French and Italian rescue services have stepped up search efforts after floods cut off several villages near the two countries’ border, causing widespread damage. Eight people were unaccounted for on the French side of the border after storms, torrential rain and flash floods washed away homes and roads
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French worker fired after going to the office before Covid test result
Sébastien Klem takes employer to tribunal, but ex-colleagues dispute version of events
A French housing association employee has been fired for serious misconduct after returning to his office before receiving the result of a coronavirus test that came back positive.
Sébastien Klem, 41, insisted he had no idea he had the virus and only took a test because he was driving past a diagnostic centre and saw there was no queue. “Apart from a light cough, I didn’t have any other symptom,” he told France3 television.
Continue reading...Boris Johnson to set fishing ultimatum in crunch EU summit
Buoyed by support for idea from Angela Merkel, PM hopes to overcome French opposition
Boris Johnson will demand that the increasingly isolated French president, Emmanuel Macron, caves in to UK demands on fishing as the price for a trade and security deal at a key meeting with the European commission president on Saturday.
The prime minister will speak to Ursula von der Leyen on Saturday afternoon in a video-conference call to “take stock of negotiations and discuss next steps”.
Continue reading...Macron outlines new law to prevent Islamic ‘separatism’ in France
Local officials will get extra powers to fight radicalism and social problems will be tackled
Emmanuel Macron has announced a law against religious “separatism” aimed at freeing Islam in France from “foreign influences”.
In a long-awaited declaration, the French president outlined new measures to “defend the republic and its values and ensure it respects its promises of equality and emancipation”.
Continue reading...Russia says it and Turkey urge end to hostilities in Nagorno-Karabakh
Russia says two countries’ foreign ministers have found common ground after French journalists injured during shelling
Russia and Turkey’s foreign ministers have agreed to the need for an immediate cessation of hostilities in Nagorno-Karabakh, according to a Russian statement, opening the door to a possible end to fighting in the breakaway region.
The potential breakthrough was at odds with an earlier statement by the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who hours earlier had called for a full Armenian withdrawal from the area – which is legally Azerbaijani territory but administered by ethnic Armenians – and condemned international efforts to resolve the conflict.
Continue reading...Terminal Sud review – powerful dispatch from a civil war
Ramzy Bedia is captivating as a charismatic doctor in this French-Algerian drama about a country descending into chaos
French-Algerian film-maker Rabah Ameur-Zaïmeche sends us a dispatch from a civil war with Terminal Sud, an intriguing, somewhat abstract drama about a country descending into chaos. The facts on the ground here seem to tally with the Algerian civil war of the 90s, the so called “black decade” that claimed more than 100,000 lives. But the film was mostly shot in southern France, and Ameur-Zaïmeche doesn’t hide contemporary details such as mobiles and new-model SUVs. He has said in interviews that the point is to make it universal: this could happen any time, anywhere. The approach isn’t entirely convincing, and the unfocused sense of time and place is a bit distracting and frustrating at times. But there is real power to many of the scenes.
Continue reading...One million coronavirus deaths: how did we get here?
Milestone is known toll of months of Covid pandemic that has changed everything, from power balances to everyday life
Though an inevitable milestone for months, its arrival is still breathtaking.
Deaths from Covid-19 exceeded 1 million people on Tuesday, according to a Johns Hopkins University database, the known toll of nine relentless months of a pandemic that has changed everything, from global balances of power to the mundane aspects of daily life.
Continue reading...Former Elite model agency boss investigated over rape allegations
French prosecutors look into complaints from former BBC journalist and three ex-models
French prosecutors have opened an investigation into Gerald Marie, the former European boss of the Elite model agency, over allegations of rape, including of a minor.
It follows a complaint against Marie, the ex-husband of the supermodel Linda Evangelista, from a former BBC journalist and claims of abuse by three ex-models, the Paris prosecutor’s office said.
Continue reading...France divided over calls for Arthur Rimbaud and Paul Verlaine to be reburied in Panthéon
Petition says the poets, who were lovers as young men, were ‘the French Oscar Wildes’ and deserve to rest in the mausoleum
France’s cultural elite are split over whether the remains of two of the country’s greatest poets, Arthur Rimbaud and his lover Paul Verlaine, should be dug up and re-interred in the Panthéon in Paris.
The secular mausoleum is home to French greats including Voltaire, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Émile Zola, Alexandre Dumas and Marie Curie. Now a petition signed by more than 5,000 people, including culture minister Roselyne Bachelot and a host of her predecessors, is calling on president Emmanuel Macron to allow Rimbaud and Verlaine to join them.
Continue reading...Coronavirus live news: concern over case clusters at French schools and universities; Melbourne lifts curfew
Le Monde reports 32% of outbreaks in France found in schools or universities; Victoria ends curfew
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Families are counting down the days to moving into new homes in a Hong Kong estate that had been used as a Covid-19 quarantine centre in what had become a lightning rod for discontent, the South China Morning Post reports.
They included L.N. Siu, her husband and daughter, who were overjoyed when they were finally allocated a public housing flat at the Chun Yeung Estate in Hong Kong last December. They had been waiting eight years.
Romanians go to the polls on Sunday to choose mayors and local councillors, but a Covid-19 surge is threatening to hit the first electoral test after years of political turbulence with a high abstention rate.
