Escargots are traditional hors d’oeuvre at end-of-year celebrations that account for 70% of business
For France’s heliciculteurs, or snail farmers, 2020 was a desperately sluggish year.
With seasonal festivities all but cancelled, Christmas markets called off, a lack of tourists and restaurants shut down because of the coronavirus crisis, business has slowed to, well, a snail’s pace.
Continue reading...Ministers criticised after fewer than 100 people receive jab in first three days of vaccination programme
The French government has been accused of pandering to anti-vaxxers after figures showed only a few hundred people have received a jab several days after the country’s vaccine programme began.
Health officials said France is setting out for “a marathon, not a sprint” and that they are going slowly, in part, because of high levels of public scepticism about the vaccine.
Continue reading...Lockdowns and curfews curtail celebrations, with limited exceptions, after year most would prefer to forget
In Sydney the fireworks soared into the sky above the Opera House, but the harbour below was empty. In New York, Times Square will be mostly deserted. No light show illuminated Beijing from the top of the TV tower.
With revelry around the world curtailed by lockdowns and curfews imposed to stem the spread of Covid-19, the lions of London’s Trafalgar Square will be barricaded off, and there will be no crowds in St Peter’s Square and no one diving into the Tiber in Rome.
Continue reading...Fashion designer will forever be associated with the decade that embraced his space-age aesthetic
The Beatles smiling for an early group portrait in 1963, their pixie handsomeness perfectly framed by four snappy collarless jackets. US first lady, Jackie Kennedy, unimpeachably elegant in a boxy scarlet wool day-suit on a visit to Canada in 1962. Marisa Berenson in a groovy sunset-hued kaftan, gazing through matchstick lashes at the lens of Irving Penn for a 1967 cover of Vogue.
Continue reading...With passing trade hit hard by the pandemic, the booksellers on the banks of the Seine are struggling
Usually, Sundays are good days for the bouquinistes. Legions of strollers – tourists, out-of-towners, Parisians – throng the banks of the Seine, and the open-air booksellers whose green boxes have lined the quays for 400-odd years do good business.
One recent Sunday, though, Jérôme Callais made €32. And there was a day that week when he made €4: a single paperback, he can’t even recall which. It has not, Callais said, sheltering from driving rain on an all but deserted Quai de Conti, been easy.
Continue reading...Hauliers stranded in their cabs on UK roads say they are being used as political pawns
Juan Andrés had braced himself for what promised to be an atypical holiday season. But the lorry driver from southern Spain never imagined that Christmas Day would be spent in his cab tucking into a ham and cheese sandwich – among provisions handed out by the British military – as he inched towards the Channel.
“I would describe it as a kidnapping,” said the 52-year-old when asked about the diplomatic impasse that left him stranded on British roads for nearly a week. As many as 10,000 lorries from across Europe were stuck after France temporarily closed its border over fears of a fast-spreading coronavirus variant, reopening only to those drivers who could show a negative coronavirus test.
Continue reading...Initiative using rapid-turnaround tests is part of plan to let hauliers cross Channel by Christmas Day
A team of French firefighters has been sent to Dover with 10,000 coronavirus tests for lorry drivers under a renewed Franco-British mission to let hauliers cross the Channel by Christmas Day as it emerged that fewer than 100 of the thousands of waiting vehicles were embarked on Wednesday.
France’s ambassador to the UK, Catherine Colonna, said the two countries were “neighbours, partners, allies and (yes) friends” and that 26 firefighters had brought thousands of rapid-turnaround tests to the port on Christmas Eve.
Continue reading...More areas of England moved up into tiers 4 and 3; UK has highest recorded daily rise in cases; new variant discovered in travellers from South Africa
The European Union’s transport commissioner, Adina Valean has said that she is pleased stranded trucks are now moving “slowly across the Channel”, as restrictions between France and the UK were lifted.
The initial restrictions were imposed after the UK discovered a new variant of the Covid-19 virus, which, reportedly has a faster transmission rate.
Around 10.000 truck drivers are seeking to get back in the EU. Other thousands are already in the Dover area in their vehicles.
We worked hard these days to unblock a crisis between two European countries, France and the UK.
We issued a communication appealing for proportional, non-discriminatory measures and the lift of any restrictions for transport workers.
I am pleased that at this moment, we have trucks slowly crossing the channel, and I want to thank UK authorities that they started testing the drivers at a capacity of 300 tests per hour.
Continue reading...About 4,000 lorries, and thousands more small vans, were waiting to cross the Channel on Wednesday morning
Passengers from the UK disembarked from ferries in the port of Calais early on Wednesday after Britain and France agreed a deal to ease a travel ban imposed over the discovery of a new coronavirus variant.
