trivialize” Collomb’s departure, his resignation is a fresh blow to the French president.
Libération meanwhile focused on a different Macron headache. The paper noted the president’s former aide Alexandre Benalla, who was filmed intervening in a police operation during May Day protests while wearing riot gear, will face a hearing before a Senate committee on Wednesday. Le Monde focused on the president’s new health reforms.
UK
Several papers focused on a long-awaited Migration Advisory Committee report, which was released on Tuesday. The Times noted the U.K. was now “set for tough new curbs on low-skilled immigrants.” The FT said the report would “embolden” the prime minister in her push for a “restrictive post-Brexit regime.” The tabloid Daily Express featured an interview with Theresa May in which the PM defended her Brexit plan, saying it was delivering “freedoms people voted for.” The Sun, meanwhile, reported it had found a Russian model who claimed “Putin tried to kill me with rat poison” in Salisbury. The newspaper referred to it as “Salisbury attack No. 2.”
Germany
German front pages were all about the dismissal — and effective promotion — of the head of the domestic spy agency Hans-Georg Maaßen, who has been under fire for his reaction to anti-immigrant protests in the city of Chemnitz as well as allegations he provided far-right politicians with confidential material. Der Tagesspiegel reported Maaßen was being “promoted as a punishment,” as Maaßen will become state secretary within the interior ministry. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung noted the opposition was “outraged.” Die Tageszeitung’s comment on the decision: “Not okay.”
Der Tagesspiegel also ran an interview with Chinese contemporary artist Ai Weiwei, who spoke to the newspaper about his time in exile and admitted “I do not like my own art.”