Nationwide, the east European country of almost 19 million people has 43,000 seats to fill in the single-round election seen as a test ahead of national polls in December.
Continue reading...The wurst is over: why Germany now loves to go vegetarian
More than 40% of Germans are cutting down on meat, and vegan burgers are a shopping mall staple
Inside a shopping mall in south Berlin, two colleagues are chomping on hamburgers and fries, cheese sauce running down their fingers as they try to beat the lunchtime clock.
Feelings of guilt are in short supply this Friday afternoon: the burger joint where the two women have grabbed a bite is called Vincent Vegan, and the patty inside the brioche bun is made of wheat, barley and soya.
Continue reading...Suspect in new Charlie Hebdo attack angered by republished cartoons, say Paris police
Detained man, believed to be 18 and from Pakistan, arrived in France as unaccompanied minor three years ago
The man arrested after a knife attack on two people outside the former offices of the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo told detectives he had been angered by its publication of cartoons mocking the prophet Muhammad, French media reported yesterday.
The suspect, believed to be an 18-year-old born in Pakistan, is thought to have arrived in France three years ago as an unaccompanied minor.
Continue reading...Covid figures prompt French and Dutch warnings, and deepening row in Spain
Coronavirus cases in France jump to record high as Spanish government calls for Madrid lockdown
The prime ministers of France and the Netherlands have issued stark warnings about their coronavirus figures, while in Spain, the western European country hardest hit by the virus, Madrid authorities have rejected the central government’s call for a lockdown across the capital.
Santé Publique France, the French public health authority, tallied 15,797 new confirmed cases on Friday, just shy of a daily record of 16,096 set on Thursday.
Continue reading...Two injured in knife attack near Charlie Hebdo’s former offices in Paris
Media reports of two arrests after attack near former home of satirical newspaper
A counter-terrorism investigation has been launched in France after two people were seriously injured in a knife attack near the former offices of satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo in Paris.
French media reported that two suspects have been arrested.
Continue reading...What lessons can Europe learn from Sweden’s Covid-19 experience?
Experts say that while contested ‘light touch’ response warrants study each country must find right approach for them
EU governments that locked down are increasingly emulating the one that did not, but experts warn that Sweden’s Covid approach, relying more on voluntary compliance than coercion, will not suit all – and big questions remain over whether it has worked for Sweden.
As infections surge in several European countries, France, which is currently averaging nearly 12,000 cases a day, has ruled out another national lockdown, instead pursuing a strategy the prime minister, Jean Castex, calls “living with the virus” and imposing local measures.
Continue reading...French police investigate attack on woman, 22, for wearing skirt
Student says she was punched in face in Strasbourg by three men who said ‘look at that whore’
French police have opened an investigation after a young woman said she was attacked by three men and beaten in public for wearing a skirt.
The government denounced the “very serious” incident as unacceptable, which came amid growing anger in France at physical and verbal abuse towards women over their dress in public.
Continue reading...As Covid cases rise again, how are countries in Europe reacting?
Tighter measures are being imposed, but they vary across the continent
Continue reading...French minister mocked for asking pupils to dress in ‘republican style’
Jean-Michel Blanquer’s comments follow protests over high school dress codes for female students
France’s education minister has sparked a sexism row after demanding high school pupils dress in “republican style” for classes.
Jean-Michel Blanquer’s comments came a week after a protest by girls at French high schools about being hauled in front of headteachers or turned away from lessons because they were wearing mini skirts, low-cut or crop tops deemed “provocative”.
Continue reading...Michael Lonsdale, Bond villain Hugo Drax in Moonraker, dies aged 89
The César-winning actor appeared in films by François Truffaut and Alain Resnais, and played religious figures in Of Gods and Men and The Name of the Rose
Michael Lonsdale, the French-British actor whose best known role was the villain Drax in Moonraker but who also appeared in a string of films by auteur directors such as François Truffaut, Jacques Rivette and Alain Resnais, has died aged 89. Lonsdale’s agent, Olivier Loiseau, confirmed to Agence France-Presse that the actor had died at his home in Paris.
Bond producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G Wilson said in a statement: “He was an extraordinarily talented actor and a very dear friend. Our thoughts are with his family and friends at this sad time.”
Continue reading...Coronavirus live news: India sees 92,000 new infections; China faces fifth wave, expert says
India now has 5.4m cases; China fears winter infections; NZ records new cases
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Covid-19 has spread around the planet, sending billions of people into lockdown as health services struggle to cope, Pablo Gutiérrez and Seán Clarke write. Find out where the virus has spread, and where it has been most deadly:
A clown juggled and acrobats launched themselves through the air above a stage in an open field in Seoul at the weekend as the audience watched from the safety of their cars, cocooned from the risk of coronavirus.
The annual circus – usually held in May – was pushed back twice this year because of the virus until organisers turned it into a drive-in event, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports. Cho Beong-hee, the manager of the Seoul Street Art Creation Centre, said:
The performing arts are very important even during a pandemic. So we came up with different ideas in trying to make this event happen and the drive-in option was chosen as it was deemed the safest idea.
I think watching performances in cars is great. I think it can be done in the future, with other performances like musicals.
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