Category Archives: Paris

Olympic ‘drag queen scene’ DJ files legal complaint after torrent of online abuse

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A DJ and LGBTQ+ activist who performed during a controversial scene in the Paris Olympics’ opening ceremony has said she is taking legal action after becoming the target of “an extremely violent campaign of cyber-harassment and defamation”.

Barbara Butch, who calls herself a “love activist”, had been “threatened with death, torture and rape, and has also been the target of numerous antisemitic, homophobic, sexist and body-shaming insults”, her lawyer said in a post on her Instagram page.

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Olympic ‘Last Supper’ scene was in fact based on painting of Greek gods, say art experts

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Dutch artist’s 17th-century work said to have inspired tableau that has offended Christian and conservative critics

A controversial tableau in the Olympics opening ceremony denounced by Christian and conservative critics as an offensive parody of The Last Supper was in fact inspired by a 17th-century Dutch painting of the Greek Olympian gods, art historians have said.

“Does this painting remind you of something?” the Magnin Museum in the French city of Dijon asked (with a wink) on X, inviting people to “come and admire” The Feast of the Gods, painted by the artist Jan van Bijlert between 1635 and 1640.

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Weather tracker: Rain to give way to searing heat at Paris Olympics

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Temperatures expected to soar to 35C, making some competitions more challenging for athletes

The Paris Olympics had a soggy start but conditions improved over the weekend. Meteorologists now expect temperatures to soar early this week, prompting several warnings.

The weather in the French capital has been forecast to climb to 35C (95F) on Tuesday, about 8C above average for the time of year, making some competitions more challenging for the athletes. Southern parts of France are likely to experience the hottest weather, reaching the high 30s celsius, nearly 10C above average.

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Paris Olympics organisers apologise to Christians for Last Supper parody

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Apology follows anger among Catholics and other groups at opening ceremony segment that resembled biblical scene

The organising committee of Paris 2024 has apologised to Catholics and other Christian groups who were outraged by a scene during the opening ceremony that evoked Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper painting with drag queens, a transgender model and a singer made up as the Greek god of wine.

The parody of the biblical scene, performed against the backdrop of the River Seine, was intended to interpret Dionysus and raise awareness “of the absurdity of violence between human beings”, organisers wrote on X.

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Why Édith Piaf’s plaintive song was the perfect fit for Céline Dion at Paris Games

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The melody for the first live performance since 2020 by the singer, who has suffered with ill-health, was suitably tragic

It was a very public triumph, both for Paris and for Céline Dion. It received plaudits around the world as one of the highlights of the opening ceremony of the Olympics. Yet the soundtrack was a tragic one.

The Canadian diva had chosen to celebrate the great French chansonnier Édith Piaf in a live, high-stakes comeback performance delivered from the iron shoulders of the Eiffel Tower amid showers of rain and fireworks.

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Further Eurostar cancellations hold up Paris 2024 passengers

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The rail operator has pulled four of 15 trains from its Saturday schedule, affecting more than 3,000 people

Eurostar passengers hoping to catch the start of the Paris Olympics have continued to face difficulties after an arson attack in France caused train cancellations.

People travelling by Eurostar from London to Paris on Friday were asked to postpone trips if possible after the rail operator cancelled one in four trains over the weekend as a result of arson attacks that lead to widespread disruption to France’s high-speed rail network hours before the start of the Olympics.

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Who launched attack on the French rail network – and why?

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Arsonists used crude methods but disruption to opening of the Olympic Games in Paris was severe

It was about 1.15am when the SNCF maintenance workers, carrying out repairs by moonlight, spotted the group of people a little further down the railway line near a signal box outside the sleepy village of Vergigny, in the northern French department of Yonne.

They were concerned enough by the unlikely sight at such an hour to approach the intruders, and then to make a call to the local police as those they had interrupted ran off into the dark.

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London Eurostar passengers asked to postpone journeys after arson attack

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High-speed rail services have been disrupted, hours before Olympics opening ceremony, by ‘acts of malice’

Eurostar passengers travelling from London to Paris on Friday were asked to postpone trips if possible, with trains delayed and cancelled after arson attacks took place on high-speed rail lines hours before the start of the Olympics.

