Thousands of people protested in Paris on Saturday to denounce police violence and Emmanuel Macron’s security policy plans, which they say would infringe civil liberties. In one incident, police fired teargas and charged after fireworks were launched at their lines. Protesters set cars alight and smashed shop windows. There were violent clashes between protesters and police at a similar protest last week
Continue reading...Category Archives: Paris
Valéry Giscard d’Estaing obituary
Former French president who brought in socially liberal reforms but whose grand style ultimately proved offputting to voters
As Valéry Giscard d’Estaing became the Grand Old Man of French politics – a position he held for at least two decades – it became harder to recall the intellectually brilliant and reforming politician who in 1974 became the Fifth Republic’s youngest president.
Giscard, who has died aged 94, was 48 when he became president and only 55 when he stopped, after one seven-year term, meaning he experienced his political career go into decline at an age when most of his contemporaries were only just making a bid for high office. Thereafter Giscard fought to remain relevant, particularly in European politics, as he saw off his bitter rivals – François Mitterrand and Jacques Chirac – to become the longest lived former French president in history. It would be a mistake, however, to remember Giscard, or VGE as he was often known, solely for his longevity.
Continue reading...Four French police charged over beating of black music producer
Alleged unprovoked attack on Michel Zecler, who also alleges racial abuse, was caught on film
Four French police officers have been charged in connection with the beating of a black music producer exposed by a video as Emmanuel Macron sought to contain the political fallout from a case that has scandalised the country.
Footage last week showed police punching, kicking and using a truncheon on Michel Zecler, who alleged that they also racially abused him several times. Before the video came to light, the officers had accused Zecler, 41, of resisting arrest and attacking them.
Continue reading...Protesters launch fireworks at police in Paris – video
French security forces fire teargas at protesters marching against police violence in Paris on Saturday after masked activists launched fireworks at their lines, put up barricades and threw stones.
Thousands rallied across France after video of police beating a black music producer fanned anger about a draft law that is seen as curbing the right of journalists to report on police brutality
Continue reading...Shops reopen in France as national lockdown eases
Retailers and hairdressers admit limited number of customers for first time since October
Queues formed outside hairdressers’ shops and department stores sold gifts and Christmas decorations on Saturday as France partially reopened after a month-long lockdown.
Shops selling non-essential goods, such as shoes, clothes and toys, reopened in the first easing of national restrictions since 30 October. Bars and restaurants remain closed until 20 January.
Continue reading...Clashes erupt as police break up makeshift refugee camp in Paris – video report
French police and gendarmes removed tents set up at Place de la République in Paris by refugees in a charity-organised protest on Monday against mass evacuations of homeless camps. Footage posted online showed police and demonstrators pushing against each other as officers moved in to clear the square of tents, which the police said had been set up without official permission. The interior minister, Gérald Darmanin, said on Tuesday that images of the scuffles were 'shocking' and he was launching an investigation into the clashes
Continue reading...Shakespeare and Company bookshop in Paris appeals for help – in pictures
English-language bookshop asks customers for support as France enters new lockdown
Continue reading...‘Finding them is not rocket science’: the hunt for the Rwandan genocide fugitives
Arrest of Félicien Kabuga in Paris has energised search for others accused of playing role in 1994 genocide
No one paid much attention to the stooped old man who lived in the third-floor apartment of the comfortable but unexceptional block in Asnières-sur-Seine, a suburb on the outskirts of Paris. He shuffled off for his daily walks, and muttered inaudibly to those who greeted him.
Then one morning in late May, 84-year-old Félicien Kabuga’s neighbours woke up to the startling news that they had been living next to an alleged mass killer.
Continue reading...Paris: seven Britons arrested over attack on policeman at Israeli embassy
Inquiry launched into ‘attempted homicide’ after car driven at gendarme on Monday
French police have arrested seven British nationals, including two minors, two days after a policeman was attacked outside the Israeli embassy in Paris, according to the prosecutor’s office.
A car drove at the gendarme in the early evening on Monday in front of the embassy near the Champs Élysées in central Paris.
Continue reading...Bars in Paris before and after Covid curfew – in pictures
On Saturday, Paris went under a night-time curfew that will last at least a month. France has reported another record for new coronavirus cases, with more than 32,000 registered in 24 hours
A bar on the Rue de Seine
Continue reading...Thousands gather in Paris in memory of murdered teacher Samuel Paty – video report
Thousands of people gathered at the Place de la République in Paris to pay tribute to the teacher Samuel Paty, who was murdered in a violent attack on Friday. The history teacher was killed after he showed a caricature of the the prophet Muhammad to his pupils. The attacker was shot dead by police shortly afterwards.
'I am here to support teachers, to support the values of this country, because I think that what happened was extremely serious and all citizens must stand up and stand in unity' said one of the demonstrators.
