French media reportsthat prominent filmmakers Benoît Jacquot and Jacques Doillon have been placed in police custody for questioning regarding allegations of historical sexual abuse.
Actress Judith Godrèche has accused Benoît Jacquot of raping her during childhood, and Jacques Doillon of sexually assaulting her during the same period.
According to AFP news agency, the two filmmakers arrived at the Regional Directorate of the Judicial Police (DRPJ) in Paris on Monday morning.
Both men have denied the allegations, and their legal representatives have criticized their detention.
Marie Dose, Jacques Doillon’s lawyer, argued that no legal grounds justify his detention for questioning “36 years” after the alleged incident. According to French law, individuals can be held in police custody for up to 48 hours.
Earlier this year, Judith Godrèche, aged 51, filed a complaint against Benoît Jacquot, aged 77, accusing him of raping her in 1986 when she was 14 years old.
She alleged that he exerted an unhealthy “hold” over her during a relationship that extended into the 1990s. Additionally, she accused Jacques Doillon of sexual assault during a film shoot in which she acted.
These accusations prompted a joint investigation in February.
Early in her career, Judith Godrèche gained recognition for her roles in two films directed by Benoît Jacquot: “The Beggars” (1987) and “The Disenchanted” (1990). Jacquot has been active in filmmaking since the mid-1970s, and his drama “Farewell, My Queen” opened the 2012 Berlin International Film Festival.
Ms. Godrèche also starred in Jacques Doillon’s 1989 film “The 15 Year Old Girl,” which competed at the Moscow International Film Festival. Doillon’s recent works include “Rodin” and “You, Me and Us.”
She has since appeared in numerous other films, including “The Overnight,” “The Spanish Apartment,” and “The Man in the Iron Mask.”
The attack happened when the convoy was going back to Evreux jail from a court hearing in Rouen, according to French news outlet BFMTV.
“We are doing everything we can to catch these criminals. ” I told many police officers and gendarmes to get ready and act. He said sorry to the families of the victims and to the people who work for the Ministry of Justice.
The news in France said that a prisoner might have gotten away with the attackers while they were in the van.
A judge from Guinness World Records was present to confirm the record, Reuters reported.
18 bakers started making the dough at 3 am and then watched over the baking from 5 am, as stated by a news release from Suresnes. A special oven was made for the event.
After the bread was cooked, a part of it was sliced, spread with Nutella, and given to the people. Another section was given to the local youth association Celije so they could hand it out to the homeless that evening, the release stated.
“I want to say good job to the bakers in Suresnes who made the baguette and keep the tradition of sharing alive. It’s important for our town to be friendly and welcoming,” Boudy said.
Dominique Anract, who leads a group of French bakers, said it took about 10 hours to make the longest baguette by hand. He also praised the teamwork and effort of all the bakers involved.
The baguette is a long, thin, crunchy bread that is really popular all over the world.
The French government says that traditional French baguettes are made with white flour, water, yeast, and salt. They should be 60 centimeters long and 5-6 centimeters wide, with five blade marks on top.
In 2022, French baguettes were given a special protection. The skill and tradition of making baguettes was added to UNESCO’s list of important cultural heritage.
The Suresnes release said that they were trying to beat the record for the world’s longest baguette to honor their heritage and culture.
They asked nice hackers to test their online security, like boxers practicing with partners to get ready for a big fight. They have looked carefully at their opponents’ strengths, tactics, and weaknesses. These people could be teenagers who show off, criminals who hack into computer systems and demand money, or Russian soldiers who have a history of doing harmful things online.
Unlike the 10,500 athletes going to Paris in July for the Olympics, the cybersecurity engineers working on the Games want to avoid attention. For them, the biggest achievement will be completing the Olympics and Paralympics without any big problems. This would mean that their digital defenses are strong enough to stop any attempts to shut down important computer and information systems for the Games.
