Artwork thought to be homage to the 90 people who died in an Islamist attack on Paris venue
A mural by British street artist Banksy on a fire-exit door at Paris’ Bataclan theatre, where Islamist militants killed 90 people three years ago, has been stolen, the venue has said.
The work, one of a series of murals painted last June in the French capital and attributed to Banksy, showed a veiled female figure in a mournful pose.
Continue reading...French composer won three Academy Awards, including for The Windmills of Your Mind
The French composer Michel Legrand, who won three Oscars during a career spanning more than half a century, has died aged 86, his spokesman said.
Related: Soundtrack legend Michel Legrand: 'I've been an adventurer!'
Continue reading...Group of historians and writers publish manifesto warning against rise of populism
Liberal values in Europe face a challenge “not seen since the 1930s”, leading intellectuals from 21 countries have said, as the UK lurches towards Brexit and nationalists look set to make sweeping gains in EU parliamentary elections.
The group of 30 writers, historians and Nobel laureates declared in a manifesto published in several newspapers, including the Guardian, that Europe as an idea was “coming apart before our eyes”.
Continue reading...Jean d’Orléans, descendant of Louis XIV’s brother, inherits a place in a theoretical tussle
The pretender to be French king is dead. Long live the other pretenders, all three.
France might have thought it had done with monarchs, first in 1793 when it sent Louis XVI to the guillotine during the French Revolution, and again when it exiled Napoleon III in 1870.
Continue reading...Romina Sala says she believes he is still alive after plane vanished over Channel Islands
The family of the footballer Emiliano Sala have pleaded for rescuers to continue searching for the player and a pilot after their light aircraft went missing over the Channel Islands.
Sala’s sister, Romina Sala, speaking after the search was called off, said she believed the Argentinian striker and the pilot Dave Ibbotson, from Lincolnshire, were still alive and in the Channel three days after their plane vanished.
Continue reading...Protest group in France says it wants to ‘transform the anger into a human political project’
The gilets jaunes (yellow vests) have named 10 candidates for the European parliament elections in May and called for more of their fellow demonstrators to put their names forward.
The French protest movement that, until now, has had no official leaders or formal organisation, announced on Wednesday that it would take part in the vote on 26 May after 10 weeks of occasionally violent demonstrations across the country.
Continue reading...Voicemail message revealed as police say chances of finding footballer alive are ‘slim’
The search for the plane carrying the Cardiff City footballer Emiliano Sala that went missing over the English Channel has resumed, amid only “slim” hopes he survived.
The aircraft, carrying Sala and the pilot, disappeared off Alderney in the Channel Islands on Monday night.
Continue reading...Macron and Merkel sign update to 1963 Élysée treaty in effort to mitigate populist party gains
France and Germany have renewed their vows of postwar friendship, aiming to show that the traditional engine powering the EU project is still strong but drawing fierce criticism from the nationalist and populist parties advancing across the continent.
President Emmanuel Macron and Chancellor Angela Merkel signed the 16-page update to the 1963 Elysée treaty on Tuesday in the German border city of Aachen, residence of Charlemagne, the “father of Europe” who managed to unite much of western the continent in the ninth century.
Continue reading...Italian deputy PM blames migrant crisis on France’s ‘colonisation’ of Africa
France’s foreign ministry has summoned the Italian ambassador in an escalating row over migrant arrivals in Europe that pits the centrist government of Emmanuel Macron against Italy’s far-right-populist coalition.
Teresa Castaldo was summoned over “hostile” remarks made by the Italian deputy prime minister, Luigi Di Maio.
Continue reading...Twenty-nine-year-old in custody with two others after woman files complaint
The American singer Chris Brown and two other people were held in custody in Paris after a woman filed a rape complaint.
Brown was detained on Monday on potential charges of aggravated rape and drug infractions, a French judicial official said. Investigators have two days to decide whether to let him go or file preliminary charges.
Continue reading...CNIL found that company failed to offer users transparent information on data use
The French data protection watchdog CNIL has fined Google a record €50m (£44m) for failing to provide users with transparent and understandable information on its data use policies.
