Category Archives: France

D-day memories highlight UK military’s vastly changed role

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In a post-Brexit world British forces will be operating under different rules of engagement

It was impossible not to be moved by the dignity of the diminishing band of D-day veterans in Normandy, 75 years after “the longest day” led to the opening of a new western front that helped bring about Adolf Hitler’s downfall.

Men like Kenneth Hay, who read a poem, Normandy, by another veteran, Cyril Crain, to the congregation at Bayeux Cathedral. As he spoke its concluding words, “When my life is over and I reach the other side, I’ll meet my friends from Normandy and shake their hands with pride”, his voice began to break.

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Trump arrives for D-day ceremony in Normandy – live news

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Follow live updates as world leaders join veterans to mark the 75th anniversary of the D-day landings in Normandy

The Élysée Palace is live streaming the ceremony.

EN DIRECT | Cérémonie franco-américaine au cimetière américain, Colleville-sur-Mer. #DDay75https://t.co/zh7bfyDifa

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Renault-Fiat Chrysler merger collapses

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French government blamed as €33bn deal to create world’s third largest carmaker stalls

The proposed €33bn merger of Fiat Chrysler and Renault has collapsed after an intervention from the French government, Renault’s biggest shareholder.

Fiat Chrysler, an Italian-American company, withdrew from a 50-50 merger proposal for its French rival after a board meeting on Wednesday. A deal would have created the world’s third-largest carmaker behind Volkswagen and Toyota.

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British soldier taking part in Normandy D-day commemorations drowns

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Darren Jones pulled from canal that was first site liberated by second world war allies in 1944

A British soldier taking part in commemorations of the 75th anniversary of D-day has drowned at a historic second world war battle site in Normandy.

L/Cpl Darren Jones, 30, of the Royal Engineers was declared dead after firefighters pulled him from a canal at Bénouville near Pegasus Bridge, the first site liberated by the allies on 6 June 1944.

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D-day remembered: a series of interviews on the 75th anniversary

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The stories of those who were there on 6 June 1944 and others involved in this week’s commemorations

Thousands of people are preparing to mark the 75th anniversary of the D-day landings at commemoration events in the UK and France this week. Senior politicians and members of the royal family as well as hundreds of veterans will attend ceremonies to mark one of the main turning points of the second world war and the biggest amphibious invasion in military history.

More than 200 veterans have boarded a cruise ship, MV Boudicca, charted by the Royal British Legion, to attend the events, while others are descending en masse on Portsmouth and Normandy. Here we hear the stories of those who were there on 6 June 1944 and others involved in this week’s commemorations.

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Injured gilets jaunes protest in Paris against police violence

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‘March of the mutilated’ calls for ban on use of explosive grenades and rubber bullets

About 200 gilets jaunes have staged a “march of the mutilated” through central Paris. Among them were people seriously injured in demonstrations since the movement started last November.

Several had lost an eye or limb in clashes with riot police. The marchers called for an end to “repressive ultra-violence” and a ban on police use of explosive grenades and rubber bullets.

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Briton convicted of 1996 murder of French film-maker in Ireland

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Ian Bailey, who lives in Ireland, convicted in his absence of killing Sophie Toscan du Plantier

A court in France has found Ian Bailey, a British former journalist, guilty of murdering Sophie Toscan du Plantier, a French film-maker who was battered to death in Ireland.

The cour d’assises in Paris on Friday sentenced Bailey to 25 years for the brutal murder in west Cork in 1996, an infamous cold case that has confounded Irish authorities and divided public opinion over Bailey’s guilt or innocence.

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Eiffel Tower zipline offers a birds-eye view of Paris – video

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A zipline ride from the Paris landmark is providing an opportunity to speed across the Paris skyline at 90km (56 miles) per hour. The temporary zipline is an initiative by French mineral water brand Perrier to celebrate the French Open. It also coincides with the 130th anniversary of the Eiffel Tower. From 29 May to 2 June, members of the public will be selected through an online draw on social media for a chance to take the 800-metre journey, which ends at the École Militaire

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French police arrest three over Lyon bomb blast

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Algerian student, his mother and friend apprehended after explosion leaves 13 wounded

French police have arrested three people over an explosion in the heart of the city of Lyon last week that injured 13 people.

According to Paris prosecutors, the suspected bomber is a 24-year-old Algerian citizen, who was arrested along with his mother and another Algerian friend. Police have also questioned the main suspect’s sister.

