Category Archives: France

Georgia Bell leads rush of medals as Team GB enjoy super Saturday

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The runner, who has set a new British record, only took up sport again to stay fit during pandemic

Georgia Bell, an occasional runner during lockdown who made it to the Olympic final of the women’s 1500m, set a new British record to take bronze as a rush of success including silvers in artistic swimming and taekwondo took Britain’s rivalry with France in the medal table into the last day.

At the age of 30, this was Bell’s first Olympic appearance but in a lightning quick race in the Stade de France that saw Kenya’s Faith Kipyegon set a new Games record, the British runner stayed with the leading pack in the first 800m before finding the strength to kick on in the final leg.

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Travis Scott arrested in Paris over altercation with security guard

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The rapper was arrested for an incident involving a hotel security guard while he is in the city for the Olympics

Rapper Travis Scott was arrested at a Paris hotel after an altercation with a security guard, French prosecutors said Friday.

The arrest occurred after police were called to the Georges V hotel early Friday to arrest a man “nicknamed Travis Scott for violence against a security guard”, according to a statement from the Paris public prosecutor’s office.

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Family of British doctor missing in French Pyrenees appeal for help

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Tom Doherty, 67, messaged his family to say he had fallen and could not move shortly before they lost contact

The family of a retired British doctor have issued an urgent appeal after he went missing in the French Pyrenees almost 48 hours ago.

Tom Doherty, 67, from St Albans, was hiking and camping near Col d’Escots when his family lost contact with him on Tuesday evening, just after he sent messages saying he had fallen and couldn’t move.

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UK ‘stop the boats’ policy raising risk of deadly crushes on dinghies, NGOs say

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Groups say people are dying of crushing and suffocation as ever-growing numbers are packed into fewer vessels

Refugees are being crammed into boats on French beaches in ever-increasing numbers, human rights groups have said, leading to an increased risk of crushing and suffocation as a result of the UK’s “stop the boats” policy.

A seven-year-old girl is among at least eight people who have died of suffocation on a dinghy in the Channel in less than a year.

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A death at work in the age of extreme heat – podcast

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Samira Shackle and Jeff Goodell explain the dangers resulting from extreme heat, and what society can do to mitigate them

David Azevedo died because of the heat. A construction worker living in a small city in central France, he had recently started a new job when a heatwave struck in the summer of 2022. He would not even see out his first week.

The journalist Samira Shackle interviews his sister Anne-Marie about what happened, and how her family have feared every heatwave since.

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Weather tracker: Record-breaking rain in Delhi leaves trail of destruction

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Almost 200 killed as deluge sweeps northern India, while rain gives way to high humidity at Paris Olympics

Between Wednesday and Thursday morning, 147mm of rain was recorded in eastern parts of Delhi by the India Meteorological Department (IMD), breaking a 14-year record for the highest single day total in July.

Delhi received more than half its monthly rainfall on Wednesday. This torrential rain damaged infrastructure throughout northern India as waterlogged drains led to flash floods.

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‘Our bet paid off’: Paris celebrates Olympic triathletes’ swim in the Seine

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City officials say they have ‘reversed the tide of history’ thanks to completion of €1.4bn sewerage system

French city officials have hailed a “historic day” after the Olympic triathlon competitions were held in the River Seine just a day after it was deemed unsafe for swimming.

Tests on the water showed the men’s and women’s competitions could go ahead on Wednesday morning, resulting in victory – against all odds – for the city as well as for French athletes who took medals in the women’s and men’s events.

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Wednesday briefing: Where France’s €1.6bn plan to clean up the Seine for the Olympics went wrong

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In today’s newsletter: The government has spent €1.6bn improving the river, but an ancient sewage system and the climate are muddying the waters

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Good morning.

An ambitious project to clean up the River Seine has left French officials up to their eyes in it.

Israel-Gaza war | Ismail Haniyeh, the political leader of Hamas, has been targeted and killed in Tehran, the group said in a statement early on Wednesday morning. Iran’s Revolutionary Guard confirmed the assassination, which was reported on Iranian state TV early on Wednesday morning, with analysts also claiming Israel killed Haniyeh, the Associated Press said.

UK news | Keir Starmer has said those who rioted in Southport on Tuesday night will “feel the full force of the law” after police vehicles were set alight and missiles hurled at officers. It came after far-right protesters pelted police with glass bottles and bricks and attacked a mosque following a knife attack that killed three children and left five other children and two adults in critical condition.

Conservatives | Kemi Badenoch, the frontrunner to be the next Conservative party leader, has been accused of creating an intimidating atmosphere in the government department she used to run, with some colleagues describing it as toxic, the Guardian can reveal.

US election 2024 | Donald Trump has repeated his weekend remarks to Christian summit attendees that they would never need to vote again if he returns to the presidency in November.

Health | The hidden cost of rising workplace sickness in the UK has increased to more than £100bn a year, largely caused by a loss of productivity amid “staggering” levels of presenteeism, a report warns.

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French audit cautions Élysée over €475k cost of King Charles dinner

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Versailles banquet among lavish spending in 2023 that has plunged president’s office €8m into red

The French president’s office spent nearly €475,000 (£400,100) on a dinner for King Charles last year, the country’s top audit court said in a report cautioning about high spending.

In September 2023, King Charles attended a lavish state banquet at the Palace of Versailles attended by more than 150 people, part of a “soft power” visit aimed at improving ties between London and Paris.

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France’s GDP gets €1bn lift from giant cruise ship as German economy shrinks

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Analyst says eurozone could have turned a corner as it avoids recession with 0.3% growth

The delivery of the world’s second-largest cruise ship lifted France’s economy in the second quarter, according to official data that also showed Germany heading into a recession.

