Category Archives: France

Past fires suggest effects of Europe and North America wildfires may linger for years

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Three years after Maui wildfires many still struggle with ‘biological, emotional and social consequences’, study says

A spate of ferocious wildfires across North America and Europe, worsened by the climate crisis, has incinerated homes and forests and forced thousands of people to flee. Previous fires suggest the effects of these blazes may linger for years to come.

The current fires and their plumes of smoke can appear to be a temporary, if immediate, crisis. Nearly 1,000 fires have sprung into life in the boreal forests of Canada, causing the evacuation of towns and toxic smoke to waft into major Canadian and US cities, prompting threats of retribution from Donald Trump, who bizarrely accused Canada of “poisoning” his country’s air.

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Off-duty police officer detains man who attacked three women with knives in Paris

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Two women severely wounded before bystanders intervened in incident near Porte de Clichy

A man attacked three women with knives in Paris before bystanders pinned him to the ground and an off-duty police officer detained him, the French interior ⁠minister, Laurent Nuñez, has said.

The man attacked the three women, aged 19, 24 and 36, with ⁠two kitchen knives, severely wounding two of them, near Porte de Clichy on Monday, Nuñez said.

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Joy in Greece as Mount Olympus joins Unesco list of world heritage sites

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Mythical home of the ancient Greek gods designated alongside the D-day landing beaches in Normandy

After a 12-year wait, Mount Olympus, the mythical home of the ancient Greek gods, has been inducted into a hall of more modern fame as Unesco announced it would be added to its world heritage list.

Greece’s highest mountain made the list alongside the second world war D-day landing beaches in northern France and the ancient Japanese capitals of Asuka and Fujiwara. South Sudan’s Boma-Badingilo landscape, host to one of the world’s largest land mammal migrations, also won a designation – a first for the east African country.

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‘Scandalous, irrational and irresponsible’: French beekeepers’ fury at lifting of pesticides ban

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Allowing use of two neonicotinoids to combat crop-ruining disease will kill bees and reduce harvests, union says

Beekeepers and environmentalists in France have reacted furiously after parliament approved a bill reauthorising two banned pesticides scientists say can poison bees.

“There are no words to describe the frustration,” said Carolyn Bouguet, a beekeeper in Essonne, greater Paris. “Bee populations have already been badly compromised by climate change, new parasites and loss of habitat. And now this.”

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More than 250,000 people flee wildfires in France and Spain

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Hundreds of firefighters battle blazes as strong winds drive fires towards Bordeaux and smoke prompts health warnings in Madrid

Unrestrained wildfires in Spain and France have forced more than 250,000 people to flee, authorities from both countries have said, as they struggle to contain the blazes.

About 70,000 people were evacuated from central Spain, while 197,000 people fled in France, including tens of thousands from the wine region city of Bordeaux.

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More than 200,000 people flee or lock down as wildfires sweep France and Spain

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‘Highly unpredictable’ blaze forces evacuation of Cap Ferret on French coast and Spain declares national emergency

More than 200,000 people have fled or been ordered to lock down as huge wildfires swept Spain and France on Friday, prompting Madrid to declare a national emergency and the French authorities to order the total evacuation, by land and sea, of one of the country’s best-known holiday spots.

Authorities in south-west France ordered the Cap Ferret peninsula on the Atlantic coast to be evacuated “village by village” in the face of an “intense, highly unpredictable” wildfire that has burned through more than 19,000 hectares (47,000 acres) of forest.

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Woman, 70, charged with murder of British expat Karen Carter in France

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Public prosecutor for the region said suspect had been initially arrested shortly after the murder on 29 April last year

A 70-year-old woman has been charged with the murder of Karen Carter, the British expat found dead in south-western France last year.

The woman was charged on 2 July with Carter’s murder in Trémolat, in the Dordogne, and is “under judicial supervision”.

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France becomes first EU country to ban social media access for under-15s

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Parliament votes to stop children using apps such as TikTok in policy championed by Emmanuel Macron

France’s parliament has approved a bill banning social media access for children under 15, making it the first EU country to bar children from apps such as TikTok.

The president, Emmanuel Macron, has championed the ban as a key reform of his final term in office and pledged to enforce it by September.

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EU border chaos feared at Dover crossing as busiest summer weekend looms

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British domestic holidays are being pushed to their highest levels since Covid

The start of the peak summer season is set to bring millions of drivers on to British roads, with concerns of traffic chaos as the port of Dover faces its biggest test yet of new EU border controls.

The semi-functioning entry-exit system (EES) is credited, along with the heatwaves and fears about flights after the war in Iran, with helping push British domestic holidays to its highest levels since Covid halted international travel.

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Bastille Day celebrations in France tempered by fear of more wildfires

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Firework displays cancelled as Paris military parade asserts ‘France’s rearmament … and Europe’s strategic awakening’

Emmanuel Macron has presided over his final Bastille Day parade in Paris amid a searing heatwave and wildfires that forced authorities around the country to cancel traditional firework displays and balls celebrating France’s national day.

The French president was joined for the annual military procession and flypast by his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the British ‌prime minister, Keir Starmer, the German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, and two dozen other national leaders.

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Keir Starmer becomes first UK PM to receive France’s Légion d’honneur

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Exclusive: Emmanuel Macron honours outgoing prime minister for leadership role in supporting Ukraine

Keir Starmer has become the first UK prime minister to be presented with the Légion d’honneur by a French president, in recognition of his work with France on the security of Europe.

