France faces second day of travel chaos as strikes continue

Transport stoppages to run into weekend amid protests against planned pension changes

France is facing a second day of travel chaos and school closures after unions said there would be no let-up in nationwide strikes against Emmanuel Macron’s proposed changes to the pensions system.

The far-reaching strike, which brought more than 800,000 people on to the streets on Thursday, is seen as the greatest test yet for the centrist president, who has promised to deliver the biggest “transformation” of the French social model and welfare system since the immediate post-war era.

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Black-clad youths clash with police as gilets jaunes mark anniversary

Police forces fire teargas and water cannon against protesters in French capital

The gilets jaunes (yellow vests) movement marked a year of weekend demonstrations with protests across France. In Paris, groups of black-clad youths caused damages at a central square, smashing bus shelters, a bank and torching vehicles.

Police responded by firing teargas and using water cannon against the protesters, only a few of whom were wearing the yellow vests affiliated with the movement. French media blamed “ultra radical” black bloc protesters for the violence.

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Notre Dame fire: row as general tells architect to ‘shut his mouth’

Army general rebuked after lashing out at chief architect over cathedral rebuild plans

The French government has rebuked the army general charged with the rebuilding of the fire-ravaged Notre Dame Cathedral after he told the chief architect to “shut his mouth”, in a sign of tensions over the cathedral’s future appearance.

Gen Jean-Louis Georgelin lost his cool with Philippe Villeneuve in a dispute over whether to replace the spire, which collapsed in the fire in April, with an exact replica or a modern alternative.

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Hundreds of migrants removed from makeshift camps in Paris – video

French police officers have begun clearing more than 1,000 migrants and refugees from a makeshift camp in northern Paris, where they had been sleeping rough in squalid conditions for months. The move comes after the country’s centrist government set out Emmanuel Macron’s tougher stance on immigration this week and vowed to clear the camps

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French police begin clearing makeshift migrant camp in Paris

More than 1,000 people have been sleeping rough for months in squalid conditions

Hundreds of French police have begun clearing more than 1,000 migrants and refugees from a makeshift camp in northern Paris, where they had been sleeping rough for months in squalid conditions.

Police arrived at the site near Porte de La Chapelle before 6am local time (0500 GMT) on Thursday, after the country’s centrist government set out Emmanuel Macron’s tougher stance on immigration this week and vowed to clear the camps.

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Biggest ever Leonardo da Vinci exhibition to open in Paris

Louvre will host works of Italian artist after long-running political spats and legal battles

The most important blockbuster art show in Paris for half a century took 10 years to prepare and was nearly thwarted by the worst diplomatic standoff between Italy and France since the second world war. With days to go before the opening, there is still no sign of whether one of the major works will appear.

The Louvre’s vast Leonardo da Vinci exhibition to mark 500 years since the death of the Italian Renaissance master will finally open next week as the world’s most-visited museum prepares to handle a huge influx of visitors.

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Paris art scene roars back to life … with a little help from Brexit

A reinvigorated contemporary art fair, opening this week in the Grand Palais, is one sign of a renaissance for the French capital

“If our generation did not reinvigorate the French art market, what would we be leaving to the younger people?” asks Jennifer Flay, director of the international fair of contemporary art in Paris. “So we decided to take ourselves seriously.”

As the 46th Foire internationale d’art contemporain (FIAC) prepares to open the doors of the Grand Palais this week, it is clear that not only did Flay and her colleagues achieve their goal, but they also created an environment in which artists and their work could flourish. The fair has gone from dusty irrelevance during a long sojourn in the suburbs to a glittering fixture on the art world calendar.

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‘A serious urban mistake’: why Paris went sour on the new Gare du Nord

As developers aim to turn France’s busiest train station into a gargantuan airport-style mall, Parisians fear for the local neighbourhood – and the station’s soul

“When you tell people in Paris you live near the Gare du Nord, they usually grimace,” sighed Sarah, a French academic in her 50s who has lived on a narrow, traffic-choked street next to Europe’s busiest station for 30 years.

“Architecturally, the station building is superb. But neighbourhoods around stations are never easy, wherever they are in the world.”

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Paris police attacker a radicalised Islamist, says French prosecutor

Police now believe stabbings were terrorist attack reveals Jean-François Ricard

A police administrator who stabbed and killed four people at Paris’s police headquarters on Thursday was a radicalised Islamist who slit the throat of at least one of his victims, the French anti-terrorist prosecutor revealed on Saturday.

Mickael H acted with premeditation, buying two knives shortly before the attack on Thursday lunchtime in the centre of the city, and exchanging more than 30 religious text messages with his wife.

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Anti-terror police take over Paris knife attack case

State employee killed four colleagues at police headquarters before being shot dead

French counter-terrorism police have taken over the inquiry into an attack by a state employee who killed four colleagues with a kitchen knife inside Paris’s police headquarters on Thursday.

The assailant, named in the media as Mickaël H, 45, was a computer scientist in the intelligence branch at police headquarters, and had worked for the police for 15 years. He had full security clearance in an office that coordinated counter-terrorist intelligence-gathering in the capital.

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Paris police HQ attack: search continues in bid to find killer’s motive

Incident in which four officers died treated as murder and not yet referred to anti-terror unit

French detectives are continuing to work to establish the motive of a state employee who killed four colleagues with a kitchen knife inside Paris’s police headquarters on Thursday.

