Bill is Emmanuel Macron’s biggest social reform since he was elected in 2017
France has taken a step towards allowing lesbian and single women to conceive children with medical help, setting the stage for a clash with the country’s religious conservatives.
To loud applause, France’s lower house of parliament approved a draft bioethics law in a move that has already sparked outrage from opponents, including some in President Emmanuel Macron’s own centrist party.
Continue reading...EU warns it may have no choice if Iran takes further steps away from deal
The European Union has privately warned Iran that it will be forced to start withdrawing from the nuclear deal in November if Tehran goes ahead with its threat to take new steps away from the deal.
Iran has already taken three separate calibrated steps away from the deal, and has warned it will take a fourth in November unless the US lifts economic sanctions.
Continue reading...A look back at the life of Jacques Chirac, who had one of the longest continuous political careers in Europe
Head of state from 1995-2007 led opposition to the Iraq war and was first president to acknowledge France’s role in the Holocaust
The former French president Jacques Chirac, a self-styled affable rogue who had one of the longest political careers in Europe, has died aged 86.
For several years he had suffered from memory loss said to be linked to a form of Alzheimer’s disease or to the minor stroke that he had while in office.
Continue reading...Residents have reportedly heard explosions from a huge fire at the Lubrizol chemical plant in Rouen, northern France, as about 130 firefighters tackled the blaze. Smoke was still billowing from the site hours after the fire erupted on 26 September
Continue reading...Sandra Muller calls verdict in favour of Eric Brion ‘backwards step’ and vows to appeal
A woman who launched a French version of the #MeToo campaign to expose abusive male behaviour has been found guilty of defaming a media executive she accused of making lewd and sexist remarks.
Sandra Muller said Eric Brion had humiliated her with sexual remarks at a function in Cannes in 2012. She was ordered to pay €15,000 in damages to the executive and €5,000 in legal fees, and was also told to delete a tweet about him and publish the statements issued by the court on her Twitter account and in two press outlets.
Continue reading...Minister says he wants to avoid having mothers in hijab as volunteers on school trips
A fresh political row has erupted over the Muslim headscarf in France after the education minister said he wanted to avoid having mothers in hijab as volunteers on school outings.
Jean-Michel Blanquer criticised the country’s largest parents association for using a picture of a mother in a headscarf on a pamphlet under the words: “Yes I go on school trips, so what? Secularism is about welcoming all parents without exception.”
Continue reading...Inquiry opened last month after US police found links to sex-trafficking claims in France
Police have searched the Paris apartment of the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein as part of a French investigation into trafficking claims against the disgraced US financier.
Investigators arrived at Epstein’s luxury 800 sq metre apartment on the exclusive Avenue Foch near the Arc de Triomphe on Monday afternoon and worked through the night to search the premises.
Continue reading...Europe’s top court says firm does not have to take sensitive information off global search
Google does not have to apply Europe’s landmark “right to be forgotten” law globally, the continent’s highest court has ruled.
The right to be forgotten was enshrined by the European court of justice in 2014, when it said Google must delete “inadequate, irrelevant or no longer relevant” data from its results when a member of the public requests it.
Continue reading...Marc Veyrat’s La Maison des Bois lost its third star after, he says, an inspector suspected cheddar in a souffle
The celebrity French chef Marc Veyrat is suing the Michelin Guide after inspectors stripped his restaurant of its coveted third star, claiming they had botched their evaluation, in particular over a cheese souffle.
“I’ve been dishonoured, I saw my team in tears ... to have them call you one evening without warning, without anything written down, without anything, to say ‘that’s it, it’s over’,” Veyrat told France Inter radio on Tuesday.
Continue reading...UK reverses decision not to send minister to meeting, a snub that was seen as a fresh sign of how Brexit is shifting foreign policy
The UK has moved to douse claims that it was snubbing a major Franco-German initiative on multilateralism announcing it would after all send a minister to the launch of An Alliance for Multilateralism, due to be attended by as many as 40 ministers.