French teachers vow to ‘teach difficult subjects’ after colleague’s murder
Defiance follows the beheading of Samuel Paty for showing his pupils controversial Charlie Hebdo cartoons
Shocked French teachers vowed to continue encouraging their pupils’ “critical spirit” by raising contested subjects after an Islamic terrorist beheaded a secondary school teacher who showed his students caricatures of the Prophet as part of a freedom of speech discussion.
Representatives of teaching unions met the education minister Jean-Michel Blanquer and the prime minister Jean Castex on Saturday, hours after the death of 47-year-old history and geography teacher Samuel Paty.
Continue reading...Paris suburb in shock after teacher beheaded – video
Parents and students have laid flowers outside a school in north-west Paris where a history teacher was decapitated on Friday after he showed a caricature of the prophet Muhammad to his pupils.
Samuel Paty, 47, who taught history and geography at the school in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, was attacked on Friday evening by an 18-year-old man who was shot dead by police shortly afterwards
- Macron speaks of 'existential' fight against terrorism after teacher killed in France
- Teacher decapitated in Paris named as Samuel Paty, 47
Beheading of French teacher an attack on ‘the republic and its values’, says Macron – video
The French president, Emmanuel Macron, has said France’s battle against Islamist terrorism is 'existential' after the killing of Samuel Paty, a teacher who reportedly showed his class a caricature of the prophet Muhammad.
Macron, who visited the site of the killing near a school in a Paris suburb, said the 47-year-old victim had been 'assassinated' and that his killer sought to 'attack the republic and its values'. French police shot a man dead after the attack and officials swiftly announced the killing was being investigated by an anti-terrorism prosecutor.
- Macron speaks of 'existential' fight against terrorism after teacher killed in France
- Teacher decapitated in Paris named as Samuel Paty, 47
Teacher decapitated in Paris named as Samuel Paty, 47
Terrorism investigation opened after 18-year-old attacker shot dead by police
A history teacher decapitated outside his secondary school in a Paris suburb on Friday after he reportedly showed a caricature of the prophet Muhammad to his pupils has been named.
Samuel Paty, 47, who taught history and geography at the school in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine , north-west of the French capital, was attacked on Friday evening by an 18-year-old man who was shot dead by police shortly afterwards.
Continue reading...Covid in Europe: second wave gathers pace across continent
France may impose new lockdowns as Italy plans ban on private parties
France has said it may be forced to impose new lockdowns, Italy is expected to ban private parties and the Czech Republic announced that it would close bars and shift most schools to distance learningas Europe’s Covid-19 second wave continues to gather pace.
The moves came as the World Health Organization director general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, warned that allowing coronavirus to spread in the hope of achieving so-called herd immunity would be “scientifically and ethically problematic”.
Continue reading...Video shows barrage of fireworks going off in Paris police station attack – video
About 40 unidentified people armed with metal bars and using fireworks as projectiles tried to storm a police station in the Paris suburbs on Saturday night, officials have said. Police posted this video showing a barrage of fireworks going off in the direction of the police station in Champigny-sur-Marne, about nine miles south-east of the city centre.
Continue reading...Coronavirus: Europe struggles to contain surge of cases
Rise in infection rate in Paris as Spanish authorities clash over Madrid lockdown
Bars in Paris have been ordered to close for two weeks, Madrid residents may no longer leave their city and Ireland is set to introduce tighter national restrictions as governments struggle to contain a Europe-wide surge in Covid-19 cases.
As infections in the Paris area rose to 270 for every 100,000 people – and as high as 500 for every 100,000 among 20- to 30-year-olds – with 36% of intensive care beds occupied by Covid-19 patients, the city’s police chief said bars must close from Tuesday.
Continue reading...France divided over calls for Arthur Rimbaud and Paul Verlaine to be reburied in Panthéon
Petition says the poets, who were lovers as young men, were ‘the French Oscar Wildes’ and deserve to rest in the mausoleum
France’s cultural elite are split over whether the remains of two of the country’s greatest poets, Arthur Rimbaud and his lover Paul Verlaine, should be dug up and re-interred in the Panthéon in Paris.
The secular mausoleum is home to French greats including Voltaire, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Émile Zola, Alexandre Dumas and Marie Curie. Now a petition signed by more than 5,000 people, including culture minister Roselyne Bachelot and a host of her predecessors, is calling on president Emmanuel Macron to allow Rimbaud and Verlaine to join them.
Continue reading...Suspect in new Charlie Hebdo attack angered by republished cartoons, say Paris police
Detained man, believed to be 18 and from Pakistan, arrived in France as unaccompanied minor three years ago
The man arrested after a knife attack on two people outside the former offices of the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo told detectives he had been angered by its publication of cartoons mocking the prophet Muhammad, French media reported yesterday.
The suspect, believed to be an 18-year-old born in Pakistan, is thought to have arrived in France three years ago as an unaccompanied minor.
Continue reading...