Monday newspaper round-up: Macron, THG, LSE Group

(Sharecast News) - France's president, Emmanuel Macron, has been accused of gambling with French democracy after announcing that he will dissolve parliament and call snap legislative elections in the wake of his allies' crushing defeat to Marine Le Pen's far-right National Rally (RN) in Sunday's European parliament elections. - Guardian A leading shareholder in THG has joined a revolt against the company's chairman as investors put pressure on the business to address its flagging share price. Ophorst Van Marwijk Kooy Vermogensbeheer, a Dutch investment firm that is the ecommerce group's tenth largest investor with a stake of 1.89 per cent, has joined calls from Kelso, an activist fund, to vote against the re-election of Lord Allen of Kensington as chairman of what was The Hut Group. - The Times

She is diminutive, dapper and softly spoken, but Julia Hoggett, boss of the London Stock Exchange, pulls no punches in the battle between global stock exchanges to attract multi-billion pound company listings. 'You should assume we're going after everything. We fight for everything,' she says. The London market has been losing out to rivals, particularly Wall Street, as companies have defected or chosen to list elsewhere. - Daily Mail

Labour is planning to override local councils to build data centres on the green belt, as Sir Keir Starmer's Opposition seeks to boost Britain's artificial intelligence industry. Peter Kyle, the shadow science, innovation and technology secretary, is understood to be considering classing data centres as nationally significant infrastructure projects in a bid to bypass opposition from Nimbys. - Daily Telegraph