Gabriel Fortin, 48, found guilty of murder of two HR directors and a jobcentre worker and attempted murder of a fourth person in 2021 attacks
An unemployed French engineer who shot dead three women whom he blamed for his joblessness was given a life sentence on Wednesday for the murders.
In 2021, Gabriel Fortin, 48, killed two human resources directors and a jobcentre employee, and attempted to kill a company executive following a string of dismissals.
Continue reading...Ernest Moret had devices seized after arrest by counter-terrorism police on arrival in London in April
The Metropolitan police have admitted downloading the sim card from the phone of a radical French publisher who was arrested by counter-terrorism police at St Pancras station in April, his lawyer has claimed.
Officers returned the iPhone and laptop it had seized from Ernest Moret, 28, to his London lawyer on Tuesday after the Met announced late on Friday that no further action would be taken against him. He had been arrested on his way to the London book fair and held for almost 24 hours under schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000.
Continue reading...Changes to the World Bank could unlock developing states access to loans and to the means of staving off disaster
The Netherlands has almost the same amount of solar generating capacity as the whole continent of Africa. That must be, in part, because the interest on a loan to set up a windfarm in Africa is about 17% more than one to do the same in Europe.
Many poor countries enjoy vast natural resources of wind and sun yet struggle to access renewable energy because of the crippling cost of capital imposed on them. Private sector companies perceive far greater risk in poor countries, penalising most heavily the countries in greatest need of investment.
Continue reading...Countries in debt distress thrown financial lifeline but critics say measures fall short of what is needed
Poorer countries struggling with a growing debt crisis were thrown a lifeline at a global finance summit in Paris but the plans still fell short of the debt forgiveness programme that some had hoped for.
Progress was made on reforms that would help address the climate emergency, as nearly 40 world leaders and the heads of global institutions met in Paris for the summit, which ended on Friday.
Continue reading...Families, friends and colleagues remember Stockton Rush, Hamish Harding, Shahzada and Suleman Dawood and Paul-Henri Nargeolet
Tributes have been paid to the five people who are now believed to have been instantly killed in a “catastrophic implosion” of the Titan submersible during its dive to the Titanic.
On Thursday, after days of aerial and underwater searches, a robotic diving vehicle deployed from a Canadian ship discovered a debris field from the submersible Titan on the seabed 1,600 feet (488 metres) from the bow of the Titanic.
Continue reading...Police tell people to avoid Val-de-Grâce area after several buildings catch fire in fifth arrondissement
At least 37 people have been injured, four of whom are in a critical condition, after a gas explosion sparked a blaze in buildings in the Latin Quarter of Paris.
The blast happened in the fifth arrondissement at about 5pm on Wednesday and resulted in several buildings catching fire, local officials said.
Continue reading...Hundreds of faint stripes, dots and wavy lines at Loire valley site were created more than 57,000 years ago, say scientists
Hundreds of faint stripes, dots and wavy lines that adorn a cave wall in central France are the oldest known engravings made by Neanderthals, according to scientists who analysed the ancient markings.
The patterns, called finger flutings, appear on sections of the longest and most even wall of the cave in La Roche-Cotard in the Loire valley, and were created more than 57,000 years ago, before modern humans arrived in the region, the researchers say.
Continue reading...Les Soulèvements de La Terre uses direct action aimed at big business interests
The French government is to shut down a climate protest group over a series of recent demonstrations citing risks to public safety, as the environmental activists called the decision “political and particularly worrying”.
Les Soulèvements de la Terre (Earth Uprising) is an umbrella group of several different environmental activist associations across France. It is seen as leading a new form of more radical climate action in Europe with high-profile direct action often aimed at big business interests, state projects and large-scale farming.
Continue reading...Government blocks sale of Charlotte Corday’s 1793 manifesto justifying murder of Jean-Paul Marat
French officials are fighting for possession of a 1793 manifesto by a woman justifying her decision to stab a revolutionary leader to death, with local authorities saying they will take the case to court.
Charlotte Corday was a 24-year-old member of a moderate faction during the French Revolution, who became alarmed at the way it was being taken over by violent extremists.
Continue reading...Gabriel Fortin, 48, is alleged to have killed two HR directors and a jobs centre worker and wounded a fourth person in 2021 attacks
An unemployed French engineer has gone on trial accused of shooting dead three women he blamed for his failure to find a job.
Gabriel Fortin, 48, allegedly killed two human resources directors and a jobs centre employee, and attempted to kill another worker, after a string of dismissals.
