genie: you're watching france 24 with 60 minutes live around the world. i'm genie godula. these are the headlines. french presidential candidate unveils his policy plans. chief among them ending nepotism in french government. who ist his rival, accused of giving his wife and children fake jobs. northern ireland goes to the polls today for the second time in 10 months in hopes of trying to resolve the political crisis that has made it impossible to

form a government. more trouble for the trump administration. jeff sessions has come under fire after reports emerge he talked with the russian ambassador during the presidential campaign. he did not disclose the discussions at his confirmation hearing. it has never turned a profit, but the messaging app snapchat could be worth $24 billion. we will tell you why in our business update. a man emerges from one week living inside a giant rock. all in the name of art. our top story live from paris. ♪ genie: let's start in france

where the centrist presidential candidate emmanuel macron outlined his policy proposals today. the conservative francois fillon and one other candidate are facing corruption investigations. macron is just 39-year-old. he may have never held elected office but he is presenting himself as a fresh face without political baggage. here is what he had to say about the challenges ahead. >> we are at an unprecedented juncture. in a large eu country which for 35 years now has not managed to resolve the problem of mass unemployment. we are the only large european country in this situation. we are also facing unique challenges. the digital revolution, the transition towards a green economy, the rise of terrorism.

all these things are creating dramatic changes in our daily lives and in our world. genie: james andre is in paris. thats been listening in to lasted almost two hours. a lot was said in that time. talk us through the key points. had six main challenges he wants to face with france. ,e wants to reform education the pension system, the tax system. he also wants to set france back into the center of the european system. he is extremely pro-european. he did outline that very clearly today. we have a very consensual offering here on the political front. emmanuel macron says he wants to create a revolution. he does cherry pick policies from the right and the left in a way to please everyone.

you can't really talk about a revolutionary program in itself. it is rather consensual. there are some points which will potentially stick. he wants to reduce civil servants by 120,000 posts in france over the years by not replacing civil servants that retire. he also says he wants to reform the pension system, making it completely egalitarian. have a much more interesting pension system that other workers. chances are that might be a bone of contention with the public here. complete.mething very he has been accused of not having a political platform. now there is one. genie: some of our international viewers might find it quite

surprising that seven weeks away from the first round, he is only now releasing his campaign platform. might that scare off some of his most fervent backers perhaps? it's difficult to say. i have been checking out reactions all over the net. some people are saying it's more of the same. he's not offering anything really new other than saying this is indeed a consensual program that probably will actually work. the fact of the matter is he has been accused of having no political platform. he has been accused of having a cult around his persona and not actually having anything to offer. today the effort was really set on the fact of looking like a credible normal presidential candidate. he gave out a folio to the press detailing his propositions.

that looks very much like what we have been used to seeing from classic political offerings here over the years. of the ambitions today was to reassure people and make sure they could indeed vote for emmanuel macron. politicaleal opportunity here. he is number two in the polls behind marine le pen. the margin tween them is reducing as time goes by. he also wants to be seen as a fresh face. he was a minister and a counselor of francois hollande. he doesn't have other political baggage for the time being. he can claim this novelty. the big question is the following. with a very consensual offering it looks like he's got a little bit to please everyone. we have a very left-wing candidate, a very right-wing candidate in the form of francois fillon who has great

difficulty, and marine le pen. will this proposition that is not as revolutionary as we would be led to believe be enough to convince french voters? emmanuel macron presented his plan if elected president of france. james was mentioning that conservative presidential candidate francois fillon who is trying to keep his embattled campaign on track. he is under investigation over allegations he used one million euros in taxpayer money to pay his wife and adult children for fake jobs. let's listen to some reactions to his pledge to soldier on. >> first off i know that mr. fillon himself asked the court to rapidly make a decision on this affair. he even declared five days ago that he applauded the procedure with independent judges. it was anago

independent procedure and now it is hasty and a political assassination. >> it's part of the justice system being exploited. it either slows down or speeds up to make it possible for these kinds of highly broadcasted judicial operations to have been just before a presidential election. that is marine le pen. she is in a bit of hot water herself having just lost her eu parliamentary immunity from prosecution. lawmakers lifted that immunity after she tweeted pictures of islamic state violence. the national front party in the european legislature but is under investigation in france for posting three graphic images of i.s. executions on twitter two years ago. they included the beheading of american journalist james foley. today's vote confirmed a

preliminary decision of the eu legislature. northern ireland is holding cap elections today for the second time in 10 months. that's in hopes of resolving a political crisis that saw the power-sharing government collapse in january. the northern ireland government must be run by irish republicans and british unionists together. a breakdown in trust to make it difficult for power-sharing to resume after the elections. steven o'reilly reports from east belfast, where protestants and catholics still live in segregated communities. >> the main protestant area of the east belfast still bears the marks of three decades of conflict. this community was once ruled by gunmen loyal to the british crown. writing on the walls is starting to change. extending the hand of friendship across the divide. this resident lives near a violent interface for the catholic community.

