hacked from the campaign team of emmanuel macron, ahead of sunday's presidential election. aides to mr macron say it was intended to undermine french democracy. at least eighty schoolgirls who were kidnapped by boko haram, in the nigerian town of chibok, have been freed. a government official said they had been released following negotiations with the islamist militant group. they're still thought to be holding more than a hundred girls captive. fighting has eased in parts of syria where a russian—led initiative to halt the country's six—year war has taken effect. the russian defence ministry says it's registered 15 violations since midnight on friday. russia and the us have also agreed to resume a bilateral agreement to prevent mid—air clashes in syria airspace. now on bbc news, it's time for dateline london. hello and welcome to dateline london.

this week, the war of elections in france and the uk, and a new round ofjaw—jaw to try to bring peace to the middle east. to discuss that, four eminent "jaw—ers", british conservative commentator alex deane, thomas kielinger, who writes for germany's die welt, agnes poirier, uk editor of marianne in france, and the american journalist and broadcasterjef mcallister. a warm welcome to you all. let's begin with france. if emmanuel macron wins, what kind of france will we get? nobody knows. we have seen him at the debate with marine le pen. marine le pen had a disastrous, car crash debate. he held the fort.

he was relaxed and calm. so at least we know he is kind of presidential for a 39—year—old. what do we know? his programme is pro—business but also quite socially conscious. he is a centrist. the real thing is, of course, the general elections which will be taking place in june. we need to fill all the mps‘ seats at the national assembly. it is the first time we might have a president without a party, 0k. he said he didn't want anyone from the left and the right. therefore he needs to present a new face for every single constituency. i agree that is the crunch time, if he wins. attempts to present him

as an outsider, a new force, are nonsense. he is clearly a very astute person who has turned around the shell of the socialist party and escaped from that, without having a real party in parliament, and that is when the real test will come and i wonder about impact of the wikileaks we have seen overnight. it seems there is clearly some stuff in there which is very negative about macron. i am not saying that will mean he loses but if he wins, it will play throughoutjune when the general election happens. i think i am more interested in the kind of president he will be and the personality, which we have to learn about. it is about french visceral

resistance to change and domestic reform. it is the elephant in the room. two years ago, president hollande tried modest reforms. how will he surmount the built in resistance and the conservatism which will not let go of the 55 age for going into retirement and the 35 working week as well? they are just as much in danger of being a problem for the euro over time as the southern countries. the fear is he mightjust be another president francois hollande and just sit for five years. that means marine le pen is a shoo—in. is france reformable? that is a big question. its oldest ally

is the united states. there is lots of evidence from the united states that you can change the politics of a country but it is hard to do if you have not brought the public on side. some might say macron has not done that yet. he has done better than anyone expected, he reminds me of tony blair. he is the young, vigorous guy, you listen to what he says carefully and you think how do those things fit together? that is the magic and the danger. he had a majority and he could not do everything he wanted to do. i would say that marine le pen will get 40%. donald trump got 46%. these are still large numbers of people who will resist. but if he manages to shuffle the cards, which he seems to have done psychically, and say, we have to do something new, maybe some of those things will happen and there will not be farmers with tractors in paris every week. the demand was always

for a stronger president. they have had it each time and each time the president has been ineffectual. i think the position of le pen will be significant, whatever happens. either way, france will be run by a woman, either by me or by angela merkel. let's pick up on that. there has been a suggestion that actually this will be regarded as a boon in berlin. there will be a restoration of the strength and the relationship between paris and berlin that has been seen as the driver, the engine of progress. if they think that will happen they are running ahead of themselves. macron needs to establish the kind of person he is, whether he can make france more reformable. angela merkel has to win her mandate. and then, in addition, in this day and age, nothing works

like access politics any more. everything is in the shadow of centrifugal forces which make it pretty impossible in the crowd of the 26 member states of the eu to re—establish the old empire between france and germany. i do not think it will happen. germany will be just as eager as all of us around this table as to what kind of president macron will be. let's not write off entirely the possibility of le penn winning. people go in to these things thinking they know the result. you are foolish in a binary situation to dismiss that possibility. she is a much better candidate than her father was. she is a much more astute politician. talking of brexit, the kind of headache for london and for theresa may is presumably, if there is a stronger voice in paris, it means they will be more closely

