Milei’s absence from Mercosur presidential summit sows doubt about bloc’s future

South American free trade bloc Mercosur held its presidential summit on Monday in Paraguay without Argentina’s President Javier Milei, who was in Brazil for a conference of Latin American conservatives. The snub was slammed as “complete foolishness” by Brazil’s leader Luis Inacio Lula da Silva and underlines the political frictions within the bloc. In this edition, we take a closer look at some of the challenges Mercosur has faced and also head back to France to see what businesses and workers think of the leftist New Popular Front’s economic programme.