First president after 1979 Islamic revolution clashed with clerics and fled to exile in France a year later
Abolhassan Bani-Sadr, who became Iran’s first president after the 1979 Islamic revolution before fleeing into exile in France, died on Saturday aged 88.
He died at the Pitié-Salpêtrière hospital in Paris following a long illness, his wife and children said on Bani-Sadr’s official website.
Continue reading...The controversial TV pundit recently overtook Marine Le Pen in presidential election opinion polls
He has been convicted for inciting racial hatred, attacked by historians for claiming the Nazi collaborator Marshal Philippe Pétain saved French Jews rather than aiding their deportation to death camps, and was this week described by the French justice minister as a dangerous racist and Holocaust denier.
But Éric Zemmour, a far-right French TV pundit, is rising so fast in opinion polls for president that one survey this week found he could make the final round of the April election and take 45% of the vote against the centrist Emmanuel Macron.
Continue reading...Preparatory work for ‘redoing’ of The Potato Eaters – savaged in his lifetime – to feature in exhibition
A collection of Vincent van Gogh’s preparatory drawings sketched ahead of a planned “redoing” of The Potato Eaters, a masterpiece brutally slated by buyers, friends and family at the time of its painting, are being exhibited for what is believed to be first time.
The Dutch artist considered his depiction of a peasant family from the village of Nuenen in Brabant eating a meal of potatoes as one of only four of his works that could be regarded as important, alongside The Bedroom, Sunflowers and Augustine Roulin (La berceuse).
Continue reading...French government pushing EU to take stronger stance in dispute over access to Channel waters
The EU could hit Britain and Jersey’s energy supply over the UK’s failure to provide sufficient fishing licences to French fishers, France’s EU affairs minister has said.
Clément Beaune, who is a close ally of the French president, Emmanuel Macron, said action would be decided on within days and discussions were already in motion.
Continue reading...Abuses committed by priests as well as non-religious people, says independent commission
An investigation into sexual abuse in the French Catholic church has found that an estimated 216,000 children were victims of abuse by clergy since 1950.
The revelations in France are the latest to rock the Roman Catholic church after a series of sexual abuse scandals around the world, often involving children, over the past 20 years.
Continue reading...Figure from head of commission investigating sexual abuse comes days before publication of report
The head of an independent commission investigating child sexual abuse in the French Catholic church has said about 3,000 paedophiles have operated inside the institution since 1950.
Days before publication of its report, Jean-Marc Sauvé said the commission’s investigations had uncovered between 2,900 and 3,200 paedophile priests or other church members, adding that this was “a minimum estimate”.
Continue reading...As the covers come off the Arc de Triomphe, work begins to realise an ambitious project in the desert and secure the artist’s legacy
Before he died last year the artist Christo had not one but two dreams: to wrap the Arc de Triomphe and to build a massive structure out of oil drums in the desert sands of Abu Dhabi. L’Arc de Triomphe, Wrapped was completed last month and today visitors to Paris will have one last chance to see the arch swathed in silver blue fabric before it is dismantled tomorrow.
Once he has overseen the monument’s restoration to its original glory in time for Armistice commemorations next month, Christo’s nephew Vladimir Yavachev will turn his attention east to create the last monumental project that – if completed – will be the artist’s only permanent large-scale sculpture and the largest artwork in the world.
Continue reading...Tensions rise as Algiers imposes airspace ban in latest response to visa dispute and Macron criticism
The diplomatic discord between Algeria and France has deepened after Algiers banned French military planes from its airspace, its latest response to a row over visas and critical comments from President Emmanuel Macron.
France’s jets regularly fly over the former French colony to reach the Sahel region of western Africa, where its soldiers are helping to battle jihadist insurgents as part of its Operation Barkhane.
Continue reading...Letter, sent to Naval Group on 15 September, is at the heart of diplomatic rift between France and Australia
Australia cautioned the French contractor – hours before the $90bn submarine deal was cancelled – that its achievement of a key contractual milestone did “not provide any authorisation to continue work”.
The letter, sent to Naval Group on 15 September, is at the heart of an extraordinary diplomatic rift between France and Australia, with the French foreign minister telling a parliamentary hearing this week that “someone lied”.
Sign up to receive an email with the top stories from Guardian Australia every morning
Continue reading...François Vérove took his own life and mentioned crimes in suicide note after being called in for questioning
A retired police officer has been identified as the serial killer behind a spate of murders and rapes in and around Paris in the 1980s and 1990s, in which he used his police card, handcuffs and professional restraint techniques to stop young women and girls, but eluded capture for decades until he took his life this week.
In one of the biggest cold-case reviews in the history of the Paris police, investigators had been seeking DNA evidence to identify the notorious serial killer and rapist known as the “pockmarked man” who had avoided capture for 35 years.
Continue reading...Mali’s military leaders under pressure to pull back from suspected agreement with Wagner Group
The UK has joined a mounting international campaign of pressure on Mali’s military leaders to step back from a suspected deal with a Russian mercenary company, amid fears that the agreement will further complicate insecurity in the region.
Mali’s leaders, battling a jihadist insurgency – and amid a fragile political transition following multiple coups – have been coy on details of a reported deal with the Wagner Group.
Yet Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, conceded last week that talks with Mali had occurred. “They have turned to a private military company from Russia,” he said at the UN general assembly last Saturday. “France wants to significantly draw down its military component which was present there.”
The developments have sparked international concerns, anger in France, and mixed reactions within Mali amid the worsening violence suffered in the country.