Jérémy Couture, who leads the Paris Games organizers’ cybersecurity hub, hopes that at the Olympics, there won’t be any talk about technology and cybersecurity. This would mean that they are not a problem. The job of finding, studying and dealing with cyberdangers is really important for the Games to be successful, so the event organizers are keeping its location a secret.
The people responsible for stopping cyberattacks during the Games expect to be kept busy by hackers this summer, but they don’t want to share too many details about their work. These people could be cybercriminals, teenagers looking for thrill, or Russian military intelligence with a history of causing damage in cyberattacks.
Goals for the Games include more than just the events. They also include important things like transportation and supply systems.
Attackers might be activists who hack to make a political point, or they could be people trying to steal money through cyber extortion. These days, it’s hard to tell if a cyber attacker is working for a government or is simply a hacker activist.
Most dangerous online enemies
Some of the most dangerous cyber enemies are countries that want to embarrass France and the International Olympic Committee by using their proven hacking skills to cause trouble and cost them money. Russia is at the top of the list of people who might have done it.
Due to Russia’s war in Ukraine, the Olympic organizers have stopped Russia from participating in team events at the Paris Games. Some individual Russians will be allowed to compete as neutral players. Russia is upset with France because they are giving weapons and training to Ukraine. Also, France is one of Russia’s biggest critics in Europe.
Vincent Strubel, the person in charge of France’s national cybersecurity agency, called the level of cyber threats facing the Games very serious and unlike anything seen before.
“There will be computer attacks during the Games and the Paralympics,” Strubel said at a meeting on Friday. “Some people won’t take it seriously. ” Some people will take it seriously, but it won’t make a difference in the Games. And maybe some things will be important and could affect the Games.
He said the agency has trained a lot and more than ever before, so things will go well. “I believe we have been able to outsmart the attackers. ”
Strubel said Russia sometimes attacks France, but it’s not helpful to only focus on Russia. “We are getting ready for everything. ”
Western countries blame a very aggressive part of Russia’s GRU military intelligence agency called Sandworm for using a harmful computer program called “Olympic Destroyer” to mess up the start of the 2018 Winter Games in South Korea. This group is accused of causing problems for Ukraine’s power grid and creating a virus that cost over $10 billion in damages.
The cybersecurity teams in Paris are talking to technicians who worked in Pyeongchang to learn from their experiences.
The cybersecurity company Outpost24, based in Sweden, gave a positive review of Paris’ preparations for the Games in a report this week. However, they also found some weaknesses in the online infrastructure for the Games. The rating was like winning a silver medal, not quite a gold.
The report said that just like pickpockets and people who sell fake tickets target tourists, cybercriminals will also be aware of more people going online for the Paris 2024 games and will try to take advantage of it.
The incident happened when things were already tense in the Middle East, and Paris is being extra careful because the Summer Olympics are coming soon.
The person was found guilty of starting a fire at the gates of the Iranian Embassy as a way to protest against the Iranian government. This information was given by the Paris prosecutor’s office. The consulate and embassy are in the same place in a fancy part of Paris near the Seine River.
Iranian officials did not say anything in public about what happened.
The man was seen at about 11 am outside the consulate. A person who saw him told the police that he had a grenade and a vest with explosives. This information was given by a Paris police official. The official did not want to give his name because it was against the police rules.
Highly trained police and soldiers blocked off the area and stopped traffic to make it safe.
The man reportedly made threats of violence inside the consulate, but then left the building by himself, according to the prosecutor’s office.
The suspect has been caught by the police, and the Paris prosecutor’s office is looking into death threats. Investigators are trying to figure out why the person did what they did.
The police did not give the name of the person they suspect, but they said he was born in Iran in 1963.
The police knew about him and he got a punishment from the court for setting fire to car tires at the Iranian Embassy in Paris. According to the prosecutor’s office, he said it was a protest against the government of Iran.
The prosecutor said that the man cannot carry a weapon and is not allowed to go to the 16th arrondissement for two years. The sentence was put on hold because the defendant appealed.
