Category Archives: France

‘Iconic’ Man Ray image sells for €120,000 at auction of 200 works

Posted on by

Le Violon d’Ingres print produced under artist’s supervision was among friend’s collection auctioned in Paris

It is one of the most recognisable images of the surrealist movement: a black and white photograph by Man Ray of Kiki de Montparnasse with f-shaped sound holes painted on her back representing a violin.

Le Violon d’Ingres, which was produced in 1924 and signed by the US artist, set a record for the most expensive photograph when it sold for $12.4m (£9.8m) at auction in New York in 2022.

Continue reading...

French woman breaks world rope climbing record with Eiffel Tower climb

Posted on by

Anouk Garnier climbed 110 metres to second floor in 18 minutes to raise money for cancer support

A French woman has broken the world rope climbing record after reaching the second floor of the Eiffel Tower on Wednesday.

Anouk Garnier, 34, climbed 110 metres in 18 minutes to set a new high and raise money for cancer prevention and support.

Continue reading...

France to fine patients €5 for missing GP appointments

Posted on by

Proposed penalty, intended to boost creaking health service, is criticised by doctors’ unions and patients’ groups

Patients in France who fail to turn up to a doctor’s appointment without a good excuse will be fined €5 (£4.30) under a proposal from the government.

Gabriel Attal said on Monday that medical professionals reported an estimated 27m no-shows every year, adding: “We cannot allow this to continue.”

Continue reading...

Weather tracker: Storm Kathleen brings high winds and warm air to Europe

Posted on by

Gusts of more than 70mph recorded on Irish Sea coast, as temperatures rose above 30C in mainland Europe

Storm Kathleen brought strong winds to Ireland and the UK at the weekend, causing travel and power disruption. The storm, named by Met Éireann, developed in the Atlantic on Thursday, deepening explosively as it pushed northwards to the west of Ireland.

Peak wind gusts of 40-60mph (65-95km/h) were recorded quite widely across Ireland, Northern Ireland, Scotland and western parts of England and Wales on Saturday, with some Irish Sea coastal regions experiencing gusts above 70mph. A gust of 72mph was recorded at Drumalbin, Lanarkshire.

Continue reading...

The French aristocrat who understood evolution 100 years before Darwin – and even worried about climate change

Posted on by

Georges-Louis Leclerc proposed species change and extinction back in the 1740s, a new book reveals

Shortly after Charles Darwin published his magnum opus, The Origin of Species, in 1859 he started reading a little-known 100-year-old work by a wealthy French aristocrat.

Its contents were quite a surprise. “Whole pages [of his book] are laughably like mine,” Darwin wrote to a friend. “It is surprising how candid it makes one to see one’s view in another man’s words.”

In later editions of The Origin of Species, Darwin acknowledged Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon, as one of the “few” people who had understood that species change and evolve, before Darwin himself.

Continue reading...

Boy, 15, dies after attack outside school in France

Posted on by

Teenager was assaulted by several people who fled scene in country’s latest incident of school violence

A 15-year-old boy has died after he was badly beaten in a town south of Paris, in the latest incident of school violence in France.

Thursday’s attack comes at a time of heightened tensions in French schools. Earlier this week a teenage girl was temporarily left in a coma after being beaten outside her school in Montpellier, in the south of the country. In that case, three alleged attackers have been arrested on suspicion of attempted murder of a minor, one a girl from the same school.

Continue reading...

Man who helped procure gun used in Strasbourg terror attack jailed for 30 years

Posted on by

Audrey Mondjehi, 43, found guilty of terrorism-related charges relating to 2018 attack that killed five

A former security guard who helped procure the gun used to kill five people and injure 11 others in a terrorist attack on Strasbourg’s Christmas market in 2018 has been sentenced to 30 years in prison.

Audrey Mondjehi, 43, was found guilty of a series of terrorism-related charges, including abetting murder in relation to a terrorist plot and associating with terrorist elements, after he helped to find a weapon for Chérif Chekatt, who later opened fire with a 19th-century revolver at the market in the city’s historic centre.

Continue reading...

Macron to say France and allies could have stopped Rwanda genocide in 1994

Posted on by

French president marks 30th anniversary with video, airing Sunday, saying international community lacked will to stop the slaughter

The French president, Emmanuel Macron, has said France and its western and African allies “could have stopped” Rwanda’s 1994 genocide but did not have the will to halt the slaughter of an estimated 800,000 people, mostly ethnic Tutsis.

In a video message to be published on Sunday to mark the 30th anniversary of the genocide, Macron will emphasise that “when the phase of total extermination against the Tutsis began, the international community had the means to know and act”, the presidency said on Thursday.

Continue reading...

Macron supports Nakamura’s ‘rightful place’ at Olympic opening ceremony

Posted on by

French president in favour of singer opening the Games amid racist backlash from far-right politicians

Emmanuel Macron has said the French pop superstar Aya Nakamura would be in her rightful place performing at an opening ceremony for the Olympic Games this summer, after suggestions that she could sing an Édith Piaf song sparked a racist backlash against the singer.

Asked about Nakamura, who is the most listened to French-speaking artist in the world, Macron said it would be a “good thing” if she performed at an opening or closing ceremony.

Continue reading...

Girl, 14, left in coma after attack by teenagers outside school in France

Posted on by

Three minors have been arrested on suspicion of attempted murder after incident in Montpellier

The French government has launched an urgent investigation after a 14-year-old girl was severely wounded and left in a coma after being beaten outside her school by three other teenagers in the south of France.

The three alleged attackers, including a girl who was at the same school as the victim in the suburbs of the southern city of Montpellier, have been arrested on suspicion of attempted murder of a minor.

Continue reading...

