The worst cyclone to hit Mayotte for 90 years has devastated the French Indian Ocean territory’s health services, leaving the hospital severely damaged and health centres out of operation, a minister has said.

“The hospital has suffered major water damage and destruction, notably in the surgical, intensive care, maternity and emergency units,” the French health minister, Geneviève Darrieussecq, told France 2 on Monday, adding that “medical centres were also non-operational”.

Rescuers are racing against time to reach survivors after Cyclone Chido laid waste to the territory’s many shantytowns, with hundreds believed dead. The powerful cyclone caused extensive damage to Mayotte’s airport, cutting off electricity, water and communication links when it battered France’s poorest territory on Saturday.

The Mayotte prefect, François-Xavier Bieuville, told the broadcaster Mayotte la Première that he expected the final death toll to reach “close to a thousand or even several thousand”. He said on Saturday that it was the worst cyclone to hit the islands since 1934.

Videos of the storm shared online showed metal shacks folding like cardboard in the ferocious wind and roofs collapsing inwards into flooded houses.

Ambdilwahedou Soumaila, the mayor of Mayotte’s capital, Mamoudzou, told Agence France-Presse the storm “spared nothing”. “The hospital is hit, the schools are hit. Houses are totally devastated,” he said.

The French president, Emmanuel Macron, will host a crisis meeting on the disaster in Paris at 6pm, his office said.

The country’s interior minister, Bruno Retailleau, arrived in Mayotte on Monday morning, with 160 soldiers and firefighters reinforcing the 110 already deployed.

“Don’t panic,” he told a meeting of officials. “I’m counting on you. When you feel discouraged, when you are tired, remember that we are here,” Retailleau said. “Each and every one of you is committed to this, to this French ideal.”

Chido carried winds of at least 140mph when it reached Mayotte, which lies between Mozambique and Madagascar. At least a third of the territory’s 320,000 residents live in slums, where shacks with sheet-metal roofs were flattened by the storm.

About 100,000 people are undocumented migrants, according to France’s interior ministry. They are mainly from the Comoros, whose closest island is about 43 miles away. That is making it hard to establish how many people have been affected by the cyclone.

Ousseni Balahachi, a former nurse, said some people did not dare venture out to seek assistance, “fearing it would be a trap” designed to remove them from Mayotte. Many had stayed put “until the last minute” when it proved too late to escape the cyclone, she added.

“Everything is destroyed,” Zaya Tombou, who was competing as Miss Mayotte in the Miss France beauty pageant on Sunday, said on her Instagram stories. She had been trying to get in touch with her relatives all day as the pageant’s final unfolded and finally got a message from her father on Sunday night: “I lost everything.”

A first aid plane reached Mayotte on Sunday carrying 3 tonnes of medical supplies, blood for transfusions and 17 medical staff, according to authorities in La Réunion, another French Indian Ocean territory, about 870 miles from Mayotte, which is serving as a logistics base for the rescue operation.

Patrice Latron, the prefect of La Réunion, said residents of Mayotte faced “an extremely chaotic situation, immense destruction”. Two military aircraft were expected to follow the initial aid flight, while a navy patrol ship was also due to leave from La Réunion.

The regional Red Cross organisation PIROI pledged its support, while the EU chief, Ursula von der Leyen, said the bloc was “ready to provide support in the days to come”.

The head of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said the WHO “stands ready to support communities in need of essential healthcare”.

Chido is the latest in a string of storms globally fuelled by the climate crisis, according to experts. The “exceptional” cyclone was super-charged by particularly warm Indian Ocean waters, meteorologist Francois Gourand, of the Météo-France weather service, told AFP.

The cyclone blasted across the Indian Ocean and made landfall in Mozambique on Sunday, where officials said it had resulted in three deaths.

“Many homes, schools and health facilities have been partially or completely destroyed,” the UN children’s agency, Unicef, said.

The UN humanitarian agency, OCHA, said 1.7 million people were in danger from the cyclone, and that the remnants of it could still cause “significant rainfall” on Malawi on Monday. Zimbabwe and Zambia could also expect heavy rains, it added.

