AIX-EN-PROVENCE, France — France’s business elite is anxious about volatile politics, inexperienced policymakers, street protests and a possible wave of bankruptcies in the coming months, executives meeting in Provence said ahead of Sunday’s parliamentary election.

Corporate leaders gathered on Friday and Saturday in the southern city of Aix-en-Provence for France’s annual answer to Davos have been among the main beneficiaries of President Emmanuel Macron’s pro-business reforms since he was first elected in 2017.

Far right and left-wing parties want to roll back some of Mr. Macron’s reforms, ranging from raising the retirement age to scrapping a wealth tax on financial assets.

Voters are set to derail his drive to ease taxes and other constraints on business when — as it is widely expected — they hand Mr. Macron’s party a decisive defeat in an election that polls suggest will give the far right the most seats in parliament. “We are very concerned about what’s going to happen,” Ross McInnes, chairman of aerospace company Safran, told Reuters. “Whatever the political configuration that will come out of Sunday’s vote, we are probably at the end of a reform cycle that started 10 years ago.”

While business leaders tip-toed around the topic of the election in the public panels, they did not conceal their anxiety on the sidelines over the rise of both the far-right and the far-left.

The far-right National Rally (RN) will likely fall short of an absolute majority, leaving other parties to figure out whether a coalition can be formed to govern, which is unprecedented in modern France and would likely be unstable.

“Nothing good ever comes from chaos. I don’t know what’s going to happen, but this is a country that has seen social unrest before,” the head of a large French industrial group said.

INEXPERIENCED LEADERS
Business leaders voiced concern that politicians standing at the gates of power lacked experience steering the euro zone’s second largest economy while they also balked at the prospect that France’s already considerable tax burden could grow under the left-wing alliance.

RN leader Jordan Bardella, 28, could become France’s youngest prime minister if the party wins a majority in Sunday’s election.

The political uncertainty has already driven up France’s cost of borrowing as bond investors demanded the highest risk premiums DE10FR10=RR over equivalent German debt in 12 years after Mr. Macron called the snap election last month.

Meanwhile, corporate investors in the real economy are also apprehensive about the political and economic outlook. “We’ve continued to take investment decisions over the past weeks, including in France. But clearly if we had had to make a really major investment decision, we probably would have waited to have better visibility,” said Mathias Burghardt, chief executive officer of Ardian France, a private equity firm.

With no sign the political volatility will subside anytime soon, the higher financing costs could soon feed through to French companies just as they are preparing to roll over ultra-low-cost loans from the COVID era at higher rates, executives said.

“That creates a scenario where we expect corporate defaults to continue to rise in France beyond what could have been if such a political disruption didn’t happen,” Ana Boata, head of economic research at the trade credit insurance arm of Allianz, told Reuters.

Macron’s pro-business reform drive often jarred with voters, sparking sometimes violent street protests like the yellow vest movement of 2018 or marches last year against an overhaul of the retirement system.

Though he won a second term in 2022, Mr. Macron has also failed to connect with many voters, who see him as a product of the closely intertwined political and business elites that run the country.

The anti-immigration, euroskeptic RN has proposed to roll back Mr. Macron’s 2023 increase in the retirement age to 64 from 62 and cut taxes on energy, saying these measures would be paid for by slashing welfare spending benefiting immigrants.

Meanwhile the left-wing Popular Front alliance’s tax-and-spend program would bring back a wealth tax and raise the minimum wage by 14% while also scrapping Mr. Macron’s pensions reform.

A minority government would be constrained by the risk of votes of no confidence, likely making it less able to move ahead with new legislation.

Beyond the possibility of a hamstrung government, business leaders also worried about the knock-on impact RN’s anti-immigrant policies are likely to have on France’s future workforce.

“Demographics show us that we need to attract talent,” said Mr. McInnes. “This country has been sustained by immigration for 300 years.” — Reuters

BAHADURNAGAR, India — Just a pat on the back by preacher “Bhole Baba” and Ramkumari said a stone in her kidney vanished. The 85-year-old gave no proof but this story and countless others of similar “miracles” led to Baba’s following rocketing in India’s northern states.

A gathering addressed by the former police head constable in a crowded field last week drew a quarter of a million people and caused one of the deadliest stampedes in the country.

Bhole Baba, or Innocent Elder, was born Suraj Pal Singh Jatav. He quit the police in 2000 to join a series of Hindu preachers and gurus in India who are sought by millions for miracle cures and spiritual advice. They are often called godmen, and many have been wooed by politicians for the influence they wield.

Their patrons have included international celebrities like the Beatles, who spent days in the ashram of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in the late 1960s. Some of these gurus expanded beyond India, most famously Osho, who lived and preached in the United States in the early 1980s.

Almost all of them are credited by their followers with miraculous powers.

