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
Continue reading...Category Archives: France
French police arrest three over Lyon bomb blast
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.
Continue reading...France opposes death penalty for French Isis fighters in Iraq
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.
Continue reading...Fiat Chrysler proposes merger with Renault to reshape car industry
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.
Continue reading...Greens surge as parties make strongest ever showing across Europe
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.
Continue reading...‘They’re going to bonfire me’: French trial for Briton over film-maker’s death
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.
Continue reading...Iraq sentences three French citizens to death for joining Isis
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.
Continue reading...Final votes cast as EU awaits parliamentary election results
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.
Continue reading...Refugee jailed for smuggling injured niece into UK reunited with family
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.
Continue reading...Police seek suspect after package bomb explosion in France
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.
Continue reading...Lyon bombing described by Emmanuel Macron as an ‘attack’ – video
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
Woman, 102, suspected of killing care home neighbour, 92
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.
Continue reading...Eiffel Tower closed after man tries to climb Paris landmark
Firefighters at scene as intruder seen dangling near top of tower
The Eiffel Tower has been evacuated after a man tried to scale it.
The man could be seen dangling just below the third and highest level of the structure. A rescuer dressed in red could be seen above him.
Continue reading...From bleak to bustling: how one French town beat the high street blues
Mulhouse has turned around its image and now boasts more shops opening than closing, thanks to smart planning, investment and community efforts
On a lane in what was once considered eastern France’s grimmest town, a street artist is up a ladder finishing a mural, the independent bookshop has a queue at the till, the organic cooperative is full of customers and Séverine Liebold’s arty independent tea shop is doing a brisk trade.
When Liebold opened Tilvist in Mulhouse three years ago, in a space that had been vacant for years, friends tried to persuade her against it. “They said: ‘Not Mulhouse, look elsewhere,’” she recalls. “But I stuck with my instinct, and I was right.”
Continue reading...European companies can’t compete against global giants
Finance ministers say Europe is increasingly dependent on Chinese and US technology
It boasts the world’s second biggest economy, a huge consumer market of about 500 million people and prodigious pools of talent and capital, not to mention two of the world’s most important financial centres.
But Europe is struggling to match its great rivals, the US and China, in creating the kind of global firms that increasingly dominate the 21st-century marketplace.
Continue reading...Fugitive ex-Eta leader Josu Ternera arrested in France
Basque terrorist group’s former political chief tracked down after 16 years on the run
A former leader of the Basque terrorist group Eta has been arrested in France after spending more than 16 years on the run, the Spanish government said on Thursday.
Jose Antonio Urrutikoetxea Bengoetxea, better known as Josu Ternera, was once Eta’s political chief.
Continue reading...Leaders and tech firms pledge to tackle extremist violence online
Jacinda Ardern and Emmanuel Macron met companies and G7 nations in Paris for Christchurch Call summit
World leaders and heads of global technology companies have pledged at a Paris summit to tackle terrorist and extremist violence online in what they described as an “unprecedented agreement”.
Wednesday’s event, organised two months to the day since the Christchurch massacre in New Zealand, drew up a “plan of action” to be adopted by countries and companies to prevent extreme material going viral on the internet.
Continue reading...Marine Le Pen makes ‘OK’ hand gesture used by white supremacists
France’s far-right National Rally leader asks ally to remove controversial selfie from Facebook
Marine Le Pen, the leader of France’s far-right National Rally, has asked an Estonian ally to remove a selfie from Facebook in which the pair made a controversial “OK” hand gesture, which has been linked to white-power messaging.
Le Pen was in Tallinn to meet MPs from Estonia’s far-right EKRE party, which recently became part of the country’s coalition government, as part of cross-continent negotiations on setting up a new bloc of nationalist and far-right forces after European elections next week.
Continue reading...Cannes festival in row after director and baby blocked from Palais entry
British film-maker claims she was denied access to Marché du Film, then told to pay fee for baby and wait two days for it to be processed
The Cannes film festival has been criticised for its treatment of mothers and babies after a female director claimed she and her child were prevented from entering the festival site.
British director Greta Bellamacina, whose film Hurt By Paradise is screening in the market section of the festival, said the festival had displayed an “outrageous” attitude after she attempted to enter the festival with her four-month son.
Continue reading...Rooftop pool? Notre Dame proposals defy traditionalists
Designs from architects around world also suggest glass, crystal and metal spires
An architecture firm has proposed replacing the roof of Notre Dame Cathedral with a swimming pool, as France prepares to launch an international competition to restore the fire-damaged gothic edifice to its former glory.
After the roof and spire of Notre Dame were damaged in a fire watched worldwide in April, the French president, Emmanuel Macron, said he was open to a “contemporary gesture” in rebuilding it “more beautiful than before”, and the prime Minister, Edouard Philippe, called for a new spire “adapted to the techniques and the challenges of our era”.
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