Malawi’s Department of Climate Change and Meteorological Services advised people not to go outside in heavy wind and rain, adding that it expected the cyclone to have left the country by Monday afternoon.

The storm comes after southern Africa suffered its worst drought in at least a century earlier this year, with 27 million people struggling to feed themselves until the next harvest due in April.

Agence France-Presse and Reuters contributed to this report

Winds of at least 140mph from Cyclone Chido have devastated the French overseas département of Mayotte, leaving an estimated 100,000 people without shelter or water and hundreds, possibly thousands, dead.

Here is a brief look at the small archipelago – and why it is so ill-equipped to deal with what local authorities have described as “an immense catastrophe”.

Winds of at least 140mph from Cyclone Chido have devastated the French overseas département of Mayotte, leaving an estimated 100,000 people without shelter or water and hundreds, possibly thousands, dead.

Here is a brief look at the small archipelago – and why it is so ill-equipped to deal with what local authorities have described as “an immense catastrophe”.

The former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad has said he had no plans to flee Syria before being evacuated by the Russian army after its base in western Syria came under attack.

In his first comments since the fall of his brutal regime, Assad said he had planned to keep fighting rebel forces.

“At no point during these events did I consider stepping down or seeking refuge, nor was such a proposal made by any individual or party. The only course of action was to continue fighting against the terrorist onslaught,” he said in a statement published on the Telegram channel belonging to the Syrian presidency and dated 16 December.

In the statement, Assad said he left Damascus on 8 December as opposition fighters closed in, moving to the Russian-controlled Khmeimim airbase in his stronghold in the Latakia province “to oversee combat operations”.

“Upon arrival at the airbase that morning, it became clear that our forces had completely withdrawn from all battle lines and that the last army positions had fallen,” he added.

Assad claimed he was evacuated to Russia after the airbase had “itself come under intensified attack by drone strikes”.

“With no viable means of leaving the base, Moscow requested that the base’s command arrange an immediate evacuation to Russia on the evening of Sunday 8th December,” the statement said.

Assad appeared to dismiss media reports alleging that his aides and relatives were misled and kept unaware of his plans to flee to Moscow. “First, my departure from Syria was neither planned nor did it occur during the final hours of the battles, as some have claimed,” he said.

In his statement, Assad also sought to dismiss the widespread reports and footage documenting his family’s vast corruption, which has come to light in greater detail since he fled Syria.

“I reaffirm that the person who, from the very first day of the war, refused to barter the salvation of his nation for personal gain, or to compromise his people in exchange for numerous offers and enticements is the same person who stood alongside the officers and soldiers of the army on the front lines, just metres from terrorists in the most dangerous and intense battlefields,” he said.

Assad’s exact whereabouts in Russia remain uncertain, and he has yet to be photographed in the country. His family has longstanding ties with Moscow, with relatives having transferred millions of dollars into Russia over the years.

Vladimir Putin has yet to comment on the fall of his close ally, with the fate of the two key Russian military bases in Syria unclear.

Video footage over the weekend showed a column of nearly 100 military vehicles leaving the Damascus area including armoured vehicles. However, it remains unclear whether this represents a full or partial evacuation.

“There are no final decisions on this,” the Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, told reporters on Monday. “We are in contact with representatives of the forces that now control the situation in the country.”

Meanwhile, the United Nations envoy to Syria was visiting Damascus on Monday, where he told the Islamist militants who toppled Assad that they need to oversee a “credible and inclusive” transition.

Geir Pedersen, a Norwegian diplomat, met the Syrian rebel leader. Ahmed al-Sharaa, formerly known by his nom de guerre Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, and the interim prime minister, Mohammed al-Bashir.

A statement released by Pedersen’s office said the envoy had offered UN support and stressed “the need for a credible and inclusive Syrian-owned and led political transition”.

Diplomats have been scrambling for influence over whatever government replaces the Assad regime.