Mystery tunnel discovered near Paris prison

Posted on by

Tunnel under construction found near La Santé prison does not appear to be part of an escape plan, local official says

A mysterious tunnel under construction has been discovered near a prison in southern Paris during routine electrical works, although police sources said it did not appear to be part of an escape plan.

The discovery was made on Tuesday by a technician from Enedis, which manages the electricity distribution network in France, who was working “in a well for electrical connections” about 450 metres from La Santé prison, a police source said.

Continue reading...

Remains of missing French toddler Émile Soleil found in French Alps

Posted on by

Bones were discovered near the hamlet of Le Vernet, close to where the boy went missing in 2023

French police are searching for clues to how a boy who disappeared eight months ago died after the discovery this weekend of his partial remains.

In a case that shocked France, Émile Soleil, aged two and a half, vanished in July while staying with his grandparents in a hamlet in the French Alps. A massive air and land search at the time found no trace of the child.

Continue reading...

Disneyland Paris conjures up bumper profits despite strikes

Posted on by

Theme park generates $343.4m in profit for Hollywood giant as it shores up wider business amid weaker box office returns

Disney’s Parisian theme park complex has delivered a welcome boost to the embattled Hollywood giant, generating $343.4m (€317m) in profits and royalties despite a wave of strikes last summer.

Sales at Disneyland Paris – Europe’s most-visited tourist destination – were driven to record levels by higher room rates and the opening of a site built around Marvel’s hit Avengers movies.

Continue reading...

Sister of beheaded teacher accuses France of failing to protect school staff

Posted on by

Mickaëlle Paty, whose brother Samuel was killed by an extremist, speaks out after Paris head resigns following alleged death threats

The sister of Samuel Paty, the French teacher beheaded by an Islamist terrorist in 2020, has accused the authorities of failing to appreciate or act on the continuing threat extremists pose to school staff.

Speaking after alleged death threats to a Paris headteacher, who resigned last week, Mickaëlle Paty said the state appeared to have learned little from her brother’s killing.

Continue reading...

Macron rekindles France-Brazil relationship in widely memed Lula visit

Posted on by

Photos of French president’s three-day trip to Brazil to reaffirm countries’ partnership delight internet observers

If the official photos are anything to go by, Emmanuel Macron’s three-day trip to Brazil has been more romantic getaway than international diplomacy.

The French president, who ended his tour of the South American country on Thursday with a state visit to the capital, Brasília, prompted online hilarity after the publication of photos showing him being particularly chummy with his Brazilian counterpart, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

Continue reading...

French parliament backs bill to stop hair discrimination against black women

Posted on by

Draft law, which also affects redheads, blond people, and those with dreadlocks now goes to senate

France’s lower house of parliament has backed a bill banning discrimination based on hairstyle, colour or texture, in a “historic” move supporters say will help penalise workplace discrimination.

Olivier Serva, an independent deputy for the French overseas territory of Guadeloupe who sponsored the bill, has argued that there is a lot of suffering based on hair discrimination, and that women of African descent in France were often encouraged to change their hairstyle before job interviews.

Continue reading...

France assesses Paris Olympics terrorist threat in light of Moscow attack

Posted on by

Minister and intelligence services meet to discuss security for Games that includes opening ceremony on the Seine

The French interior minister, Gérald Darmanin, has met intelligence services to assess the terrorist threat to the country, after the Moscow concert hall attack claimed by Islamic State raised fresh security fears over the Paris Olympics.

One of the biggest security challenges facing the organisers of the Games in the French capital is to protect the opening ceremony on 26 July. It is planned to be an unprecedented, open-air extravaganza, which for the first time in Olympic history will not take place within the confines of a stadium, but instead involve a flotilla of 94 boats carrying thousands of waving athletes down a 6km (3.7-mile) stretch of the Seine, followed by a further 80 boats carrying media and security, while an estimated 222,000 people gather along the river’s edge and 200,000 more watch from buildings.

Continue reading...

‘Sport is never just sport’: Olympics exhibition in Paris reflects 20th century’s highs and lows

Posted on by

Les Jeux Olympiques: Miroir des Sociétés opens ahead of Paris Olympics and puts previous games in context of conflicts and injustices

From the Nazi stadium propaganda in 1936 Berlin to the 1968 Mexico City podium protest of medal-winners Tommie Smith and John Carlos, who were expelled from the competition after raising their gloved fists in a Black Power salute against racial injustice, the Olympic Games have held a mirror up to some of the darkest moments of 20th-century history.

Now, as the Paris Olympics prepares to open this summer against a backdrop of war from Ukraine to the Middle East – with Emmanuel Macron saying Russia will be asked to observe a ceasefire in Ukraine during the Games – a new exhibition in Paris takes an unflinching look at the social and geopolitical impact of the Games over the last century.

Continue reading...

Macron calls proposed EU-Mercosur trade pact ‘very bad deal’ lacking strong climate commitments

Posted on by

French president tells Brazil forum both parties need to be ‘much stronger’ on biodiversity and climate

Emmanuel Macron has called a proposed trade agreement between the EU and South America’s Mercosur bloc a “very bad deal” that lacks proper climate considerations.

“As it is negotiated today, it is a very bad deal, for you and for us,” the French president told Brazilian businessmen in São Paulo on Wednesday while on a three-day trip to Brazil, Latin America’s largest economy.

Continue reading...

French PM backs school head who faced death threats after Muslim veil row

Posted on by

Gabriel Attal says state will file a complaint against student over accusation against principal who had to resign for his safety

The French prime minister, Gabriel Attal, has defended French secularism following the resignation of a Paris school principal who received death threats after asking a student to remove her Muslim veil on the premises.

Attal, a former education minister, said the state would be filing a complaint against the student over falsely accusing the headteacher of mistreatment during the incident in late February.

Continue reading...