Category Archives: France

Scholz, Macron and Draghi vow support for Ukraine’s EU bid on Kyiv visit

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Symbolic visit of German, French and Italian leaders comes as Russia continues attacks across country

The leaders of France, Germany and Italy have vowed to support Ukraine’s bid to join the European Union on a visit to Kyiv intended as a show of unity in the face of Russian advances and complaints from the Ukrainians about the pace of weapons supplies.

“My colleagues and I came here to Kyiv today with a clear message: ‘Ukraine belongs to the European family,’” the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, said at a joint press conference with the French president, Emmanuel Macron, the Italian prime minister, Mario Draghi, the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, and the Romanian president, Klaus Iohannis.

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European leaders expected to visit Kyiv to show support for Ukraine

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Volodymyr Zelenskiy to push leaders of Germany, France and Italy to send more weapons to help army withstand Russian invasion

The leaders of the European Union’s three biggest countries, Germany, France and Italy, are expected in Kyiv on Thursday to show their backing for Ukraine as it struggles to withstand a relentless Russian assault.

The visit by the German chancellor Olaf Scholz, the French president Emmanuel Macron and the Italian prime minister Mario Draghi has taken weeks to organise with the three men looking to overcome criticism within Ukraine over their response to the war.

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Eighteenth-century cockroach found in slave-trading ship ledger

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Insect’s journey probably began in west Africa on vessel that sailed from La Rochelle in 1743 to Guinea

An 18th-century cockroach named Peri, discovered in the ledger of a French slave-trading vessel, has become a surprise addition to the National Archives after the book was opened for the first time in more than two centuries.

The insect’s journey began onboard the slave-trading vessel that sailed from La Rochelle in 1743 for the Guinea coast. The crew later boarded a different vessel in modern-day Haiti bound for France, taking the ledger with them. But that ship was seized by British privateers during the war of the Austrian succession and sent into Plymouth.

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Macron’s centrists could lose control as leftwingers rise in parliament election

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President faces a messy scramble if he cannot achieve absolute majority in second round of elections

A new alliance of the French left is putting pressure on Emmanuel Macron’s grouping in the second round of the parliament election, as the president tries to hold on to his parliamentary majority.

Macron’s centrists could lose dozens of seats in France’s national assembly in the final next Sunday after a strong showing by a historic alliance of parties on the left, led by the hard-left Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s France Unbowed with the Socialists and the Greens.

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Emmanuel Macron’s coalition level with new leftwing group in French elections

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President’s Ensemble alliance is projected to take 25.2% of the vote with Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s Nupes slightly ahead on 25.6%

Emmanuel Macron’s centrist grouping was neck and neck with a new leftwing alliance led by the hard-left Jean-Luc Mélenchon in the vote share of the first round of parliamentary elections.

A frantic final week of campaigning will begin on Monday before the second round, as Macron’s centrists still hope to edge ahead but face uncertainty over whether they can win a crucial majority of seats in parliament.

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Will a kiss on the head bring victory for Emmanuel Macron?

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France’s president will be hoping his habit of planting a peck on a pate on polling days will bring him luck in parliamentary elections

Emmanuel Macron’s apparent habit of kissing a bald supporter on the head on election day has sparked French media speculation over whether it was a superstitious gesture as his centrists face a tough challenge from the left.

As the French president went to vote in the first round of the parliamentary elections in the northern seaside resort of Le Touquet, where he has a house, he approached waiting supporters before grabbing party activist Grégoire Campion and kissing him on his bald head.

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Defence minister rubbishes Coalition claims on France compensation deal – as it happened

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Marles brushes off suggestions former Coalition government was close to signing compensation deal with France; nation records at least 24 Covid deaths. This blog is now closed

Interview with minister for NDIS and government services Bill Shorten now. First question is about energy policy.

Shorten says “the real issue about power, in my opinion is for 10 years we’ve had a decade of denial and delay.”

What we are suffering from this winter in the short term is floods of coal mines, outages of a plant which is more than 50 years old, but the real long-term problem is that we haven’t made a plan for transition to renewables, now the chickens have come home to roost.

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Aukus pact: Australia pays $830m penalty for ditching non-nuclear French submarines

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Anthony Albanese pledges to reset Australia’s strained relationship with France after settling cancelled contract with Naval Group

The Australian government has agreed to pay €550m (A$830m) in a settlement with Naval Group over the former Morrison government’s controversial decision to scrap the French attack class submarine project.

The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, announced on Saturday the confidential settlement would draw a line under the cancelled $90bn project. Labor gave bipartisan support to the Aukus partnership that replaced the project – under which the US and the UK have offered to help Australia to acquire at least eight nuclear-propelled submarines and cooperate on other advanced technologies.

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Biloela family welcomed home; Albanese announces $830m submarine penalty – as it happened

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French defence minister welcomes Australia’s payment to Naval Group over submarine cancellation; 70 Covid deaths across the country. This blog is now closed

Prime minister Anthony Albanese will hold a press conference in Sydney at 10.15am

There are reports in French media that Australia has settled with French company Naval Group over the cancellation of the submarines contract by the former government. We have not confirmed, but we shall see if that’s what the press conference is about.

