⁍ France will push for financial sanctions under the EU’s 750 billion euro ($880 billion) coronavirus recovery fund.

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⁍ The EU is struggling to respond to what many in western Europe see as creeping authoritarianism on its eastern flank.

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– France plans to use an $880 billion European Union fund to punish countries that undermine human rights, the Financial Times reports. “(We can’t tell) French, Polish, Hungarian, and European citizens that (we) can have financial solidarity in Europe and not care how the basic rules of democracy, free media, and equal rights are respected,” Clement Beaune, France’s junior European affairs minister, says in an interview. He says France will push for financial sanctions under the EU’s $880 billion coronavirus recovery fund against states that undermine fundamental human rights. The fund was set up to fight the spread of the virus that wiped out tens of thousands of people in 2015 in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.