A message from the French intelligence service DGSI has asked the police to not ignore any signs of possible activities by Russian agents, even if they seem not very strong. French intelligence service said Russian supporters could use important topics to make disagreements in French society worse.
Other European countries have also experienced similar fake news campaigns.
According to the note, Russian intelligence is using different methods to get other people to help them interfere with things.
Many of these ‘proxies’ are people from Russian-speaking communities in Eastern Europe. Some are just visiting France for a short time, while others have been living there for a long time, either legally or illegally.
In France last October, someone sprayed Stars of David on walls. This was similar to other ways people were causing trouble in French society. It happened right after gunmen from the group Hamas attacked Israel and killed over 1,200 people.
The note says that the Russian campaign is trying to make disagreements and problems within French society bigger by talking about different topics like pension reform and saying bad things about the Olympic Games.
The DGSI says that with the current world situation and as France gets ready to host the Olympic Games, the police need to be very alert and respond quickly if they see any Russian activity.
According to Le Monde newspaper, quoting another report from DGSI, the graffiti was part of a campaign across Europe to create disagreements and make governments less strong. This campaign was started by the FSB’s Fifth Division, which handles international operations.
The memo says that other lies spread by people from Moldova have happened in Poland, Spain, Latvia, and Germany.
The French government is talking more about Russia and trying to make people in France and other European countries more aware of the danger.
President Macron talked about sending soldiers to Ukraine for the first time at a meeting in Paris on Monday. He did not say no to the idea. The next day, his German colleague Olaf Scholz and Nato General Secretary Jens Stoltenberg disagreed with this idea.
The officials mentioned a fake report that President Macron canceled a visit to Ukraine because of a planned assassination. The report was spread on pro-Russian social media, pretending to be from the international channel France 24.
The French government has a new campaign called “Russian Disinformation” and it wants the public to be aware and report any false information they see. They believe that reporting false information is important in fighting against it.
Mayotte, a small island, has been owned by France since 1841. It is now considered a part of France, so it has to follow the same rules as other places in the country.
However, the territory’s tough time dealing with many immigrants is causing President Emmanuel Macron’s government to give up the fundamental French belief in equal treatment for everyone.
But that’s the problem. Both the left and right sides of French politics have concerns about the reform for various reasons.
The left thinks it goes against the idea that everyone should be treated the same, and could lead to citizenship being based on race.
The right thinks it’s okay to change the rules for Mayotte, but they believe France should get rid of “birthplace citizenship” altogether.
The right of the soil says that if you are born in a country, you are automatically a citizen of that country. The opposite idea is called jus sanguinis, which means that citizenship is only given to children of citizens.
For lots of people, especially those on the left, the right of the soil is very important. It shows that France is a symbol of caring for people.
Actually, in France, the right to citizenship by birth is not automatic. In the US, just having a birth certificate is enough to get a passport, but it’s not the same in France. A child born in France to parents from another country has to apply for French citizenship when they are teenager and show that they have been living in France the whole time.
However, the main idea is still valid. Being born in a place allows you to become a part of the country.
But things happening in Mayotte show how nowadays, the changes in population and lots of people moving to new places are making governments start to think about things that everyone used to agree on.
Mayotte is having a lot of people breaking the rules because they are scared of people from outside taking over their island.
Mayotte is 70km away from the Comoros islands, which is a very poor country in Africa. Mayotte has a problem with small boats coming to the island, which is even worse than the UK’s problem with small boats coming from France.
Every week, many people come in boats from the Comoros, and now there are also more and more asylum seekers from the Great Lakes region of Central Africa.
In the hospitals on the island, over 10,000 babies are born every year, and most of their mothers are from the Comoros. Mayotte has about 300,000 people, but only half of them have French passports.
Since middle of January, groups of people have been blocking roads around the island. They want the government to stop immigration and deal with the crime they believe it brings. Political groups in Mayotte all agree on one thing: the droit du sol needs to end.
