Category Archives: France

How does Nato look at the age of 70? It’s complicated

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Squabbling, a spreading focus and Trump raise doubts about the effectiveness of the alliance

Seventy years after Nato was founded to protect western Europe from Joseph Stalin’s Soviet Union, the military alliance returned this week to its first home in London to discuss an increasingly sprawling set of goals while bickering leaders competed to see who could offer the most contentious soundbite.

Normally this is an arena that would be dominated by Donald Trump, although this time he was somewhat upstaged by Emmanuel Macron, whose pre-summit declaration that the organisation had become “brain dead” obliged Trump to describe his French counterpart’s comments as “very, very nasty”.

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Milan Kundera’s Czech citizenship restored after 40 years

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The Unbearable Lightness of Being’s author has lived in France since fleeing communism in 1975, and has previously questioned ‘the notion of home’

After more than 40 years in exile, Milan Kundera, the Czech-born author of The Unbearable Lightness of Being, has been given back the citizenship of his homeland.

Petr Drulák, the Czech Republic’s ambassador to France, told public television he visited the 90-year-old author in his Paris apartment last Thursday to hand deliver his citizenship certificate.

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Trump blasts Macron over ‘brain dead’ Nato remarks

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US president calls French leader’s comments ‘nasty’ and says Paris could leave alliance

Donald Trump has lashed out at Emmanuel Macron on the first morning of a two-day Nato meeting, saying the French president’s description of Nato as brain dead was insulting and a “very, very nasty statement”.

At a news conference alongside the Nato secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, the US president also accused Macron of trying to break away from Nato, as well as running a failing economy – while discarding the fact he himself has described Nato as obsolete on previous occasions.

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Heavy flooding hits southern France after week of torrential rain – video

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Three emergency workers were killed in a helicopter crash near Marseille while on a rescue mission in southern France where floods have left two people dead, officials have said. The Var and the neighbouring Alpes-Maritimes region were on red alert for floods that disrupted train services and cut the A8 motorway for four hours on Sunday evening.

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French floods: five dead after three rescue workers killed in helicopter crash

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Three emergency workers killed in Marseille while two men died in the French Riviera

Three emergency workers were killed in a helicopter crash near Marseille while on a rescue mission in southern France where floods have left two dead, officials have said.

Their EC145 helicopter lost radio and radar contact while on a rescue and reconnaissance flight in the Var region on Sunday night.

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Macron defends ‘brain-dead Nato’ remarks as summit approaches

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French president says comments ‘a necessary wake-up call’ and criticises Turkey

Emmanuel Macron has said his claim this month that Nato was “brain-dead” was a necessary wake-up call before a summit in London next week at which he will urge members of the alliance to take a greater interest in its southern flank, including the fight against terrorism in the Sahel.

The French president defended his comments in Paris alongside the Nato secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, who had previously warned Macron not to expect that a European defence formation could replace the Nato transatlantic structure.

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Helicopter collision kills 13 French troops pursuing militants in Mali

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Complex military operations in desert north of Mali have been described as game of cat and mouse

Thirteen French troops were killed in a midair collision between two helicopters in Mali on Monday night as they fought Islamic militants in the west African country.

The French president, Emmanuel Macron, expressed his “deep sadness” at the crash, stressing the “courage of the French soldiers” in what he called the “hard fight against terrorism” in west Africa’s Sahel region. It was the biggest loss of French troops in a single day since an attack in Beirut 36 years ago when 58 soldiers died.

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Merde! French farmer ordered to pay €8,000 over smelly cows

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Nicolas Bardy says decision by France’s highest court is ‘stupidity pushed to its limit’

A French farmer has been ordered to pay €8,000 (£6,835) after neighbours complained about the smell from his herd of cows, bringing to an end a 10-year legal battle.

Nicolas Bardy, whose family have farmed cattle at Lacapelle-Viescamp in the Cantal, in south-central France, for six generations, was accused of stocking bales of hay too close to his retired neighbours’ home, causing “strong irritating odours”.

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Storms in France, Greece and Italy leave ‘biblical destruction’

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Seven people die as weekend of heavy rain brings landslides, floods and collapsed overpass

Seven people have died as violent storms swept through parts of France, Greece and Italy over the weekend, causing flash floods, landslides and the collapse of an overpass.

Greek media described the storms as leaving a trail of “biblical destruction” in some areas of the country while the overpass collapse in northern Italy brought back a chilling reminder of Genoa’s Morandi bridge giving way during a thunderstorm in August 2018, killing 43 people.

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‘France’s shame’: thousands protest against gender violence

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More than 100 women in France have been killed by a current or former partner this year

Several thousand people marched in France on Saturday to protest against alarming levels of deadly domestic violence against women, which the president, Emmanuel Macron, has called “France’s shame”.