Emmanuel Macron awarded the historic honour to Starmer for his leadership in setting up the coalition of the willing – a group of countries chaired by France and the UK that have pledged to support Ukraine – at a critical moment for Europe in early 2025.

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Mastermind of €88m Louvre heist thought they ‘could have taken more’

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Alleged thieves in October 2025 robbery damaged a gem-encrusted crown worn in the 19th century by Empress Eugénie

Two men suspected of making off with €88m (£75m) worth of crown jewels from the Louvre museum in Paris last October have reportedly told investigators that the alleged mastermind behind the heist was disappointed by the haul and thought “they could have taken more”.

The French newspaper Le Monde cited transcripts of the alleged thieves’ questioning last month by two investigating judges in charge of the inquiry, offering detailed insights into the burglary that made global headlines and led the museum’s director to resign.

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Fire bomber planes battle Fontainebleau forest blaze near Paris

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Wildfire quickly burnt more than 800 hectares, with villages evacuated, highway partly closed and high-speed rail disrupted

French officials rushed two firefighting planes to the Paris region on Sunday after a “very virulent” fire of “exceptional scale” erupted in the sprawling Fontainebleau forest about 60km (40 miles) south-east of the capital.

The fire began late afternoon in the one-time royal hunting preserve that today is dotted with quiet villages. It raced across 800 hectares (2,000 acres) and was still spreading early on Monday, officials said, causing the partial closure of the A6 highway, the country’s main north-south artery, and disrupting traffic during a busy, heatwave-stricken summer travel weekend.

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Alfred Dreyfus statue to finally receive permanent home in central Paris

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Sculpture of Jewish army officer wrongly accused of treason has been moved around the city for decades

For 40 years, the statue of Capt Alfred Dreyfus has been moved around Paris, never finding a permanent home.

The French army twice refused to allow it to stand at l’École Militaire, where Dreyfus, a Jewish officer it had wrongly accused of treason in 1894, was stripped of his rank in one of the most notorious acts of antisemitism in France’s history.

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Test runs and a shock-absorbing cage: how Bayeux tapestry was moved to UK

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Medieval artwork safely delivered to British Museum before display from September in carefully controlled conditions

The Bayeux tapestry has survived myriad perils, from cathedral fires to its potential destruction for use as wagon covers. Now, with the embroidery about to be displayed in a blockbuster London exhibition, experts must contend with a host of more insidious dangers.

The arrival of the tapestry at the British Museum in the small hours of Friday morning was a historic moment – albeit less dramatic than the landing of William the Conqueror it portrays.

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Mahmood’s cutting of protections for UK-France ‘one in, one out’ asylum deal ruled unlawful

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Asylum seekers win ruling against home secretary’s reduction of safeguards for potential victims of trafficking

The British home secretary’s decision to reduce protections for potential trafficking victims to allow the “one in, one out” asylum returns deal to proceed was unlawful, a high court judge has ruled.

The legal challenge was brought by five small boat asylum seekers earmarked for return to France – four from Eritrea and one from Sudan. It related to a change in guidance on the one in, one out scheme, which meant that those denied trafficking protections no longer had the right to ask for it to be reconsidered.

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Marine Le Pen ‘wants to talk politics’, but can she drown out the legal noise?

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The French far-right leader’s presidential campaign is clouded in uncertainty under the shadow of an embezzlement conviction

Marine Le Pen’s decision to run for French president in 2027, despite her legal woes, has drawn comparisons from her opponents to Donald Trump.

Just as the US president felt his voter base cared little about legal investigations against him, the French far-right leader shrugged off the leftwing protesters who shouted “criminal!” as she launched her presidential campaign at a market walkabout in western France on Wednesday. The previous day, an appeal court had upheld her conviction for the embezzlement of European parliament funds.

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Pierpaolo Piccioli’s couture debut reimagines Balenciaga in his own colourful image

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Italian designer brings sculptural silhouettes and playful palettes to storied house, while it is hats off to Giorgio’s niece at her second Armani Privé show

The house of Balenciaga takes haute couture very seriously indeed. Cristóbal Balenciaga was so horrified by the rise of mass-produced clothes that in 1968 he abruptly shuttered his brand and retired to his native Spain, announcing that “high fashion is mortally wounded”.

So Pierpaolo Piccioli, who now helms the house, approached the brief of his first Balenciaga couture collection conscientiously, despite having 25 years of experience at Valentino. At a preview, the haute couture war room where he worked on the show for nine months was plastered with images that ranged from a 1961 Balenciaga dress to Spanish golden age art – Zurbarán’s chic saints, Velázquez’s doll-like infantas – and a monumental Hepworth pierced megalith.

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Marine Le Pen to run for presidency and appeal against conviction in France’s highest court

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French far-right leader announces decision after court orders her to wear ankle tag over embezzlement

The French far-right leader Marine Le Pen has announced she will run for the presidency in 2027 and will lodge an appeal to France’s highest court over her sentence to wear an electronic ankle tag for the embezzlement of European parliament funds.

“Tonight, I am a candidate in the presidential election,” Le Pen, 57, told TF1 television on Tuesday night.

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Why is Marine Le Pen running for French presidency after court confirmed conviction?

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A look at the case, the appeal court decision and how it could affect the race to succeed Emmanuel Macron

Marine Le Pen has said she will be a candidate in France’s presidential race next year, after a court ruling on her appeal against a conviction for embezzlement of public funds allowed her to run.

However, the path ahead is far from straightforward.

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