For the first time, the company was fined using new terms laid out in the pan-European general data protection regulation. The maximum fine for large companies under the new law is 4% of annual turnover, meaning the theoretical maximum fine for Google is almost €4bn.
Continue reading...A collection of vintage ski and winter sports posters up to a century old – some worth thousands of dollars – is about to be auctioned in New York. The resorts advertised range from Europe’s Alpine jewels to the mountains of Canada, and all offer fun in the outdoors
Continue reading...Pre-dawn blaze injured 22 others and forced evacuation of 60 resort workers
Two people have died and 22 others have been injured after fire swept through a building in the French ski resort of Courchevel.
The fire spread rapidly after breaking out on an upper floor of the building, housing nearly 60 resort workers – many of them foreigners – some time after 4.30am on Sunday, forcing several residents to jump from windows.
Continue reading...Two people have died and a dozen more injured in a fire at the French ski resort of Courchevel, according to officials. A witness who was staying at a hotel opposite the burning building captured this footage of the pre-dawn fire
Continue reading...Court hears how Canadian woman was allegedly raped by terrorism officers at 36 Quai des Orfèves
Emily Spanton grew up with police officers – her father had been a high-ranking officer in the Toronto force – so when two French officers she met while drinking in a Paris bar invited her to see their famous headquarters, she agreed.
Spanton was, she says, drunk and shaky on her feet. “I knew I wasn’t in a state to find my hotel. And I thought that going to a police station would sober me up as there would be plenty of lights and people,” the Canadian said.
Continue reading...Video footage captured the moment an explosion took place on the top of a university in the French city of Lyon.
Police say the accident was caused by a gas bottle that exploded, causing a fire.
Continue reading...The French writer-director talks about his highly personal new show, a ‘dance of the dead’ that pays tribute to artistic heroes including Jacques Demy
Director Christophe Honoré still looks pained at the memory of the protests against gay marriage that rocked France seven years ago. The adoption of same-sex marriage in the country, a flagship policy that President François Hollande had campaigned on, was supposed to have been a smooth process. It became law in 2013, but only after a protracted backlash that saw hundreds of thousands take to the streets – more overall than the recent gilets jaunes (yellow vests) movement.
“I realised there was still a cloud of suspicion hanging over gay citizens,” says Honoré, best known internationally for comedies and musical films including 2007’s Love Songs. “I felt hurt, but also responsible, because in my work I’d never thought that gay visibility might still be important. I felt like I’d failed, like I’d deserted the fight the generation before me had led.”
Continue reading...French president wants 2,300-word missive to spark national debate about policy reform
Emmanuel Macron has launched a two-month “great national debate” in France with a 2,330-word open letter to the country.
The French president hopes the nationwide public consultation will take the sting out of the widespread public anger behind the rise of the gilets jaunes (yellow vests) movement and the civil unrest across France.
Continue reading...In France and Britain, gilets jaunes have mutated into symbols of anger against anything from austerity to Islam
What is not in dispute is who came first. On the French side of the channel lie the original gilets jaunes (yellow vests), a grassroots, social media-based citizens’ movement with no formal structure, recognised leader or party or union backing, named after the hi-visibility jackets that French drivers are required by law to carry in their vehicles.
As French yellow vests kicked off their ninth straight weekend of protests against President Emmanuel Macron’s economic policies, a battle for ownership of what has become an symbol of anti-government agitation across Europe has broken out in Britain as leftwing anti-austerity activists donned yellow in a bid to wrestle it from the far-right.
Continue reading...Marches across France take place on the ninth weekend of gilets jaunes demonstrations
Gilets jaunes protesters engaged in a ninth weekend of protests all over France on Saturday as the president, Emmanuel Macron, prepared to stake his political future on an open letter to the French people and a national debate.
Officials said that at least 84,000 demonstrators turned out across France, thousands more than last weekend, with about 8,000 of those in Paris where protests passed “without serious incident”. Gilets jaunes – named after the hi-vis yellow vests French motorists must carry in their vehicles – said the number was higher but did not give a figure.
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