Egypt gets German mediation offer and French cash

Egypt signed business deals worth more than 1.4 billion euros ($1.6 billion) with French companies and received a German offer to mediate with creditors, but didn’t escape rebukes over its human rights record. The deals and offers were extended by French President Francois Hollande and German Energy and Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel during simultaneous visits to Egypt, which is struggling to lure investors to help revive its flagging economy. Net foreign reserves are tenuously holding at about $16 billion, while a dollar crunch is hammering businesses and threatening to drive up prices in the impoverished nation.

Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi is facing unprecedented criticism three years after he led the widely-sought ouster of predecessor Mohammad Morsi and the subsequent crackdown on his Islamist allies. Dissatisfaction with the failure of his economic policies to improve the lot of the Egyptian people is widespread, and thousands took to the streets Saturday to protest his decision to return two Red Sea islands to Saudi Arabia in the harshest popular outpouring against him to date.