The biggest rallies were in Paris. The streets of the capital became a sea of purple and white as thousands marched carrying banners, placards and flags calling for an end to femicide.

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France: pregnant woman killed by dogs during hunt with hounds

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Animal rights activists urge halt to hunting season after body found near Villers-Cotterêts

A pregnant woman has been killed by dogs while walking her own dog in a forest in northern France during a hunt with hounds, investigators have said.

The body of the 29-year-old woman was found on Saturday in a forest outside the town of Villers-Cotterêts, about 90km (55 miles) north-east of Paris, the prosecutor’s office in nearby Soissons said.

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Ducks in a row: French farmer wins dispute over quacking

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New neighbours of smallholding failed in €5,200 claim for lost sleep due to loud birds

The ducks on a smallholding in south-west France will live to quack another day.

In another symbolic story of the disharmony between town and country folk, a French court has ruled that the noise from the flock kept by a retired farmer does not warrant them being silenced permanently.

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French bridge collapse kills 15-year-old girl

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Several feared missing after suspension bridge falls into river near Toulouse

A 15-year-old girl was killed after a suspension bridge over a river in south-west France collapsed, causing a car, a truck and possibly a third vehicle to plunge into the water, local authorities said.

Four people were rescued but several others were feared missing after the collapse of the bridge between Mirepoix-sur-Tarn and Bessières, 18 miles north of Toulouse, said the Haute-Garonne department’s security chief, Étienne Guyot.

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Black-clad youths clash with police as gilets jaunes mark anniversary

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Police forces fire teargas and water cannon against protesters in French capital

The gilets jaunes (yellow vests) movement marked a year of weekend demonstrations with protests across France. In Paris, groups of black-clad youths caused damages at a central square, smashing bus shelters, a bank and torching vehicles.

Police responded by firing teargas and using water cannon against the protesters, only a few of whom were wearing the yellow vests affiliated with the movement. French media blamed “ultra radical” black bloc protesters for the violence.

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Notre Dame fire: row as general tells architect to ‘shut his mouth’

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Army general rebuked after lashing out at chief architect over cathedral rebuild plans

The French government has rebuked the army general charged with the rebuilding of the fire-ravaged Notre Dame Cathedral after he told the chief architect to “shut his mouth”, in a sign of tensions over the cathedral’s future appearance.

Gen Jean-Louis Georgelin lost his cool with Philippe Villeneuve in a dispute over whether to replace the spire, which collapsed in the fire in April, with an exact replica or a modern alternative.

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France puzzled over ‘very pure’ cocaine washing up on Atlantic coast

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Rennes’ public prosecutor warns people who spot packages to refrain from touching them

French police are investigating how a “significant amount” of cocaine and other drugs have washed up on beaches along the Atlantic coast in recent weeks. New packages continue to appear daily.

The cocaine is particularly pure and therefore dangerous, according to the prosecutor’s office in the western city of Rennes, who urged people who spot packages not to touch them but immediately call the police.

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Russian professor found with woman’s arms admits murder

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Napoleonic expert Oleg Sokolov fell in river trying to dispose of body parts in St Petersburg

A prominent Russian history professor has confessed to murdering his young lover and former student and dismembering her body in a gruesome crime that has sent shockwaves across Russia.

Oleg Sokolov, a 63-year-old expert on Napoleon Bonaparte who received France’s Legion of Honour from Jacques Chirac in 2003, was arrested on Saturday on suspicion of murder after he was hauled out of the icy Moika River with a backpack containing a woman’s arms.

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Woman accuses Roman Polanski of raping her in 1975 when she was 18

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Film director denies claim by Valentine Monnier about alleged incident at ski resort

A Frenchwoman has accused Oscar-winning director Roman Polanski of raping her in a Swiss ski resort when she was a teenager.

It is the latest accusation against the Polish-born director who fled from the US to France in 1978 after admitting the statutory rape of a 13-year-old girl.

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Macron warns of Nato ‘brain death’ as US turns its back on allies

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French president says in interview that Europe is in danger of disappearing geopolitically

Emmanuel Macron has said Nato is in the throes of “brain death” and European countries can no longer rely on the US to defend its allies, drawing criticism from both the US and Germany.

“What we are currently experiencing is the brain death of Nato,” the French president told the Economist in an interview. “You have no coordination whatsoever of strategic decision-making between the United States and its Nato allies. None. You have an uncoordinated aggressive action by another Nato ally, Turkey, in an area where our interests are at stake.”

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Hundreds of migrants removed from makeshift camps in Paris – video

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French police officers have begun clearing more than 1,000 migrants and refugees from a makeshift camp in northern Paris, where they had been sleeping rough in squalid conditions for months. The move comes after the country’s centrist government set out Emmanuel Macron’s tougher stance on immigration this week and vowed to clear the camps

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