“I had gone to one of his early gatherings and told him I had chronic pain from a kidney stone for many months,” said Ramkumari, Baba’s former neighbor in Bahadurnagar village in India’s Uttar Pradesh state, where he was born and still has a home.

The village has only about 50 homes in all and is set amid fields which grow corn, wheat and rice. On the periphery is a sprawling, pearly-white ashram run by devotees of Baba.

“He smiled and blessed me with a pat on the back. The stone vanished soon after,” said Ramkumari, who gave just one name.

Another resident in the village, 55-year-old Surajmukhi, said Baba’s blessing helped her give birth to a son after seven daughters. Sons are sought after in many Indian families.

“We desperately wanted a boy,” said Surajmukhi. “Then I met Baba with my husband. He made me chant some mantras (verses), gave me some water to drink and patted me on my back. After nine months I had a baby boy.”

Lying on a cot next to her, Baba’s older sister Sonkali, thin and frail, said: “It was a miracle”.

Baba, formally known as Narayan Sakar Hari now, is estimated to be about 72 by his family and followers, who are spread across India’s heartland states of Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Haryana and Madhya Pradesh.

LINE TO GOD
Two neighbors who have known him since his childhood, including Ramkumari, said he took the path after a dream one night about 25 years ago that a divine spirit had given him supernatural powers. He quit the police in the city of Agra and started preaching, they said.

Baba would later claim he had a direct line to God and could channel divine blessings to people.

“Soon after we saw a line of cars bringing Suraj Pal into the village and people said he would henceforth be called a Baba (elder),” Ramkumari said.

Reuters could not contact Baba. He told Reuters partner ANI that he was grieving and his aides would help the injured and the families of the deceased.

The stampede at his gathering on Tuesday killed 121 people, mostly women, and injured scores out of about 250,000 who had congregated in a canopied paddy field to listen to him, many trampling over one another as they ran after his car when he was leaving.

Police say authorities had allowed only 80,000 to attend, and have arrested six aides to Baba who were involved in organizing the event. The main organizer surrendered to police on Friday.

Police said that in the initial days of his rise to fame, Baba had claimed that he could bring the dead back to life and even tried to take away the body of a 16-year-old girl from a crematorium promising a miracle to the family. Police intervened and the matter was closed soon after.

Posters and videos posted on YouTube show him dressed in traditional Indian kurta tunics or pristine white suits and ties, often sporting sunglasses, a departure from the spartan image of most godmen.

Still, his clout is smaller than other gurus and godmen in India, including Sri Sri Ravi Shankar and Sadhguru. Yoga guruBaba Ramdev, known to be close to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, runs the Patanjali consumer goods brand that has boomed in recent years.

Two godmen, Asaram Bapu and Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh, were both convicted of rape in separate cases and jailed, after years of drawing thousands of devotees to their sermons and ashrams.

GIVE PEOPLE HOPE
Sociologists say such gurus are often believed to possess healing powers, and are especially popular among those who are poor, sick or feel underprivileged.

“People are insecure — economically, socially and otherwise,” said Dipti Ranjan Sahu, head of sociology at the University of Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh.

“Unemployment, deprivation, discrimination, ignorance, illiteracy — these things play a part. So they see hope in the godmen, maybe some miracle will happen.”

Surinder Singh Jodhka, who teaches social sciences at New Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University and has researched on the subject, said “people are kind of looking for some meaning in their life” and that’s where godmen come in.

“People are feeling lost and they are looking for some sense through which they can identify with other people, they feel less lonely,” he said. “This gives them hope and they are willing to believe in it.” — Reuters

BUENOS AIRES – Beef-loving Argentines are cutting back on their steaks as the country’s economy slumps, meaning cattle consumption will likely hit a record low this year, a market report published on Friday showed.

Argentina’s beef consumption in 2024 is expected to total around 44.8 kg (98.77 lb), the lowest since record-keeping began in 1914, said the Rosario exchange, which publishes market updates for grains and livestock. The historic average is nearly 73 kg.

The South American nation’s economy has been hit hard by triple-digit inflation, a recession and rising poverty and unemployment.

Libertarian President Javier Milei, who took office in December, has rolled out austerity measures to reign in government spending. He also ended the previous government’s freeze on beef prices.

Argentina, famed for its beef-eating culture, is dotted with steakhouses, cattle ranches and asado barbecues.

Longer-term trends show the population is increasingly turning to cheaper alternatives such as chicken and pork. In 2024, nearly 2 kg of alternative meats can be purchased for the price of 1 kg of beef, the report showed.

However, this year, all meat consumption is set to drop 9% from last year to the lowest since 2011, the exchange said.

As consumption at home drops, farmers are increasingly shipping their beef abroad, a separate report from the exchange published on Friday showed. Export volumes from January to May of this year are up 10% from the year-ago period.

Despite eating less beef, Argentines consume much more than Americans who chow down an average of 38 kg a year, Australians’ 27 kg, and Chileans’ 26 kg, the exchange added. — Reuters