Estelle Youssouffa, a Mayotte MP from the independent LIOT bloc in the National Assembly, says that if we don’t change, we will always be confined by our geography.
“We will welcome all the sadness and problems from Comoros and Africa just so that people in Paris can show off their beliefs. ”
Ms Youssouffa says that everyone should feel safe and secure, and that this is a very important right. “Everyone has the right to move around freely. ” We don’t have these rights anymore because the violence is so bad that we can’t live a normal life.
The French interior minister is helping the people of Mayotte, also known as the Mahorais, because they asked for his help. He says that if the right to citizenship by being born on the island is taken away, the attraction to the island will go away.
Right now, most requests for regularisation are from Comoran families whose babies are born in Mayotte and are considered French. When the babies are not born in France anymore, people will stop coming.
No one knows if it is true or not.
Immigrants come to Mayotte not just for citizenship, but because life is better there than other places. And they say that even though the government promises otherwise, what happens in Mayotte could easily happen in all of France.
Nobody knows if that’s true.
It is clear that both the main and extreme right in French politics are openly discussing ending the right to citizenship based on birth on French soil.
For them, this is the kind of measure needed for the immigration crisis because there were a record 142,500 asylum requests last year.
The Macron government needs the support of the political right to make any changes to the constitution in Mayotte. Could they only support the reform if it was expanded to all of France.
Can they stop the new law for Mayotte because they think it’s too strict. And then try to win the next election by promising to end the law for the whole country.
Ms Godrèche, 51, says that Mr Jacquot, 77, raped her when she was 14 years old in 1986 and continued to hurt her in their relationship until the 1990s.
Her lawyer told the AFP news agency that she filed a complaint on Tuesday.
Mr Jacquot strongly says he didn’t do what she claims.
Ms Godrèche talked on French radio on Thursday and said that when she was 15, another famous French director, Jacques Doillon, did something wrong to her. His lawyer says he also strongly disagrees with the actress’s accusations.
At the beginning of her career, Ms Godrèche was famous for her roles in two movies made by Benoît Jacquot, The Beggars (1987) and The Disenchanted (1990).
Benoît Jacquot has been making movies since the mid-1970s. In 2012, his drama Farewell, My Queen was shown at the 62nd annual Berlin International Film Festival.
Judith Godrèche has acted in many movies such as The Overnight (2015), The Spanish Apartment (2002), and The Man in the Iron Mask (1998). These are some of her most famous movies.
She had talked about her relationship with Benoît Jacquot on a TV show about her life in French cinema. She didn’t say his name.
She posted his name on social media last month because she saw a documentary from 2011 where the director talked about his relationship with a young person, and it made her decide to do it.
In an interview with Le Monde, Mr. Jacquot said he does not agree with what Judith Godrèche is saying about him.
Ms Godrèche said more things during a radio interview on France Inter on Thursday. She talked about a private scene while filming for Jacques Doillon’s movie The 15 Year Old Girl in 1989.
She said she was hurt when she lived with Jane Birkin and also during a sex scene in a movie.
“He hired an actor, we began recording and then he replaced the actor and played the role himself,” she said.
“I don’t have a shirt on and he’s touching me inappropriately, and he’s kissing me, and Jane can see everything and it’s really hard for her to watch. ”
Marie Dosé, the lawyer for Jacques Doillon, said he learned about the accusations from the news. He strongly denies them and wants to tell his side in court.
The public prosecutor has given the complaints against both directors to the Juvenile Protection Brigade in Paris.
The owner of a French restaurant has been accused of causing the death of a woman who died from botulism after eating at his restaurant.
Botulism is a rare and dangerous illness that can cause paralysis and is fatal for about 10% of people who get it.
It comes from a strong poison made by a germ that can live in food that’s not preserved or cleaned properly.
A 32-year-old woman from Greece got sick after eating bad sardines at a wine bar in Bordeaux during the rugby world cup.