The EU foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, said she had instructed the bloc’s top diplomat for Syria to go to Damascus on Monday to make contact with the new government.

Iran and Russia, which backed Assad in Syria’s bloody 13-year civil war, will have lost leverage while Turkey and some Gulf states will be seeking to build on their active support for anti-Assad rebels. Western countries largely backed the opposition early in the civil war but dithered as Islamist groups, such as the now dominant Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), became prominent.

Neighbouring Israel has also sought to exploit the power vacuum to weaken any future Syrian administration, conducting hundreds of strikes on strategic weapons and equipment stockpiles. Israeli troops have seized land on the frontier.

On Monday, a UK-based Syria monitor claimed Israeli airstrikes hit missile warehouses in what it said were the “most violent strikes in the Syrian coast region” in more than a decade.

Sharaa has said he is not interested in conflict with Israel. “There are no excuses for any foreign intervention in Syria now after the Iranians have left. We are not in the process of engaging in a conflict with Israel,” he told Syrian state media.

Pedersen flew to Damascus directly after an international meeting in Aqaba, Jordan, where top diplomats from the Arab states, the US, Turkey, France, Germany and the UK met on Saturday to agree on what they said would be a “more hopeful, secure and peaceful future” for Syrians.

The statement from the envoy’s office on Monday said the “transitional political process” must “produce an inclusive, non-sectarian and representative government”.

Syria’s new rulers have sought to reassure the country’s minorities they will be protected and included. Still, there are concerns that the interim administration run by HTS, which is composed largely of fighters from Syria’s Sunni majority, may sideline large minority populations, which include Shia Muslims, Druze, Alawites and Christians.

To help Syria’s economy, Pedersen has called for the US, UK and EU to end sanctions imposed on the country when Assad was in power. To do this, they would need to remove HTS, which emerged as an al-Qaida offshoot but softened its politics, from their lists of “terrorist” organisations.

The alleged Chinese spy with links to Prince Andrew and who made connections at the heart of the UK establishment has been named as Yang Tengbo, a businessman also known as Chris Yang.

Yang, whose identity was previously protected by an anonymity order, can be named after a judge lifted the ban on Monday afternoon.

In a statement, Yang said he had applied for the order to be lifted in order to issue a public denial about the claims made about him. He said he was not a spy and had “done nothing wrong or unlawful and the concerns raised by the Home Office against me are ill-founded”.

Yang, 50, the former chair of Hampton Group, a consultancy firm, had been in the UK for almost two decades. He was first stopped by counter-terrorism services in 2021 and ordered to surrender his devices. Court documents said Yang had split his time between China and the UK and told officials he considered the UK his second home.

In February 2023, Yang was “off-boarded” from a flight from Beijing to London and told the home secretary was in the process of examining the case to exclude him from the UK. That order was made the following month. His appeal against the decision was rejected last week by the special immigration appeals tribunal (Siac).

Details of Yang’s close links to the Duke of York emerged last week in the Siac ruling.

The businessman had visited the UK regularly, attending events at a series of royal residences, including Andrew’s birthday party at his home. The hearing heard Yang was barred because he was believed to be associated with China’s united front work department, which seeks to gather intelligence on influential overseas nationals. The ruling said in his witness statement Yang had “downplayed his links” with the group.

In a statement on Friday, Andrew’s office said he had stopped all contact with the man, whom he had met through “official channels” with “nothing of a sensitive nature ever discussed”.

Yang said in a statement he was devastated to have been excluded from the UK and denied he had ever acted against British interests. He said there was a “high level of speculation and misreporting in the media and elsewhere” and he was applying to appeal against the decision to exclude him.

He said the judges’ decision was “finely balanced” and they had acknowledged there could be an “innocent explanation” – which he said had not been reported by the media.

“The political climate has changed, and unfortunately, I have fallen victim to this. When relations are good, and Chinese investment is sought, I am welcome in the UK. When relations sour, an anti-China stance is taken, and I am excluded,” he said.

