Anti-government gilets jaunes (yellow vest) protesters confronted the French president and his wife, Brigitte, as they walked with bodyguards in the Tuileries Gardens in Paris on Tuesday
Category Archives: France
Emmanuel Macron accosted by gilets jaunes as he takes Bastille Day walk
Call for increased security as French president tells demonstrators ‘be cool’
Anti-government gilets jaunes (yellow vests) hurled abuse at Emmanuel Macron as he walked with his wife, Brigitte, on Bastille Day in a public garden in Paris, prompting calls from opposition leaders for increased security.
Demonstrators confronted the French president and his wife, Brigitte, as they walked with bodyguards in the Tuileries Gardens in Paris on Tuesday.
Continue reading...Baby boy infected with coronavirus in womb
French study is believed to be first such confirmed case but doctors say infant has made good recovery
Doctors in France have reported what they believe to be the first proven case of Covid-19 being passed on from a pregnant woman to her baby in the womb.
The newborn boy developed inflammation in the brain within days of being born, a condition brought on after the virus crossed the placenta and established an infection prior to birth. He has since made a good recovery.
Continue reading...Two men to stand trial in France for killing of Jewish woman, 85
Stabbing of Mireille Knoll in 2018 prompted national outcry over antisemitism
French judges have ordered two men to stand trial for the brutal 2018 killing of an elderly Jewish woman that prompted an outcry over a rise in antisemitic acts.
Mireille Knoll, 85 and suffering from Parkinson’s disease, was stabbed in her Paris apartment by attackers who later set her body on fire, apparently to hide evidence of their crime.
Continue reading...Mont Blanc’s melting glacier yields time capsule of Indian history
Retreating French ice leaves behind newspapers proclaiming Indira Gandhi’s rise to PM, probably from 1966 plane crash
The Mont Blanc glacier in the French Alps is yielding more secrets as it melts – this time a clutch of newspapers with banner headlines from when Indira Gandhi became India’s first, and so far only, female prime minister in 1966.
The copies of Indian newspapers the National Herald and the Economic Times were probably aboard an Air India Boeing 707 that crashed on the mountain on 24 January, 1966, claiming 177 lives.
Continue reading...Migrants rescued after boat capsizes in Channel
Group with severe hypothermia among several taken back to France on Saturday
Migrants rescued after their boat capsized were among several groups to have tried to cross the Channel on Saturday.
The four individuals were spotted by a passing passenger ferry and picked up by the French navy. They were found to have severe hypothermia and taken to the French port of Calais.
Continue reading...Thousands march for French bus driver who died after attack by passengers over face masks – video
Thousands of people took part in a silent march in Bayonne for Philippe Monguillot, 59, who was declared brain dead after an attack by passengers who refused to wear face masks. He later died in hospital.
The driver’s family organised the march from the bus stop where the assault took place. Monguillot's colleagues used their right to refuse to work in the aftermath of the attack but will resume work on Monday under reinforced security, the local operator said
Continue reading...Bodies donated to science ‘left to be eaten by rats at Paris centre’
Inquiry to examine claims remains were found strewn around and dismembered
Authorities in France will investigate claims that human corpses donated for science were left to rot and be eaten by rats at a university research facility, the Paris prosecutor’s office has said.
An investigation into “violations of the integrity of a corpse” was handed over to magistrates by prosecutors who handled the initial phase of the investigation after l’Express magazine reported the scandal last November.
Continue reading...Two charged over attack on French bus driver who refused entry to unmasked men
Philippe Monguillot left brain dead after assault by men not wearing Covid-19 face masks
French prosecutors have charged two men with attempted murder after a bus driver was assaulted and left brain dead for refusing to let a group of people who were not wearing face masks board the bus.
Four men set upon 59-year-old Philippe Monguillot in the south-western town of Bayonne on Sunday after he asked three of them to wear masks and tried to check another man’s ticket.
Continue reading...French coronavirus study finds black immigrant deaths doubled at peak
Statistics agency is first in France to cross-check Covid-19 fatalities with country of origin
Death rates among immigrants from sub-Saharan Africa doubled in France and tripled in the Paris region at the height of France’s coronavirus outbreak, finds a study from the French government’s statistics agency.
The INSEE agency’s findings, published on Tuesday, are the closest France has come to acknowledging with numbers the disproportionate impact of the virus on the country’s black immigrants and members of other overlooked minority groups.
Continue reading...‘Unite the nation’: Jean Castex replaces Édouard Philippe as French prime minister – video
France has a new prime minister after President Emmanuel Macron named career civil servant Jean Castex as the replacement for Édouard Philippe. Castex will be part of Macron’s ‘new course’ for the last two years of his mandate.