Following diplomatic claims that Downing Street was distancing itself from the Franco-German plan by not sending a high level representative to the launch in New York on Thursday, the foreign office announced late on Monday that Lord Ahmad would now attend.
Continue reading...PM says president could come up with better pact, in apparent shift from European position
Boris Johnson has sided with Donald Trump in calling the 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran a “bad deal”, while praising the US president as a “very brilliant negotiator” capable of achieving a better one.
The prime minister’s remarks, made in a NBC interview, marked a sharp change in UK rhetoric. British leaders, including Johnson, had until now upheld the 2015 accord between six major powers and Iran as a major diplomatic achievement.
Continue reading...Over 120 arrested as Black Bloc guerrillas infiltrate climate protest and gilets jaunes stage revival
So-called Black Bloc anarchists infiltrated a peaceful climate change march in Paris on Saturday, smashing shop and business windows and torching mopeds and dustbins en route.
Police made more than 120 arrests as the French capital saw a series of demonstrations.
Continue reading...F-16 pilot’s parachute got caught in electricity line after he ejected from jet in Brittany
A Belgian F-16 fighter pilot has been rescued from a high-voltage electricity line after his jet crashed in Brittany, France.
The plane came down over the town of Pluvigner at about 10.30am local time on Thursday, narrowly missing a house. The two pilots were able to eject, with one safely picked up on the ground.
Continue reading...Police seek six suspects who ransacked Vaux-le-Vicomte near Paris, which often stands in for Versailles in films
The owners of a 17th-century French castle were tied up as their opulent home was ransacked by robbers who fled with a haul worth €2m (£1.8m), authorities have said.
The Vaux-le-Vicomte palace, set amid sumptuous gardens about 30 miles south-east of Paris, has been owned by the same family since 1875. Patrice and Cristina de Vogüé opened the estate to the public in 1968, and run it with their three sons.
Continue reading...‘I cannot believe he’s being received by the Queen,’ says French judge
The French judge who convicted Geoffrey Boycott of assaulting his girlfriend has criticised the former England cricketer after he was knighted and says she stands by her decision to find him guilty.
The move to award Boycott the honour prompted outrage this week from a domestic violence charity. He was convicted in 1998 of assaulting Margaret Moore, who was left with black eyes after he hit her 20 times.
Continue reading...Nappy-changing machine and saliva calculation also triumph in annual science prize
There comes a time in a scientist’s life when the surest route to global fame involves a bevy of naked French postmen with thermometers taped to their testicles.
At least that is the case for Roger Mieusset, a fertility specialist at the University of Toulouse, whose unlikely studies have earned him one of the most coveted awards in academia: an Ig Nobel prize.
Continue reading...High levels of mercury and banned industrial fluids, found in blubber and skin, can impact reproduction
Bottlenose dolphins in the Channel have been found to carry a “toxic cocktail” of chemicals in their bodies, some of which have been banned for decades and which may be harming the marine mammals’ health, scientists have said.
Belgian and French scientists said they detected high accumulations of industrial fluids and mercury in the blubber and skin of dolphins in the waters off the north-west coast of France.
Continue reading...Emissions rose 20-30% in Paris when temperatures topped 30C, raising urgent questions as the climate gets hotter
Emissions from diesel cars – even newer and supposedly cleaner models – increase on hot days, a new study has found, raising questions over how cities suffering from air pollution can deal with urban heat islands and the climate crisis.
Research in Paris by The Real Urban Emissions (True) initiative found that diesel car emissions of nitrogen oxides (NOx) rose by 20% to 30% when temperatures topped 30C – a common event this summer.
Continue reading...Scientists find 257 prints that were preserved in wind-driven sand 80,000 years ago
Scientists have found hundreds of perfectly preserved footprints, providing evidence that Neanderthals walked the Normandy coast in France.
The prints suggest a group of 10-13 individuals, mostly children and adolescents, were on the shoreline 80,000 years ago.
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