Most services were leaving St Pancras International station on time but journeys were expected to be prolonged by at least an hour in France. Two afternoon departures have been cancelled.

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Friday briefing: How a doping scandal could overshadow the Olympics

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In today’s newsletter: As Paris gears up for the Games, the excitement is palpable, but concern about performance-enhancing drugs threatens the reputation of one of its sports

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Good morning.

The Olympics is here! Get ready for some truly awe-inspiring displays of athleticism. But there is also a scandal hovering over the Games in Paris that threatens to move focus away from the athletes.

Health | Wes Streeting has called England’s healthcare watchdog, the Care Quality Commission (CQC), “not fit for purpose” after an interim report found significant failings were hampering its ability to identify poor performance at hospitals, care homes and GP practices.

Budget | Rachel Reeves is expected to reveal a £20bn hole in government spending for essential public services on Monday, paving the way for potential tax rises in the autumn budget.

Israel-Gaza war | Kamala Harris, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, has pressed Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu on the “dire” humanitarian situation in Gaza in talks that she described as frank, adding “I will not be silent.”

Assisted dying | Keir Starmer is under pressure to fulfil a promise to allow a parliamentary vote on legalising assisted dying, as a bill is to be introduced into the House of Lords on Friday.

Police | A teenager who was kicked in the face by an armed police officer while lying prone on the ground is “traumatised” and receiving hospital treatment after the “barbaric” assault, his solicitor has said. Akhmed Yakoob said 19-year-old Muhammed Fahir was a victim of “police brutality” after footage showed an officer stamping on his head during an arrest at Manchester airport on Tuesday.

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Macron woos top foreign business chiefs after political chaos

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French president seeks to reassure guests, including Elon Musk, as data show industry morale slumped in July

Barely six weeks after he dissolved parliament and plunged France into political chaos, Emmanuel Macron has sought to reassure 40 of the world’s most influential businessmen that his country remains a good investment.

Guests at a sit-down lunch at the Élysée palace on Thursday included Tesla’s Elon Musk, Coca-Cola’s James Quincey, Airbnb’s Brian Chesky, YouTube’s Neal Mohan and Eli Lilly’s David Ricks.

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Snoop Dogg to carry Olympic torch on final stages through Paris

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US rapper will conclude torch’s relay through Saint-Denis and Olympic Village to mark start of 33rd Games

Snoop Dogg will carry the Olympic torch through the final stages when it passes through Paris before the opening ceremony on Friday.

The US rapper will be hoping he won’t Drop It Like It’s Hot when he holds the torch in Saint-Denis to mark the start of the 33rd Games.

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‘It’s a very strange feeling’: can the man who won Olympic gold bring glory to the Paris Games?

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2024 Games organiser Tony Estanguet tells how chats with British sporting legend Sebastian Coe have kept him on an even keel

It has to feel pretty weird. You’re in charge of the biggest event your country’s ever organised. You have worked on it to the exclusion, basically, of everything else in your life, for very nearly a decade. And now – it’s a week away.

“It’s a very strange feeling,” confirms Tony Estanguet, head of the 2024 Olympic Games organising committee. “I come from this small town in south-west France. My sport is a very minor one. It’s been … quite a ride. But here I am. And now, well, here we all are.”

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Former Rolls-Royce designer’s alleged killer arrested in France

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Police say Serbian man detained near Paris after 74-year-old Ian Cameron was stabbed to death at home in Germany

The alleged killer of a British former Rolls-Royce designer who was stabbed to death at his home in Bavaria last week has been arrested outside Paris after a Europe-wide search, German police said. A motive was not immediately established.

Ian Cameron, 74, was attacked with a knife on 12 July and fatally wounded. A Serbian citizen, 22, was identified as the prime suspect based on tips from the public, the Fürstenfeldbruck police department said.

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Paris mayor swims in Seine as river is cleaned up just in time for Olympics

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Anne Hidalgo fulfils pledge after cleanup operation makes water quality safe enough to host events at Games

It has been the dream and promise of Paris mayors for decades and a nightmare for Olympic organisers: could the Seine be cleaned up enough to swim in and hold triathlon and other events?