President accused of chasing rightwing votes by making sudden, tough gestures on immigration
The Algerian foreign ministry has summoned the French ambassador for talks in “formal protest” against France’s decision to sharply reduce the number of visas granted to Algerian nationals, as opposition parties in Paris accused Emmanuel Macron of using the row to court rightwing voters.
The French government announced this week that it would substantially cut the number of visas granted to people from Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia, three north African countries which were all part of France’s former colonial empire and where many people have strong family ties in France.
Continue reading...Jean-Yves Le Drian says Australia reassured France everything was fine right up to the day the Aukus pact was announced
France has accused Australia of lying shortly before Canberra cancelled a major submarine contract, with the French foreign minister declaring “someone lied”.
With no sign of any imminent easing of tensions between the two countries, Jean-Yves Le Drian told a parliamentary hearing that Australia had never expressed doubts about the €56bn (A$90bn) submarine contract or the strategic Indo-Pacific pact before breaking the contract.
Continue reading...Élysée says future talks must have substance after Canberra’s decision to cancel submarine contract
France has said any future talks between Emmanuel Macron and the Australian prime minister, Scott Morrison, over the fallout from Canberra’s decision to tear up a €56bn (£48bn) submarine deal will have to be “seriously prepared” and have “substance”.
The Élysée Palace has denied it is refusing to take Morrison’s calls, saying the president is “always available to talk on the phone”, but has admitted it is not in any hurry to resume contact with Canberra.
Continue reading...Chahinez Boutaa killed months after telling police her estranged husband had ambushed and beaten her
French police officers are facing disciplinary action over the death of a woman who was shot and burned alive in the street by her estranged husband, weeks after she told police she feared for her life.
Mounir Boutaa allegedly shot his wife, Chahinez, at least twice in the legs yards from her home on the outskirts of Bordeaux in broad daylight in May, before soaking her with petrol and setting light to her as she lay injured on the ground.
Continue reading...Tough controls on immigration, a restricted role for European courts, a new politics of patriotism: why is the EU’s former Brexit chief negotiator, now running for the French presidency, sounding more and more like a Eurosceptic? As his Brexit diaries are published in English, he reveals all
My Secret Brexit Diary, Michel Barnier’s blow-by-blow account of the Brexit negotiations, is at times quite a dry and technical read. But every now and then it offers glorious moments of comic relief. There is, for example, the day that Lord Digby Jones and a jovial bunch of leave-voting businessmen pitch up optimistically at Barnier’s Brussels office, plonking a patriotic gift-basket on his desk. Running his eye over it, the European Union’s chief Brexit negotiator spies some cheddar, wine, tea and jam, a book of Shakespeare’s plays and an essay on Winston Churchill’s life and political philosophy. With a smile, Barnier points out that some of the foodstuffs are processed from European products and protected by EU designations of origin. As for Shakespeare and Churchill, one, he suggests, was a very “continental playwright” and the other a “very European British statesman” who backed a united Europe.
This false start is the prelude to some unsuccessful lobbying by the British delegation on behalf of the City’s financial services industry. When Barnier bats away demands for full post-Brexit access to European markets, he writes that the mood suddenly turns sour: “Digby Jones dares to say to me: ‘Mr Barnier, your position is contrary to the interests of the economy. You are going to make life even more difficult for the worker in the Ruhr, the single woman in Madrid or the unemployed man in Athens.’” The rhetoric and tone, concludes Barnier in his diary entry for 10 January 2018, was “morally outrageous”; the desired bespoke agreement on financial services never materialises.
Continue reading...Jean-Luc Mélenchon and Éric Zemmour slug it out in much-publicised two-hour debate
Two men; two completely different visions for France.
In a debate that lasted more than two hours, the hard-left presidential candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon and the hard-right Éric Zemmour, expected to be a presidential candidate, went head to head on prime-time television on Thursday evening.
Continue reading...Mediapart claims indicate that devices were targeted by NSO’s Pegasus spyware
Traces of Pegasus spyware were found on the mobile phones of at least five current French cabinet ministers, the investigative website Mediapart has reported, citing multiple anonymous sources and a confidential intelligence dossier.
The allegation comes two months after the Pegasus Project, a media consortium that included the Guardian, revealed that the phone numbers of top French officials, including French president Emmanuel Macron and most of his 20-strong cabinet, appeared in a leaked database at the heart of the investigative project.
Continue reading...Head of Naval Group attacks Australia’s ‘political’ decision to cancel €56bn contract with his firm
Australia has signed up to an empty promise by agreeing to a US nuclear powered submarine deal for which there is no clear delivery date or technology transfer agreement, the furious head of the French defence contractor Naval Group has warned.
Pierre Eric Pommellet also said his firm will be seeking compensation for Australia’s cancellation of a €56bn (£48bn) contract for 12 new Attack-class submarines, which he described as a purely political decision which came without warning.
Continue reading...From 30 September, people aged 12-17 visiting France from the UK must present a vaccine passport to access most public places in the country
From 30 September, people aged 12-17 visiting France from the UK must present a “passe sanitaire” (vaccine passport) to access most public places in the country. Previously, this was only required for people aged 18 years and older.
The UK’s Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) does not recommend that most 12 to 15-year-olds get vaccinated and, for the time being, is only backing offering a first dose to 16 and 17-year-olds. This may pose practical problems for many UK-based parents, whose only option would seem to be paying for PCR tests.
Continue reading...