Category Archives: France

Wedding guests killed in Mali airstrike, local sources say

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French forces were in area but say they attacked ‘fully-identified armed terrorist group’

More than 20 people, including children, were killed in airstrikes during a wedding ceremony in a remote desert area of central Mali, according to local sources.

It was not immediately clear who carried out the attacks but the reports emerged as French military sources said its forces in the country had carried out an airstrike in the area on Sunday that killed “dozens of fighters” from Islamist groups.

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High-profile French political scientist accused of sexually abusing stepson

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Olivier Duhamel quits academic and media posts after allegations made in stepdaughter’s book

Olivier Duhamel, one of France’s most high-profile political scientists and media commentators, has resigned from his academic and media posts after he was accused of sexually abusing his stepson.

The constitutional expert’s stepdaughter – the alleged victim’s twin – says the abuse happened in the 1980s when she and her brother were 14 and was well known to many members of the family and friends.

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As parts of UK enter third Covid lockdown, how does rest of Europe compare?

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Rules vary from country to country but many European nations face severe restrictions

After a brief and partial relaxation of the rules over Christmas and New Year, many continental European countries have returned to the tough anti-Covid regimes that were imposed this autumn – with some tightening measures further.

According to the latest update from the World Health Organization, in the final week of 2020 the UK had a 14-day new-case notification rate of 720 for every 100,000 people, more than double that in France, Germany, Italy and Spain but lower than the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Sweden and Denmark.

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Covid vaccinations: slow start around world brings dose of reality

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Burst of optimism over approvals has been followed by delays, shortages and bureaucratic errors

The global introduction of newly approved coronavirus vaccines has been marked by delays, shortages and bureaucratic errors as it has become clear that many governments will miss their targets for mass inoculation.

The burst of optimism that arrived with approvals of new vaccines – encouraged by unrealistic expectations raised by politicians – is colliding with the reality of the challenge of vaccinating a large part of the world’s population.

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France arrests former DRC rebel leader for role in ‘crimes against humanity’

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Roger Lumbala suspected of various acts during 1998-2002 war in Democratic Republic of Congo

French anti-terror prosecutors have announced the arrest of the former head of a rebel group in the Democratic Republic of the Congo on charges of “complicity in crimes against humanity”.

Roger Lumbala, 62, is a former opposition lawmaker who led the RCD-N party, an armed group suspected by UN investigators of carrying out extrajudicial killings, rapes and cannibalism during the country’s civil war from 1998-2002.

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British ex-soldier and 12 others on trial over kidnap of French millionaire

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Jacqueline Veyrac, 80-year-old owner of Cannes hotel, was found bound and gagged in car in 2016

A former British soldier has gone on trial with 12 others in France accused of kidnapping a wealthy hotel heiress.

Jacqueline Veyrac, 80, the owner of the five-star Grand Hotel in Cannes, was snatched from the street near her home in October 2016.

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‘It was as if life started again’: terror attack survivors find new hope

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Christine and Sebastien met via a survivors’ group after being caught up in separate attacks in London and Paris

For most of the world, 2020 was a year of disease and death. For Christine Delcros and Sebastien Besatti, survivors of separate terror attacks in London and Paris, it brought love and a desire for life – feelings they thought they had lost forever.

“We know 2020 has been an annus horribilis for most people, but for us it has been a renaissance. A time to live again. It seems crazy to have found such happiness out of such dark times,” Besatti says in an interview with the Guardian.

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‘Step up’ and face Grenfell inquiry, minister tells cladding firm bosses

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Stephen Greenhalgh said executives should not ‘hide behind’ rarely used French law

The UK government has demanded that executives who supplied combustible cladding to Grenfell Tower “step up to the plate” after their refusal to give evidence to the public inquiry into the disaster provoked anger among the bereaved and survivors.

On Sunday, Stephen Greenhalgh, the building safety minister, escalated a legal and diplomatic dispute over the position taken by three current and former executives at the French division of the US company Arconic. He told them to stop hiding behind an arcane French law.

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BioNTech criticises EU failure to order enough Covid vaccine

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Firm races to fill potential gap left by bloc’s gamble on several vaccines being approved

BioNtech has criticised the EU’s failure to order more doses of its coronavirus vaccine, saying it is now racing with its US partner, Pfizer, to boost production amid fears of a European “gap” left by the lack of other approved vaccines.

The Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine was the first to be approved by the bloc late last month, after being accepted by the UK, Canada and the US. They and other countries have also since approved the Moderna or Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine, leaving the EU trailing behind.

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French snail farmers lament sluggish year as Covid crisis dents sales

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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.

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Covid: France ‘pandering to anti-vaxxers’ with slow vaccine rollout

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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.

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World takes in muted New Year’s Eve under Covid shadow

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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.

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Pierre Cardin helped define modernity in the 1960s and beyond

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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.

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Through gilets jaunes, strikes and Covid, Paris’s 400-year-old book stalls fight to survive

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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.

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Anger of 10,000 lorry drivers ‘held hostage’ in Covid Christmas standoff

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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.

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French firefighters arrive in Dover with 10,000 Covid tests for lorry drivers

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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.

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Coronavirus live news: UK to ban travel from South Africa over new variant; Canada approves Moderna vaccine

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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.

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UK ferry passengers disembark in Calais after France eases travel ban

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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.

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Three police shot dead in central France

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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.

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