“I am an independent self-made entrepreneur and I have always aimed to foster partnerships and build bridges between east and west. I have dedicated my professional life in the UK to building links between British and Chinese businesses. My activities have played a part in bringing hundreds of millions of pounds of investment into the UK.

“I built my private life in the UK over two decades and love the country as my second home. I would never do anything to harm the interests of the UK.”

According to court documents, the businessman was so close to Andrew he was authorised to act on his behalf in an international financial initiative with potential partners and investors in China.

In the judgment that upheld his exclusion from the UK, the judge found Yang “won a significant degree, one could say an unusual degree, of trust from a senior member of the royal family who was prepared to enter into business activities with him”.

When the businessman’s phone was searched, officials uncovered a letter from March 2020 from Dominic Hampshire, a senior adviser to Andrew, which referred to him being invited to the prince’s birthday party that month and said: “Outside of his closest internal confidants, you sit at the very top of a tree that many, many people would like to be on.”

The letter also suggested the relationship had a potentially secretive nature, and said: “We have found a way to carefully remove those people who we don’t completely trust … we found a way to get the relevant people unnoticed in and out of the house in Windsor.”

A document was also found on Yang’s phone that had “main talking points” for a call with Andrew, which said he was “in a ‘desperate situation and will grab on to anything’.”

Guy Vassall-Adams KC, acting for Yang, told the high court threats to name Yang in parliament by MPs had been part of the reason he had decided to apply to lift the anonymity order.

“There has been some publication of the identity of my client on social media and threats emanating from various quarters to name my client in public in this jurisdiction through using parliamentary privilege. Having reflected on these matters my client wishes to make a public statement and is applying for last Wednesday’s order to be discharged.”

South Korea’s constitutional court has begun reviewing the impeachment of President Yoon Suk Yeol over his attempt to impose martial law on 3 December, a process that will decide if he is removed from office.

The court will hold the first public hearing on 27 December, the spokesperson Lee Jean told a news conference, after the court’s six justices met on Saturday to discuss plans for reviewing the impeachment by the opposition-controlled parliament.

The court has up to six months to decide whether to remove Yoon from office or reinstate him. The first hearing would be preparatory, to confirm major legal issues of the case and schedule among other matters, Lee said.

Yoon was not required to attend that hearing, he said. In 2017, the court took three months to issue a ruling to strip the then president, Park Geun-hye, of her role after she was impeached for abusing the powers of her office.

Yoon and severak senior officials face potential charges of insurrection, abuse of authority and obstructing people from exercising their rights, in relation to the short-lived martial law.

A joint team of investigators from the police, the defence ministry and an anti-corruption agency were planning to call Yoon in for questioning at 10am on Wednesday, a police official told Reuters.

Investigators tried to serve a summons for Yoon to appear by delivering it to the presidential office and his official residence, but the presidential security service declined to take it, saying it was not in a position to do so, Yonhap news said.

On Sunday, Yoon did not appear in response to a summons for questioning by a separate investigation by the prosecutors’ office, the Yonhap news agency reported. Yoon said it was because he was still forming a legal team for his defence, it said.

The leader of Yoon’s ruling People Power party, Han Dong-hoon, resigned on Monday, saying his position had become untenable after he decided to support Yoon’s impeachment at the weekend.

“Martial law in the advanced nation that is South Korea, in 2024. How angry and disappointed must you have all been?” he said at a press conference.

Han, once Yoon’s closest ally and former justice minister, defended his decision to break with the president over his attempt to impose martial law earlier this month.

“Even though [the martial law] was done by a president our party produced, being misunderstood as defending illegal martial law that mobilised the military is a betrayal of this great country,” he said, adding he had been “terrified” of potential bloodshed between citizens and soldiers if it had not been lifted.

“I tried in every possible way to find a better path for this country other than impeachment, but in the end, I could not. It’s all because of my shortcomings. I’m sorry.”

The resignation marks the final rupture in a once-close alliance between Han and Yoon, who worked together in the prosecution service before Yoon’s rise to the presidency.

