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It was a Thai court decision last year that swept Paetongtarn Shinawatra into the prime minister’s office and now, once again, the fate of the 38-year-old novice politician lies in the hands of the judiciary.

The Constitutional Court suspended Paetongtarn – Thailand’s youngest prime minister – from office on Tuesday, pending a case that seeks her dismissal over a controversial phone call last month with former Cambodian leader Hun Sen.

“I want to apologize to people who are upset by all of this,” Paetongtarn told reporters on the steps of Government House in Bangkok, where she only took office last August after the shock dismissal of her predecessor by a court order.

“I will continue to work for the country as a Thai citizen,” she said, “I don’t have any bad intentions.”

The suspension order capped two tumultuous weeks in Thai politics, triggered by the leak of the call between Hun Sen and Paetongtarn, in which she appears to pander to the Cambodian strongman and then denigrate a Thai military commander.

Criticism of the military, which holds an outsized influence over domestic affairs, including politics, crossed a red line for many in Thailand and instantly drew a backlash, particularly from the conservative-royalist camp.

The June 15 leak, and the subsequently release of the entire call by Hun Sen, came at a delicate time for Paetongtarn and her ruling Pheu Thai party, already struggling with a floundering economy and a shaky coalition as well as a festering border dispute with Cambodia.

Although Paetongtarn apologised for the call and described its contents as a negotiation tactic, a major coalition partner, the Bhumjaithai party, walked out of the government just hours after the leak, leaving her alliance’s parliamentary majority hanging by a thread.

Still, Paetongtarn – the daughter of Thailand’s influential but divisive former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra – dug in, and managed to hold together the remainder of her coalition.

“The country must move forward,” she said on June 22. “Thailand must unite and push policies to solve problems for the people.”

By then, a group of 36 senators had already submitted a petition to the Constitutional Court seeking the premier’s dismissal.

The judicial push coincided with growing public discontent against the prime minister, which culminated in a massive anti-government rally on Saturday.

Several thousand people gathered in the heart of the Thai capital, braving intensive monsoon rains, to rally for hours.

“Ung Ing, get out,” they chanted occasionally in unison, calling the prime minister by a nickname.

In an opinion poll released on Sunday, Paetongtarn’s approval stood at 9.2% in June, sharply down from 30.9% in March.

‘DADDY’S GIRL’

The youngest of Thaksin’s three children, Paetongtarn has spent much of her life in the shadow of the father’s political career, which began in 1994 and led to him becoming prime minister in 2001.

Thaksin was ousted in a coup five years later, but went on to push his younger sister, Yingluck into the premiership in 2011. But she was forced out of office by a court ruling.

The decades-long power struggle between Thailand’s conservative-royalist camp and the Shinawatra clan featured in Paetongtarn’s campaign to help her family win back power in the 2023 general election, where Pheu Thai only came second.

After the election-winning Move Forward party was blocked by military-appointed lawmakers from taking power, Pheu Thai engineered a parliamentary majority to form a government led initially by Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin.

It was Srettha’s dismissal last August that allowed Paetongtarn to take his place – although she had never held any government position before becoming prime minister.

Educated at Chulalongkorn University and Britain’s University of Surrey, she was primarily involved in the Shinawatra family businesses.

Much of her 10-month premiership has also been overshadowed by the looming presence of Thaksin, who returned to Thailand in 2023 after over a decade-and-a-half in self-exile to avoid a prison term – and now potentially again faces jail time.

For Paetongtarn, however, that appeared to be of little concern.

“I’m a daddy’s girl,” she told parliament in March, referring to Thaksin. “I am like that completely. I am a daddy’s girl, 100%.”

PARIS:

Nearly 2,000 schools were shut in France, monuments closed to tourists, and cities across Europe put on high alert as a record-breaking early summer heatwave spread across the continent Tuesday.

Withering conditions that have baked southern Europe for days crept northward where such extremes are much rarer, with Paris on “red alert” and warnings issued in Belgium, Switzerland and Germany.

Tens of thousands of people have died in Europe during past heatwaves, prompting authorities to issue warnings for old and young, the sick, and others vulnerable to what experts call a “silent killer”.

On Tuesday, police in Spain said a two-year-old died in the country’s northeast after being left in a car in the sun for several hours.

The EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) warned that millions of Europeans were exposed to high heat stress, and that temperatures would remain “well above average” across most of the continent in coming days.

“This event is unusual because it’s extreme, because it’s very early on in the summer period, and climate change has almost certainly made it worse than it otherwise would have been,” climate scientist and C3S deputy director Samantha Burgess told AFP.

Records have already tumbled, with the Netherlands experiencing its hottest opening day of July, France and Portugal their highest-ever single-day temperatures in June, and Spain and England their warmest June months.

On Sunday, in a case of two extremes, the Mediterranean Sea hit a new June temperature record while Mont Blanc, the highest peak in Europe, went above freezing, a rarity for this time of year.

The summit of the Eiffel Tower was shut for a second straight day while in Brussels the city’s Atomium monument — famed for its giant stainless steel balls — was exceptionally shut as temperatures reached 37 degrees Celsius (98 degrees Fahrenheit).

Under scorching skies, Paris imposed its first “red alert” in five years, empowering officials to limit or ban sporting events, festivals and school outings for children.

The heat is expected to peak on Tuesday, with Paris facing highs of 38C, but authorities have extended the alert into Wednesday.

“We’re living a bit like moles,” Nicole, 85, told AFP in the stifling air of her apartment in a tower block in Paris.

Some parks will remain open all night, pools have extended visiting hours, and cooling centres in churches and museums are offering respite from the lack of greenery and concrete surfaces that amplify the heat.

Nearly 2,000 schools were closed at midday on Tuesday across France, according to the Ministry of Education, with teachers complaining that overheated and unventilated classrooms were making students unwell.

Authorities are fanning out to check on the elderly, chronically ill and the homeless.

“When it’s cold, I add blankets and hats. But when it’s hot like this, what can I do?” said Jo, a 55-year-old homeless man in Bordeaux, in southwestern France.

As far north as the Netherlands, some regions were on the second-highest alert Tuesday, with temperatures forecast to reach 38C.

“I also live in a rooftop apartment, which means it gets insanely hot during the day, and it’s unbearable,” student Liva Freimane told AFP in The Hague.

Schools in Rotterdam and across West Brabant province adopted “tropical schedules” to ensure students started and finished earlier to avoid the worst of the day’s heat.

In Germany, temperatures could peak at 40C on Wednesday.