aligned with european union and a candidate saying he is in favour of greater integration with europe and a europe of a better kind, as he might see it, how much harder does that make it for theresa may? my take on it is that the eu has to be very careful to see the majority of theresa may, when she comes back with a larger mandate. she is one of the strongest heads of government in the whole of europe. it gives her a strong card to play. simply to treat britain like a secessionist country which has to be, if not punished, but shown the way out in brutal fashion, it will be the wrong approach. i believe a strong mandate for theresa may will be not only good for her but good for the eu because some better sense will be obtained in the negotiations. i am an optimist overall about the stronger mandate the british prime minister has. i think macron is not good

news for theresa may. if it is marine le pen, it is the least of our concerns. if it is macron, he has said it before. he is a reformer and wants to open up the economy. nobody is very pro—europe. it means theresa may has not yet an ally. he will not try to punish britain but he is, like many others, not going to make it easy. the negotiations have not started yet. we saw the irish, the dutch and the danes form a coalition saying, please don't let trivia catch us up on brexit. we need to get to the big ticket items. judged purely from our national interests, marine le pen would be a better result for the uk than macron because she is in favour of countries asserting their independence and leaving the eu but he is not. just as president trump,

on the question of the national interest, was better for us than president clinton would have been. what does it mean in terms of the relationship? we have had some difficult days since sunday of last week when the german newspaper published the outcome of what it called the brexit dinner. what was that about? was a deliberate, pre—emptive strike? was it a deliberate, pre—emptive strike? it was about telling the british counterpart not to be delusional. i think it was made worse by whatjuncker said when he said he was now going to speak in french because english was losing its influence in europe. what a silly thing to say! there is something rather convenient

about this row for both sides. for the commission to say, to some of the other eu leaders who are saying, go on, you have to punish the british because otherwise our countries will do that. theresa may needs to make it look like it's difficult, otherwise why wouldn't you mind someone likejeremy corbyn running it? it's important to let the grown—ups like theresa may run it. it is that logic. i think there is hostility. in the example we are talking about, i am not dismissing any suggestion of uk foul play along the line. in the example we are talking about, it is plainly from brussels. it is about a dinner that was meant to be private. it was rude. if you are trying to establish an environment of trust where you can speak openly and honestly behind closed doors and then there is a leak like this,

it is a very bad start. if she talked at this dinner about saying they would not pay anything to leave, she took a position which was not part of any real negotiation. i am astonished that impartial journalists take the word of juncker. we do not know what was said. why was she irritated if it got reported? it was supposed to be private. once you get into the game of saying i did say that and did not say that, you are discussing it as well. it is ridiculous whatjuncker did. the fact we had angela merkel giving the speech after talking to juncker privately. i am concerned that people in britain are having unreasonable expectations. that that was the real view.

brussels are now excusing themselves saying, they understand that sensitivity. it has thrown these grenades into the debate. it seems to have done theresa may no harm. she has said, stop interfering. at the council elections on thursday, all the ukip seats which have been won by the pro—brexit, anti—eu party, which has caused tory leaders such angst, they all fell back again and the tories did very well. it did not do her any harm in the uk. it was playing to the gallery. why not do that in the next four weeks of the british election campaign? it will be a landslide for the tories. seen from abroad, from europe perhaps, it was slightly ridiculous seeing her say europe

is interfering, meddling in uk politics. well, we have other fish to fry. you cannot resist meddling. you got rid of the greek government, put sanctions on the austrians. it is what they do. publicly speaking about the dinner and so forth. it was clearly designed to be heard in the uk. it would have been 0tt on her part to react like that. but it is an election campaign and she has to fight back. is there a risk, if she continues down this line, given she has to build the negotiations and conceivably convince the british at some point? we did not get everything we wanted but it is still a good deal.

