Former French president’s bike, on which he was snapped riding to visit his lover in 2014, sells for double its listed price
It was the vehicle that sparked a French presidential scandal, the end of a secret love affair and legal action from a bodyguard nicknamed “Croissant Man”.
The former French president François Hollande’s scooter was sold for more than €20,000 (£17,000) at auction this weekend, double its listed price and many times more its secondhand value.
Continue reading...French far right leader suggests alliance of ID and ECR groups, including Italian PM’s Brothers of Italy
The French far-right leader Marine Le Pen has suggested the Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, join forces with her in a new alliance, as the EU’s resurgent but divided nationalist parties gear up for European parliamentary elections next month.
The move came as European centre-left parties reiterated a warning to the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, that they would not support her bid for a second term if it entailed the backing of hard-right parties – including Meloni’s.
Continue reading...Event aims to reverse decline in local people visiting boulevard, which has become hub for wealthy tourists and designer stores
Thousands of people have gathered on the Champs-Élysées for a giant free picnic organised by a committee of local traders and businesses fighting to halt the slow decline of the boulevard long known as “the most beautiful avenue in the world”.
Once a favourite haunt of Parisians, the Champs-Élysées has in recent years been steadily abandoned by local people as popular stores and cinemas have given way to luxury boutiques and the avenue has become the preserve of wealthy tourists.
Continue reading...The bills of fare for dinners with kings, presidents and dictators show how tastes have changed over 150 years
On Friday, 22 May 1896, guests of Queen Victoria at Windsor Castle had a lot on their plates. A handwritten menu shows “Her Majesty’s Dinner” offered soup with vermicelli, trout meunière, boudin (black pudding), quails, ducklings and spinach with croutons followed by peaches and cream, then cheese. For those still peckish, hot and cold meats including pork tongue and beef were laid out on a side table.
The finely decorated card is one of 4,600 menus in a unique collection being sold in Paris on Friday, spanning 150 years of high-society dining from the late 19th century.
Continue reading...Police officer detained after shooting of 48-year-old man as death toll reaches seven following days of upheaval linked to proposed voting changes
Penny Wong, the Australian foreign minister, has said that “282 Australians and their family members have now returned from New Caledonia.”
“We are planning further flights from Noumea tomorrow,” she added.
Continue reading...Organisers expect 75% of identified bacterial pollution will be gone by the time the starting gun fires for the open water events
Beside a sign saying “No swimming”, Pierre Fuzeau defiantly pulled on his swimming cap, slipped into the green water of the Ourcq canal on Paris’s northern edge, and set off with a strong front-crawl.
The 66-year-old company director regularly joins his open-water swimming group for well-organised illegal dips, including in the River Seine, where swimming has been banned since 1923 largely as a result of the health risk from unclean water and bacteria from human waste.
Continue reading...Three top officers close to Bashar al-Assad are on trial in absentia over the deaths of a student and his father
Witnesses have told a Paris court how children and elderly people considered enemies of the ruling Syrian regime were tortured in a notorious military prison, at the trial of three high-ranking officers close to the country’s president, Bashar al-Assad.
The three are being tried in absentia for crimes against humanity and war crimes in connection with the deaths of two French-Syrian dual nationals, Patrick Dabbagh, a 20-year-old student, and his father, 48.
Continue reading...President promises talks as he seeks to quell serious unrest over plans to enfranchise French nationals in Pacific territory
The French president, Emmanuel Macron, has vowed not to force through voting change in the Pacific territory of New Caledonia after anger over the plans sparked more than a week of unrest, arson and looting that left six people dead and hundreds injured.
“I have pledged that this reform will not be forced through in the current context,” Macron said as he made a visit to New Caledonia. He said more talks were needed and he would review the situation within a month.
Continue reading...Maximilian Krah’s SS remark highlights growing divisions within European far-right and nationalist groups
The lead candidate for Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) in the European parliamentary election has resigned from the German far-right party’s leadership, as growing divisions between Europe’s nationalist parties threaten to undermine their expected gains in next month’s ballot.
Maximilian Krah, who last weekend told the Italian newspaper La Repubblica that the SS, the Nazis’ main paramilitary force, were “not all criminals”, said in a statement on Wednesday that his comments were “being misused as a pretext to damage our party”.
Continue reading...Reports say investigators looking into possibility that Russian security services ordered vandalism in Paris
France is investigating whether graffiti painted on the wall of Paris’s Holocaust memorial last week was a destabilisation operation coordinated from Russia, French media have reported.
On the morning of 14 May, about 20 spray-painted red hand symbols were discovered on one of the memorial’s exterior walls, which is dedicated to honouring individuals who saved Jews from persecution during the Nazi occupation of France.
Continue reading...More than 100 Australians and other tourists were airlifted to Brisbane amid deadly riots and unrest in the Pacific nation
More than 100 Australians and other tourists have landed in Brisbane from New Caledonia after the government arranged two repatriation flights due to the worsening security situation in the Pacific island nation.