Built in Saint-Nazaire for the cruise ship operator Royal Caribbean, the Utopia of the Seas added €1bn (£840m) to French economic output, helping to increase trade growth to 0.6% in the three months to the end of June and gross domestic product to 0.3%.

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Olympic ‘drag queen scene’ DJ files legal complaint after torrent of online abuse

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A DJ and LGBTQ+ activist who performed during a controversial scene in the Paris Olympics’ opening ceremony has said she is taking legal action after becoming the target of “an extremely violent campaign of cyber-harassment and defamation”.

Barbara Butch, who calls herself a “love activist”, had been “threatened with death, torture and rape, and has also been the target of numerous antisemitic, homophobic, sexist and body-shaming insults”, her lawyer said in a post on her Instagram page.

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Olympic ‘Last Supper’ scene was in fact based on painting of Greek gods, say art experts

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Dutch artist’s 17th-century work said to have inspired tableau that has offended Christian and conservative critics

A controversial tableau in the Olympics opening ceremony denounced by Christian and conservative critics as an offensive parody of The Last Supper was in fact inspired by a 17th-century Dutch painting of the Greek Olympian gods, art historians have said.

“Does this painting remind you of something?” the Magnin Museum in the French city of Dijon asked (with a wink) on X, inviting people to “come and admire” The Feast of the Gods, painted by the artist Jan van Bijlert between 1635 and 1640.

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Far left behind rail sabotage before Olympics, French minister suggests

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Gérald Darmanin says activists may have been encouraged to carry out arson attacks that caused disruption

France’s interior minister has suggested that far-left activists were behind the attacks on the high-speed rail system on the eve of the Olympics opening ceremony, as a fresh wave of vandalism targeted internet cables.

Four days after the attacks, Gérald Darmanin said the investigation into the arson attacks had “identified a certain number of profiles who could have committed it”.

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Weather tracker: Rain to give way to searing heat at Paris Olympics

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Temperatures expected to soar to 35C, making some competitions more challenging for athletes

The Paris Olympics had a soggy start but conditions improved over the weekend. Meteorologists now expect temperatures to soar early this week, prompting several warnings.

The weather in the French capital has been forecast to climb to 35C (95F) on Tuesday, about 8C above average for the time of year, making some competitions more challenging for the athletes. Southern parts of France are likely to experience the hottest weather, reaching the high 30s celsius, nearly 10C above average.

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Paris Olympics organisers apologise to Christians for Last Supper parody

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Apology follows anger among Catholics and other groups at opening ceremony segment that resembled biblical scene

The organising committee of Paris 2024 has apologised to Catholics and other Christian groups who were outraged by a scene during the opening ceremony that evoked Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper painting with drag queens, a transgender model and a singer made up as the Greek god of wine.

The parody of the biblical scene, performed against the backdrop of the River Seine, was intended to interpret Dionysus and raise awareness “of the absurdity of violence between human beings”, organisers wrote on X.

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One dead and dozens rescued in latest attempt to cross Channel

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French authorities say they received call for help from overcrowded dinghy in early hours of Sunday

A woman has died trying to cross the Channel in an overcrowded dinghy, as a number of small boats made the dangerous journey over the weekend.

Thirty-four others were rescued from what was described as a “migrant boat” off the northern French port of Calais, after a call for help was made in the early hours of Sunday morning, according to French authorities.

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Why Édith Piaf’s plaintive song was the perfect fit for Céline Dion at Paris Games

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The melody for the first live performance since 2020 by the singer, who has suffered with ill-health, was suitably tragic

It was a very public triumph, both for Paris and for Céline Dion. It received plaudits around the world as one of the highlights of the opening ceremony of the Olympics. Yet the soundtrack was a tragic one.

The Canadian diva had chosen to celebrate the great French chansonnier Édith Piaf in a live, high-stakes comeback performance delivered from the iron shoulders of the Eiffel Tower amid showers of rain and fireworks.

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‘It was like us – a chaotic mess’: France enjoys Paris Games opening ceremony

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Most French newspapers praise the Olympics spectacle but far-right commentators reject ‘woke propaganda’

They had waited 100 years for it and the French, mostly, were determined to love their kitsch, crazy, subversive, waterborne and very rain-drenched Olympics opening ceremony. Less happy were far-right figures, who spied “wokeist” propaganda.

A thoroughly unscientific poll on the rue de Rochechouart in Paris – where the far right have never had so much as a look-in – found plenty of enthusiasm.

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Further Eurostar cancellations hold up Paris 2024 passengers

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The rail operator has pulled four of 15 trains from its Saturday schedule, affecting more than 3,000 people

Eurostar passengers hoping to catch the start of the Paris Olympics have continued to face difficulties after an arson attack in France caused train cancellations.

People travelling by Eurostar from London to Paris on Friday were asked to postpone trips if possible after the rail operator cancelled one in four trains over the weekend as a result of arson attacks that lead to widespread disruption to France’s high-speed rail network hours before the start of the Olympics.

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Who launched attack on the French rail network – and why?

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Arsonists used crude methods but disruption to opening of the Olympic Games in Paris was severe

It was about 1.15am when the SNCF maintenance workers, carrying out repairs by moonlight, spotted the group of people a little further down the railway line near a signal box outside the sleepy village of Vergigny, in the northern French department of Yonne.

They were concerned enough by the unlikely sight at such an hour to approach the intruders, and then to make a call to the local police as those they had interrupted ran off into the dark.

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