Police tell people to avoid Val-de-Grâce area after several buildings catch fire in fifth arrondissement
At least 37 people have been injured, four of whom are in a critical condition, after a gas explosion sparked a blaze in buildings in the Latin Quarter of Paris.
The blast happened in the fifth arrondissement at about 5pm on Wednesday and resulted in several buildings catching fire, local officials said.
Continue reading...Moving people including asylum seekers to temporary regional centres would free up accommodation
Local politicians and charities in France have expressed concerns about a French government plan to encourage thousands of homeless people and asylum seekers to leave the Paris area before next year’s Olympic Games and move to other regions of the country to free up accommodation in the capital.
The news agency Agence France-Presse reported that since mid-March, the government has asked local prefects to create temporary reception centres in every French region except the north and Corsica, which would free up space in hotels normally used as emergency accommodation centres in and around Paris.
Continue reading...Limits on numbers at Paris summit mean some of those ‘most needing to be heard’ will not be in attendance
Scientists and NGOs have accused the UN’s environment programme (Unep) of locking out those “most needing to be heard” from upcoming negotiations in Paris aimed at halting plastic waste.
Last-minute restrictions to the numbers of NGOs attending what the head of Unep described as the “most important multilateral environmental deal” in a decade will exclude people from communities in developing countries harmed by dumping and burning of plastic waste as well as marginalised waste pickers, who are crucial to recycling, from fully participating, they said.
Continue reading...Petit Palais show celebrates breadth of belle epoque theatre star’s creative talents with 400 exhibits
On page 158 of a heavy, leather-bound Paris police register from the 19th century, a handwritten page headed with a photograph details the activities of a young “courtesan” called Sarah Bernhardt.
The Book of Courtesans, as it was known by the then equivalent of the vice squad, was a detailed record of high-class sex workers, often actors and dancers, who were the mistresses of princes, aristocrats and the wealthy.
Continue reading...Young people had been sleeping rough across city after being rejected as minors by French authorities
More than 180 homeless young migrants have taken over a disused nursery school building in the west of Paris to protest against the inhumane treatment of unaccompanied minors arriving in France from Africa.
Backed by three French charities, the young people who had been sleeping rough across Paris for months arrived overnight at the old school building, which has no running water or electricity, and slept under blankets.
Continue reading...Operator investigated for possible trickery and causing involuntary injuries over pollution levels within network
Prosecutors in Paris have opened a criminal investigation into allegations that pollution in the capital’s Métro system is putting travellers’ lives at risk.
The operator of the Métro, the RATP, is being investigated for possible trickery and causing involuntary injuries after it was claimed it had deliberately underreported pollution levels and failed to inform passengers about the dangers.
Continue reading...Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo supports ban after three people died and 459 were injured in accidents during 2022
Parisians are voting on Sunday on whether to rid the streets of the French capital of electric scooters, although some say the city’s leaders ought to be focusing on more pressing issues.
Paris was a pioneer when it introduced e-scooters, or trottinettes, in 2018 as the city’s authorities sought to promote non-polluting forms of urban transport.
Continue reading...City is cleaner, though not yet entirely clean, after three-week strike ends but union threatens more action
The smell of spring is in the air in Paris. It makes a change from the stench of overflowing bins that had hung over the French capital for the last three weeks after refuse collectors went on strike and up to 10,000 metric tonnes of festering rubbish piled up on the streets.
Hours after the CGT trade union announced it was suspending the industrial action and lifting a blockade of incinerators serving the city, much of the rubbish had gone.
Continue reading...Police use teargas and water cannon against hooded protesters on the margins in some cities
Protesters and police clashed on the edges of street demonstrations in France on Tuesday as hundreds of thousands of people took part in marches against Emmanuel Macron’s use of constitutional executive powers to push through an unpopular rise in the pension age to 64.
While demonstrations in Paris and Nantes were peaceful, with the majority of demonstrators chanting and calling for the pension changes to be scrapped, on the margins in some cities, men in masks or hoods clashed with police.
Continue reading...Minister says 13,000 police deployed as Macron vows not to waver on unpopular pensions policy
Hundreds of thousands of people have taken part in street protests and strikes across France amid fears of violent clashes with police, as demonstrations continue over Emmanuel Macron’s use of constitutional executive powers to push through an unpopular raise of the pension age.
The interior minister, Gérald Darmanin, said 13,000 police had been deployed, 5,500 of them in Paris alone. He said the record number was justified by “a major risk to public order”.
