Fifteen people have emerged from a cave in south-west France after 40 days underground in an experiment to see how the absence of clocks, daylight and external communications would affect their sense of time
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Chad dictator’s death spells chaos in Islamist terror’s new ground zero | Simon Tisdall
The west backed military solutions across the Sahel. With the death of President Idriss Déby, that strategy is helping to destabilise the region
The death in battle last week of Chad’s unloved dictator, Idriss Déby, has pushed the Sahel up the west’s political and media agenda. The sudden burst of interest is unlikely to last. The global attention span for this desperately poor, unstable and ill-governed region is chronically short. And yet the Sahel is, or soon could be, everyone’s problem.
A vast, arid swath of sub-Saharan Africa that comprises Mali, Niger, Chad, Mauritania and Burkina Faso (the so-called G5 Sahel), plus parts of neighbouring countries, the Sahel is where the world’s toughest challenges collide. The spread of jihadist terrorism, claiming record numbers of lives and posing a possible threat to Europe, is the most closely watched phenomenon.
Continue reading...French police worker killed in knife attack at station near Paris
Anti-terrorism branch leading investigation after incident in which assailant was shot dead
A terrorism investigation has been launched after a French police employee was killed in a knife attack at a police station in Rambouillet, south-west of Paris.
The anti-terrorism branch stepped in to lead the investigation to determine the circumstances of the knife attack by a man unknown to intelligence services.
Continue reading...Chad rebels prepare offensive as president Idriss Déby is buried
Front for Change and Concord heads towards capital, N’Djamena, where memorial took place
Rebels were preparing a new offensive towards the capital of Chad on Friday as dignitaries and supporters paid their final respects to Idriss Déby, the veteran ruler of the central African state, who died earlier this week from wounds sustained “on the battlefield”.
The Front for Change and Concord in Chad (FACT) said its forces were about 190 miles (300km) north of N’Djamena, the capital, but would observe a pause in hostilities to allow time for Déby, who was 68 when he died, to be buried.
Continue reading...Did art peak 30,000 years ago? How cave paintings became my lockdown obsession
Portraiture, perspective, impressionism, movement, mythology: cave artists could do the lot. And I have spent the past year on a virtual odyssey of their primordial wonders
I was recently awoken in the night by lions, their eyes glaring in the dark from blunt rectangular faces as they stalked bison through an ancient, arid grassland. As I came to, however, I realised I was not about to be eaten alive. This was simply one of the perils of spending too much time looking at images of cave art on the web.
Cave artists could do it all. The faces of the animals they painted are exquisite portraits, while their bodies are rendered in perfect perspective. But wait – weren’t these supposed to be the great achievements of European art? After all, in his classic study The Story of Art, EH Gombrich tells how western art took off when the ancient Greeks learned how to show movement, that the perspective was discovered in 15th-century Europe, and that the communication of sensation rather than the seen was the gift of the impressionists. Gombrich had probably not seen much cave art. Lascaux, a series of caves in the French Dordogne, was a recent discovery when he published his book in 1950 – and Chauvet, also in France, wouldn’t be found until 1994.
Continue reading...EU states begin using single-dose J&J Covid vaccine
Johnson & Johnson’s coronavirus jab rolled out after backing from European Medicines Agency
EU member states are starting to administer Johnson & Johnson’s coronavirus vaccine after Europe’s drug regulator this week backed the single-dose shot, with several expected to impose age restrictions, as with the AstraZeneca jab.
Spain’s regional health authorities began using the shot on Thursday for people aged 70 to 79, two days after the European Medicines Agency (EMA) announced a possible link to a rare clotting disorder but stressed the shot’s benefits outweighed the risks.
Continue reading...France is first EU member state to start testing digital Covid travel certificate
French trial will be extended from 29 April to include vaccination certificates
France has become the first EU member state to begin testing a digital coronavirus travel certificate as part of a Europe-wide scheme that Brussels hopes will allow people to travel more freely within the bloc by the summer.
The TousAntiCovid app, part of the country’s contact tracing programme, has been upgraded to store negative Covid-19 test results on travellers’ mobile phones and is being trialled on flights to Corsica and overseas départements from this week.
Continue reading...France ‘did nothing to stop’ Rwanda genocide, report claims
Report by US law firm commissioned by Kigali says France bears ‘significant responsibility’ for deaths
France “bears significant responsibility” for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people in the Rwandan genocide of 1994 because it remained “unwavering in its support” of its allies even though officials knew the slaughter was being prepared, a report commissioned by Kigali claims.
The accusation is the latest in the continuing dispute between Paris and the small east-African country over the role played there by France before and during the mass killings.
Continue reading...British families took bigger hit to income during Covid pandemic than Europeans
UK’s greater inequality levels made impact worse for the less well off, study suggests
British households were plunged into the Covid pandemic with lower savings, more debt and weaker welfare support than their French and German counterparts, according to analysis revealing how inequality increased the impact of the UK crisis.
High levels of income inequality also weakened the financial resilience of poorer households as the pandemic hit. The greater exposure of British households, revealed in an analysis by the Resolution Foundation thinktank to be published in full this week, comes despite similar levels of average income with our European neighbours.
Continue reading...Could Marine Le Pen finally triumph with her third tilt at French presidency?
