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.
Continue reading...France’s top naval commander cites ‘rapid rearmament’ of China and Russia as danger to maritime security
France’s most senior naval commander has said future conflicts are likely to be fought at sea and in the cybersphere, citing the “rapid rearmament” of countries such as China as a potential threat.
Adm Pierre Vandier made his comments after the French Marine Nationale and forces from five allied countries, including the UK, took part in what he described as a unique two-week exercise intended to prepare for “composite threats”.
Continue reading...A roundup of the struggle for human rights and freedoms, from Mexico to Manila
Continue reading...Human rights groups criticise French president’s planned meeting with crown prince in Saudi Arabia
Human rights groups have criticised Emmanuel Macron’s planned meeting with Mohammed bin Salman in Saudi Arabia on Saturday, which will mark the first one-on-one public meeting of a major western leader with the crown prince since the state-sponsored assassination of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
For three years since the 2018 murder, western heads of state have avoided direct one-on-one meetings with the crown prince in the kingdom. The US president, Joe Biden, has even avoided speaking to the future king in what has widely been seen as an attempt to avoid conferring legitimacy on the de facto ruler.
But Macron’s move suggests at least one major western leader is ready to formally re-establish ties to the crown prince directly, less than a year after US intelligence agencies released a report stating they believed that Prince Mohammed had approved the murder of Khashoggi.
Continue reading...Margaux Pinot says she feared her partner would kill her, but judge says there is not enough proof of guilt
French sports stars and politicians have expressed anger at the acquittal of a coach accused of domestic violence against the Olympic judo champion Margaux Pinot, as the state prosecutor launched an appeal.
Pinot, 27, a gold medallist at the Tokyo Olympics, had serious facial injuries including a fractured nose when she filed a police complaint in the early hours of Sunday. She said her partner and trainer, Alain Schmitt, had attacked her at her flat outside Paris, wrestled her to the ground, verbally abused her, punched her many times, repeatedly smashed her head on to the ground and tried to strangle her.
Continue reading...Latest updates: Boris Johnson says ‘no need’ to cancel Christmas events as UK reports 53,945 daily coronavirus cases
Jeremy Corbyn posted a tweet this morning promoting a virtual Stop the War fundraiser this Christmas, not an in-person one. So my earlier post (now removed) about this being an example of a party going ahead that might not meet with George Freeman’s approval was completely wrong. I apologise for the mistake.
The Cabinet Office has been fined £500,000 for accidentally disclosing the postal addresses of the 2020 new year honours list recipients online, in breach of data protection laws.
On 27 December 2019 the Cabinet Office published a file on GOV.UK containing the names and unredacted addresses of more than 1,000 people announced in the new year honours list. People from a wide range of professions across the UK were affected, including individuals with a high public profile.
After becoming aware of the data breach, the Cabinet Office removed the weblink to the file. However, the file was still cached and accessible online to people who had the exact webpage address.
When data breaches happen, they have real-life consequences. In this case, more than 1,000 people were affected. At a time when they should have been celebrating and enjoying the announcement of their honour, they were faced with the distress of their personal details being exposed.
The Cabinet Office’s complacency and failure to mitigate the risk of a data breach meant that hundreds of people were potentially exposed to the risk of identity fraud and threats to their personal safety.
Continue reading...Draft legislation also proposes maximum fine of €150,000 in most serious cases
The French parliament has voted to make school bullying a criminal offence punishable by up to three years in prison, as MPs said society needed a wake-up call on the seriousness of children targeting their peers.
The proposed law was supported by Emmanuel Macron’s education minister, Jean-Michel Blanquer.
Continue reading...With the growing possibility of a pro-independence victory, France is derailing decolonisation in a bid to shore up its position in the Indo-Pacific
The French government’s decision to hold New Caledonia’s self-determination referendum on 12 December, despite the resolve of pro-independence parties not to participate, is a reckless political gambit with potentially dire consequences.
The referendum will be the third and final consultation held under the 1998 Noumea accord – successor to the Matignon accords which ended instability and violence between the Kanak independence movement and local “loyalists” and the French state in 1988. By organising this month’s referendum without the participation of the Indigenous Kanak people, who overwhelmingly support independence, France is undermining the innovative and peaceful decolonisation process of the last 30 years, founded on French state neutrality and seeking consensus between opposing local political parties.
