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The French government sets out a budget, after months of political deadlock, suspending unpopular pension reforms, at least for now.
It's World Business Express from the BBC World Service.
I'm Hannah Mullane.
Also, Instagram announces new parental controls to limit what younger users can see on the platform.
And Kate Third qualifies for the FIFA World Cup for the very first time.
Hello, and we're back in France today, as the new government tabled the budget for 2026, suspending controversial pension reforms.
The French Prime Minister, Sébastien Lecornu, has been speaking in Parliament.
It is important for those who are pensioners to be able to stay, to live a decent end of their life.
Anyone here can deny the fact that we have too many pensioners for the funding that our workers.
It's an imbalance that happens here, it happens all around Europe.
Our system is imbalanced and we must fix it.
The big sticking point plans to increase the retirement age from 62 to 64.
The BBC's Hugh Schofield reports from Paris.
What he said was quite clear and on the face of it should be enough to satisfy the socialists.
He said that the pension reform, this is the key reform, the major change of the last three years which Macron was able to show to the international money markets, where it was a sign of the seriousness of France in getting its economy together and its finances in order.
This key reform, raising the retirement age to 64, is being put on hold, basically.
It's being suspended until the presidential elections.
And a cynic would say that, in effect, it's killing it off because who's going to campaign on bringing it back?
No one.
And the money markets will be looking on with a great deal of scepticism about what all this means.
But it might mean, nonetheless, that France has managed to get through this crisis.
We won't know until the numbers are added up, when these sentencing motions are put forward on Thursday, whether or not he has survived.
As he mentioned there, the government faces a no-confidence vote later this week and the budget's fate now depends on what happens in Parliament.
So why is the retirement age so significant for French people?
Hind Zayan is a business consultant and political strategist in Paris.
The pension system is extremely important for French people.
And it is sort of part of the culture of the post-World War II in this country.
So a lot of people saw it as the end of an era of maybe also prosperity, because France has changed a lot.
Back then, France was a very different country.
It had massive growth.
It has a lower life expectancy, younger population, but also lower debt levels.
So it was the end of maybe a golden era.
I would say the second major reason is because the president has used a method that was not really much appreciated.
He imposed these two extra years and the French people didn't like it.
Today, the left is still saying that...
If Le Corneau's second government doesn't end this pensions reform completely, then they're going to topple him, or at least assign the decision to topple the new government.
This is the sticking point, isn't it?
What do you think is going to happen?
Well, I think, honestly, that it is very likely for this government to fall again.
I don't know exactly if it's going to fall right now.
I don't think it has yet. a very long life expectancy for a very simple reason.
Because if you look at the powers that are in Parliament today, almost all of them are saying well, if we don't get what we want, then we're going to topple this government.
And you're a businesswoman.
You work in France yourself.
Many years of your working life ahead of you, I'm sure.
How did you personally feel about the fact that the pension age was going up?
Honestly, I felt about it first as a French person.
And for me, it's very hard to see that my country is going through such a hard time.
It's both hard for French people to accept that we're going to have to work two extra years, especially for people who barely make a living and who have very difficult jobs.
But the situation, the economic situation feels pretty clear.
So it's obvious that the system can't go on like this and that, without reform, our pension system is going to have a huge deficit.
In Zayan there, a business consultant in Paris.
Now let's head to Washington next, where the International Monetary Fund has delivered its global economic outlook for the year ahead.
It's projecting global growth of 32, but there is still a concern about the impact that tariffs could have on global trade and on countries around the world.
The BBC's North America business correspondent, Michelle Fleury, is outside the meeting for us.
I mean, I think the key takeaway here is that things are slightly better than we expected say, six months ago, when those April Day, Donald Trump, Liberation Day tariffs came through.
And there was huge concern about what this would do to the global economy, to global trade.
The results so far suggest that it hasn't been as bad as feared, but that could change going forward.
And I think that's just one of the uncertainties that the IMF is talking about today, along with concerns about the amount of debt governments are amassing and about the potential for an AI bubble.
About the trade war that's going on around the world, those tariffs from Donald Trump.
We're not seeing much of an impact from them yet.
Is there concern that that could change in the near future?
I think that's absolutely something that the fund is worried about and is warning countries that yes, economies around the world have been very resilient thus far, but don't expect that to last.
And all of this, of course, comes against a backdrop of renewed US-China tensions.
So if you needed a reminder of sort of how unresolved things remain, well, there you have it.
The BBC's North America correspondent Michelle Fleury there in Washington for us.
Instagram is bringing in some new controls to manage the content shown to younger users.
A PG-13 rating will be applied to certain content, a bit like film ratings, to know what age they're appropriate for.
Meta, which owns Instagram, say this update will initially start in the US UK, Australia and Canada and will come to Europe and the rest of the world early next year.
Now we have been talking a lot about the rising price of gold, but now silver is taking the spotlight.
Fiona Sincotta is Senior Markets Analyst at Citi Index.
Fiona, what is happening to the silver price?
Yes, we've seen silver hit a record high.
Silver is often described as sort of gold on steroids, as it tends to see sort of bigger price swings compared to the yellow metal gold.
So, whilst silver is up 85 over the past year, whereas gold is up 59, both are trading at record highs.
But basically, we see silver is boosted by similar factors to gold.
So you know the safe haven appeal.
We've got these sort of rising US China trade tensions, worries about rising global debt and devaluing currencies.
That's adding to silver's appeal.
But then you've also got sort of the industrial demand as well.
And then we've got really low levels of inventories in London which are helping to send the price sharply higher.
Fiona Sincotta, Senior Markets Analyst at City Index.
Thanks for joining us.
Now the small African nation of Cape Verde has been celebrating after its national team qualified for the 2026 Men's Football FIFA World Cup.
They've become the second smallest nation ever after Iceland in population terms, to get through to the final stages of the tournament.
And it's taken a lot of financial investment to get there.
Here's sports journalist Ali Howarth, who's been in Cape Verde to watch the qualifying game.
This is off the back of decades of investment from the Federation, building structures, bringing in players from the diaspora, and they've even appealed to FIFA.
And essentially FIFA helped them with technical support, helping them with transport costs and getting around the continent.
Because Cape Verde is one of Africa's poorest countries, it is tremendously difficult to play an away game.
I suppose what it means for other African nations is you bring in the right people and you will get to the World Cup.
Ali Howarth reporting from Eswatini there.
What a win for Cape Verde.
Bringing us to the end of this edition of World Business Express with me, Hannah Mullane.
Thank you so much for listening.
We'll be back with more tomorrow.