bottles and tricks were common -- bricks were common. hopefully the reconciliation between the communities. >> the situation on the ground has been improving. the government collapsed in january. if the crisis gets worse conciliation efforts could be at risk. the parties were working together and delivering on the issues. it is sad that that has been i hope temporarily set back. >> the main political force here now refuse to go back into government with democratic unionists until the concerns are addressed. >> after the elections there will have to be a period of negotiations.

many voters on both sides are frustrated that politics here are still ruled by conflicts of the past. politicians can have a look at themselves and look at what the people want. we are still living in a divided society. >> at daniel hopes that these walls can come down in his child's lifetime. genie: u.s. attorney general jeff sessions is at the heart of the latest storm to hit the trump administration. he talked with russia's ambassador to the u.s. during the presidential campaign. the attorney general did not disclose those meetings during his confirmation hearings. kathy clifford has the details. allegations of links between trump's campaign team and moscow from the washington post. paper reports u.s. attorney general jeff sessions who advised comes campaign met with ambassador to

washington in july and in september. accusations of russian interference in the election were on the rise. it is at odds with what the session said at his confirmation hearing on january 10. if there is any evidence that anyone affiliated with the trump campaign communicated with the russian government in the course of this campaign what will you do? >> i'm not aware of any of those activities. ahave been called a surrogate time or two in that campaign and i did not have communications with the russians. tosessions quickly reacted the article. he said i never met with any russian officials to discuss issues of the campaign. i have no idea what this allegation is about. it is false. the white house called the report and attack by partisan democrats saying the meetings took place but were not

connected to trump's campaign. as attorney general, sessions oversees the justice department probes into a legend russian interference. the democrats say he lied under oath, committing perjury. they had already called for his recusal in light of his ties to the campaign. >> my watchwords are that i expect jeff sessions to recuse himself and i expect what is put in his place to be independent, transparent and impartial. >> nancy pelosi took one step further saying sessions should resign altogether. it's a new blow in a constant battle for trump as allegations of russian interference keep emerging. genie: the kremlin has spoken out on the affair saying it is unaware of details of any meetings between the russian ambassador and the u.s. attorney general. saying such meetings are routine. with aome back to france mystery that has everyone fascinated. french police have opened a

murder investigation into the disappearance of a family of four in western france. they disappeared two weeks ago. officials say bloodstains found in the family's house match the dna of three of them. there has been no activity in any of their bank accounts or mobile phones since they disappeared. the car of the family's oldest son was found early this morning. yesterday the health card of his sister was also found in the region where the family is from. also in france, and artist has just reemerged after spending a week inside a giant boulder. it was part of an exhibit at the modern art museum in paris. seven days of entrapment inside the massive boulder have clearly taken a physical toll on the french artist. he was barely able to walk as he stepped out of the rock.

while inside, a small crack in the limestone provided an affair to breathe. he was supplied with water and soup through a straw and he sat on a specially made system to take care of other bodily functions. after a brief medical check he spoke of his weeklong experience entombed inside the rock. >> there was a very strong feeling of vertigo at times. your world shifts massively. there are big moments where you lose yourself and just like that you don't know where you are anymore. but you are here and that's a good feeling. he specializes in endurance testing solitary performances. in a bid to learn more about the natural world and his own physical limits. previously he spent 13 days bearde a hollowed out and his next performance will eggs in sitting on

an attempt to hatch them. genie: i can imagine sitting inside a rock for a week. >> that sounds awful. it has been a particularly good day for european markets and trading on wednesday. thosere holding on to gains. ,hings looking a little bit today. investors have been cheered by donald trump's policies and what exactly he was going to do in terms of tax cuts and cutting regulation for businesses. a focus on u.s. interest rates and whether or not the federal reserve will raise rates at its meeting later this month. another piece of information, whether what exactly is going to happen to interest rates here in the eurozone. we have seen inflation hitting the ecb's target of 2%.

there is a question of whether or not that could see a shift in european policy as well. itie: yahoo! has admitted new about a massive cyber attack more than a year before the details became public. >> an internal inquiry found executives at the company knew its services have been hacked back in 2014 before it agreed to a sale to verizon. they didtigation says not properly comprehend or investigate the state-sponsored attack which compromised up to 5 million accounts. the chief executive says she will give up her bonus for last year because the failure happened on her watch. binbev'sng giant abn earnings fell in brazil. overall revenue which makes brands including budweiser and corona grew by 2.4% last year.

you're going to talk about snapchat. it launches on the stock market today. >> it could be the biggest launch for the tech industry since facebook in 2012. company gohe parent on sale on the nasdaq in new york later. if the ipo is successful, it will be worth $24 billion despite the fact that it has yet to turn a profit. let's speak to senior market analyst at the london capital group. why is snapchat so valuable? simple terms, the valuation is because people want to buy the dream. people want to buy into the next google, the next facebook, the next microsoft. that's why these tech companies are able to price their shares really above any kind of metric that is justifiable.

