Category Archives: France

Marine Le Pen’s future to be decided as embezzlement verdict arrives

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Far-right leader could be barred from standing for presidency if she is convicted over alleged fake jobs scam

The future of the far-right leader Marine Le Pen – and France’s political landscape – will be decided on Monday when a court hands down its verdict on charges she and party officials embezzled money from the European parliament.

If convicted, the three-time presidential candidate of the National Rally (RN) could be barred from standing to succeed Emmanuel Macron in the 2027 presidential election.

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Le boycott: French customers shun McDonald’s, Coca Cola and Tesla to protest against Trump

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France has been urged to shun Maga America as #BoycottUSA hashtag spreads, but teenagers say they can’t afford to join the action

On the rainy Grands Boulevards in Paris on Friday, the branches of McDonald’s and KFC were doing brisk business.

There was little sign of “le boycott” – a movement among French customers to reject American brands and products made in the US, in protest at Donald Trump’s trade tariffs and anti-Europe rhetoric.

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End of an era for Canada-US ties, says Carney, as allies worldwide decry Trump’s car tariffs

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Canadian PM says Donald Trump has permanently altered relations, as countries around the globe insist import taxes are harmful to all, including Washington

Canada’s prime minister has said the era of deep ties with the US “is over”, as governments from Tokyo to Berlin to Paris sharply criticised Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs on car imports, with some threatening retaliatory action.

Mark Carney warned Canadians that Trump had permanently altered relations and that, regardless of any future trade deals, there would be “no turning back”.

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Stereotyping a factor in loss of life in deadliest Channel crossing, inquiry told

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Migrant dinghy was also confused with vessel from which 35 people were rescued, so incident was marked ‘resolved’

Survivors and bereaved relatives have told an inquiry into the biggest ever loss of life in a migrant dinghy in the Channel that they believe stereotyping them as “foreigners” contributed to the failure to rescue them before the majority died.

The Cranston inquiry into how at least 27 people drowned on 24 November 2021 heard that survivors believed many on board could have been saved if rescue had been sent more quickly.

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French-Algerian author Boualem Sansal sentenced to five years in prison

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French president Emmanuel Macron has called for authorities to free the novelist who was convicted in Algeria for allegedly undermining the country’s territorial integrity

French president Emmanuel Macron has called on Algeria to free Boualem Sansal, after the French-Algerian novelist was on Thursday sentenced to five years in prison and fined for allegedly undermining Algeria’s territorial integrity.

Sansal was arrested on 16 November at Algiers airport on arrival from Paris, after saying in an interview with a far-right French media outlet Frontières that France unfairly ceded Moroccan territory to Algeria during the colonial era.

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Woman tells court Gérard Depardieu groped her buttocks and breasts on set

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Film assistant says actor groped her several times in three incidents while filming Les Volets Verts

The French actor Gérard Depardieu sexually assaulted an assistant director on three occasions while she was working with him on a film shoot, placing his hands on her buttocks and breasts, leaving her feeling “petrified”, the woman told Paris’s criminal court on Wednesday.

Depardieu – the biggest French cinema star to face trial for sexual assault since the #MeToo movement – is charged with sexually assaulting the assistant director three times during the shooting of the feature film Les Volets Verts (The Green Shutters) in Paris in 2021.

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Gérard Depardieu tells court he grabbed sexual assault accuser by hips to avoid slipping

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Actor denies assault and says he was following advice of his then lawyer when he previously told police there had been no physical contact

The French actor Gérard Depardieu has admitted in court that he grabbed the hips of a woman who has accused him of sexual assault, but said it was to avoid slipping and was not a sexual attack.

“I grabbed her hips,” the actor, 76, told his trial for sexual assault at the Paris criminal court on Tuesday. The head judge noted that this was a change from his testimony during police interrogation when he had denied that any physical contact had taken place with the 54-year-old set decorator.

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Gérard Depardieu appears in Paris court for trial on sexual assault charges

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Actor is expected to testify on Tuesday over allegations by two women who worked with him on 2021 film

The French actor Gérard Depardieu has appeared in court in France on trial for allegedly sexually assaulting two women during a film shoot in 2021.

Depardieu, 76, dressed in a black suit and trainers with his grey hair swept back, arrived at the Paris criminal court amid a large police presence. Dozens of protesters had gathered outside the courthouse and shouted: “Victims, we believe you; rapists, we see you.”

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More than 1,100 detained in Turkey amid huge demonstrations over mayor’s arrest – as it happened

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Tens of thousands gathered in Istanbul with unrest likely to continue over treatment of presidential challenger to Erdoğan

The Danish national police force said it has sent extra personnel and sniffer dogs to Greenland as the island steps up security measures ahead of a planned visit this week by second lady Usha Vance, AP reports.

Spokesperson René Gyldensten said the extra officers were part of regular steps taken during visits by dignitaries to Greenland, a self-governing, mineral-rich territory of American ally Denmark.

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Gérard Depardieu to appear in Paris court over sexual assault allegations

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Actor, 76, denies claims made by assistant director and set designer who worked with him on Les Volets Verts

Gérard Depardieu will become the most high-profile French person to stand trial on #MeToo abuse allegations when he appears in a Paris court on Monday.

The actor, a titan of French cinema with more than 200 films and television series to his name, is accused of sexually assaulting two women during a film shoot in 2021.

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Mutiny brews in French bookshops over Hachette owner’s media grip

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Booksellers take stand against influence of conservative billionaire by limiting orders of his company’s books and placing them on lower shelves

A conservative Catholic billionaire and media owner is facing an independent bookshop rebellion in France over his influence in the publishing world.

