Lengthy tailbacks on M20 heading to Dover and at entrance to Channel tunnel follow change of rules on Friday night
A rush of passengers travelling to France to beat the country’s ban on UK tourists has led to a knock-on effect on freight traffic, resulting in long queues of lorries.
There were lengthy tailbacks on the M20 motorway in Kent heading to Dover and at the entrance to the Channel tunnel on Saturday.
Continue reading...Makeshift vessels got into trouble attempting to make crossing from France to the UK
More than 130 people have been rescued after their makeshift vessels became stranded in the Channel as they tried to reach Britain from France, French authorities said.
Two navy vessels and two lifeboats brought the 138 refugees back to shore after authorities were informed on Thursday that “many boats trying to cross the Channel were in trouble”.
Continue reading...As ban takes effect from midnight, UK travel operators say news is ‘devastating for ski industry’
France has banned all non-essential travel from the UK, starting on Friday night. We explain what it means if you have planned to visit over the festive period.
Continue reading...French President Emmanuel Macron says Australia behaved badly after ending its submarine deal with France before opting for a nuclear powered arrangement in collaboration with the United States and United Kingdom. Macron previously accused the Australian prime minister, Scott Morrison, of lying to him over the abandoned $90bn submarine contract. Speaking in an interview with TF1 and LCI television stations, Macron said: "The Australians have treated us in a bad manner, industrially and strategically. We responded in the firmest manner, and it will be felt in time, believe me. The Australians behaved badly"
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Authorities say mostly Iraqi Kurds drowned in the Channel dinghy incident, including a teenager and one child
French authorities have formally identified 26 out of 27 people who drowned last month in a Channel dinghy incident, with most of them being Kurds from Iraq.
A statement from the Paris prosecutor said that there were 17 men among the deceased aged 19-26, seven women aged 22-46, as well as a 16-year-old teenager and a child aged seven.
Continue reading...Overwhelming vote to remain with France, but low turnout ‘weighs heavily’ on self-determination process, say observers
Low voter turnout at New Caledonia’s independence referendum “weighs heavily” on the French territory’s self-determination process, election observers from the Pacific Islands Forum have said.
In Sunday’s referendum, more than 96% of voters were opposed to independence from France, compared with 57% in 2018 and 53% in 2020.
Continue reading...Turnout of just 40% after pro-independence campaigners urged indigenous people not to participate
Residents of the Pacific territory of New Caledonia have voted overwhelmingly to remain part of France in a referendum boycotted by pro-independence groups.
In the third referendum on the matter, the decision to stay within the French republic was carried by 96.49% to 3.51%, but a turnout of just over 40% suggested the indigenous Kanak people have not given up on dreams of independence.
Continue reading...British government says move agreed during talks before Friday midnight deadline set by Brussels
The UK and Jersey governments have issued further licences to French fishing boats to trawl British waters in an apparent attempt to ease cross-Channel tensions.
The Brussels-imposed deadline of midnight on Friday for solving the post-Brexit fishing row passed without an agreement being announced.
Continue reading...France willing to re-engage on Channel crossings, but UK economy relies on illegal labour, says president
Relations between France and Britain are strained because the current UK government does not honour its word, president Emmanuel Macron has said.
Macron accused London of failing to keep its word on Brexit and fishing licences, but said France was willing to re-engage in good faith, and called for “British re-engagement” over the “humanitarian question” of dangerous Channel crossings, after at least 27 migrants drowned trying to reach the British coast.
Continue reading...A million-selling superstar at home and in France, she discusses her confrontation with Playboy, growing up in a famous family and being publicly outed as bisexual
A few years ago, a popular pub quiz question involved naming 10 famous Belgians. The answers often revealed more about British cultural ignorance than Belgium’s ability to produce international celebrities, given that the fictional Tintin and Hercule Poirot were the best many could come up with.
The game has got easier since the rise of Angèle, a stridently feminist Belgian pop singer-songwriter who shot to fame in 2016 after posting short clips singing covers and playing the piano on Instagram. She was young, talented and not afraid to make fun of herself, pulling faces and sticking pencils up her nose. Her 2018 debut album, Brol, sold a million copies; by 2019, she was a face of Chanel. “I’d always wanted a career in music, but I was thinking more of working as a piano accompanist,” she says, folding into an armchair at a five-star boutique hotel near the Paris Opéra. “I really didn’t expect it to happen like that.”
Continue reading...Urgent appeal lodged to stop the broadcast of cartoons calling on New Caledonians to vote against independence from France in this weekend’s referendum
Cartoons urging New Caledonians to vote no to independence from France in this weekend’s referendum have been accused of “profound racism and ridicule towards Pacific Islanders, especially the [indigenous] Kanak people”, in a legal submission lodged with France’s highest judicial body.