Next year’s Élysée race looks like a battle between a fading Emmanuel Macron and the far-right leader. And some believe she might win this time
In Paris’s symbolic Place de la République, under the watchful gaze of France’s allegorical figurehead Marianne, the skateboarders are not in the mood to discuss politics.
For the young here, as everywhere, life has been paused during a pandemic that has halted studies, jobs, socialising and parties. What they want is their lives back, not to talk about an election.
Continue reading...French citizens advised to leave Pakistan as protests worsen
Pakistani government bans religious leader as row over satirical cartoons simmers
French nationals and companies in Pakistan have been advised by their embassy to leave temporarily after violent anti-France protests brought large parts of the country to a standstill.
Anti-French sentiment has been simmering for months in Pakistan since Emmanuel Macron expressed support for a satirical magazine’s right to republish cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad, deemed blasphemous by many Muslims.
Continue reading...Third of French wine lost after rare cold snaps devastate vines
Unseasonal frost is ‘agricultural disaster of 21st century’ as ice after warm weather decimates grape harvests
At least a third of French wine production worth almost €2bn (£1.7bn) in sales will be lost this year after rare freezing temperatures devastated many vines and fruit crops across France, raising concerns over the climate crisis.
“This is probably the greatest agricultural catastrophe of the beginning of the 21st century,” the French agriculture minister, Julien Denormandie, said this week as the government declared an “agricultural disaster” and began preparing emergency financial measures.
Continue reading...France, Germany and UK raise concern over Iran’s nuclear plans
Three European countries say there is no ‘credible civilian need’ for enriching uranium to 60%
France, Germany and the UK have warned that Iran took a dangerous step towards the production of a nuclear weapon by enriching uranium to levels for which there is no “credible civilian need”.
Tehran, which claims its nuclear ambitions are limited to creating energy, announced this week it was boosting its levels of uranium enrichment to 60%, just short of weapons-grade purity. The 2015 nuclear deal only allows enrichment to a purity level of 3.67%.
Continue reading...France to ban some domestic flights where train available
MPs vote to suspend internal flights if the trip can be completed by train within two and a half hours instead
French MPs have voted to suspend domestic airline flights that can be made by direct train in less than two and a half hours, as part of a series of climate and environmental measures.
After a heated debate in the Assemblée Nationale at the weekend, the ban, a watered-down version of a key recommendation from President Emmanuel Macron’s citizens’ climate convention, was adopted.
Continue reading...France and Germany’s Covid vaccination programmes pick up speed
As daily inoculations hit record figures, warning comes of new delays
Vaccine rollouts in France and Germany have finally begun to pick up speed, after a slow start and problems with supplies and bureaucracy.
France continues to struggle to contain a third Covid-19 wave, but announced it had hit its 10 million inoculations target a week earlier than expected, while Germany doubled the number of vaccinations, administering a record 720,000 doses on Thursday after the rollout was extended to family doctors.
Continue reading...‘Kill the bill’ and trans visibility: human rights this fortnight in pictures
A round-up of the coverage on struggles for human rights and freedoms, from Mexico to China
Continue reading...French winemakers count cost of ‘worst frost in decades’
Government prepares rescue package as rare freezing temperatures damage crops and vines
Winemakers across France are counting the cost of several nights of frost this week that threaten to decimate grape harvests in some of the country’s best-known and prestigious wine-producing regions.
The government is readying an emergency rescue package after rare freezing temperatures that could cause some of the worst damage in decades to crops and vines.
Continue reading...France under pressure to admit responsibility for Mali airstrike
Paris has repeatedly dismissed UN report into attack that killed 19 wedding guests as not credible
France is facing growing calls to accept responsibility for an airstrike that killed 19 civilians at a wedding in a village in Mali in January, following the publication of a United Nations report into the attack.
The damning investigation by the UN released last month, its first into French military action, said the airstrike hit Bounti village on 3 January, killing 19 guests at the wedding and three militants.
Continue reading...The world won’t be greener until it’s fairer | Simone Tagliapietra
Action on the climate crisis must come with a social contract to protect the poor and vulnerable
As a climate policy researcher, I am often asked: what is the biggest obstacle to decarbonisation? My answer has changed profoundly over the last couple of years. I used to point to the lack of affordable green technologies and an absence of political will. Today, I point to something else. Something less tangible, but possibly more challenging: the absence of a green social contract.
The green revolution is already unfolding, driven by a stunning reduction in the cost of green technologies and by a global momentum for climate neutrality by the mid-century. So, if cheaper green technology and an unprecedented political green ambition are rapidly converging, what could go wrong? Unfortunately, the situation is not as simple as it seems. Decarbonisation will reshape our economies and our lifestyles. Nothing will be left untouched in the process: the green world will be profoundly different from the one we know today.
Continue reading...Macron to close elite school that hothouses French leaders
Institution has been pathway to power for country’s elite, including four French presidents
Emmanuel Macron is expected to officially announce on Thursday the closure of the École Nationale d’Administration, the elite French finishing school for the country’s leaders where he studied.
Known as ENA, the grande école has been the hothouse for France’s top civil service and a pathway to power in the public and private sectors. Four French presidents, including Macron, have passed through its doors as have dozens of ministers and business leaders.
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