Emmanuel Macron's third channel still has presence and no product: France and Britain have proposed a strictly defensive Hormuz maritime mission, Macron has urged Iran to consider it, and no signed text has emerged from Tehran or Washington. [1]

Friday's paper said the Charles de Gaulle kept the third channel alive while the Trump call stayed unscheduled, and Saturday's receipt-day rule is harsher: a channel is not a deal.

Le Monde reported the United States was still awaiting Iran's response to the proposed deal despite clashes, while Al Jazeera's stack kept the operative fact in view: Tehran was reviewing, not signing. [2][3]

That distinction is what X's instant verdicts tend to erase and what mainstream process stories tend to soften.

The French carrier can shorten response time, and Macron can preserve a European lane; until a text is signed, the lane remains a diplomatic map line over a live maritime fire.

-- CHARLES ASHFORD, London