Their relationship began showing signs of strain earlier this year, when Han broke ranks to suggest the presidential couple should apologise over allegations that the first lady had accepted a luxury Dior bag.

The breaking point came after revelations that Han was among several politicians, including opposition figures, whom Yoon had ordered arrested during martial law.

Han subsequently urged ruling party lawmakers to support the president’s impeachment, saying Yoon posed “a great danger” to democracy.

The rift reflects deeper divisions within South Korea’s conservative movement, with Han representing a younger, seemingly more reform-minded faction increasingly at odds with Yoon’s more traditional power base.

In a late-night emergency television address to the nation on 3 December, Yoon announced he was imposing martial law, accusing the opposition of paralysing the government with “anti-state activities”.

The imposition of martial law – the first of its kind in more than four decades – lasted only six hours, and hundreds of troops and police officers sent by Yoon to the national assembly withdrew after the president’s decree was overturned. No major violence occurred.

South Korea’s constitutional court has begun reviewing the impeachment of President Yoon Suk Yeol over his attempt to impose martial law on 3 December, a process that will decide if he is removed from office.

The court will hold the first public hearing on 27 December, the spokesperson Lee Jean told a news conference, after the court’s six justices met on Saturday to discuss plans for reviewing the impeachment by the opposition-controlled parliament.

The court has up to six months to decide whether to remove Yoon from office or reinstate him. The first hearing would be preparatory, to confirm major legal issues of the case and schedule among other matters, Lee said.

Yoon was not required to attend that hearing, he said. In 2017, the court took three months to issue a ruling to strip the then president, Park Geun-hye, of her role after she was impeached for abusing the powers of her office.

Yoon and severak senior officials face potential charges of insurrection, abuse of authority and obstructing people from exercising their rights, in relation to the short-lived martial law.

A joint team of investigators from the police, the defence ministry and an anti-corruption agency were planning to call Yoon in for questioning at 10am on Wednesday, a police official told Reuters.

Investigators tried to serve a summons for Yoon to appear by delivering it to the presidential office and his official residence, but the presidential security service declined to take it, saying it was not in a position to do so, Yonhap news said.

On Sunday, Yoon did not appear in response to a summons for questioning by a separate investigation by the prosecutors’ office, the Yonhap news agency reported. Yoon said it was because he was still forming a legal team for his defence, it said.

The leader of Yoon’s ruling People Power party, Han Dong-hoon, resigned on Monday, saying his position had become untenable after he decided to support Yoon’s impeachment at the weekend.

“Martial law in the advanced nation that is South Korea, in 2024. How angry and disappointed must you have all been?” he said at a press conference.

Han, once Yoon’s closest ally and former justice minister, defended his decision to break with the president over his attempt to impose martial law earlier this month.

“Even though [the martial law] was done by a president our party produced, being misunderstood as defending illegal martial law that mobilised the military is a betrayal of this great country,” he said, adding he had been “terrified” of potential bloodshed between citizens and soldiers if it had not been lifted.

“I tried in every possible way to find a better path for this country other than impeachment, but in the end, I could not. It’s all because of my shortcomings. I’m sorry.”

The resignation marks the final rupture in a once-close alliance between Han and Yoon, who worked together in the prosecution service before Yoon’s rise to the presidency.

Their relationship began showing signs of strain earlier this year, when Han broke ranks to suggest the presidential couple should apologise over allegations that the first lady had accepted a luxury Dior bag.

The breaking point came after revelations that Han was among several politicians, including opposition figures, whom Yoon had ordered arrested during martial law.

Han subsequently urged ruling party lawmakers to support the president’s impeachment, saying Yoon posed “a great danger” to democracy.

The rift reflects deeper divisions within South Korea’s conservative movement, with Han representing a younger, seemingly more reform-minded faction increasingly at odds with Yoon’s more traditional power base.

In a late-night emergency television address to the nation on 3 December, Yoon announced he was imposing martial law, accusing the opposition of paralysing the government with “anti-state activities”.

