Officials have agreed to begin offshore interceptions, it is claimed, in change of policy that NGOs say will risk lives
The French government plans to begin intercepting small boats carrying asylum seekers even if they are already at sea, a Home Office source has said.
In a move that NGOs claim will endanger lives, it was claimed that French officials agreed this week to draw up plans to begin intervening in waters close to beaches and inland canals.
Continue reading...Parent company Aylo criticizes requirement that adult website visitors must confirm age with credit card or ID document
French visitors to the adult sites Pornhub, Youporn and RedTube will on Wednesday be greeted with a message denouncing the country’s age verification requirements, the company said on Tuesday.
Parent company Aylo, in reaction to a French law requiring adult sites to take extra steps to verify that their users are 18 or older, will stop operating in France, a spokesperson said.
Continue reading...Vehicles torched in French capital and football supporters clash with police following match in Munich
Two people have died and hundreds have been arrested amid violence on the streets of France, which have marred Paris Saint-Germain’s Champions League final victory and provoked political recriminations.
Cars were torched as flares and fireworks were set off while supporters clashed with police in the French capital on Saturday night after the match in Munich.
Continue reading...Police on the Champs-Élysées use teargas and pepper spray to keep order after huge crowds had gathered for game
At least 81 people have been arrested after violent clashes in Paris after huge crowds of fans gathered to watch PSG’s victory over Inter Milan in the Champions League final.
The club’s Parc des Princes stadium was transformed into a fan zone for the night to screen the match, which took place in Munich, with about 48,000 attending.
Continue reading...Image on street incorporates shadow of a bollard alongside words ‘I want to be what you saw in me’
Banksy has posted an image of a new artwork that appears to be in Marseille, in southern France, though its exact location has not been confirmed.
The characteristic image, posted on the artist’s Instagram account, transforms the shadow of a street bollard into the form of a lighthouse. Stencilled across it are the words “I want to be what you saw in me”.
Continue reading...Caroline Darian tells Hay festival that pornography websites are ‘part of the system’ of misogyny and violence
There is “no way” that Gisèle Pelicot would have been raped more than 200 times without the existence of pornography websites, her daughter has said.
Speaking at the Hay festival in Powys on Thursday, Caroline Darian said there were “so many social problems like online porn” that can lead to instances of abuse.
Continue reading...Court decision in favour of Alice Bouilliez reignites push for bilateral treaty on electoral enfranchisement
A French court has ordered electoral officials to restore a British woman’s pre-Brexit right to vote in European elections, triggering calls for a renewed push for a bilateral treaty on electoral enfranchisement in each other’s countries.
Alice Bouilliez, a former British civil servant who has lived in France for 38 years, said she was “extremely surprised” but delighted that the court in Auch in south-west France had ordered that the authorities put her name back on the electoral register for the EU elections.
Continue reading...Wall Street up in early trading after US president commends bloc for calling to ‘quickly establish meeting dates’
Donald Trump has indicated there has been progress in US trade talks with the EU, helping send share prices rising on Wall Street, after he commended the bloc for calling to “quickly establish meeting dates”.
“I have just been informed that the EU has called to quickly establish meeting dates. This is a positive event, and I hope that they will,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform on Tuesday, saying the EU would be “very happy and successful” if it agreed a deal.
Continue reading...Bill passed by lower house 305-199, backed by centrist MPs and leftwing parties while most on right opposed it
France’s parliament has voted in favour of a bill to legalise assisted dying, paving the way for caregivers to help patients end their lives under what campaigners say would still be some of the strictest conditions in Europe.
After a sometimes emotional session, deputies passed the first reading of the bill by a vote of 305 to 199. They also unanimously backed a less contentious law establishing a right to palliative care in specialist end-of-life institutions.
Continue reading...Documents suggest campaign to discredit revelation that tests contaminated many more people than acknowledged
France’s Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) has spent tens of thousands of euros in an effort to counter research revealing that Paris has consistently underestimated the devastating impact of its nuclear tests in French Polynesia in the 1960s and 1970s.
Days before a parliamentary inquiry presents its report on the tests, documents obtained by the investigative outlet Disclose, and seen by Le Monde and the Guardian, suggest the CEA ran a concerted campaign to discredit the revelations.
Continue reading...French president denies quarrelling with Brigitte Macron after footage is seized on by Russia and far-right accounts
Emmanuel Macron has denied he and his wife, Brigitte, had an altercation after a viral video promoted by Russian state media and French far-right accounts appeared to show her pushing him in the face as they prepared to get off a plane in Vietnam.
