Mia Schem was abducted from music festival on 7 October; lawyer Amit Soussana has also been released
Mia Schem, a French-Israeli woman who was abducted from the Supernova music festival in Israel and shown in the first Hamas video of a hostage speaking from captivity, has been released.
She was one of eight hostages released in two tranches on Thursday.
Continue reading...Monique Olivier, 75, on trial for complicity in Michel Fourniret’s murder of Briton Joanna Parrish and two French victims
The former wife of French serial killer Michel Fourniret told police he beat British student Joanna Parrish unconscious before raping and strangling her and throwing her body in a river.
Monique Olivier, 75, is on trial for complicity in the kidnapping and murder of Parrish, 20, in 1990 and two other victims – Marie-Angèle Domèce, 19, in 1988 and nine-year-old Estelle Mouzin in 2003.
Continue reading...French authorities arrest Misa leader in major raid over claims of organised kidnapping, rape and abuse
French authorities have arrested the leader of a multinational tantric yoga organisation on suspicion of indoctrinating women for sexual exploitation.
The Romanian guru was detained on Tuesday morning during a major police operation across the Paris region, according to a French judicial official, who was not authorised to speak publicly about an ongoing investigation.
Continue reading...Public parks, forests and areas near schools will also become smoke-free as part of nationwide move
France is to ban smoking on all beaches, as well as in public parks, forests and near schools, after Emmanuel Macron promised to create “the first tobacco-free generation” by 2032.
“From now on, no-smoking areas will be the norm,” said the health minister, Aurélien Rousseau.
Continue reading...The ex-para who advised Ridley Scott on the new movie’s battle scenes claims historians who attacked it have fallen for Bonaparte’s own hype
Critics of the “damaging” and “inaccurate” portrayal of Napoleon Bonaparte in Ridley Scott’s new cinematic epic Napoleon are just victims of the French emperor’s enduring propaganda, according to the military adviser behind the film’s vast battle scenes.
Paul Biddiss claims that “Old Boney”, as he was known to the Duke of Wellington’s British troops, was promoted largely because he elaborated on his own successes. Bonaparte’s fibs impressed all France and intimidated his enemies – until, that is, he met his Waterloo in 1815.
Continue reading...Dutch general election results show how populist and far-right parties are advancing into political mainstream
Geert Wilders’ shock victory in the Dutch general election confirms the upward trajectory of Europe’s populist and far-right parties, which – with the occasional setback – are continuing their steady march into the mainstream.
There is no guarantee that Wilders, whose anti-Islam Party for Freedom (PVV) won 37 seats in Wednesday’s ballot – more than twice its 2021 total – will be able to form a government with a majority in the Netherlands’ 150-seat parliament.
Continue reading...Two years on, families and refugee charities seek explanation and call for more help for refugees wishing to come to UK
The relatives of 27 people who died in the worst mass drowning in the Channel for decades have marked two years since the disaster by issuing an open letter demanding answers over what happened.
Signed together with dozens of refugee NGOs, the letter states that the families still have no explanation as to why French and British authorities failed the people onboard a sinking dinghy who repeatedly called for help.
Continue reading...Fifty-eight others rescued, with many suffering from hypothermia after dinghy capsizes less than a kilometre from French shore
A man and a woman are reported to have drowned on Wednesday trying to cross the Channel to the UK in a small boat.
Fifty-eight others were rescued, with many of the survivors understood to have been suffering from hypothermia.
Continue reading...UK business lifted by ‘improve not move’ trend and interior design videos on TikTok
The owner of B&Q and Screwfix issued its second profit warning in three months after weak sales in France but said its UK business is being boosted by the “improve not move” trend and interior design videos on TikTok.
Kingfisher, which also owns Castorama and Brico Dépôt in France and operates in Poland, Iberia and Romania, too, reported an almost 4% sales decline in its financial third quarter, prompting a downgrade in its annual profit forecast from £590m to £560m.
Continue reading...Sandrine Josso has accused senator Joël Guerriau of giving her a glass of champagne spiked with drug
A French member of parliament who was allegedly drugged by a senator has described “trembling and sweating” and fearing she was having a heart attack after drinking champagne spiked with ecstasy.
Sandrine Josso, 48, an MP for the centrist MoDem party, spoke out in two television interviews, saying she was “still in a state of shock” after the alleged incident last week.
Continue reading...Black bicorne hat is one of 20 remaining that once belonged to French emperor, who famously wore them sideways
A two-cornered hat worn by Napoleon Bonaparte during his reign as French emperor has fetched a record €1.932m (£1.69m) at an auction in Paris.
The black bicorne beaver felt hat was initially estimated at €600,000-800,000. The price reached surpassed the €1.884m paid for another of Napoleon’s hats in 2014, also sold by the Drouot auction house, a spokesperson for the company said.