The imposition of martial law – the first of its kind in more than four decades – lasted only six hours, and hundreds of troops and police officers sent by Yoon to the national assembly withdrew after the president’s decree was overturned. No major violence occurred.

Turkey has denounced Israel’s plan to double the population living in the occupied Golan Heights at the south-western edge of Syria as an attempt to “expand its borders”, as international concern grows over Israel’s actions in Syria since the fall of the Assad regime.

Israel captured about two-thirds of the Golan Heights from Syria during the 1967 six-day war. Last week, it moved troops and armour into a supposedly demilitarised buffer zone beyond the land it already occupies.

Israel has said the new positions Israeli forces have taken in Syria are a “temporary measure”, but recent statements appear to have undercut that assertion.

Last week, Israel indicated that Israeli troops would remain in their new positions through the winter, while on Sunday the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, announced he had approved a plan to double Israeli settlement in the occupied Golan Heights.

“Strengthening the Golan Heights is strengthening the state of Israel,” said Netanyahu in a statement on Sunday evening, “and it is especially important at this time. We will continue to hold on to it, make it flourish and settle it.”

In a statement condemning the move, the Turkish foreign ministry said: “This decision is a new stage in Israel’s goal of expanding its borders through occupation. This step by Israel is a source of grave concern, taken together with Israel’s entry into the area of separation, in violation of the 1974 disengagement agreement, its advance into adjacent areas and airstrikes in Syria.”

The move would “seriously undermine” efforts to bring stability to Syria after Bashar al-Assad’s fall, the ministry added.

Israel declared in 1981 that it had annexed the territory. Most countries do not recognise Israel’s sovereignty over the land, though the Trump administration recognised the annexation in 2019. About 50,000 people live in the occupied land, half of them Jews and half Druze, an Arabic-speaking ethno-religious minority.

A ceasefire in 1974 that ended the 1973 Yom Kippur war established the UN-patrolled buffer zone between Israel and Syria to keep the forces apart, an agreement Netanyahu claims collapsed with the fall of Assad.

Israel’s plan to double the population of the main part of the occupied Golan Heights was also condemned on Monday by Germany, one of Israel’s closest allies in Europe, which called on Israel to “abandon” the plan.

Christian Wagner, a German foreign ministry spokesperson, said it was “perfectly clear under international law that this area controlled by Israel belongs to Syria and that Israel is therefore an occupying power”.

As Islamist-led rebel forces swept Assad from power last week, Netanyahu ordered troops to seize the demilitarised zone on the Golan Heights. Israel has also launched hundreds of strikes on Syria targeting strategic military sites and weapons, including chemical weapons.

Wagner said it was “absolutely crucial now, in this phase of political upheaval in Syria, that all actors in the region take into account the territorial integrity of Syria and do not call it into question”.

Speaking at a regular press conference, he added that the situation was “complex” and that Israel had an interest to ensure that the Assad regime’s weapons did not fall into the wrong hands.

But he stressed that Germany was “now calling on all actors in the region to exercise restraint” and that war-ravaged “Syria has been a plaything of foreign powers for far too long”.

Egypt also expressed its categorical rejection of Israeli government’s decision to expand settlements in the occupied Golan Height, considering the move a flagrant violation of the sovereignty and integrity of Syria’s territories.

The Turkish accusation came as Israel continued to pound former regime military assets in Syria. The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Israel had hit missile warehouses and other former Syrian army sites along Syria’s coast in the “most violent strikes in the Syrian coast region since the beginning of the [Israeli] strikes in 2012”.

Canada’s deputy prime minister and minister of finance has resigned amid growing tensions with the prime minister, Justin Trudeau, over the looming threat posed by Donald Trump’s “America First” economic nationalism.

Chrystia Freeland stood down on Monday, just hours before she was due to release the country’s first economic plan ahead of the change of administration in Washington.

Relations between Canada and the US have been upended by Trump’s pledge last month to slap a 25% levy on all Canadian goods and services.

