France president seizes moment for influence with visit to Lebanon after explosion trailing ‘new political deal’
Emmanuel Macron’s move to boost his country’s influence in Lebanon has shown a French president with the confidence, and political instinct, to seize his moment on the world stage.
Two days after the devastating explosion tore through Beirut Macron toured the site of the blast and some of the capital’s hardest-hit neighbourhoods.
Continue reading...Spain orders town of 32,000 back into confinement; Poland records highest daily case number so far
Germany has recorded its highest rate of infections in three months, France cannot keep up with demand for tests and Finland warned of an “extremely delicate” situation as Covid-19 case numbers continued to tick up across the continent.
New cases in Germany rose above 1,000 for the first time since early May, with the national disease control centre, the Robert Koch Institute, on Thursday reporting 1,045 infections in the previous 24 hours, bringing the total number of active cases to 8,700.
Continue reading...Police discover agents in stolen car with false plates while plot to kill woman was not part of duties
Preliminary attempted murder charges have been filed against two agents from France’s foreign intelligence agency over an alleged plan to kill a 54-year-old woman last month in the Creteil suburb of Paris, the city prosecutor’s office has said.
French media reported on Wednesday that the directorate-general for external security (DGSE) agents were believed to have been plotting to kill a target, but not as part of their job duties. The agency is the French equivalent of the CIA.
Continue reading...Alleged victim says he was beaten with baseball bats after asking man to put on mask
A man using a launderette in a Paris suburb says he was beaten by two men with baseball bats in front of his young children after asking a customer to put on a face mask.
Masks are obligatory inside all public places in France to combat a recent surge in coronavirus cases.
Continue reading...Exclusive: crisis has led to 500% increase in Britons taking up citizenship in an EU state
The number of British nationals emigrating to other EU countries has risen by 30% since the Brexit referendum, with half making their decision to leave in the first three months after the vote, research has found.
Analysis of data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and Eurostat shows that migration from Britain to EU states averaged 56,832 people a year in 2008-15, growing to 73,642 a year in 2016-18.
Continue reading...Many countries that believed they were past the worst are grappling with new outbreaks, says WHO
Mexico has recorded more than 9,000 daily coronavirus cases for the first time, as the country overtook the UK with the world’s third-highest number of deaths from the pandemic after the US and Brazil.
The surging numbers were reported as the World Health Organization warned of “response fatigue” and a resurgence of cases in several countries that have lifted lockdowns.
Continue reading...Club des Internationaux Français pulls its 2,000 birds from event citing safety fears
The Tour de France of international pigeon racing has been rocked by scandal and acrimony after 11 French birds were found dead on the eve of the competition in a suspected poisoning.
A further seven French pigeons are said to be seriously unwell prompting the Club des Internationaux Français (CIF) to urgently withdraw its 2,000 birds from the blue ribbon event citing concerns about safety and “fairness in this competition for all”.
Continue reading...Emmanuel Macron has set a historian to investigate colonial brutality – but yet more evidence is no substitute for action
Clarifying the past is a notoriously difficult task at the best of times, but exceptionally so in relation to the intensely bloody history of Algeria.
France, its former coloniser, has a long record of covering up the atrocities it committed, so the facts are frequently disputed. This has prolonged anger and resentment among the victims of an imperial adventure that continues to divide the two nations.
Continue reading...New cases jump to 292,500, Irish Cup final played in front of fans; global death toll passes 674,000; France confirms ‘marked increase’ in cases
Sanofi SA and GlaxoSmithKline Plc said they are in advanced discussions with the European Commission to supply up to 300 million doses of the drugmakers’s experimental Covid-19 vaccine.
The doses would be manufactured in European countries including France, Belgium, Germany and Italy.
Florida reported another record increase in Covid-19 deaths on Friday.
The state health department said Florida registered 257 fatalities, a record for the fourth straight day despite predictions that the U.S. coronavirus epicenter could be shifting to the Midwest.
Continue reading...Instrumental in decriminalising abortion in France, Halimi spent her life fighting for women’s rights
The Tunisian-born French feminist MP and lawyer Gisèle Halimi, described as a “trailblazer” and a “rebel”, has died one day after her 93rd birthday.
Halimi was instrumental in the decriminalisation of abortion in France and spent her life fighting for women’s rights. “Injustice is physically intolerable to me. All my life can be summed up with that,” she once said.