An urgent appeal has been lodged against the broadcast of the animations, which have been running on television in New Caledonia and online, with the Council of State in France.
Continue reading...President warns about ‘manipulation’ of history after Éric Zemmour claims Vichy regime protected French Jews from Nazis
Emmanuel Macron has warned against the “manipulation” of history in a clear message to the far-right presidential candidate, Éric Zemmour, on a symbolic visit to Vichy.
After the German occupation in 1940, the spa town was chosen for Marshal Philippe Pétain’s puppet regime, which collaborated with the Nazis and ensured the deportation of Jews to death camps. Zemmour has angered historians by claiming, instead, that Pétain saved French Jews.
Continue reading...Exclusive: political tensions prompt increase in numbers of French with negative view of Brits and vice versa
A year of post-Brexit bickering has left the French and the British feeling significantly less well disposed towards each other, a poll shows.
After ill-tempered exchanges over everything from fishing to submarines and Covid travel rules to the Northern Ireland protocol, the YouGov poll found that favourable opinions of the British had slid in France and other EU countries.
Continue reading...Pro-independence groups have called for Indigenous voters not to take part in Sunday’s long-awaited ballot, saying proper campaigning has been prevented
New Caledonia is set to hold a referendum on independence from France this weekend, the third and final poll meant to conclude a decolonisation process initiated 30 years ago.
For anyone who witnessed the first two referenda, the contrast with the vote set for 12 December is striking: instead of the countless Kanaky flags or the red, white and blue of the French tricolour that adorned houses, balconies, roadsides, pickups or even people in the run-up to the 2018 and 2020 votes, this year there is little to see. On the Place des Cocotiers, in the centre of Nouméa, the capital, the quiet is disturbed only by the incessant patrolling of police trucks, part of the increased security around the vote.
Continue reading...Khalid Aedh al-Otaibi reportedly arrested as he was about to board flight to Riyadh
French police have reportedly arrested a former member of the Saudi royal guard suspected of involvement in the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
Khalid Aedh al-Otaibi was said to have been taken into custody at Paris’s Charles de Gaulle airport as he was about to take a plane to the Saudi capital, Riyadh.
Continue reading...Early indications Omicron more transmissible than Delta, says Boris Johnson; Nicola Sturgeon says staff should work from home until mid-January
All international arrivals to the UK are now required to take a pre-departure Covid-19 test to tackle the new Omicron variant.
The tightened requirements have just come into force from 4am (GMT) on Tuesday 7 December.
Continue reading...The far-right French presidential candidate Éric Zemmour appeared to be put in a headlock by a protester at his first campaign, days after he formally declared his candidacy in a video highlighting his anti-migrant and anti-Islam views.
Videos online appeared to show Zemmour being grabbed by a man at the heated rally near Paris on Sunday, during which anti-racism activists were also reportedly attacked. He was later reported to have suffered slight injuries
Continue reading...Gemstones worth €300,000 shared between Mont Blanc climber and authorities as man praised for handing find to police in 2013
A treasure trove of emeralds, rubies and sapphires buried for decades on a glacier off France’s Mont Blanc has finally been shared between the climber who discovered them and local authorities, eight years after they were found.
The mountaineer stumbled across the precious stones in 2013. They had remained hidden in a metal box that was onboard an Indian plane that crashed in the desolate landscape some 50 years earlier.
Continue reading...Éric Zemmour formally declared his candidacy on Tuesday, highlighting his anti-migrant and anti-Islam views
The far-right French presidential candidate Éric Zemmour appeared to be put in a headlock by a protester at his first campaign, a few days after he formally declared his candidacy in a video highlighting his anti-migrant and anti-Islam views.
Videos online appeared to show Zemmour being grabbed by a man at the heated rally near Paris on Sunday, during which anti-racism activists were also reportedly attacked.
Continue reading...Her supporters call her Emmanuel Macron’s worst nightmare, but she faces a tough task to unseat him
When Valérie Pécresse crossed rural France this summer, visiting farms and villages to escape what she called her grotesquely unfair image as a “blond bourgeoise” from Versailles, she promised to smash the French Republic’s glass ceiling. “I will be the first female president of France,” she told meeting halls to cheers.
Since Emmanuel Macron won the presidency in 2017 as a shock outsider with no election experience and a party put together in a few months, French politics has thrived on novelty. Pécresse’s supporters say her status as a woman is refreshingly new and makes her Macron’s worst nightmare.
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