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France opposes death penalty for French Isis fighters in Iraq

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Foreign ministry says it is opposed to the death penalty ‘at all times and in all places’

France has confirmed it will take “the necessary steps” to try to prevent Iraq carrying out the death penalty against French citizens convicted of fighting with Islamic State.

“France is opposed in principle to the death penalty at all times and in all places,” the French foreign ministry said on Monday, as an Iraqi court sentenced a fourth French citizen to death, a day after handing capital punishment sentences to three others.

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Fiat Chrysler proposes merger with Renault to reshape car industry

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Deal would create world’s third-largest automaker and ‘save €5bn a year’ by sharing research

Fiat Chrysler has proposed a merger with France’s Renault that would create the world’s third-largest carmaker and save billions needed to invest in the race to make electric and autonomous vehicles.

The merged company would produce 8.7m vehicles annually and save €5bn ($5.6bn or £4.4bn) each year by sharing research, purchasing and other activities, according to a statement released by Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA). It said the deal would involve no plant closures but did not address potential job cuts.

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Greens surge as parties make strongest ever showing across Europe

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Party could hold balance of power in EU parliament with projected 71 MEPs

Green parties have swept to their strongest ever showing in European elections, boosting their tally of MEPs to a projected 71 compared with 52 last time and giving themselves every chance of becoming kingmakers in a newly fragmented parliament.

“Thank you so much for your trust in us Greens,” a delighted Ska Keller, one of the European Greens’ two lead candidates for the post of European commission president, told a press conference in Brussels.

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‘They’re going to bonfire me’: French trial for Briton over film-maker’s death

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Death of Sophie Toscan du Plantier in west Cork in 1996 and protracted, bungled investigation has gripped Ireland

After 23 years of trying to clear his name, Ian Bailey is bracing for the appellation he has always dreaded: convicted murderer.

A court in Paris is due to try the English former journalist this week for the 1996 murder of the French film-maker Sophie Toscan du Plantier in west Cork, a bucolic Atlantic region known as the Irish riviera.

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Iraq sentences three French citizens to death for joining Isis

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Human rights groups have criticised the country’s trials of fighters captured in Syria

An Iraqi court has sentenced three French citizens to death after they were found guilty of joining Islamic State, a court official said.

Captured in Syria by a US-backed force fighting the jihadists, they are the first French Isis members to receive death sentences in Iraq, where they were transferred for trial.

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Final votes cast as EU awaits parliamentary election results

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France, Germany, Italy and others go to polls on Sunday, with gains expected for nationalist parties

The western world’s largest democratic exercise is nearing its finale as tens of millions of EU citizens in 21 countries go to the polls on Sunday, the last of four days of voting in European parliament elections that will shape the bloc’s future.

Polls suggest the vote will produce a more fragmented parliament than ever before, with the two centre-right and centre-left groups that have dominated Europe’s politics forecast to lose their joint majority for the first time, and nationalist and populist forces to make gains.

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Refugee jailed for smuggling injured niece into UK reunited with family

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Home Office releases Najat Ibrahim Ismail, an Iraqi Kurd who faced deportation three times

A man who brought his baby niece to the UK from a French refugee camp after she sustained serious burns has been released from detention and reunited with his family.

Najat Ibrahim Ismail, 32, an Iraqi Kurd, faced three attempts by the Home Office to put him on a plane to Iraq in recent weeks. He is married to a British woman, Emma Ismail, and has three young British children, including a 10-year-old son who has autism.

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Police seek suspect after package bomb explosion in France

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Twelve people injured in incident described by Emmanuel Macron as an attack

Police in France were hunting a suspect following a blast in a pedestrian street in the heart of Lyon that wounded more than a dozen people just two days before the country’s fiercely contested European parliament elections.

The president, Emmanuel Macron, called Friday’s explosion, apparently from a package packed with shrapnel and placed in the street, an “attack” and sent his interior minister, Christophe Castaner, to Lyon.

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Lyon bombing described by Emmanuel Macron as an ‘attack’ – video

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French police have evacuated a pedestrian street in the heart of Lyon after more than a dozen people were wounded in a suspected package bomb blast. President Emmanuel Macron, who was beginning a broadcast address as news of the explosion broke, described the incident as an "attack" with no fatalities

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Woman, 102, suspected of killing care home neighbour, 92

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The suspect, who told staff she had ‘killed someone’, has been placed in psychiatric care after the incident in France

A woman aged 102 has been placed in psychiatric care in north-eastern France after she was suspected of murdering her 92-year-old neighbour in a care home, prosecutors said.

The victim was found dead on Saturday night in her room at the care home in the town of Chezy-sur-Marne. Her face was swollen.

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