Dozens of independent booksellers are trying to counter the growing influence of Vincent Bolloré, whose vast cultural empire includes television, radio, the Sunday paper Le Journal du Dimanche, and also, since 2023, the biggest book publishing and distribution conglomerate in France, Hachette Livre.

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Second person in two days dies trying to cross Channel in small boat

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Deaths occur after eight-day gap in crossings between, bringing death toll this year to at least 10

One person has died trying to cross the Channel in an overloaded boat, after another person died earlier attempting the same journey, according to the French authorities.

In the latest incident, 15 people were rescued after a boat containing 40 people picked up more migrants on the coast of Gravelines, in northern France, at around 3am on Thursday.

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France preparing ‘survival manual’ for every household, report says

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Booklet to give guidance on preparing for ‘imminent threats’ including armed conflict and natural disaster

The French government is reportedly planning to send a “survival manual” to every household in the country with instructions on how to prepare for an “imminent threat” including armed conflict, a health crisis or a natural disaster.

If approved by François Bayrou, the prime minister, the 20-page booklet will be sent to households before the summer, French media reported.

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French politician jokes US should return Statue of Liberty for siding with ‘tyrants’

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Raphaël Glucksmann quips that US should give back 19th-century gift from France over Trump’s approach to Ukraine

A French European parliament member has quipped that the US should return the Statue of Liberty, which it received as a gift from France about 140 years ago, after Donald Trump’s decision “to side with the tyrants” against Ukraine.

Trump’s White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, then responded to Raphaël Glucksmann on Monday by calling him an “unnamed low-level French politician” and saying the US would keep the statue.

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Macron says Russia’s permission not needed to deploy troops in Ukraine

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French president says France, UK and others could each deploy ‘a few thousand troops’ to key locations to show Ukraine ‘long-term support’

Emmanuel Macron has said France, the UK, and other nations providing security guarantees for Ukraine after any eventual ceasefire would not be aiming to deploy a “mass” of soldiers, but instead could send contingents of several thousand troops to key locations in Ukraine without needing Russia’s permission.

The French president told regional French newspapers, including Le Parisien and La Dépêche de Midi, that “several European countries, and indeed non-European ones” had “expressed their willingness” to join a possible deployment to Ukraine to secure a future peace agreement with Russia.

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Skin in the game: mink coat at ethical fashion show fuels sustainability debate

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Eco-concerns upturn moral battle over fur as quiet luxury gives way to ‘boom boom’ looks at Paris fashion week

Gabriela Hearst is an ethical fashion designer, with sustainability at the heart of her brand. And she wants to sell you a mink coat.

Hearst’s Paris fashion week show included a coat, jacket and stole made from vintage real fur. “We bought all these old mink coats in Italy, and pieced them together,” she said after her show.

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Germany to reach out to France and UK over sharing of nuclear weapons

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But Friedrich Merz cautions such a move could not replace the US’s existing protective shield over Europe

Germany’s chancellor-to-be, Friedrich Merz, has said he will reach out to France and Britain to discuss the sharing of nuclear weapons, but cautioned that such a move could not be a replacement for the US’s existing protective shield over Europe.

“The sharing of nuclear weapons is an issue we need to talk about,” Merz said in a wide-ranging interview on Sunday with the broadcaster Deutschlandfunk (DLF). “We have to be stronger together in nuclear deterrence.”

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Journalist quits role after comparing French actions in Algeria to Nazi massacre

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Jean-Michel Aphatie stands by comments he made on broadcaster RTL

A prominent French journalist has said he is stepping down from his role as an expert analyst for broadcaster RTL after provoking an uproar by comparing French actions during colonial rule in Algeria to a second world war massacre committed by Nazi forces in France.

Jean-Michel Aphatie, a veteran reporter and broadcaster, insisted that while he would not be returning to RTL, he wholly stood by his comments made on the radio station in February equating atrocities committed by France in Algeria with those of Nazi Germany in occupied France.

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Visitors flock to Paris’s Pompidou Centre before it closes for renovations

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Art lovers catch last glimpse of prestigious art collection before gallery shuts for five years for major revamp

Visitors from around the world have been flocking to the Pompidou Centre in Paris this weekend, seizing the last opportunity to enjoy Europe’s largest temple of modern and contemporary art before it closes its doors for a five-year overhaul.

In one of the most complex closures of its kind, the task of removing the museum’s 2,000-strong permanent collection will start on Monday. The Pompidou’s Chagalls, Giacomettis and myriad other treasures will be relocated to other sites in Paris and museums elsewhere in France and around the world.

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‘Military Keynesianism’? Reeves faces British defence dilemma after EU spending surge

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Even Berlin and Brussels are bending fiscal rules in the face of Russia’s threat. Will the chancellor still stick to hers?

As the Nobel laureate Robert Lucas quipped during the 2008 financial crisis: “I guess everyone is a Keynesian in a foxhole.” Donald Trump’s upending of the postwar security consensus has underlined the enduring wisdom of Lucas’s observation. But now, instead of bank bailouts and emergency bond buying, European firepower is being directed at bombs, tanks and drones in the desperate fight to secure the continent’s border with Russia.

Berlin and Brussels – typically capitals of financial orthodoxy – have been convinced that this approach is required once again. Under the plan put forward by Germany’s chancellor-in-waiting, Friedrich Merz, Berlin is on the brink of relaxing its “debt brake” rule to pave the way for spending on defence and infrastructure worth an additional €1tn (£840bn) over the coming decade.

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