analysts will look at the price compared to future sales, future earnings. looks veryith snap rich compared to even the likes of facebook. the potential is there. byt year snap grew sales 600%. give growth continuing even if they could capture a small part of the advertising market currently dominated by facebook and google, that's where the earnings come in. >> there is a sense that investing in twitter that they might we burned again. that trend out to be a disappointing investment for many people. is there that concern around snapchat? >> very much so. one of the biggest causes of the downfall of twitter has actually been facebook. you could say very much the same thing with snapchat.

the biggest thing stopping these companies from being the next facebook is facebook. that is particularly pertinent when it comes to snap. facebook owns instagram. instagram has been essentially copying a lot of the features that have made snap very popular with younger audiences. audience is by its nature quite fickle and facebook as a captured market. it counts pretty much a corridor of the global population as monthly active users. if those people start to move on to facebook's own platform and its own messaging app instead of snap then suddenly all this growth potential is gone and that is when we start looking at a twitter scenario. it has lost half of its ipo value. >> they are entering the stock market at a time when we are looking at record highs in the u.s. cracked 21,000 in the dow

jones industrial average yesterday. partly related to donald trump. partly related to low interest rates. stocks are in a major bull market right now. that reflects confidence and you need confident investors to get behind you when you don't have the history to justify it. at this stage investors are not basing it on a past performance. there are betting on a future performance. at the moment snapchat is not profitable. revenues are growing. last quarter we saw users growth slow. you look concern when at companies like facebook and twitter. a big metric is how fast are they growing the number of users. the worry is snap is getting in there at their peak. and that actually this is the best we see from snap. >> thank you for joining us. genie: thanks for that look at

the business news. time for our press review. we are taking a look at the papers today. here in france a lot of focus on french conservative candidate francois fillon who is determined to stay in the race despite being plagued by a fake jobs scandal. and atas overshadowed times impeded his actual campaigning. i will fight. these are the combative words from francois fillon. the swiss paper reminds us that the point of this election is not to defend family honor or settle accounts. it's to lead a country and inspire its people. something they feel he is completely not doing right now. the guardian says he is playing his last card. he is in bunker mode avoiding

the public. quote, once again he has refused to quit, but badly wounded and with his party divided, it remains to see if it will even reach the finish line in may. the right-leaning paper speaks of a call to people. this is one of the few papers that defends him. saying, judges are not above the democratic process and he held his own pretty well yesterday at the press conference. genie: for many people in the international community that is really baffling that he would continue to run despite being plagued by so many allegations. the new york times really explains this quite well. in france you have the separation between the public and private sector. even if french people are becoming less tolerant of it now, it still exists. he and his party know that if he were to step down there is no one really there who could back him up or take his place.

the party has no real alternative. finished second in the primary but they also have financial skeletons in their closet. the younger members of the party are seen as a bit too green. not enough experience. not well known enough to the public. even to compete with somebody like emmanuel macron. certain entities have described his presidential campaign as a suicide mission for that reason. genie: u.s. attorney general jeff sessions lied about his connections with russia according to the washington post. >> they are saying that jeff theions spoke twice with russian ambassador to the u.s. last year. when asked about these conversations by lawmakers in january, sessions said he had never been in contact with them.

after the elections -- his defense is that his conversations is one of many he has had with ambassadors all around the world. there are already a lot of suspicions about what hand russia played in the u.s. elections and now people are using this example to call for sessions to be fired. much in the same way as michael flynn. also want a special counsel to investigate what role russia played in last year's elections. byie: in germany, a visit the turkish president is causing controversy. >> a german journalist was detained and arrested in turkey, accused of terrorist propaganda. he has been held since february. angela merkel has demanded his release. this is an election year in germany and voters want much more than words. the guardian is reporting that

erdogan is meant to visit germany sometime soon for a campaign among the country's 1.4 million turkish strong d aspera. the head of an april constitutional referendum. merkel is facing calls to cancel that visit or for bid that visit in some way until the journalist is released from prison. i want to show you an article from the german tabloid which says, germans are now paying for its refugee deal concluded with turkey. the truth is germany is more dependent on turkey than ever before. with: let's wrap up something completely different. an article from the guardian about a growing number of very daring bucket list. s. >> the guardian reports that pensioners or people with dying wishes are getting more and more creative with the things they

want to do before they died. . a 99-year-old dutch woman asked police to arrest her and threw her into a ca a a vp

announcer: from the studios of wric tv, welcome to "this week in richmond." on today's discussion, mickey mouse is coming to virginia. disney's plans to build a theme park have brought about much excitement, as well as concern. what will the new park mean for virgigini? what will it mean for you? find out today... david: when we think of disney, we think f florida, perhaps california, but most recently, our thoughts have turned to virginia. dana: the walt disney company, a leader inin family y entertainm,