Bolivian soldiers filled the main plaza in La Paz and an armored vehicle breached a government palace on Wednesday afternoon before withdrawing in what government officials warned was a coup attempt by elements of the military.

“Today the country faces, once again, interests in toppling Bolivian democracy,” President Luis Arce, surrounded by his cabinet, said in a video statement. He said his government would stand “firm” against any coup attempt and called on the Bolivian people to mobilize “in favor of democracy.”

News videos showed former Gen. Juan Jose Zuñiga, who was fired this week as commander of the Bolivian Army, entering the Palacio Quemado, confronting Arce face-to-face and rejecting the president’s order that he withdraw the troops. With soldiers storming the plaza, Zuñiga told reporters the military sought to install a new cabinet and “restore democracy.”

As the chaos unfolded, Arce named new commanders of the army, navy and air force, who ordered all personnel to return to their units. In less than two hours, they had retreated from the government palace.

In the race for the White House, former President Donald J. Trump has attacked President Biden’s policies to expand renewable energy as a “plan to make China rich” because America’s greatest economic rival also controls many of the parts needed for electric-vehicle batteries, solar panels and other green technology.

But eliminating Mr. Biden’s climate policies would end up helping China, economists say, by jeopardizing hundreds of billions of dollars in manufacturing investments that have already been made in the United States and sending that work back to other countries, including China.

Mr. Trump, who has called climate change a “hoax,” has targeted “every one” of Mr. Biden’s policies designed to transition the United States away from fossil fuels. That includes regulations to encourage electric vehicles and solar and wind energy while cracking down on pollution from coal-burning power plants and restricting oil drilling on public lands and in federal waters. The former president has also promised to withdraw the United States from global agreements to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Jordan Bardella, the far-right candidate to be France’s prime minister, has pledged to fight a “cultural battle” against Islamism and secure an EU budget rebate even as he promised “a lot of pragmatism” on the economy if his party wins snap elections.

“I think the French are ready for change,” said Bardella, adding that the country wanted to “break with seven years of Macronism which has been brutal in its method of governing”. He also committed to using the political “weight” of his election victory to cut France’s contributions to the EU budget by €2bn. “I want to get a rebate,” he declared.

Led by standard-bearer Marine Le Pen, the RN and their rightwing allies lead in polls with a 36 per cent vote share ahead of the two-round election on June 30 and July 7, according to Ifop. The leftwing alliance Nouveau Front Populaire is on 28.5 per cent, and Macron’s Ensemble group is on 21 per cent.

A contingent of progressive Democrats and White House allies are privately urging President Joe Biden’s team to use Thursday’s debate to recast his candidacy as an attack on the billionaires and big businesses that Donald Trump has increasingly embraced.

These Democrats have pleaded with Biden’s advisers to adopt a more bluntly populist message as a response to two problems: that Trump is still winning over more voters on the issue of the economy, according to polls, and that many Americans remain unaware of Biden’s record of taking on powerful mega-corporations.

The campaign to date, they worry, has given short shrift to the most ambitious economic policymaking that’s happened on his watch. It has struggled to find a consistent message, and has not always led first with the economy — prioritizing issues like democracy and abortion too, even as many voters rank the cost of living as their most pressing issue.

“Biden is taking a lot of that populist fight and making it real — he’s doing it through policy and on a whole variety of scores,” said Faiz Shakir, an adviser to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who has spoken with Biden aides on the issue. “The problem on the Biden side is we’re not getting the political squeeze out of the policymaking.”

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