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30-year-old Ange Kunzli, double French boxing World Champion is taking to social media to boost his career.
He says ''The trigger that made me get on the networks was mainly the fact that I saw that there were lots of people who started to take up sport who were not particularly good at what they were doing, but who had a lot of fame and it was thanks to that that they were able to make a living from it."
He is not alone. Jade Levin explores the risks athletes take by exposing their lives online.
Watch the full report in the player above.
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Emmanuel Macron warned Western powers against showing any signs of weakness to Russia as he reiterated his position that sending Western troops into Ukraine shouldn't be ruled out.
The French President admitted, however, that today’s situation doesn’t require it.
In an interview on French national television TF1 and France 2 on Thursday, Macron was asked about the prospect of sending Western troops to Ukraine, which he publicly raised last month.
His comments prompted pushback from other European leaders who stressed they had no plans to do so.
"We’re not in that situation today," he said, but added that “all these options are possible.”
Macron, who is the commander-in-chief of the country’s armed forces, declined to describe in which situation France would be ready to send troops.
He said the responsibility for prompting such a move would lie with Moscow: “It wouldn't be us," adding that France would not lead an offensive into Ukraine against Russia.
“Today, to have peace in Ukraine, we must not be weak," Macron continued.
Many observers point out that France has provided some of the least bilateral assistance to Kyiv in the Western world.
The Kiel Insitute for the World Economy ranks its total commitments 14th out of Ukraine's allies. Its figures show that Germany's 17.7 billion euro contribution dwarfs the 0.64 billion euros Paris has provided in military assistance.
Macron described the Russia-Ukraine war as “existential” to France and Europe.
“If war spread to Europe, it would be Russia’s sole choice and sole responsibility. But for us to decide today to be weak, to decide today that we would not respond, is being defeated already. And I don’t want that,” he said.
Macron's televised interview comes after the French parliament debated the country’s Ukraine strategy this week.
Both the National Assembly and the Senate approved in symbolic votes the 10-year bilateral security agreement signed last month between Macron and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Come together
Macron is meeting with his counterparts in Germany and Poland in Berlin on Friday to discuss support for Ukraine.
He is seeking to show unity and solidarity as Kyiv grapples with military shortages and Russia votes in an election all but certain to extend President Vladimir Putin's reign.
Macron, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk are meeting at a summit of the so-called “Weimar Triangle” of the three major EU powers.
They are trying to revitalise relations, which became badly strained under Poland's previous nationalist government.
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Kyiv’s forces are hoping for more military supplies from its Western partners.
In the meantime, they are struggling against a bigger and better-provisioned Russian army that is pressing hard at some front-line points in Ukraine.
The EU's plans to produce 1 million artillery rounds for Ukraine have fallen well short, while US aid is being held up by Republican legislators in Congress.
“We must do everything we can to organise as much support as possible for Ukraine," Scholz said on Wednesday.
He pointed to the "very practical question of whether there is enough ammunition, whether there is enough artillery, whether there is enough air defence – many things that play a major role.”
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Voters in Russia went to the polls on Friday for a three-day presidential election.
Though Vladimir Putin is all but certain to extend his rule, acts of vandalism - including pouring dye on ballots and setting voting stations alight - have been reported across the country.
Several people have been detained at polling stations, according to Russian officials, who are urging law enforcement officers to remain vigilant.
One clip circulating online purports to show a woman throwing a petrol bomb near a St Petersburg polling station.
Another widely shared video shows a young girl pouring ink into a ballot box.
Polling stations in Moscow, Voronezh in south Russia, and the region of Karachay-Cherkessia in the north Caucasus are most affected by vandalism, reports Russia's state news agency TASS.
The election takes place against the backdrop of a ruthless crackdown by Putin that has crippled independent media and prominent rights groups and given him full control of the political system. It also comes as Moscow’s war in Ukraine enters its third year.
Voters will cast their ballots Friday through Sunday at polling stations across the vast country’s 11 time zones, as well as in illegally annexed regions of Ukraine.
The first polling stations opened in Russia's easternmost regions, Chukotka and Kamchatka, at 8 am local time.
The election holds little suspense since Putin is running for his fifth term virtually unchallenged. His political opponents are either in jail or in exile abroad, and the fiercest of them, Alexei Navalny, died in a remote Arctic penal colony recently.
The three other candidates on the ballot are low-profile politicians from token opposition parties that toe the Kremlin’s line.
Observers have little to no expectation that the election will be free and fair. Beyond the fact that voters have been presented with little choice, the possibilities for independent monitoring are minimal.
Only registered candidates or state-backed advisory bodies can assign observers to polling stations, decreasing the likelihood of independent watchdogs.
Occupied regions take part in vote
Ukraine and the West have also condemned Russia for holding the vote in Ukrainian regions that Moscow’s forces have seized and occupied.
Kyiv has denounced the exercise as an illegitimate effort by Moscow to tighten control over its neighbour.
Early voting has already begun in the occupied parts of four Ukrainian regions close to the front line: Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, Donetsk and Luhansk.
Russia's economy is going strong: why haven't Western sanctions worked?
In Crimea, which was annexed from Ukraine by Putin in 2014, polls opened on Friday.
Many Ukrainians fled these regions – or were deported by Russia – after the military operation started two years ago, and there are reports of people being forced to vote at gunpoint.
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The election is taking place under highly distorted and restrictive conditions, with no international election observers in Ukraine.
The Russian government is prodding Ukrainians with billboards and posters to vote “for their President” and to “take part in the future of our country.”
While there are polling stations, Russia has also dispatched officials with ballot boxes to people’s homes, saying it is safer for them to vote on their doorsteps.
In the Donetsk region, the Ukrainian mayor of Mariupol, Vadym Boychenko, said it was "impossible to call this an election".
There have been multiple reports of Russian-installed authorities forcing people to vote, and threatening to withhold medical care or other social benefits from those who do not.
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Russia's opposition
The opposition, meanwhile, hopes to use the vote to demonstrate their discontent with both the war and the Kremlin.
The Kremlin banned two politicians from the ballot who sought to run on an antiwar agenda and attracted genuine — albeit not overwhelming — support.
Russia’s scattered opposition has urged those unhappy with Putin or the war to show up at the polls at noon on Sunday, the final day of voting, in protest. The strategy was endorsed by Navalny not long before his death.
“We need to use election day to show that we exist and there are many of us, we are actual, living, real people and we are against Putin. ... What to do next is up to you. You can vote for any candidate except Putin. You could ruin your ballot,” his widow, Yulia Navalnaya, said.
Golos, Russia’s renowned independent election observer group, said in a report this week that: "The current elections will not be able to reflect the real mood of the people. The distance between citizens and decision-making about the fate of the country has become greater than ever.”
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