Category Archives: France

Eight go on trial in France over Bastille Day truck attack in Nice

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Seven men and one woman accused of helping gunman who drove a vehicle into crowds, killing 86 people

Seven men and one woman have gone on trial over the 2016 Bastille day attack in Nice, when a gunman drove a heavy truck at high speed into a crowd gathered to watch fireworks on the Riviera seafront, killing 86 people and injuring more than 400.

The attack – the second most deadly massacre in peacetime France – happened eight months after the Paris attacks on bars, restaurants, the national stadium and Bataclan concert hall, which killed 130 people and were claimed by Islamic State.

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Oldest human or just another ape? Row erupts over 7m-year-old fossil

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Remains from Chad desert provoke rancorous dispute over whether species was earliest to walk upright

It is a dispute that has taken a long time to reach boiling point. Seven million years after an apelike creature – since nicknamed Toumaï – traversed the landscape of modern Chad, its means of mobility has triggered a dispute among fossil experts. Some claim this was the oldest member of the human lineage. Others that it was just an old ape.

The row, kindled by a paper in Nature, last week led scientists to denounce opponents while others accused rivals of building theories on “less than five minutes’ observation” .

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Trump boasted he had ‘intelligence’ on Macron’s sex life

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Inventory of what was seized at Mar-a-Lago caused ‘transatlantic freakout’ between Paris and Washington

Donald Trump boasted to close associates that he knew secrets about Emmanuel Macron’s sex life from US intelligence sources, it has been reported.

The report in Rolling Stone magazine comes in the wake of the release of court documents on the classified and national defence documents found in a search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home on 8 August, which mention a file referred to as “info re: President of France”.

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Eurostar to axe direct trains from London to Disneyland Paris over Brexit

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High-speed rail firm blames departure from EU and Covid for decision to halt service next summer

Eurostar has decided to stop direct services from London to Disneyland Paris from next summer, citing the fallout from Brexit and Covid.

The high-speed train operator said on Tuesday it was scrapping trains running from the British capital to the Disneyland site in Marne-la-Vallée, in the eastern Paris suburbs.

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French tax officials use AI to spot 20,000 undeclared pools

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Scheme to be extended across the country after trial in nine departments led to extra €10m in tax receipts

French tax authorities using AI software have found thousands of undeclared private swimming pools, landing the owners with bills totalling about €10m.

The system, developed by Google and Capgemini, can identify pools on aerial images and cross-checks them with land registry databases. Launched as an experiment a year ago in nine French departments, it has uncovered 20,356 pools, the tax office said on Monday, and will be extended across the country.

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D-day tribute or theme park? Battle rages over Normandy plan

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Critics say €90m project would reduce allied landing to a money-spinning tourist attraction

A row has erupted in France over plans for a new D-day attraction near the landing beaches, which critics have likened to a Disney-style theme park.

The multimillion-euro project to retell the story of le débarquement of 6 June 1944 and the subsequent Battle of Normandy in a hi-tech 45-minute “immersive show” has sparked a furious war of words, with opponents describing it as disrespectful to those who died and their families.

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Leïla Slimani: ‘Attack on Salman Rushdie shows why we must not censor ourselves’

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The bestselling author fears she too could be a target but says terrorists cannot be allowed to win

The bestselling author Leïla Slimani says the knife attack on Salman Rushdie has left her and other writers afraid, but that they have a “duty” to keep making public appearances and resist censoring themselves, despite the dangers.

The French-Moroccan writer, whose novels include Adèle, Lullaby and The Country of Others and is Emmanuel Macron’s personal representative for the promotion of French language and culture, said defending her freedom as a writer “feels even more important than before” and was an act of resistance.

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‘She has no choice’: Liz Truss faces U-turn on energy if she enters No 10, MPs say

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If foreign secretary wins the Tory leadership contest she looks set to have to change course on ‘handouts’ despite campaign pledges

For months, everyone in government had known that Friday was energy cap day, and at 7am the bad news duly dropped. Phones pinged as the nation woke to Ofgem’s confirmation that typical gas and electricity bills were to rise by a frightening 80%.

Millions of people would be unable to cope, said charities. Even those on low or middle earnings who had some savings could see them entirely wiped out. It was a full-on national crisis, albeit long predicted.

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Briton who was Netflix’s ‘ultimate conman’ flees French police

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Robert Hendy-Freegard, subject of Puppet Master: Hunting the Ultimate Conman documentary, may face attempted murder charges

A British conman who was the subject of a Netflix documentary is on the run and facing possible attempted murder charges in France after injuring two police officers while fleeing a raid, local officials have said.

Robert Hendy-Freegard had been illegally breeding dogs while living in the French village of Vidaillat, according to the local mayor, Martine Laporte.

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Eurotunnel passengers stranded underground for five hours

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Travellers had to leave their vehicles and walk through the emergency tunnel

Eurotunnel passengers were stranded for nearly five hours at subsea level after the train broke down beneath the Channel, leaving hundreds of passengers to be ushered to a service tunnel.

The incident happened late on Tuesday, affecting the 3.50pm Eurotunnel Le Shuttle service from Calais to Folkestone.