The Cotes des Flandres ferry – the first ship to leave Dover after the restrictions were lifted – arrived at about 3.30am local time, followed shortly afterwards by P&O’s Spirit of France.
Continue reading...A 48-year-old man fired on officers trying to rescue a woman from a house in a hamlet near Saint-Just, according to a local report
Three gendarmes have been shot dead, and a fourth wounded, in central France, the country’s national police force has said. The shooting is believed to have started while officers were attending a domestic violence incident.
A 48-year-old man shot the officers on Tuesday night at an isolated hamlet near Saint-Just in the Puy-de-Dome region, after police tried to rescue a woman who had taken refuge in a house, according to news channel LCI.
Continue reading...The decision by France to close its borders to incoming freight traffic from the UK has caused chaos in Dover – the gateway to Europe – and roads leading to the port
Continue reading...About 1,500 lorries are stuck in Kent after France imposed a ban on any accompanied freight or cargo entering the country from Britain because of the new coronavirus variant discovered in the UK. The move triggered government crisis plans at Dover and other major pinch points, with some drivers redirected to a nearby airfield to ease congestion on the roads
Professionals and French nationals will have to provide negative Covid test before crossing
France is expected to reopen its border with the UK but only to its own nationals, French residents and professionals such as truck drivers, all of whom will have to provide a recent negative test, France’s public broadcaster has reported.
Britons or other non-French nationals with a permanent residence in France will be able to return, but the border is set to remain closed to all other non-French citizens in the UK, France Info said. It was not yet clear how long the measures would be in place.
Continue reading...Step would allow Tehran to come back into compliance with deal, so long as US sanctions were lifted
EU foreign ministers have agreed not to set fresh preconditions on a revival of the Iran nuclear deal, believing Tehran and Washington should be able to come back into full compliance with the agreement without at this stage needing to accept to extend or strengthen it.
The step removes one of the potential roadblocks to Iran coming back into compliance with the existing deal, so long as the US lifts its sanctions and complies with UN resolutions.
Continue reading...India joins France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, Ireland, Bulgaria in flight bans over new strain; US aid bill should have votes to pass
That’s all from me, Caroline Davies. Thank you for your time. Handing over now to my colleague Aamna Mohdin.
The chairman of the Metropolitan Police Federation, Ken Marsh, has said there is “no way” officers will be knocking on the doors of “normal” households in London to check coronavirus restrictions were being followed now the city is in Tier 4.
“We won’t be knocking on people’s doors at all, unless there is a large group and noise, ie a party or something like that.
Continue reading...France’s 48-hour ban on freight hauliers from Britain came as a surprise, the UK transport secretary has admitted, amid expected chaos at British ports. But Grant Shapps said the disruption would not cause food and medicine shortages in the short term because other freight routes remain available
Continue reading...Transport secretary says UK aims to resolve issue ‘as soon as possible’ amid fears over new Covid strain
France’s 48-hour ban on freight hauliers from Britain was “surprising”, the UK transport secretary has said, amid expected chaos at British ports.
Although Grant Shapps said the disruption was not a “specific problem” in regards to food and medicine shortages in the short term, the government’s aim was to “get this resolved as soon as possible”.
Continue reading...As the police search for Esther Dingley winds down in the Pyrenees, the theories around her disappearance multiply
Police in Spain have begun scaling back the search for a British hiker missing in the Pyrenees, almost a month after she disappeared without a trace.
Sharing an update of their investigation into the puzzling disappearance of Esther Dingley, the Guardia Civil also said that they were no longer using helicopters to scan the vast mountain range for signs of the 37-year-old.
Continue reading...Arrest of Pakistanis held on suspicion of inciting attacker comes after court convicts 14 people linked to 2015 terrorist massacre
French authorities have charged and detained four Pakistanis suspected of links to a meat cleaver attack by a compatriot outside the former offices of the Charlie Hebdo weekly that wounded two people, the national counter-terrorism prosecutor’s office has said.
The four male suspects, aged 17 to 21, were in contact with the attacker, a source familiar with the case said on Friday.
Continue reading...Jean-Luc Brunel charged in France with sexual harassment and the rape of minors over 15 years old
A modelling agent associated with the disgraced US financier Jeffrey Epstein has been charged in France with sexual harassment and the rape of minors over 15 years old.
Jean-Luc Brunel was arrested on Wednesday at Charles de Gaulle airport as he was preparing to take a flight to Senegal.
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