With just a month to go before local elections in France, the death of a suspected right-wing extremist student has sent shock waves through the country. According to French prosecutors, Quentin D. was beaten by several attackers and sustained lethal injuries on 12 February in Lyon on the sidelines of a protest against Rima Hassan, MEP of the left-wing LFI. The French government holds the LFI-affiliated militant group Jeune Garde responsible for the attack.

Talks in Geneva between representatives of Ukraine and Russia, attended by the United States, have ended after two days. Russia's chiefegotiator, Putin adviser Vladimir Medinsky, described the talks as "difficult, but business-like", while in an interview Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky spoke of progress on military issues. Howevero concrete results have been announced so far.

The election campaign in Hungary is becoming increasingly heated in the run-up to the parliamentary elections on 12 April. While opposition leader Péter Magyar has said that Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is capable ofothing more than "incitement" and "threats", Orbán has described Magyar's conservative Tisza Party as a "creation of foreign powers". Orbán has been endorsed by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who told him: "Your success is our success."

A court case is underway in the US to determine whether social media platforms deliberately design their websites to be addictive. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg admitted in Los Angeles that there had been temporary shortcomings in the age verification process on his platforms, but opposed restrictions such as a ban on beauty filters.