For the last 100 years and up until a few days ago, the answer seemed to be no.

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Moulin Rouge in Paris celebrates installation of new windmill sails

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Cabaret club’s sails collapsed in April and new ones are up in time for Olympic torch to pass by on 15 July

Paris’s Moulin Rouge cabaret club, whose landmark windmill sails fell down in April, has inaugurated a new set, a week before the Olympic torch was due to pass by the venue.

The home of the can-can was temporarily laid low after the sails of the red-painted windmill tumbled to the ground in the early hours of 25 April.

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Chanel shows no sign of drift, even without a chief designer at helm

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Luxury brand’s studio team turn to timeless tweeds and neat silhouettes in first show since Virginie Viard’s sudden exit

There were 12 boucle-tweed suits, in colours from pistachio to raspberry. There were endless swishy blond ponytails tied with black silk bows, and a clatter of satin Mary Jane shoes with pearled heels. There were Hollywood faces – Keira Knightley and Michelle Williams – in the front row of the Palais Garnier opera house in Paris, countless quilted-flap 2.55 handbags in the front row and a finale bridal gown with a sweeping ivory silk train.

But one crucial thing was missing from this season’s Chanel haute couture show: a designer to take a bow. Since the sudden exit this month of the designer Virginie Viard, who had led Chanel since the death of Karl Lagerfeld five years ago, this mighty luxury brand, worth an estimated £15.5bn ($19.7bn), is headless. The vacancy for fashion’s top job is the talk of Paris fashion week.

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Emmanuel Macron: win for far left or far right ‘will spark civil war’

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French president’s comments made on podcast as RN releases manifesto pledging to ‘limit immigration’

French President Emmanuel Macron has warned that the far right National Rally (RN) party and the leftwing New Popular Front coalition – both of which are frontrunners in the parliamentary election – risked bringing “civil war” to France.

Macron told the podcast Generation Do It Yourself that the manifesto of the RN party – which election pollsters put in first place – and their solutions to deal with fears over crime and immigration were based upon “stigmatisation or division”.

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Paris fashion week: Dior champions goddess gowns and 1920s glamour

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Fashion house takes inspiration from Olympic Games in grandest sense for show in garden of Musée Rodin

Like everyone else in Paris right now, the Dior designer Maria Grazia Chiuri is thinking about the Olympics. Her latest Dior haute couture show was staged in the garden of the Musée Rodin, a stone’s throw from the grand open space of Esplanade des Invalides, where banks of seating are already being erected in preparation for the archery competitions of the Olympic and Paralympic Games.

But in haute couture, where no price tag is fewer than five figures, athleisure does not make the cut. So this season’s Dior was Olympian in the grandest sense: classically draped goddess gowns, with asymmetric necklines cut to expose a shoulder and skirts cascading in silken layers.

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Kim Jones opts for ceramic cats and classics at Dior Paris menswear show

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The designer homed in on staples for the show, without losing a sense of adventure or playfulness

The Dior menswear designer Kim Jones has gained a reputation as a somewhat prolific collector of art and rare books. His homes are peppered with pieces by Francis Bacon and Andy Warhol, and he is the owner of the largest collection of Virgina Woolf books and letters in the world – 21,000 pieces and counting. So it’s not surprising the aesthete enjoys melding the world of art with his other great love, fashion.

For his latest spring/summer 2025 collection that he showed in Paris on Friday afternoon Jones worked with the South African ceramicist Hylton Nel. The octogenarian is best known for his plates, pots, figures and vases featuring whimsical illustrations and satirical text.

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Paris arthouse cinema La Clef to reopen after buyout from squatters’ collective

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Filmmakers and students evicted by police in 2022 make a triumphant return to the historic venue after raising funds to buy it for €2.7m

Two years after being evicted by Paris police, a collective of students and film-industry professionals returned to the arthouse cinema they had occupied from 2019 to 2022 on Thursday to reinstall the wheels of a 35mm projector.

The crucial difference is that this time they did so as legal owners of the keys to the 600 sq metre community cinema in the French capital’s Latin quarter, appropriately called La Clef (The Key).

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