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Report highlights ‘multiple failures’ in handling of Champions League final

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  • French government release 30-page report on systemic failures
  • Liverpool fans were attacked outside Stade de France in May

A French government report into the problems at the Champions League final has highlighted “multiple failures” in the management of the crowd in Paris.

The 30-page report, handed to the prime minister’s office on Friday, focused on systemic failures and “the presence of malevolent individuals” in the vicinity of the stadium. Large numbers of Liverpool fans have reported being attacked and having possessions stolen outside the Stade de France.

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Prosecutors ask for life sentences for 12 men at Paris attacks trial

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France’s biggest ever criminal trial enters final weeks, with prosecutors expressing regret about unanswered questions

French prosecutors have called for life sentences for 12 of the 20 men suspected of key roles in the November 2015 Paris terrorist attacks on a stadium, bars and restaurants and a rock gig at the Bataclan concert hall.

As the biggest criminal trial ever held in France entered its final weeks, prosecutors summed up the evidence and regretted that there were still key, unanswered questions about the coordinated attacks that killed 130 people and injured more than 490.

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Thieves stole Banksy Bataclan door mural with crowbar, French court told

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Seven Frenchmen and Italian on trial for theft of work thought to be a tribute to victims of Paris attacks

Thieves who stole a mural by the street artist Banksy on an emergency exit door of the Bataclan concert hall in Paris used a crowbar and angle grinder to prise it free, in a crime that lasted just minutes, a French court heard.

The work depicting a veiled and mournful figure is thought to have been a tribute to victims of the Islamist militant attacks against the Bataclan and other entertainment venues in Paris in 2015.

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Paris protesters celebrate saving trees around the Eiffel Tower

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City abandons €72m scheme to develop area and create huge garden in time for 2024 Olympics

Protesters in Paris are celebrating having saved more than 40 trees – one of them over 200 years old – from being chopped down or threatened with damage around the Eiffel Tower as part of a €72m scheme to create a huge garden.

Paris’s city hall has been forced to row back on plans to clear the area around the structure on the Champ-de-Mars to improve access to the tower and make the traffic-clogged area greener in time for the 2024 Paris Olympics.

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France puts 18 on trial over alleged involvement in vast horsemeat scandal

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Defendants are accused of participation in supply of horsemeat unfit for human consumption across Europe

When Aline Oudin was forced to find a new home for her beloved 28-year-old chestnut horse Ténor du Pluvinage, she placed an advert asking if anyone could offer him a new field to see out his final days.

A man in his 60s responded saying he was looking for a calm companion for the young mare he had bought his daughter, so Oudin let him take the horse away with the promise she could visit him regularly.

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Christo before Christo: Paris exhibition reveals artist’s earlier works

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Exhibition to show items the artist experimented with before larger wrapped pieces that defined him

Long before scaling the heights of the Reichstag in Berlin or the Pont Neuf in Paris, the artist known as Christo started on a much smaller scale.

Having fled communist Bulgaria for Paris and working in a maid’s room, the impoverished refugee began creating his first wrapped sculptures using everyday objects such as cans, bottles and – when he found a bigger studio – old oil barrels.

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Woman killed as storms cause chaos across France

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Many more people injured as thunder and hail lead to flooding, power cuts and flight delays

One woman has been killed and 14 people injured in France as thunder and hailstorms hit the country, ravaging vineyards and delaying flights.

Residents of south-west France posted photos online of hail the size of tennis balls, and drivers in the Paris region shared images of flooded roads and daytime skies blackened by thunder clouds.

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Fury in France as Champions League final chaos tarnishes nation’s global image

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As elections loom, public turns against interior minister Gérald Darmanin after he blames Liverpool fans for Paris fiasco

When Paris stepped in to host the Champions League final, the biggest match in international football after the World Cup final, the French authorities saw a chance to show that the nation was the ideal place to hold global sporting events.

This weekend, those hopes appear to be dashed as French opinion polls show widespread disapproval of the chaos that ensued, amid growing criticism of politicians and the police.

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Russia must not be humiliated in Ukraine, says Emmanuel Macron

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French president says door must be left open to allow for improvement in diplomatic relations after war

Russia must not be humiliated in Ukraine, Emmanuel Macron has said, to allow an improvement in diplomatic relations between the west and Moscow whenever the war comes to an end.

The French president said his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, had made a “historic and fundamental” error in invading Ukraine, but that nevertheless a wider escalation in hostilities had to be avoided.

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Afghans with western links among rising number trying to cross Channel

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Fivefold increase in refugees from Afghanistan crossing in small boats this year as they flee Taliban

Refugees who worked alongside international organisations in Afghanistan are among a rising number of Afghan asylum seekers in camps in northern France planning to cross the Channel in small boats.

The number of asylum seekers from Afghanistan crossing the Channel in small boats has risen fivefold this year, according to immigration figures released last week, as more refugees flee in the wake of the Taliban takeover.

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UK agrees to launch full inquiry into drowning of 27 people in Channel

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Lawyers for bereaved relatives say ‘serious failings’ in rescue operation may have contributed to deaths

The government has agreed to launch a full investigation into the drowning of at least 27 people trying to cross the Channel in a small boat last November.

The decision by the transport secretary, Grant Shapps, to agree to what is known as an article 2 inquiry – an independent investigation – is revealed in correspondence between his lawyers and eight relatives of 11 of the victims.

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