In a statement on X, foreign minister Penny Wong said 108 Australians and others had arrived back in Australia on Tuesday night on the government assisted-departure flights after riots in the former French territory left six dead and a trail of looted shops, torched cars and road barricades.
Continue reading...French leader to leave for archipelago on Tuesday night with intention of restoring ‘calm and order’
The French president will travel to the Pacific island of New Caledonia on Tuesday, just over a week after riots erupted in the French overseas territory leaving six dead and hundreds injured.
The unrest over plans for an electoral overhaul has resulted in dozens of shops and businesses being looted and burned, with cars torched and road barricades set up. A state of emergency and curfew remain in place, with army reinforcements.
Continue reading...Ali Abbasi’s film, starring Sebastian Stan, presents a fictionalised account of an incident recorded in Ivana Trump’s 1990 divorce deposition, and since retracted
Donald Trump is depicted as a rapist who assaulted his first wife, Ivana, in a new biopic, The Apprentice, which has its world premiere in competition at this year’s Cannes film festival on Monday. Directed by the Iranian-Danish film-maker Ali Abbasi, the drama provides a fictionalised account of a 1989 incident that was previously detailed in the couple’s divorce proceedings.
The scene, which occurs near the end of The Apprentice, depicts Trump reacting with fury after Ivana disparages his physical appearance. “You have a face like a fucking orange,” she tells him. “You’re getting fat, you’re getting ugly, and you’re getting bald.” The future president is then shown forcing his wife to the floor and raping her. “Did I find your G-spot?” he asks in the film.
Continue reading...French forces launch operation on Sunday to regain access to parts of Nouméa and allow airport to reopen
The French president, Emmanuel Macron, has called a meeting of his defence and security council to discuss the deadly unrest in the Pacific territory of New Caledonia.
It is the third such meeting in less than week, the previous two having resulted in the decision to declare a state of emergency in the French territory and then to send reinforcements to help government forces on the ground restore order.
Continue reading...Hundreds of Australian and New Zealand travellers are stuck in the French Pacific territory where protests and violence are preventing access to the airport
Hundreds of Australian and New Zealand tourists stranded in New Caledonia amid deadly unrest are anxiously waiting on French authorities to allow air travel out of the territory, as their governments stand by to bring them home.
French security forces are working to retake control of the highway to the international airport in New Caledonia, shuttered because of violent unrest in the French Pacific territory.
Continue reading...Passengers were left abandoned and humiliated after operator banned staff from providing assistance
Eurostar has reversed a new accessibility policy that left a wheelchair user stranded and has retrained its London staff following pressure from the Observer.
Travellers with disabilities claimed that they would be barred from Eurostar services after the company banned its London staff from pushing passenger wheelchairs. Those who require assistance were told they must travel with a companion or cancel their ticket if they were unable to access services unaided, according to passengers who contacted the Observer.
Continue reading...Prosecution of three high-ranking Syrian officials to be tried in absentia could pave way for president’s case
At midnight on 3 November 2013, five Syrian officials dragged arts and humanities student Patrick Dabbagh from his home in the Mezzeh district of Damascus.
The following day, at the same hour, the same men, including a representative of the Syrian air force’s intelligence unit, returned with a dozen soldiers to arrest the 20-year-old’s father Mazzen.
Continue reading...‘Bakery scent’ added via microcapsules to postage stamp celebrating ‘jewel of French culture’
The French Post Office has released a scratch-and-sniff postage stamp to celebrate the baguette, once described by President Emmanuel Macron as “250 grams of magic and perfection”.
The stamp, which costs €1.96, depicts a baguette decorated with a red, white and blue ribbon. It has a print run of 594,000 copies.
Continue reading...Speaking at Cannes, the director says Megalopolis, his reworking of ancient Rome’s Catiline conspiracy, has become ever more prescient
Megalopolis review – Coppola’s passion project is megabloated and megaboring
The US, whose founders tried to emulate the laws and governmental structures of the Roman republic, is headed for a similarly self-inflicted collapse, director Francis Ford Coppola has said at the premiere of his first film in more than a decade.
“What’s happening in America, in our republic, in our democracy, is exactly how Rome lost their republic thousands of years ago,” Coppola told a press conference at the Cannes film festival on Friday. “Our politics has taken us to the point where we might lose our republic.”
Continue reading...Mayor calls for show of solidarity against attack after synagogue damaged in blaze amid rising antisemitism in France
French police shot dead a man armed with a knife and an iron bar who set fire to a synagogue in the Normandy city of Rouen on Friday.
The interior minister, Gérald Darmanin, travelling to visit the fire-damaged synagogue, said France was “deeply affected” by what he called an antisemitic act. He said the government was “extremely determined to continue to fully protect Jewish people in France, wherever they are, and Jews should practice their religion without fear”.
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