“For the past number of weeks, you and I have found ourselves at odds about the best past forward for Canada,” said Freeland in a letter she submitted to the prime minister that was published on social media platforms.

“Our country today faces a grave challenge. The incoming administration in the United States is pursuing a policy of aggressive economic nationalism, including a threat of 25% tariffs,” she states.

“We need to take that threat extremely seriously,” she continues.

Freeland further outlines that Canada needs to keep its “fiscal powder dry today” so that they have the reserves for a “coming tariff war”.

She warns Trudeau that “costly political gimmicks” need to be done away with as they can make Canadians doubt whether the government understands the “gravity of the moment”.

“That means pushing back against ‘America First’ economic nationalism with a determined effort to fight for capital and investment and the jobs they bring. That means working in good faith and humility with the Premiers of the provinces and territories of our great and diverse country, and building a true Team Canada response.”

Earlier this month, Trudeau met with the president-elect and posted a smiling photo of the two of them at dinner in Florida. He told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation that he promised Trump Canada would shore up border security in surveillance.

More details soon …

The EU has launched an ambitious €10bn (£8.3bn) space programme with a constellation of 290 satellites to rival Elon Musk’s Starlink, further widening the post-Brexit security gap with the UK.

The constellation is intended to ensure the bloc’s security for governments and armies amid increasing global concerns over cybersecurity.

Officials said the UK had not made any request to be part of the Iris² project, which will offer sublease communications capacity for commercial use as an alternative to Musk’s Starlink network.

“It is a significant step towards Europe’s sovereignty and secure connectivity,” an EU statement said.

Technological advances mean the network of high- and lower-powered satellites will provide the equivalent of 1,000 satellites in a “mega constellation” similar to Starlink.

Europe has been served by a combination of state-licensed satellite networks providing coverage from Ireland to eastern Europe. The networks enable TV and internet as well as defence, weather and border surveillance functions.

Before Brexit, the UK was part of an EU space programme, with British armed forces due to have access to the Galileo satellite network from next year.

However the British government severed ties with the programme and concluded during Brexit negotiations that it would be in the UK’s interests to develop a rival to Galileo involving two satellites.

The UK network includes Tyche, the Earth-imaging military satellite which was launched in August. Last month the government said a new satellite, Juno, would be launched in 2027 to “capture daytime images of the Earth’s surface” thereby “strengthening the UK’s intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance” capabilities.

Asked if the UK would be involved in the Iris² programme, given its common interests in defence and security and Keir Starmer’s pledge to reset relations with the EU, a senior official said there had been no such request.

“At this stage we have not received any sign or manifestation of interest from our UK partners,” they added.

Under EU rules, a third country can participate by having a commercial agreement for surveillance or cybersecurity services with any of the three operators of the satellites. The operators are Eutelsat, the European-wide network of former telecommunications-only satellites; SES, the Luxembourg-owned satellite network that delivers Sky TV and other TV services to the UK; and Hispasat, the Spanish satellite operator.

Third party countries are also permitted to opt to become a “full member” of the programme, contributing funding.

Iris² is the EU’s third flagship satellite programme, designed to address long-term challenges, deepened in the last three years by Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and alleged cyberattacks in several European countries.

It will involve two types of satellites that operate in medium Earth orbit and low Earth orbit.

Under the 12-year programme the first communications, both government and commercial, are expected to begin in 2030.

Key companies involved in the programme include all the top European, but not British, space industry players, including Airbus Defence and Space, Deutsche Telekom, France’s Thales Alenia Space and Italy’s Telespazio.

The UK government has been approached for comment.

A huge rescue operation was under way north-east of the Italian city of Bergamo to free a caving instructor who became trapped while exploring a cave.

Ottavia Piana, 32, considered an expert spelunker, injured herself after falling 5 metres (16ft) on Saturday evening during an expedition with eight others to map a section of an uncharted branch of the Bueno Fonteno cave. She fell in the same cave system last year, fracturing her leg and remained trapped for 48 hours.

