DAKAR  -  Senegal’s ruling party was on track to a large victory in weekend legislative polls, according to media projections Monday, paving the way for it to deliver an ambitious reform agenda eight months after sweeping to power in the West African country. President Bassirou Diomaye Faye’s Pastef party was projected to get from 119 to 131 seats in the 165-member parliament, according to estimates from various media. “I pay homage to the Senegalese people for the large victory that it has given to Pastef,” government spokesman Amadou Moustapha Ndieck Sarre told TFM television following the voting, which passed off peacefully across the country. The Pastef party had emerged as the vote winner in most of the first polling stations giving their provisional results, according to media reports, beating the two main opposition parties. Faye secured victory in March pledging economic transformation, social justice and a fight against corruption -- raising hopes among a largely youthful population facing high inflation and widespread unemployment.

But an opposition-led parliament hampered the government’s first months in power, prompting Faye to dissolve the chamber in September and call snap elections as soon as the constitution allowed him to do so.

Faye appointed his firebrand mentor Ousmane Sonko as prime minister. Sonko’s own bid to run for president had been blocked following a three-year deadly standoff with the former authorities.

The pair promised a leftist pan-African agenda, vowing to diversify political and economic partnerships, review hydrocarbon and fishing contracts and re-establish Senegal’s sovereignty, which they claimed had been sold abroad.

Various actors reported that the turnout on Sunday was typically lower than in the presidential election.

Brussels, Belgium, Nov 18 (AFP/APP):France’s Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said on Monday that Paris remained open to allowing Ukraine to use French long-range missiles to strike military targets inside Russia, after the United States cleared Kyiv to use American missiles for the same purpose.

Washington’s policy shift -- long demanded by Ukraine -- came in response to North Korea deploying troops to help Moscow’s war effort, US officials have said. The move is likely to lead European allies to review their stances.

Barrot recalled that French President Emmanuel Macron had already said in May that Paris was open to consider greenlighting the use of its missiles to strike on Russian soil.

“We openly said that this was an option that we would consider if it was to allow to strike targets from where Russians are currently aggressing Ukrainian territory,” Barrot told reporters in Brussels.

“Nothing new under the sun,” he added ahead of a meeting of EU foreign ministers in the Belgian capital.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has long pushed for authorisation from Washington to use the powerful Army Tactical Missile System, known by its initials ATACMS, to hit targets inside Russia.

But US officials had previously worried about the danger of escalating the conflict with nuclear-armed Russia, as well as the risk of depleting Washington’s own stocks of the valuable munitions.

France and Britain have provided Ukraine with their long-range Storm Shadow and SCALP missiles, but have held back from authorising their use inside Russia without American approval for ATACMS.