Continue reading...Suspect Dirk Raats has been officially put under investigation for murder of Solaine Thornton
A man has appeared in court in France charged with shooting dead an 11-year-old British girl who was playing in the garden of her family home.
The suspect, Dirk Raats, 70, originally from Antwerp in Belgium, has been officially put under investigation for the murder of Solaine Thornton and the attempted murder of her parents, Adrian and Rachel Thornton.
Continue reading...Child’s father and mother were also injured in attack while her eight-year-old sister escaped unhurt
An 11-year-old British girl was shot dead as she played on swings in the garden of her family home in a village in western France on Saturday.
The girl’s father and mother were also injured in the attack in the village of Saint-Herbot in Brittany while her eight-year-old sister escaped unhurt.
Continue reading...The stabbing of four toddlers has united inhabitants of the picture-postcard French town but also left them heartbroken and baffled
By the wooden climbing frame in the shape of a pirate ship, Jean-Xavier dismounted from his bike and surveyed the piles of flowers and candles lit for the four children aged between 22 months and three who were seriously injured when a knife attacker stabbed toddlers in this lakeside playground in the French Alps town of Annecy.
“Everyone is asking why,” he said, as his own two-year-old son, who usually liked whizzing down the slides here, sat sucking a dummy and clutching a toy rabbit, strapped safely into his bike seat. “Stabbings happen a lot in France but to actually go after small children in a playground gives a different context – it’s incomprehensible.”
Continue reading...Police detain man after attacks in lakeside playground that left children in critical condition
Four children and two adults have been injured in a knife attack in the picturesque town of Annecy in the French Alps.
The children – one aged 22 months, two aged two years old and one aged three – were in a critical condition from stab wounds, and were transferred to hospitals in the French Alps and across the Swiss border in Geneva on Thursday afternoon.
Continue reading...Briton was one of four children aged between 22 months and three years attacked in Annecy playground
A British child is among four children and two adults who have been injured in the town of Annecy in the French Alps, after a knifeman went on a rampage in a playground, the UK’s foreign secretary has confirmed.
At least two of the children, both aged about three, were reported to be in a critical condition in hospital, while an adult also suffered life-threatening injuries, French national police said.
Continue reading...Roderick Sinclair claims he has faced intimidation and mayor says he has had death threats in row with farmer in Montjoi
A retired British stockbroker claims he has been subjected to a sustained campaign of harassment and intimidation in a row over a bridle path running through his property in an idyllic corner of south-west France.
“It has been hell. In the beginning we all thought it was the traditional sort of spat between neighbours that happens all the time in France,” Roderick Sinclair said of the dispute at his French second home, a stone farmhouse his family have spent thousands renovating in Montjoi, in the Tarn-et-Garonne.
Continue reading...Accused among eight arrested after Jean-Baptiste Trogneux was beaten up outside family’s chocolate shop
Three men have appeared in court in France accused of attacking Brigitte Macron’s great-nephew outside her family’s chocolate shop.
The accused were among eight people arrested after Jean-Baptiste Trogneux, 30, was beaten up while reportedly trying to protect the windows of the store in Amiens in the Somme last month.
Continue reading...From Sweden to the US, the handling of the pandemic has been questioned. In some cases criminal proceedings are under way
Britain’s public Covid-19 inquiry, led by the retired judge Heather Hallett, is far from the first independent commission in the world to begin examining a country’s experience confronting the pandemic.
Their formats, mandates – and their progress – vary widely according to systems and traditions, but their task is essentially the same: to assess preparedness, make a record of decision-making, review government responses and learn lessons for the future.
Continue reading...Many in need of permanent protection remain stuck in ‘prison-like’ camps on Greek islands, leading refugee charity says
Just 271 Afghans were resettled in the EU in 2022, 0.1% of the 270,000 identified as in need of permanent protection, it has emerged.
Leading charity the International Rescue Committee accused EU leaders of “staggering neglect” of Afghan refugees with many remaining trapped in “prison-like” conditions on Greek islands.
Continue reading...In speech in Bratislava, French president will warn of steady erosion of European strategic stability
Emmanuel Macron is to make a diplomatic push to reassure central and eastern European countries that France understands that the continent’s security environment has been permanently changed by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Macron has often been viewed with suspicion across eastern Europe, especially in Poland, as someone who sees Russia as ultimately part of Europe’s security architecture and wants to use the war in Ukraine to boost European defence autonomy in a way that loosens Europe’s security ties to the US.
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