The video, shot by an Associated Press camera operator, shows the French president appearing in the doorway of the plane at the start of a visit to Hanoi. His wife’s hand appears to shove him, causing him to step back before recovering and waving.
Continue reading...The German-French documentarian, who fled the Nazis twice as a child, spent his career exploring wartime atrocities and conflicts around the world
Marcel Ophuls, the Oscar-winning French film-maker whose documentary The Sorrow and the Pity uncovered the truth of the Vichy government’s collaboration with Nazi Germany during the second world war, has died aged 97.
Ophuls “died peacefully” on Saturday, his grandson Andreas-Benjamin Seyfert confirmed on Monday.
Continue reading...Three pensioners and a man in his 30s jailed as four others convicted of related charges
Four men have been found guilty of breaking into a luxury residence in Paris and stealing jewellery worth millions of euros from the American reality TV star Kim Kardashian when she attended fashion week in 2016.
Three pensioners and one man in his 30s were convicted of carrying out the armed heist, which was thought to be the biggest robbery of an individual in France in 20 years. Four other people were found guilty of assisting in the plot or related charges. Two people were acquitted of accusations they handed out information about Kardashian’s whereabouts.
Continue reading...Israeli leader’s antisemitism claim labelled defamatory as he is warned against pursuing a war without end
Benjamin Netanyahu was accused of slander and pursuing a war without end after he claimed the leaders of France, Canada and the UK were stoking antisemitism and siding with Hamas by demanding he end the two-month blockade of food and aid into Gaza.
In what has become an extraordinary standoff with some of Israel’s closest allies, Netanyahu appeared to deliberately raise the stakes on Thursday night by accusing his western critics of abandoning Israel in a war for its very existence.
Continue reading...Ten others on board asked to be rescued after small boat carrying 80 migrants set off from northern France
Two people have died attempting to cross the Channel in the early hours of Wednesday, according to the French rescue service. It follows a similar death on Monday.
According to the Gris-Nez regional operational surveillance and rescue centre, 80 migrants set off from Gravelines in a dinghy monitored by a French navy vessel on Tuesday evening.
Continue reading...Director says his fifth movie with the actor will probably be their last project together as Washington ‘has been talking about retirement’
The collaboration between Spike Lee and Denzel Washington has spanned four decades and tackled many aspects of African American life. But Lee feels their latest venture, the kidnap drama Highest 2 Lowest, will probably be the duo’s swansong.
“This is the fifth one we’ve done together,” Lee said after the picture’s premiere at the Cannes film festival. “It has been a blessing, this body of work between us, doing films that people love. And I think this is it. He’s been talking about retirement. But five films together: that’s good, they stand up.”
Continue reading...Festival attendee was hospitalised by a falling tree on the celebrated Croisette boulevard
The producers of a Japanese film which screened at the Cannes film festival have called for an investigation and safety review after one of their team was struck and badly injured by a falling palm tree on the famous Croisette boulevard.
The incident occurred on Saturday as the team behind Brand New Landscape, which was selected for the Directors’ Fortnight sidebar, were walking along Cannes’ celebrated seafront road when a three-metre tree fell on to the pavement. Local authorities said a man in his 30s was injured.
Continue reading...Site in French Guiana once received prisoners who were sent to notorious Devil’s Island off the coast
French plans to build a maximum-security prison wing for drug traffickers and Islamic militants near a former penal colony in French Guiana have sparked an outcry among local people and officials.
The wing would form part of a $450m (£337m) prison announced in 2017 that is expected to be completed by 2028 and hold 500 inmates. The prison would be built in Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni, a town bordering Suriname that once received prisoners shipped by Napoleon III in the 1800s, some of whom were sent to the notorious Devil’s Island off the coast of French Guiana.
Continue reading...Key allies call escalation ‘egregious’ and promise ‘concrete’ response if Israel does not end renewed offensive and allow aid into strip
Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed that Israel will “take control” of all of Gaza, as three key allies attacked his “egregious” escalation of the military campaign and blockade on humanitarian aid.
Britain, France and Canada attacked Israel’s expansion of its war as disproportionate, described conditions in Gaza as “intolerable” and threatened a “concrete” response if Israel’s campaign continues.
Continue reading...Comments at Cannes come after US president’s social media posts against Bruce Springsteen and Taylor Swift
Pedro Pascal has sharply criticised Donald Trump’s attacks against artists, as the director of a conspiracy theory satire starring the actor said he feared the political messages of films could be weaponised by US border guards.
“Fuck the people that try to make you scared,” the Game of Thrones and The Last of Us actor said at a press conference at the Cannes film festival, promoting Ari Aster’s new film Eddington. “And fight back. And don’t let them win.”
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