After going to the southwest city to see a rugby game with her husband, the couple got sick when they came back to their home in Paris and had to go to the hospital. The woman died later.
French health authorities and police found that about 25 people were affected by the bad sardines served at the wine bar.
At least 12 people were taken to the hospital, and 7 of them were in the intensive care unit.
Yesterday, the owner of the restaurant was arrested and today accused of causing accidental deaths, injuring people, putting others in danger, not helping someone in danger, and selling food that was contaminated or poisonous.
If found guilty, he could be sent to prison for up to five years.
A French pilot can’t fly anymore because he accidentally killed a skydiver with his plane’s wing.
Nicolas Galy, who is 40 years old, was hit while in the air right after he jumped from a plane in July 2018.
The pilot, whose name hasn’t been given, was found to be responsible for causing someone’s death and was given a suspended sentence by the Montauban criminal court on Tuesday.
The school that hired the pilot has to pay a 20,000 euro fine.
Half of the money, 10,000 euros, has been stopped, according to French media.
According to Le Parisien, right after the plane dropped, the pilot started to lower the plane towards the airport runway.
Before the person jumped out of the flying vehicle, there was no discussion about the path the vehicle would follow, the article mentioned.
On 19th September, the victim’s relatives’ lawyer, Emmanuelle Franck, said that there was a lot of carelessness or not paying enough attention.
The head of the court in south-west France also mentioned that the victim and the pilot did not communicate well.
After the event, security has been improved and now everyone must attend briefings, according to the report.
The police in the middle of Paris used a type of gas that makes people’s eyes and noses hurt and machines that shoot water to stop a rally in support of Palestine. The French government had said that these types of rallies were not allowed.
The Interior Minister, Gérald Darmanin, stated that people who refuse to follow the rule should be taken into custody because “they could cause problems with how the public behaves. ”
Even though it was not allowed, many people gathered to protest in Paris, Lille, Bordeaux, and other cities on Thursday.
President Emmanuel Macron asked people not to create conflicts within the country.
“He said in a video message that the shield of unity will keep us safe from hate and going too far. ”
European governments have prohibited pro-Palestinian gatherings because they are concerned about an increase in hatred towards Jewish people caused by the conflict between Israel and Hamas.
After a few hours, the police arrested 10 people and used water cannons to break up a large protest in Paris at a place called Place de la République. The protesters were shouting “Israel murderer” and “Palestine will win” while waving flags from Palestine. 10 more people were taken into custody at another protest in Lille.
Groups supporting Palestinian rights said the ban might harm freedom of speech and promised to keep protesting for the Palestinian people.
Charlotte Vautier, who went to the rally, told Reuters that in our country, we have the freedom to speak out and protest because we have laws to protect our rights.
“It’s not fair to forbid something for one side and allow it for the other. ”
At the same time, the police in Berlin, the capital of Germany, have forbidden planned demonstrations supporting Palestine because they fear there might be anti-Semitic remarks and the promotion of violent acts.
The police asked about 60 protesters to go away from Potsdamer Platz on Thursday and they did.
In a video message, President Macron asked the French people to stay together and not let differences within the country create more problems in the global stage.
He said Hamas is a group that wants to kill people in Israel and is considered a terrorist organization.
On Saturday, Hamas attacked Israel and sadly, 13 French citizens were killed in the attack.
President Macron said that 17 French people are missing and are probably being held captive by Hamas in Gaza. He also said that France is doing everything possible, along with Israel and other countries, to bring them back home.
Four kids are missing.
Israel, according to what he said, has the ability to protect itself by getting rid of terrorists. However, it is important for Israel to make sure that innocent people are not harmed because this is something that democratic countries should prioritize.
France has the biggest Jewish community in Europe, with almost 500,000 members. France has a big Muslim community, which is one of the largest in Europe. It is believed that there are around five million Muslims in the country.