Continue reading...Largely peaceful protests are marred by outbreaks of violence as unions claim 3.5 million turned out, while authorities put number at just over 1 million
Emmanuel Macron felt the full force of French anger on Thursday as protesters gathered across the country to demonstrate their opposition to the pension age being raised from 62 to 64.
Unions claimed 3.5 million people turned out across the country, while the authorities suggested the figure was much lower, at just under 1.1 million.
Continue reading...With uncollected rubbish lining Paris streets, critics are comparing the optics of the royal arrival to 1789
Striking workers in France are refusing to provide red carpets for King Charles’s first overseas trip as monarch amid protests over rises to the pension age.
French trade union CGT announced this week that its members at Mobilier National, the institution in charge of providing flags, red carpets and furniture for public buildings, would not help prepare a reception for the king upon his arrival in Paris on Sunday.
Continue reading...Group says Paris landmark contravenes laws requiring public buildings to translate signs into at least two other languages
A group of French-language activists has launched a legal action over signs at Notre Dame Cathedral being translated only into English and not any other language.
The association, which won a similar case brought against the Eiffel Tower, believes failing to include other foreign languages leads to the increasing global domination of English.
Continue reading...Aircraft will take off and land vertically, and carry a single passenger between transport hubs, says capital’s airports operator
Athletes are getting in shape for the Paris Olympic Games in 2024, and so is the world’s first electric air taxi network.
“We are going to make it happen,” Solène Le Bris of Paris airports operator Groupe ADP told an industry audience at Amsterdam Drone Week. “We are trying to launch the first e-VTOL [vertical takeoff and landing] pre-commercial service in the world: that’s our ambition.”
Continue reading...Strikes escalate and MPs call for protection as interior minister warns protesters against wreaking havoc
Refinery strikes have escalated in France as the interior minister spoke of protesters wreaking havoc across the country and some MPs called for police protection, amid anger at the government pushing through a rise in the pension age without a parliamentary vote.
More than 300 people were arrested across France overnight during spontaneous protests against Emmanuel Macron’s decision to bypass parliament and force through his unpopular pensions changes, including raising the eligible age from 62 to 64.
Continue reading...Rubbish piles up and record number of people take to streets in protest against raising retirement age to 64
French unions have called for a show of force with a final day of strikes and protests in the run-up to a crucial vote on Emmanuel Macron’s fiercely contested pensions overhaul in parliament.
The call for an eighth day of national mobilisation on Wednesday comes as rubbish piles up in Paris and a number of other French cities after continuing strikes by refuse collectors who oppose the bill that will increase the official retirement age from 62 to 64.
Continue reading...Boston Dynamics’ canine automatons steal show in Paris as maison stages modern fable, designers say
Welcome to the age of the super-robot.
With their impossible proportions, thousand-yard stares and supernatural ability to walk in 5in heels, catwalk models often appear a different species to regular humans.
But it was the models, including Kate Moss’s daughter Lila, who played the role of vulnerable, flesh and blood creatures at the Coperni fashion show in Paris, where they shared the stage with five robots.
Coperni partnered with Boston Dynamics for the first fashion show in which robots, rather than models, were the star turn.
As the lights went down, four pairs of green eyes began to flash in the darkness. When the “Spots” – Boston Dynamic’s robot canines, in tarantula stripes of yellow and black – stalked into the room, there was an audible collective intake of breath as each creature seemed to lock eyes with, and approach, an audience member.
A Paris show will focus on Claude’s little-known elder sibling Léon Monet and his impressionist collection
The name Monet conjures up pictures of water lilies, Rouen Cathedral, the Houses of Parliament and French haystacks, some of European art’s best known works.
Now a Paris exhibition will focus on another, lesser known, Monet: Léon Monet, the artist Claude Monet’s long overlooked elder brother who supported him when he was poor and struggling to make his name.
Continue reading...Critics say riders show only cursory respect for the rules of the road
Parisians will be invited to vote on whether to allow electric scooter rental services to continue operating in the French capital as authorities weigh banning the controversial for-hire vehicles, the city’s mayor has said.
The issue is “extremely divisive”, Anne Hidalgo told the weekend edition of Le Parisien newspaper, with critics saying riders show only cursory respect for the rules of the road.
Continue reading...The man, 69, was held on Friday after killing three people at a Kurdish cultural centre and nearby cafe
The French man detained over the killing of three Kurdish people in Paris last week has told investigators he had a “pathological” hatred of foreigners, the city’s prosecutor said on Sunday.
The 69-year-old man was arrested on Friday after shooting dead two men and a woman in a Kurdish cultural centre and nearby Kurdish cafe in the 10th district of Paris, which the French president, Emmanuel Macron, described as a “vile” attack on the Kurds of France.
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