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France remembers De Gaulle’s close escape depicted in The Day of the Jackal

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Wartime leader survived most serious of many assassination attempts 60 years ago in Paris suburb

On 22 August 1962, France’s wartime leader Charles de Gaulle survived what would be the most serious of 30 attempts on his life. De Gaulle and his wife, Yvonne, were being driven through a Paris suburb for a flight from Villacoublay military airport, eight miles from the Élysée Palace.

The presidential couple were on their way back to Colombey-les-Deux-Églises, their country home about halfway between the French capital and Strasbourg in the east. They were travelling in a black Citroën DS, followed by an escort vehicle and two motorcycle police officers on Triumph bikes.

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French justice ministry under pressure to explain jail go-karting

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Minister condemns ‘shocking’ games inspired by reality TV show at Fresnes prison, south of Paris

France’s justice ministry is under pressure to explain why it signed off on games inspired by reality TV at the country’s second largest prison.

The political row erupted after a 25-minute video of prisoners at Fresnes jail taking part in go-karting and other challenges in the prison courtyard appeared on YouTube. The prison games were called Kohlantess – a play on Les aventuriers de Koh-Lanta, a French reality TV show based on the Survivor format.

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‘They said it was impossible’: how medieval carpenters are rebuilding Notre Dame

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Project leaders at Guédelon Castle tell how their woodwork savoir faire is proving a godsend for mission to restore Paris cathedral roof

At Guédelon Castle the year is 1253 and the minor nobleman, Gilbert Courtenay, has ridden off to fight in the Crusades, leaving his wife in charge of workers building the family’s new home: a modest chateau that befits his social position as a humble knight in the service of King Louis IX.

Here, in a forest clearing in northern Burgundy, history is being remade to the sound of chisel against stone and axe against wood, as 21st-century artisans re-learn and perfect long-forgotten medieval skills.

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France to blame for refugees risking Channel crossings, say NGOs

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Hostile policies encourage asylum seekers to try dangerous routes to England, say French support groups

Organisations supporting refugees in northern France have blamed the French government for the high number of people risking their lives to cross the Channel in small boats.

So far this year more than 20,000 people have crossed with UK Border Force union officials predicting that the number could reach 60,000 by the end of the year.

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Weather tracker: flash floods as Europe’s heatwave ends with thunderstorms

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Torrential rains hit parts of England, Italy, France and Belgium, while in China flooding leaves 18 dead

Prolonged heat across parts of northern and western Europe ended with torrential showers and thunderstorms this week.

On Wednesday, parts of southern England received 50-65mm of rainfall within a few hours, causing London’s Gatwick airport to delay and cancel dozens of flights.

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French right under fire for claims poor parents blowing school equipment cash

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MPs from Les Républicains party had submitted bill to ‘combat fraud’ on back-to-school grants to low-income households

Rightwing opposition MPs in France have been accused of stigmatising poorer people by suggesting low-income families are fraudulently using an allowance for school supplies.

The government spokesperson Olivier Véran said claims some families spent the money on televisions and alcohol were “discrimination” and “an old chestnut”. He rejected suggestions parents should be given basic supplies or vouchers for specific shops to reduce the possibility of fraud.

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Thunderstorms in Corsica and parts of Italy leave seven dead

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Girl, 13, among dead as violent storms strike after three days of intense rain in region

Violent thunderstorms with winds of up to 139mph (224km/h) have struck the Mediterranean island of Corsica and parts of Italy, killing seven people and leaving at least a dozen more injured.

On Corsica, a 13-year-old girl died after a tree fell on a campsite where she was staying and a 72-year-old woman was killed when the roof of a beach hut was blown off and struck her car. A 46-year-old man also died on the island in a campsite in the town of Calvi.

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Experienced British skier died in off-piste fall in France, inquest told

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Michael Rowell, 34, from Hampshire is thought to have slipped on to rocks in Alps while skiing with friend

An experienced British skier fell to his death while attempting to traverse an off-piste slope with a friend in the French Alps, an inquest heard.

Michael Rowell, 34, from Farnborough, Hampshire, who had skied since he was five, is thought to have slipped and fallen 24 metres (80ft) from an edge on to rocks.

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Wildfires in Europe burn area equivalent to one-fifth of Belgium

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Experts say drought and extreme high temperatures likely to make it a record year for destruction by fires

Across Europe, an area equivalent to one-fifth of Belgium has been ravaged by flames as successive searing heatwaves and a historic drought propel the continent towards what experts say is likely to be a record year for wildfire destruction.

According to data from the European Forest Fire Information System (Effis), 659,541 hectares (1.6m acres) of land burned across the continent between January and mid-August, the most at this time of year since records began in 2006.

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Production of French salers cheese halted due to drought

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Farmers in Auvergne despair as cows cannot be fed on grass left parched by hot summer

Traditional cheese has become the latest casualty of France’s summer drought, as production of the salers variety in the central Auvergne region was halted due to a lack of grass for cows.

Salers is an unpasteurised cow’s cheese that has been made for centuries in central France. It carries France’s appellation d’origine protégée (AOP) stamp of approval, meaning it is unique to the small area where it is produced.

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