Category Archives: France

European troops may be at risk after dispute process triggered – Iran

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Hassan Rouhani’s threat to western allies comes amid fears of reimposition of sanctions

Iran’s president Hassan Rouhani has warned that European soldiers in the Middle East could be in danger after the UK, France and Germany triggered a dispute mechanism in the nuclear agreement that could lead to the reimposition of international sanctions on the country.

Rouhani’s remarks on Wednesday were the first direct threat he has made against European powers as tensions have grown between Tehran and Washington since Donald Trump unilaterally abandoned the nuclear deal more than 18 months ago.

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French chef Alain Ducasse declares war on dry January

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Star chef says he is ‘obsessed with selling wine’ and wants to diners to drink more, not less

French chef Alain Ducasse, an outspoken opponent of Dry January, has launched an initiative to entice patrons of his restaurants to drink more during the first month of the year, not less.

“I like swimming against the tide,” he told AFP on Tuesday, announcing plans to proffer top bottles of Burgundy and Bordeaux at knockdown prices to encourage diners to order wine by the bottle rather than by the glass.

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Ski resorts lure millennials with the sound of music

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As fiftysomethings pack the slopes, cost and a cultural shift are putting off younger skiers – and the industry is having to respond

It’s Thursday evening at Geneva airport and about 60 British holidaymakers are waiting for a bus to take them to the French ski resorts of Chamonix and Morzine. All but a handful are over 50.

What was once a young person’s sport is now owned by the baby boomer generation, something with potentially disastrous consequences for the ski industry as older skiers depart the slopes and young people fall out of love with the mountains.

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French ex-president Nicolas Sarkozy to stand trial in October

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Sarkozy is accused of trying to obtain classified information from a judge in 2014

Nicolas Sarkozy will become France’s first former president to stand trial on corruption charges in a case in which he is accused of trying to obtain classified information from a judge.

The trial will start on 5 October 2020 and will last until 22 October, a Paris court said.

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Georges Duboeuf, France’s ‘king of Beaujolais’, dies aged 86

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Tributes paid to wine producer who ‘raised the Beaujolais flag around the world’

Tributes have been paid to the wine merchant Georges Duboeuf, known in France as the “king of Beaujolais” for his production and promotion of the famous wine variety.

Duboeuf, who has died aged 86, founded Les Vins Georges Duboeuf, one of the largest wine companies in France, and was almost single-handedly responsible for making Beaujolais nouveau popular.

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Brittany oyster farms hit by gastroenteritis epidemic

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Farmers blame ‘ecological emergency’ on inadequate treatment of sewage

A gastroenteritis epidemic sweeping France has hit oyster farmers in Brittany after the virus was found in shellfish.

Health authorities have banned the fishing and selling of oysters in the bay around Mont-Saint-Michel and other shellfish farming areas on France’s north-western coast until further notice.

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French police shoot man holding knife in Metz

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Prosecutors say man ‘known for radicalisation’ taken to hospital and placed in custody

French police have shot and injured a man holding a knife in Metz, two days after a fatal stabbing in Paris.

Christian Mercuri, the public prosecutor in the city in north-east France, said the man involved in the incident on Sunday, who was known to police both “for his radicalisation and for a personality disorder”, shouted “Allahu Akbar” (God is greatest) before being shot.

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Notre Dame Cathedral ‘not saved yet’ and still at risk of collapse

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Head of restoration says removal of fused scaffolding may destroy vaulted ceiling

The French general appointed to oversee the reconstruction of Notre Dame Cathedral has said the iconic building is still at risk of collapse more than six months into the efforts to restore it.

Gen Jean-Louis Georgelin said the cathedral is “not saved yet” and has to undergo a delicate operation to remove fused scaffolding around the spire, destroyed by a devastating fire last April.

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Man shot dead by police after stabbing attack in Paris suburb

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Motive as yet unclear for knife attack in Villejuif that left one dead and two seriously injured

Police shot dead a man who stabbed several people in a Paris suburb in a knife attack that left one person dead and at least two others seriously injured.

Armed officers were called at around 2pm on Friday after the man stabbed several people – apparently at random – near a park and busy shopping centre in Villejuif, south of the French capital.

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French prosecutors open rape inquiry into author Gabriel Matzneff

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New book describes sexual relationship between Matzneff and 14-year-old girl

Paris prosecutors have opened a rape investigation into the author Gabriel Matzneff, a day after the publication of a book detailing his sexual relationship with a girl of 14 more than three decades ago.

The case has attracted huge interest in France, which is only now beginning to scrutinise decades of what are seen by some as permissive attitudes towards sexual exploitation and paedophilia.

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Can Merkel and Macron get Franco-German relations back on track?

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As a year of big EU decisions begins, the bloc’s most important relationship is stuck in a rut

In early December, Emmanuel Macron and Angela Merkel sat down opposite each other in Gordon Ramsay’s restaurant at the Savoy Hotel, central London, for a two-hour tête-à-tête dinner. They had some talking to do.

Cordial and constructive, diplomats in Paris and Berlin said, the evening apparently cleared the air. But it will take more than a dinner to clear the structural obstacles to a relationship that is critical to what Europe can achieve in 2020.

