Category Archives: Paris

Armed robbers escape with up to €15m in jewellery from Piaget store in Paris

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Investigation under way after theft at Swiss luxury watch shop on Rue de la Paix in high-end Place Vendôme area

Armed robbers have raided a store of the luxury Swiss watch brand Piaget in central Paris, escaping with between €10m to €15m ( £8.5m to 12.8m) worth of jewellery, the Paris prosecutors office said.

The robbery took place around lunchtime on Tuesday at the store on the Rue de la Paix in the high-end Place Vendôme area, home to several jewellers, watchmakers and luxury brands. The area has seen a spate of armed robberies in recent years.

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French policing called into question again after brutal arrest at peaceful march

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Youssouf Traoré in hospital after being tackled to ground at rally in memory of his brother, as government bans fireworks for Bastille Day

A brutal arrest during a peaceful march against police violence has again put French law and order under the spotlight, as the government, fearing further unrest, banned fireworks outside authorised displays during the Bastille Day holiday weekend.

Amid continuing tensions after rioting sparked by last month’s fatal shooting of a teenager, police faced further accusations of brutality on Sunday when video emerged of the arrest of the brother of a black man who died in custody seven years ago.

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Seine to open for public swimming after Paris Olympics, mayor says

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Three monitored river bathing zones in the French capital will open in 2025, said the mayor, Anne Hidalgo

A quarter of a century after the late president Jacques Chirac promised Parisians they would be able to swim in the Seine within three years, the French capital’s mayor has confirmed three river bathing areas are to open in the city in 2025.

The sites – opposite the central Île Saint-Louis in the centre, by the Quai de Grenelle in the 15th arrondissement to the west, and at Bercy in the eastern 12th arrondissement – will be monitored by lifeguards and marked by buoys, Anne Hidalgo said on Sunday.

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French officials ban Paris march for black man who died in police custody

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Annual rally in memory of Adama Traoré had been moved to Paris after it was banned in Val-d’Oise

The French authorities have banned people from marching in central Paris to honour Adama Traoré, a 24-year-old black man who died in police custody in 2016.

After a court challenge to overrule a ban on the march being held in the Val-d’Oise, north-west of Paris, failed on Friday, organisers announced it would take place instead at Place de la Républic in the capital.

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In the suburbs, too many feel France’s founding ideals don’t apply to them

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Emmanuel Macron has to find a way to deal with the anger and resentment simmering in communities on the margins

At about 3am last Friday I was woken up by what sounded like gunfire. I wasn’t far wrong. From the back windows of my apartment in southern Paris I could make out fireworks being hurled at the police and hear the immediate response with “flash-balls”, the “less than lethal” weapons used by French police for riot control.

I had spent the evening following the news coverage of the violent riots that were breaking out spontaneously all over France. There were familiar images of cars and buildings on fire and heavily armed police lines – familiar at least to anyone who has lived through the past few years of angry protest in France. But what was most disturbing about these riots was the sheer scale of it all: the violence was not just contained to the banlieues of the big cities but was everywhere, including picturesque towns such as Montargis in the Loiret.

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France riots live: teargas fired in Marseille as 45,000 more police deployed across country – as it happened

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Police braced for unrest after funeral for Nahel, killed by police on Tuesday, held near Paris on Saturday

More than 1,000 people were arrested in the fourth night of unrest, as family and friends prepare to bury the 17-year-old fatally shot by police.

Associated Press reports that France’s interior ministry said that 1,311 people were arrested as protesters once again clashed with police.

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France riots: Macron urges parents to keep teenagers at home

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Government struggles to contain continuing unrest after police shooting of teenager in Paris suburb

• French riots – latest updates

Emmanuel Macron has urged parents to keep teenagers at home as France’s government said it was reviewing “all options” to contain escalating violence after three nights of rioting sparked by the fatal police shooting of a teenager at a traffic stop.

Promising additional security forces would be deployed on Friday night, Macron, who left an EU summit in Brussels early to attend a crisis cabinet meeting, appealed to “the responsibility of mothers and fathers” and said it was not the job of the French republic to take their place.

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Ex-Rwandan military policeman found guilty of genocide by Paris court

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Philippe Hategekimana also convicted of crimes against humanity relating to mass killings in 1994

A Paris court has found a former Rwandan military policeman guilty of genocide and crimes against humanity during the 1994 slaughter in his home country and sentenced him to life in prison.

The court found Philippe Hategekimana, 66, guilty of nearly all the charges against him.

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Paris finance reforms could untie poor countries’ hands in climate crisis

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Changes to the World Bank could unlock developing states access to loans and to the means of staving off disaster

The Netherlands has almost the same amount of solar generating capacity as the whole continent of Africa. That must be, in part, because the interest on a loan to set up a windfarm in Africa is about 17% more than one to do the same in Europe.

Many poor countries enjoy vast natural resources of wind and sun yet struggle to access renewable energy because of the crippling cost of capital imposed on them. Private sector companies perceive far greater risk in poor countries, penalising most heavily the countries in greatest need of investment.

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Paris climate finance summit fails to deliver debt forgiveness plan

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Countries in debt distress thrown financial lifeline but critics say measures fall short of what is needed

Poorer countries struggling with a growing debt crisis were thrown a lifeline at a global finance summit in Paris but the plans still fell short of the debt forgiveness programme that some had hoped for.

Progress was made on reforms that would help address the climate emergency, as nearly 40 world leaders and the heads of global institutions met in Paris for the summit, which ended on Friday.

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At least 37 injured after gas explosion sparks blaze in Paris

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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.

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Anger over plan to persuade homeless people to leave Paris before Olympics

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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.

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Developing country voices will be excluded at UN plastic talks, say NGOs

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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.

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Paris exhibition to tell story of eccentric acting pioneer Sarah Bernhardt

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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.

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Young migrants take over Paris building in protest at treatment

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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.

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Paris prosecutors open criminal inquiry into air quality on Métro

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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.

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Parisians vote on banning e-scooters from French capital

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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.

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Paris breathes easier as refuse workers’ strike called off and rubbish cleared

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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.

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French protesters and police clash in marches against pension changes

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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.

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Hundreds of thousands of people take to French streets amid fears of violence

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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”.

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