On Thursday,Darmanin said that it is important to have police officers visibly present to protect Jewish schools and synagogues.
He said on a French radio show that since Saturday, they had documented 100 acts of anti-Semitism. These acts mostly included graffiti with symbols like the swastika and messages like “death to Jews” and calls for intifadas against Israel.
Some people were caught trying to bring knives into schools and synagogues and they got arrested.
French police are already protecting the houses of important MPs. National Assembly President Yaël Braun-Pivet and MP Meyer Habib, who are both Jewish, have been given extra security measures.
It was found out that Ms Braun-Pivet, who is part of Mr Macron’s Renaissance party, has been getting death threats.
This week, she made the parliament’s lights look like the Israeli flag and asked for a moment of silence before a meeting on Tuesday.
MsBraun-Pivet said that Maryam Abu Daqqa, who is a member of a political group called the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, will not be allowed to go to a movie showing in parliament next month. The EU considers the militant organisation to be a terrorist group.
Meyer Habib is a representative for French citizens living outside of France, including those in Israel and the Palestinian Territories. He strongly supports Israel and speaks out in favor of it. He said that after the Hamas attack, we are seeing the recurrence of pogroms.
The Hamas attack and its consequences have caused division in French politics.
Many parties have criticized the “terrorist attack” that happened on Saturday and have shown support for Israel’s right to retaliate. However, Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s far-left La France Insoumise (France Unbowed) party had a less clear response.
The party called the Hamas attack a “violent attack by Palestinian forces”, which made other parties, including left-wing allies like the Socialist and Communist parties, very upset. Germany’s leader Olaf Scholz has said that he will not accept any form of anti-Semitism.
He informed the parliament that a pro-Palestinian group called Samidoun, who were seen distributing candies in the Neukölln region of Berlin to mark the Hamas attack, will be prohibited. He said that we will not accept or allow antisemitism.
MrSholz told members of the German parliament that Germany considers Israel’s security as an important part of its policies. The German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock plans to visit Israel on Friday to show support and unity.
German authorities have reported that in various towns, like Mainz, Braunschweig, and Heilbronn, Israeli flags raised as a support gesture were pulled down and ruined, often within a short time.
A plan to continue a program that allows French people to visit Guernsey for a day using their national ID cards instead of a passport will be implemented next year.
This plan was started earlier this year, and the ferry company believes it has helped bring more visitors this summer.
The agreement was supposed to end in September, but the French and island authorities want to extend it until the end of 2024.
The Committee for Home Affairs wants to make sure French people have as many chances as possible to travel before the new UK travel system starts in 2024.
When the UK starts using the ETA scheme, French citizens will need to have a passport to enter the Common Travel Area.
Deputy Rob Prow, who is in charge of the Committee for Home Affairs, stated that because the pilot program during the summer was successful, they want to extend it for another year.
We want to create a similar addition, but we need to talk more with the UK.
“We will give you new information as soon as we can. ”
The day-tripper scheme is only for trips that go directly from Normandy or Brittany to St Peter Port Harbour in Guernsey or Braye Harbour in Alderney.
Travelers can visit the Bailiwick of Guernsey, but they have to come back on the same day’s boat ride.
In a significant development, Niger’s military rulers have issued a ban on French aircraft from accessing the country’s airspace.
This decision was announced by the air safety agency, ASECNA, which clarified that Niger’s skies remain open to all commercial flights, except those affiliated with or chartered by France.
It’s worth noting that France, as the former colonial power, maintains a presence of approximately 1,500 troops within Niger.
Niger had recently reopened its airspace earlier this month, following a closure that lasted nearly four weeks.
The initial closure was attributed to concerns about potential intervention by neighboring countries.
This move came in response to the regional bloc, ECOWAS, which had threatened military action following a military coup in July.
According to reports, the police searched Ariane Lavrilleux’s house on September 19th and then arrested her.
Her lawyer said Lavrilleux was being asked questions because the police are investigating something that could harm the country’s safety.