i would say, there are some of us, and i include myself in this, who watched that speech you are decrying and thought, great, finally someone who is standing up for the uk and there is nothing wrong with that. let's pose a question. a politician would say it is hypothetical but you are all proper analysts. i know you will not dodge this one. what happens if there is not a deal? well, i think britain will get on with it, to quote prince philip and his mantra. they are not much of a complaining nation. they will find a way to get out of a sticky corner. britain has always coped with uncertainty very well. lord nelson said, at the battle of trafalgar, nothing is certain in a sea fight. something must be left to chance. chance has many meanings.

it could mean opportunities. as a rule, iam not so negative about it. germany could not cope with such a degree of uncertainty which now hovers about the british future. our nerves would collapse under the uncertainties of brexit. it really comes down to the technical aspects of what really does happen. is it wto rules everyone steps back to? are the tariffs going to be differentially complicated ? are there going to be queues of ten miles of trucks at each side of the border? the train going across the channel for different parts of its construction, getting taxed each time? there is all this fine capillary economic stuff. that is the fear, the uncertainty this will all be a mess. there will be less foreign investment from other countries, which would think this would be

a good base to do europe from. the germans cannot cope with that. they are not supposed to. what is the virtue of this for britain? to make free trade deals with new zealand? and the rest of the world. growth is higher everywhere than the eu. why fear leaving the eu without a deal? it takes a long time. look at the agreement between canada and europe, which took years and years. when we leave the eu... tariff agreements tend to take a long time because people argue over standards for every item. when we leave the eu, our standard settings will be identical at that point. that means there will be interesting times when one nation will have been creamed off from the eu relatively wealthy, relatively uncorru pt,

respecting of trade law, copyright and so forth. no deal does not concern you? exactly. i agree about the transition. you say that. that is if there is an agreement and they move onto a transition period while they negotiate a trade agreement. what if there is no deal on brexit? we will leave. we will trade on wto rules. people ask what that means for business. what is interesting is what it means for people, consumers. the european union's common market is a protectionist customs union designed to keep prices in the eu high and to pay more for goods we would otherwise pay less for by importing it. that is in the interests of the british people. why can't they buy from around the world now? because of the customs union.

there are low tariffs with the other places. this sounds far too complicated. let's go somewhere much easier, where it is much more simple to understand, where everyone understands the rules of game. when donald trump welcomed israel's prime minister to the white house in february, on the stalled middle east peace process, he observed: "i think we're going to make a deal. it might be a bigger and better deal than people in this room even understand". at the time, his remarks provoked incredulity and derision. after all, in trumpland things are always "bigger and better" than what went before. this week, though, after meeting him, the palestinian president, mahmoud abbas, praised his "courageous stewardship and your wisdom as well as your great negotiating ability" and said there could be an "historic peace treaty" between israel and the palestinians. trump the peacemaker. what is going on?

well, i think, the first thing that is going on is he loves getting people like us to talk about it and he has succeeded. i plead guilty. me as well. the temptation of trump is to make you think, maybe he is so different he will break the impasse. maybe with north korea, he was able to stir things up and get the chinese to do something new. i think the problem is he has no follow—through. he has no ideology. he does not have a background to make this work. look at the air strikes in syria. missiles go, what is next? his attention moves on to the next thing. with the middle east, it is fun to stir things up a little bit at the beginning. now what? there has probably been less... i have spent too much time going to these places while former officials were trying to make peace, it gets involved with the core process. it is great to bask in the glow

of trump for a little while. the israelis are a little concerned about this. already there is pushback. the tweet that was put onto the twitter account by donald trump saying it was an honour to meet abbas, it has disappeared. they say, we do not know why that happened. it happened because donors who are pro—netanyahu have said, cut this out! the thought of bill clinton with maps, talking to yasser arafat at camp david, going over individual lines and cities, trying to make the hard calls to make this kind of thing work, that is not donald trump. i was there in camp david in 1978. i am biased.