Continue reading...The 39-year-old who closed the cathedral for the night had previously been questioned and released by police
A volunteer assistant suspected of setting a French cathedral on fire has been rearrested, then indicted and detained in pre-trial custody by prosecutors.
The man, already held and released by police last week, was indicted on Saturday night “on charges of destruction and damage by fire” of the gothic cathedral of Nantes, the public prosecutor for the western city said.
Continue reading...Two brothers aged 10 and three escaped a blaze at an apartment in the south-eastern French city of Grenoble on Tuesday after they jumped into the arms of people watching below. The youngest boy was hanging from a window 10 metres above the ground, as flames and black smoke engulfed the apartment. The older boy followed. Both were uninjured in the fall, local media reported
Continue reading...Mayor of Grenoble hails rescue after brothers aged three and 10 are saved by people in street below
Two young brothers have been saved from an apartment fire in the French city of Grenoble after dropping about 10 metres (33ft) from a window before being caught by people in the street below.
The pair, aged 10 and three, were unharmed by the fall on Tuesday but might have suffered from smoke inhalation, French media reported.
Continue reading...Euro rises as heads of state finally thrash out agreement on day five
EU leaders have reached a historic agreement on a €750bn coronavirus pandemic recovery fund and their long-term spending plans following days of acrimonious debate at the bloc’s longest summit in nearly two decades.
As the meeting reached its fifth day, the 27 exhausted heads of state and government finally gave their seal of approval to a plan for the EU to jointly borrow debt to be disbursed through grants on an unprecedented scale, in the face of an economic downturn not seen since the Great Depression.
Continue reading...Disclosures call into question UK’s reliance on ‘just in time’ logistics during pandemic
The NHS was deprived of large amounts of protective gear at the height of the coronavirus outbreak after a French company contracted to supply millions of masks allegedly prioritised more lucrative deals with deep-pocketed clients including a Chinese state-owned energy company.
A joint investigation by the Guardian and the French news website Mediapart has uncovered evidence suggesting the mask manufacturer Valmy failed to fulfil the terms of a £1.2m contract with the NHS to supply about 7m masks in the event of a pandemic.
Continue reading...Proposals on the size and terms of a recovery fund have led to splits between member states
Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron said they are willing to walk away from a summit of EU leaders, as they arrived at the third day of a long and acrimonious debate on the terms of a €750bn (£682bn) pandemic recovery fund.
With the EU split between northern and southern member states as well as eastern and western, France’s president and the German chancellor both indicated their patience was waning despite the need to respond to the economic recession facing the bloc.
Continue reading...Orbán accuses Netherlands’ Rutte of ‘communist’ tactics on tense third day of talks
Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, accused his Dutch counterpart of using the same methods as his country’s former communist leaders on Sunday, as EU leaders publicly clashed during tense and acrimonious negotiations over the terms of a proposed €1.8tn budget and recovery package for the bloc.
A third difficult day of a summit of the EU’s 27 heads of state and government – the first in person for five months – saw movement towards agreement as talks stretched deep into the night, but laid bare the deep splits between north and south, and east and west.
Continue reading...Arson investigation launched after blaze at gothic Cathedral of St Peter and St Paul
French investigators are questioning a man who worked at the cathedral in Nantes, which was badly damaged by fire on Saturday, a prosecutor said.
The man “was responsible for locking up the cathedral on Friday evening and investigators wanted to clarify elements of the schedule of this person”, the prosecutor, Pierre Sennes, told Agence France-Presse.
Continue reading...Investigation opened after blaze destroys grand organ and shatters stained-glass windows
A fire that broke out in a cathedral in the western French city of Nantes blew out stained-glass windows and destroyed the grand organ in the 15th-century building, officials said.
A local prosecutor said three fires were started at the St Peter and St Paul Cathedral and authorities were treating the incident as a criminal act. An investigation has been opened.
Continue reading...Family of Cédric Chouviat, who died of asphyxiation, say manslaughter charge is too lenient
Three French police officers have been charged with manslaughter over the death of a delivery man who was pinned to the ground and put in a chokehold during an arrest in January.
Cédric Chouviat, 42, died in hospital two days after a heated exchange with the officers. He was held down while still wearing his scooter helmet for about 20 seconds, near the Eiffel Tower in Paris.
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