Continue reading...Report follows French president’s complaint about PM’s behaviour after they discussed sinking of refugee boat in the Channel
The French president, Emmanuel Macron, referred to Boris Johnson in a private conversation as a “clown”, according to reports in France.
The political magazine Le Canard enchaîné, often described as the French equivalent of Private Eye, reported Macron as saying the British prime minister has “the attitude of a vulgarian”.
Continue reading...Home Office acknowledges people involved in tragedy may have tried to call for help as investigations continue
The occupants of a boat that sank last week in the Channel causing the deaths of at least 27 people may have tried to contact the UK authorities, the Home Office has acknowledged.
Dan O’Mahoney – the clandestine channel threat commander – said he could not say with any certainty if those onboard had rung the UK for help. Speaking to parliament’s human rights committee, O’Mahoney said HM Coastguard was now investigating.
Continue reading...French-American war hero is first Black woman inducted into Paris mausoleum for revered figures
Josephine Baker, the French-American civil rights activist, music hall superstar and second world war resistance hero, has become the first Black woman to enter France’s Panthéon mausoleum of revered historical figures – taking the nation’s highest honour at a moment when tensions over national identity and immigration are dominating the run-up to next year’s presidential race.
The elaborate ceremony on Tuesday – presided over by the French president, Emmanuel Macron – focused on Baker’s legacy as a resistance fighter, activist and anti-fascist who fled the racial segregation of the 1920s US for the Paris cabaret stage, and who fought for inclusion and against hatred.
Continue reading...It is time to ‘save’ France, controversial figure says as he reads video speech posted on social media
Éric Zemmour, a controversial French far-right TV pundit who has convictions for inciting racial hatred, has declared he will run for president next spring, claiming he wants to “save” traditional France from “disappearing”.
In a 10-minute video posted on social media, Zemmour sat at a desk reading a speech in front of an old-fashioned microphone, designed to look like Charles de Gaulle’s famous June 1940 broadcast to Nazi-occupied France – provoking anger from the traditional Gaullist right.
Continue reading...UK accused of having a labour market akin to modern slavery that encourages people to make risky crossings
Senior French ministers have accused the UK of operating a labour market akin to slavery and called on London to open safe routes for migrants, as the two governments continued to deflect blame for last week’s drownings in the Channel.
The criticism came hours after France’s interior minister, Gérald Darmanin, held a crisis meeting with European ministers and border agencies to discuss the migrant emergency around the Channel ports.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Gérald Darmanin says UK ministers must stop saying one thing in private while insulting his country in public
The French interior minister, Gérald Darmanin, has said British ministers including his counterpart, Priti Patel, should stop saying one thing in private while insulting his country in public if there is to be a solution to the crisis in the Channel.
In an interview with the Guardian, Darmanin strongly criticised what he called “double talk” coming out of London and said France was not a “vassal” of the UK.
Continue reading...In northern France, friends and relatives of those who died in the tragic crossing on Wednesday are desperate for answers
On Saturday Gharib Ahmed spent five hours outside the police station in Calais, desperately waiting for news. “It was so cold. There was no answer,” he said. Ahmed was seeking confirmation that his brother-in-law Twana Mamand was one of 27 people who died in the Channel on Wednesday after the flimsy dinghy taking them to the UK sank. “I want to see his body. I have to understand,” Ahmed told the Guardian.
Relatives of the mostly Iraqi Kurds who perished in the world’s busiest shipping lane spent the weekend in a state of anxiety and confusion. Ahmed said he last heard from his brother-in-law at 3am on Wednesday, around the time Twana set off in darkness from a beach near Dunkirk. After two days of silence, Ahmed travelled with his wife, Kale Mamand – Twana’s sister – from their home in London to northern France, arriving on Friday night.
Continue reading...The performer will be the first Black woman to enter the mausoleum, in recognition of her wartime work
In November 1940, two passengers boarded a train in Toulouse headed for Madrid, then onward to Lisbon. One was a striking Black woman in expensive furs; the other purportedly her secretary, a blonde Frenchman with moustache and thick glasses.
Josephine Baker, toast of Paris, the world’s first Black female superstar, one of its most photographed women and Europe’s highest-paid entertainer, was travelling, openly and in her habitual style, as herself – but she was playing a brand new role.
Continue reading...A Spanish trans woman’s memoirs, a Mumbai gangster drama, Israeli sisters in trouble… the Covid era is a rich moment for TV drama. Critics from Spain to South Korea tell us about the biggest shows in their countries
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