i have known the history of these futile negotiations going on. the problem with donald trump is he thinks the world has been created in his own image. he can say these things. he raises hopes which are unfulfilled. he is playing with people's desire to really make something positive. he cannot just announce this will happen. we will wait to see what will emerge. his announcement means nothing. we should not be surprised that abbas says he has hope in trump. i would be interested to know. in the precursor environment, after the non—agreement i don't agree with you about the

harm that the palestinian leader can do. a fresh start is welcome but i think it has a point about the progress environment where the non— agreement at camp david was broken. it is a bit like brexit from the european perspective. nothing is agreed until everything is agreed. you can think you have got a lot agreed and it falls apart in the middle east. what do you do with jerusalem? that really, in the end, is one we can talk about for years and not come to a solution. in 1978, they knew perfectly well that the peace agreement was not going to deal with the palestinian issue. as long as you have not got to grips with that, there will be a cloud hanging over the whole area and you can have a bilateral agreements and it will not advance the cause of the palestinian people. what about the arguement that so much time has been spent on the detail? we talked about sitting down with maps and the rest of it. the bold move is what has been lacking. the bold move thatjef

was suggesting that could cause people to think afresh in an environment where it almost feels like every option has been visited? exactly. that is what donald trump is doing, he has unlocked things by being so different. he did not say he was in favour of a palestinian state. what is he saying he is willing to do? he is saying he is in favour of a two state solution, any solution. george w bush set that out very clearly. i do not think that has changed. what has changed is the optimism which i think is very good. it may not go anywhere. it would be very bad if the united states president arrived being cynical about the situation. we would not say that. we understand outside forces have limited ability to interfere. the one breakthrough we had in '77, those were players on the ground, so if the israeli government have anything to say about that...

it was not thatjimmy carter caused that but they could give it a bigger context? they did it at the time because there was fear that russia could be the overlord over what happens in the middle east. nobody wanted that to happen. it was a bold move to visitjerusalem. the us had a lot more power than it does now and a lot more capacity to make the israelis concerned. now the israelis have managed to make the republican party almost a subsidiary. that is going too far. the republicans invited benjamin netanyahu to make a speech. absolutely unprecedented. it is difficult to pushback on israel. nowadays the politics are very hard about that.

as trump is finding when he has done just the tiniest bit possible. thank you as always. i would have liked to have been a fly on the wall for the brexit dinner. i think i would like to be a fly on the wall for the meeting between donald trump and pope francis. that's it for dateline london for this week. we're back next week at the same time. you can, of course, comment on the programme. goodbye. sunday could be quite a chilly start in northern ireland, south—west

scotla nd in northern ireland, south—west scotland and north—east england. this is where we will have the best of the early sunshine. drizzle from northern and eastern scotland, perhaps north—east england, low cloud coming in off the north sea on all sides we will see the sunshine coming through, especially in the sun should parts of eastern wales. towards the north—east along the coast it will feel chilly. 21 degrees possible and southern parts of northern ireland, 20 even in south—east wales. generally on monday, and east—west split was an onshore chilly breeze bringing more cloud to eastern areas but that will break up now and again. though the west we will see more in the way of sunshine which will lift the temperature into the mid—teens, possibly a touch higher than that. none of 10 degrees for the east of scotla nd none of 10 degrees for the east of scotland and north—east scotland, warmer elsewhere in the sunshine. with high pressure away to the bogor next week there is little or no rain around. it will feel warm and the sunshine. hello.

my name is tom donkin, and welcome to bbc news, broadcasting to viewers in north america and around the globe. this is our top story: france's presidential election reaches its climax, but could the hacking attack on emmanuel macron's campaign affect sunday's result? with just hours before france chooses a new president, the authorities have warned the public and the media not to share e—mails and documents hacked from the centrist candidate emmanuel macron. the election commission in france says people should act responsibly, so as not to alter the integrity of the vote. it said anyone ignoring the advice could be prosecuted. james reynolds is in paris, and has sent this report. emmanuel macron arrived last night for his final interview, assuming that his campaign was basically done.