The alarm was raised on Saturday evening by the eight other cavers on her team. Rescuers, who said Piana was alert and responsive, reached her late on Sunday at a depth of 585 metres and used small explosives to get to her.

The main obstacle is a segment of tunnel about 100 metres long, too narrow to allow a stretcher to pass through. Rescuers are working to widen it but the operation is delicate and time-consuming, complicated by the depth of the cave and the lack of a complete geomorphological map.

The difficulties faced by the rescuers are also due to the stretcher on which Piana has been placed due to the fractures sustained from the fall. The rescuers must periodically stop to assess the condition of Piana, who is conscious and feeling better “even from a psychological and moral standpoint”, according to Mauro Guiducci, the deputy of the national Alpine Rescue.

“One thing is certain, these kinds of operations are very long,’’ Guiducci said.

Approximately 100 rescuers are on site, working in shifts, with a maximum of 20 people at a time in the tunnels, given the small size of the spaces.

Piana got stuck in the same cave last year, spending two days in it with a broken leg at a depth of 150 metres in a spot not far from where she is now.

A doctor who is assisting her after the latest fall said that she was planning to give up caving.

The Bueno Fonteno Abyss, located in the heart of the Western Sebino karst area, is a labyrinth of caves and tunnels that pose a challenge for the most experienced speleologists.

Associated Press contributed to this report

A prestigious French cinema has cancelled a screening of Last Tango in Paris after women’s rights groups protested at its infamous rape scene filmed without the consent of the leading actor, Maria Schneider.

The French Cinémathèque in Paris said it had dropped the film after receiving threats.

“We are a cinema, not a fortress. We cannot take risks with the safety of our staff and audience,” said Frédéric Bonnaud, the director of the Cinémathèque, a film archive and cinema funded partly by the state.

“Violent individuals were beginning to make threats and holding this screening and debate poised an entirely disproportionate risk. So, we had to let it go.”

Last Tango in Paris, completed in 1972 by the director Bernardo Bertolucci, was supposed to have been shown on Sunday evening as part of a Marlon Brando retrospective. The film explores the relationship between a widowed American in Paris – played by Brando – and a much younger woman, played by Schneider.

The rape scene was simulated but Schneider, who was 19 at the time, said afterwards it had felt like a violation as it was sprung on her without notice or preparation. Her allegations were first made in the 1970s but were largely ignored.

“I felt a little raped, both by Marlon and Bertolucci,” Schneider said four years before her death in 2011. She said the film had destroyed her life and had driven her to years of drug abuse. Bertolucci later responded to the allegations by insisting the scene had not been improvised on the day of shooting but acknowledging that Schneider had not been informed.

The director admitted he had made an “artistic decision” not to tell her in order to capture her reaction. “I feel guilty, but I don’t regret it,” he said.

Judith Godrèche, an actor and leading figure in France’s #MeToo movement, had been critical of the Cinémathèque’s decision to screen the film without providing context to viewers.

“It’s time to wake up, dear Cinémathèque, and restore humanity to a 19-year-old actor by behaving humanely,” she posted on her Instagram account.

Critics had also attacked the timing of the screening, which would have come towards the end of the trial of the film director Christophe Ruggia, who stands accused of grooming and sexually abusing Adèle Haenel during and after shooting of his 2002 film Les Diables (The Devils) when she was 12. Ruggia has called the charges “pure lies”.

Had it gone ahead, the screening would also have come towards the end of the Mazan mass rape trial, in which verdicts and sentencing are expected later this week. Dominique Pelicot, 72, is facing up to 20 years in jail for drugging his wife, Gisèle, 73, and inviting strangers to rape her. A further 50 men accused of aggravated rape or sexual abuse will also be judged and sentenced.

Given the chance to address the court for the last time on Monday, Dominique Pelicot, who admitted the decade-long abuse of his wife, said: “I wish to salute the courage of my ex-wife who has had to listen the suspicions of complicity … I regret what I have done.”