Castex, from the centre right of French politics, coordinated France’s successful exit from lockdown and is widely known as Monsieur Déconfinement. He will form the next government
Continue reading...Édouard Philippe resigns as prime minister of France
Philippe’s popularity has grown, as Macron’s has slipped, during the coronavirus crisis
Édouard Philippe, the prime minister of France, has tendered his government’s resignation after seeing the country through the coronavirus pandemic.
The Élysée Palace announced Philippe, an increasingly popular figure during the crisis, had submitted the government’s resignation but would remain as head of an interim government until the president, Emmanuel Macron, carried out a reshuffle and named his successor.
Continue reading...France’s favourite village of 2020 braces for tourist influx
Former Swedish settlement of Hunspach, in Alsace, unlikely to remain ‘peaceful’ for long
French people have chosen Hunspach, which was once part of Sweden, as their favourite village of 2020.
The Alsace village of 652 inhabitants, on France’s eastern border with Germany, was selected in a TV poll of 700,000 viewers.
Continue reading...Global report: first tourists arrive in Greece as Brazil passes 60,000 deaths
Spain and Portugal reopen border as global tourism industry predicted to lose up to £2.6tn
The first tourist flights in four months landed on the Greek island of Crete, and Spain and Portugal reopened their land border as European countries continued to ease travel restrictions, as Brazil recorded 60,000 deaths.
A charter plane carrying 172 passengers from Hamburg landed at Heraklion airport on Crete at 8am, minutes after another aircraft had arrived from the Czech Republic, re-establishing the island’s air links with the outside world.
Continue reading...Ça alors! French drivers top European road-rage table, survey reveals
One French driver in five admits to a Jekyll and Hyde personality when they take the wheel
The French are the road-rage champions of Europe, according to a survey, with the highest number of drivers who feel they become more aggressive when they get on the road.
The 10th annual poll of “responsible driving” published by the Vinci Motorway Foundation and carried out by the Ipsos polling agency in 11 European countries, revealed that one French driver in five – and more in the Paris area – has a Jekyll and Hyde personality behind the wheel.
Continue reading...France bans Dutch bike TV ad for creating ‘climate of fear’ about cars
Ad for VanMoof bike unfairly discredits automobile industry, says watchdog
A TV commercial for a Dutch-made bicycle has been banned by France’s advertising watchdog for creating a “climate of fear” about cars.
Despite being aired on Dutch and German television, the Autorité de régulation professionnelle de la publicité (ARPP) said the ad for the VanMoof bike unfairly discredited the automobile industry.
Continue reading...François Fillon found guilty of embezzling public funds
Former French prime minister and wife Penelope given jail sentences over fake jobs scandal
The former French prime minister François Fillon and his Welsh wife, Penelope, were sentenced to jail on Monday for embezzling public funds as part of a “fake jobs” scandal.
A court found the couple guilty of fraud after a trial heard he had paid her and two of the couple’s children about €1m for non-existent jobs as his parliamentary assistants.
Continue reading...Greens surge in French local elections as Anne Hidalgo holds Paris
Socialist mayor retains capital, with Macron’s LREM losing out to the ecology party
France was swept by a green wave on Sunday as ecology candidates won a number of major victories in the country’s local elections.
Early results suggested the biggest winners of the delayed vote would be the green party, Europe Ecologie Les Verts (EELV), while the election delivered the predicted blow to Emmanuel Macron’s La République en Marche (LREM) party, which has failed to take root locally since it was founded four years ago.
Continue reading...French Revolution: remains discovered in walls of Paris monument
Experts believe up to 500 people guillotined in period may be buried in Chapelle Expiatoire
Experts believe the remains of up to 500 people guillotined during the French Revolution may be buried in the walls of a listed monument in Paris.
The discovery blows apart the accepted historical account, which suggests the bodies of famous guillotinés, including Louis XV’s mistress Madame du Barry, Olympe de Gouges and Maximilien Robespierre, revolutionary architect of the Reign of Terror, were moved to the network of catacombs under the city.
Continue reading...France’s oldest nuclear reactor to finally shut down
Environmentalists have welcomed news that the 43-year-old Fessenheim reactor will close, nine years after it was first planned
France’s oldest nuclear power plant will shut down on Tuesday after four decades in operation, to the delight of environmental activists who have long warned of contamination risks, but stoking worry for the local economy.
The Fessenheim plant, opened in 1977 and already three years over its projected 40-year life span, became a target for anti-nuclear campaigners after the catastrophic meltdown at Fukushima in Japan in 2011.
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