The assailant, named in the media as Mickaël H, 45, had held an administrative job in the IT department for more than 15 years. On Thursday afternoon, he killed three police officers and another member of staff and injured two other officers before being shot dead.

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‘I couldn’t do anything to help them’: witnesses talk about Paris police attack – video

A witness said he heard gunshots and saw Paris police officers in tears when a police employee, who stabbed and killed four colleagues, was shot dead on Thursday. The perpetrator reportedly used a knife against other employees in his office and the courtyard of the building, which is near Notre Dame

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Paris police attack: administrator kills four at police headquarters

Knife-wielding employee shot dead after attack in building near Notre Dame Cathedral

Parts of central Paris were sealed off on Thursday after an employee at the city’s police headquarters stabbed and killed four colleagues before being shot dead.

The man, who worked in the technology department, reportedly stabbed a colleague in his office with a ceramic knife before turning it on others, with the last attacked in the courtyard outside the historic building near Notre Dame Cathedral.

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Pissoirs and public votes: how Paris embraced the participatory budget

Residents of France’s capital can propose ideas for and vote on what 5% of the city’s budget will be spent on every year – and their suggestions range from the quixotic to the ambitious

Arnaud Carnet was crossing Paris on his bicycle one day when something strange caught his eye: a dilapidated old urinal stationed at the foot of the high walls of the last operational prison in the city.

This graffitied, ripe-smelling structure was far from a standard street pissoir. Carnet discovered that it was in fact the last remaining 19th-century vespasienne urinal in the city. He decided he needed to save it.

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Yellow vest protests: Toulouse police use teargas on 1,000 marchers

Police in Toulouse clash with demonstrators as revival of yellow vest movement continues in several cities

French police have used tear gas and water cannon to break up a protest by nearly 1,000 yellow vest demonstrators in the south-western city of Toulouse.

A police statement in Toulouse said officers made five arrests after being targeted by missiles thrown by some of the protesters on Saturday.

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The filth and the fury: how Paris reacted to being labelled ‘the dirty man of Europe’

The Observer’s report on the French capital hit a nerve in the press and on social media – especially as an election looms

In Paris, the municipal election campaign has well and truly begun. If anyone still doubted it, they just had to note the reactions to the Observer’s article last weekend on the dirtiness of the French capital. Under a headline condemning Paris as “the dirty man of Europe, Kim Willsher wrote how, despite the efforts of the city’s authorities to improve the cleanliness of streets, this is an issue that is causing considerable concern to Parisians. She quoted an American professor who has lived in the city for the best part of 30 years as saying that Paris was “filthy everywhere”. And even if the piece reminded us of the large amount city hall spends on cleaning the city – around €500m (£445m) a year – and noted its “grand schemes” to combat air pollution, it certainly touched a nerve.

Paris was no worse than any other major city, insisted some angry readers on social media. Le Parisien described it as a “vitriolic article”. The mayor, Anne Hidalgo, had to go on French radio to defend her record and said the same sort of article had been written about Rome and London. She couldn’t put a rubbish collector behind every Parisian, she declared.

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Anarchists hijack climate march on day of violent protests in Paris

Over 120 arrested as Black Bloc guerrillas infiltrate climate protest and gilets jaunes stage revival

So-called Black Bloc anarchists infiltrated a peaceful climate change march in Paris on Saturday, smashing shop and business windows and torching mopeds and dustbins en route.

Police made more than 120 arrests as the French capital saw a series of demonstrations.

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Thysia Huisman describes alleged rape by Jean-Luc Brunel

Ex-model is one of three women accusing the model scout and friend of Jeffrey Epstein

Thysia Huisman had just turned 18 when, late one evening in September 1991, she arrived before the door of an imposing apartment building on avenue Hoche in central Paris carrying a small backpack and three photographs from her portfolio.

A young would-be model from Leiden in the Netherlands, she was impressed, but also alarmed. “It was very grand,” she says. “A vast, grand apartment, right by the Arc de Triomphe. Fancy furniture, paintings on the walls. But it was his home.”

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French waiter shot dead for being ‘too slow with sandwich’, say witnesses

Police open murder inquiry after customer attacked waiter at a pizzeria on the outskirts of Paris

A customer fatally shot a waiter at a pizzeria on the outskirts of Paris, apparently enraged at being made to wait for a sandwich, according to witnesses.

The waiter’s colleagues called police after he was shot in the shoulder with a handgun in the Noisy-le-Grand suburb, 15km east of Paris’s city centre on Friday night.

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World’s largest urban farm to open – on a Paris rooftop

The 14,000m² farm is set to open in the south-west of Paris early next year

It’s a warm afternoon in late spring and before us rows of strawberry plants rustle in the breeze as the scent of fragrant herbs wafts across the air. Nearby, a bee buzzes lazily past. Contrary to appearances, however, we are not in an idyllic corner of the countryside but standing on the top of a six-storey building in the heart of the French capital.

Welcome to the future of farming in Paris – where a whole host of rooftop plantations, such as this one on the edge of the Marais, have been springing up of late. Yet this thriving operation is just a drop in the ocean compared to its new sister site. When that one opens, in the spring of 2020, it will be the largest rooftop farm in the world.

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