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Global stock markets post best year since financial crisis

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FTSE 100 records best performance since the referendum year, jumping 12%

Global stock markets have posted their best year since the aftermath of the financial crisis a decade ago, as investors shrugged off trade tensions and warnings of slowing growth in major economies.

The MSCI World Index, which tracks stocks across the developed world, jumped by almost 24% during 2019 – the strongest performance since 2009. A surge in US technology giants and a strong recovery in eurozone and Asian stocks drove the rally.

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Cheddargate chef loses court battle over Michelin downgrade

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Business still booming at Marc Veyrat’s restaurant despite it losing one of its three stars

One of France’s leading chefs has lost his court case against the Michelin Guide after it downgraded his restaurant from three to two stars.

In a case that became known as Cheddargate, Marc Veyrat sued the respected guide claiming it had made a “profoundly offensive” suggestion that he had used the English cheese in one of his signature soufflé dishes.

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Papers reveal Anglo-French distrust before Srebrenica massacre

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Archives show British PM was warned France may have made secret deal with Bosnian Serbs

Days before the Srebrenica massacre in July 1995, John Major was warned France had possibly brokered a secret deal with the Bosnian Serbs to halt airstrikes in return for the release of western military hostages.

This claim, detailed in a secret Foreign Office note to the prime minister, is among documents available to read at the National Archives in Kew fromTuesday that expose the depth of Anglo-French distrust during the Balkans conflict.

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The child refugees risking the Channel by boat – one year on

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Kent youth asylum seeker charity has seen a 50% rise in demand for its services since December 2018

Bridget Chapman, who swims regularly in the Channel, wasn’t surprised when desperate asylum seekers began travelling to the UK on small dinghy boats last year. On a clear day she can see France’s coastline from where she lives in Folkestone, Kent. “If you’re stuck in Calais and you can see the British coast quite clearly, it must be really tempting to think: I’ll just get a boat,” she said.

It has been a year since the then home secretary, Sajid Javid, declared the increasing number of migrants attempting to cross the Channel a “major incident”, but boat arrivals are still a regular occurrence. On Boxing Day this year, more than 60 migrants were picked up while attempting to cross in small boats.

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Macron forced to step in to defuse crisis over pension changes

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French president to address 25-day strike and widespread protests in new year speech

Emmanuel Macron will be forced to speak out on France’s ongoing pensions strike in his televised new year address on Tuesday as transport stoppages look likely to continue into a fifth week, causing major disruption over the holiday period and into January.

The centrist French president, who made overhauling the country’s pensions system a key election pledge, has until now refrained from intervening personally, leaving his prime minister, Edouard Philippe, to deal with the day-to-day response to the crisis.

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The power behind the thrones: 10 political movers and shakers who will shape 2020

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Some are trusted aides, others are fixers who work in the shadows. Often unelected and unaccountable, they all have the ear of national leaders

The role of Dominic Cummings in plotting and facilitating Boris Johnson’s drive for power has focused attention on the influence exerted by behind-the-scenes advisers and confidants who have the ear of prominent politicians.

Powerful men and women around the world all have personal counsellors, trusted aides and backroom mentors. Then there are the “insiders” – string-pullers, fixers and manipulators with ambitions of their own. Few become well-known, although Cummings’s notoriety is by no means exceptional.

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French publishing boss claims she was groomed at age 14 by acclaimed author

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Vanessa Springora describes relationship with Gabriel Matzneff, then 50, in new book

The French literary world is in shock after a leading publishing director, Vanessa Springora, alleged in a new book that she was groomed into a damaging relationship from the age of 14 with an acclaimed author who was 50.

Springora’s book, Le Consentement (Consent), will be published in France in January and has already been met with critical acclaim and sent shockwaves through the close-knit world of Paris intellectuals. It has been described as a #MeToo moment for France’s literary circles.

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Reasons to be fearful – the international news review of 2019

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This year world leaders struggled to manage the fallout from the erratic tenant in the White House – as China flexed its imperial muscles. We look back at the events that created the most turbulence

Click here for 2019’s reasons to be cheerful

A year of high anxiety was rendered more alarming by intensifying clashes of interest between world powers. As international cooperation declined, and nationalist agendas gathered strength, China, the US, Russia and Europe, and their respective allies, emulators and proxies, engaged in often dangerous competition.

The Chinese communist regime’s increasingly assertive behaviour at home and abroad, reflecting the authoritarian outlook of its paramount leader-for-life, Xi Jinping, produced head-on collisions with western countries, notably over Hong Kong, trade, technology and the repression of the Uighur Muslim minority in Xinjiang.

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Notre Dame Cathedral stays dark for first time in 200 years

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French Catholics go to nearby church in Paris for Christmas mass following fire in April

Notre Dame Cathedral was unable to hold Christmas Eve mass for the first time in more than 200 years after a fire ravaged its structure in April.

French Catholics instead gathered at the church of Saint-Germain l’Auxerrois, a few hundred metres away from the Paris landmark, for a service celebrated by the cathedral’s rector Patrick Chauvet.

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