Continue reading...With Ridley Scott’s epic set to launch, there has been renewed discussion about the military leader’s legacy – and film fans can’t wait
A Hollywood war epic about the world’s most famous Frenchman – directed by an Englishman – was bound to contain its share of historical inaccuracies. So Ridley Scott’s big-budget battle extravaganza, Napoleon, which opens worldwide next week, has inevitably seen every aspect of its trailers scrutinised in France.
From the age of the actors (Joaquin Phoenix is older than the military leader he plays and Vanessa Kirby is younger than his wife, Joséphine), to a scene in which Napoleon’s cannons fire at the Egyptian pyramids when in reality his troops were kilometres away, nothing has escaped.
Continue reading...People in Calais and Dunkirk may die due to lack of shelter and sanitation, NGOs tell government officials
Twelve organisations working with asylum seekers in northern France have warned French government officials of a “catastrophic situation” as large numbers of people try to survive in insanitary conditions while they wait for a change in the weather so they can try to cross the Channel to the UK.
The warning is contained in a letter to French government officials signed by NGOs including L’Auberge des Migrants, Calais Food Collective, Médecins du Monde Nord Littoral, Utopia 56 and Le Secours Catholique délégation du Pas de Calais.
Continue reading...Bill Pallot is charged with building pieces to sell at high prices to buyers including Palace of Versailles
A leading French art expert is to face trial on charges of forgery for building furniture that he falsely claimed to be from the 18th century and that was sold at high prices to buyers who included the Palace of Versailles.
Bill Pallot, an expert on 18th-century French furniture, is charged with implementing the scam between 2008 and 2015, in one of the biggest forgery scandals to rock the art world in recent years.
Continue reading...Three others also subject to warrants over use of sarin gas in two attacks in Syria in August 2013 that killed more than 1,000 people
A French court has issued an international arrest warrant for the Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad for complicity in war crimes against humanity linked to chemical weapon attacks on civilians.
Three others – including Assad’s brother Maher, head of an elite army unit – are also subject to warrants over the use of banned sarin gas in two attacks in August 2013 that killed more than 1,000 people, including hundreds of children.
Continue reading...Floods force evacuation of homes, schools and town halls in Calais region and in the Alps
Widespread flooding in northern and eastern France has led to thousands of people having to evacuate their waterlogged homes, the collapse of roads and the closure of schools and public buildings.
Record rainfall has caused rivers to break their banks, forcing the government to declare an official state of emergency in hundreds of towns and villages.
Continue reading...In-development film comes after controversy around the re-creation of late stars’ voices, such as Anthony Bourdain
Sixty years after her death, Édith Piaf’s voice will be re-created using AI to narrate her biopic.
As reported by Variety, Warner Music Group (WMG) has partnered with the Piaf estate to produce the feature-length film Edith. Artificial intelligence has been trained to replicate Piaf’s voice by feeding it hundreds of voice clips, with WMG promising the resultant re-creation will “further enhance the authenticity and emotional impact of her story”.
Continue reading...The longtime chief of Positif film magazine started working there in 1968, and was a passionate advocate of cinema until his death
Michel Ciment, the celebrated French film critic and longtime editor of Positif magazine, has died aged 85. The magazine reported the news on social media, describing him as Positif’s “master architect” after a 60-year career.
Born in Paris in 1938, Ciment fell in love with cinema as a student, and joined Positif in 1968, becoming editorial director in 1973; he said he admired Positif over Cahiers du Cinéma because the magazine was “left wing” and influenced by surrealism. Ciment published a string of books about prominent film directors, including Kazan by Kazan (1973), Conversations with Losey (1979) and Stanley Kubrick (1980).
Continue reading...Drivers of two HGVs carrying high-end Moët & Chandon manage to flee but officers recover stolen bubbly
French police are looking for a gang of champagne thieves after a high-speed motorway chase in which two heavy goods vehicles carrying a total of €600,000 (£436,000) worth of stolen prestige bottles sped through northern France.
Two trailers containing high-end champagne by Moët & Chandon disappeared in the early hours of Saturday morning in Reims, the capital of the Champagne region, according to reports in Le Parisien and on local TV.
Continue reading...Authorities step up checks and ‘name and shame’ content creators who break rules in move to regulate industry
When Marie Lopez started recording YouTube videos of makeup and hair tutorials in her bedroom in Lyon aged 16, she “ate, slept and breathed” social media.
By 21, she had an online community of millions and was one of the most watched French women on YouTube, posting about topics from bullying and acne to ecology. Now 28, under the name EnjoyPhoenix she uploads content from her life so many times a day that she is scared to count her working hours, aware that part of success is to “reveal more and more” of your private life.
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