Amnesty International France strongly criticized the arrest.
“We are extremely concerned,” expressed Katia Roux from Amnesty. “To arrest a journalist for doing her job, especially for sharing important information that the public needs to know, is a danger to freedom of the press and the protection of sources. ”
According to reports, Lavrilleux is currently being questioned by police officers from the French intelligence service known as the General Directorate for Internal Security, or DGSI.
In her report for 2021, she claimed that Egyptian authorities used information from French intelligence to bomb and kill smugglers on the border between Egypt and Libya from 2016 to 2018. The information she used was leaked and was supposed to be kept secret.
The report says that French forces were involved in at least 19 bombings against regular people.
It was published by Disclose, a website that focuses on finding out the truth.
Disclose said that the French government, during the presidencies of President François Hollande and President Emmanuel Macron, were continuously informed about the progress by various military departments, but their worries were not taken seriously.
When Disclose released the report, they admitted it contained secrets about national security. However, they shared the information because they believed it was important for democracy and people’s right to know.
Disclose said that using the concept of “classified information” as an excuse is not acceptable for safeguarding a campaign of random killings of innocent people.
It also mentioned that, by sharing the report, it was knowingly breaking the law.
France’s military department lodged a legal complaint for “breaking national defense secrets” after the articles were published.
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) wants Ms. Lavrilleux to be freed and for all criminal investigations against her to be stopped. They also believe that the police should not question her about where she gets her information from.
Reporters should have the freedom to write about topics related to the country’s defense and security without any restrictions. Asking reporters about who they get information from in secret makes them feel stressed for no good reason and might make them scared to report about defense matters, warned Attila Mong, who works for CPJ in Europe.
The young child disappeared on July 8 when he was visiting his grandparents in a small village called Haut-Vernet. Police believe that he might have been running after butterflies when he went missing.
Investigators played a recording of his mom’s voice from a helicopter a few days later. The people in charge of the case said they were exploring all options, such as the possibility that he was killed, taken forcefully, or accidentally injured by farm equipment.
But, they haven’t found the little boy at all.
The investigators checked the lake next to a swimming pool in a small village south of Grenoble, but they didn’t find anything useful.
Prosecutors said: ‘We have finished searching but unfortunately we didn’t find anything. ‘
They arrived one week later after detectives supposedly used a heavy tool to break a stone at a house near Émile’s family’s residence.
François Balique, the mayor of Vernet, said to a local TV news channel BFMTV that the police were doing checks so that the homeowner could continue their work, which was stopped because of the investigation. Last week, Mr. Balique also said that people who don’t live in the hamlet can’t come in until the end of September.
‘I found out that even though there was a rule, journalists were still going against it,’ he said, and added: ‘So, I will ask the police to make sure that this doesn’t happen anymore. ’
The big search to find Émile was stopped eight days after he was first reported missing.
At a press conference last week, the public prosecutor, Rémy Avon, said to the journalists: ‘Right now, we don’t have any idea, information, or evidence that can help us understand this person’s disappearance. ‘
Last month, Mr Balique thought that a bad person had taken the child away from the village.
He said to C News: ‘If we can’t find Emile in the city, it means he must have been taken somewhere else. It’s impossible for it to be any different.
“He was only able to be moved by grown-ups, by one or more grown-ups. ”
Either the person we are dealing with is crazy, or they are very cunning and manipulative.
A Nigerien flutist and singer has a message for France, his country’s former colonial power, which has banned cultural venues from collaborating with artists from Niger.
Yacouba Moumouni expresses his discontent, saying, “The French should respect us. If we say, ‘I’m not going to give a visa,’ that’s like saying to a child, ‘If you don’t do that, I can’t buy you a sweet.’ We are not at that level; we have gone beyond that.”
This sentiment is shared by many artists in Niger who are reacting to France’s decision to suspend visa issuance to Nigerien nationals.
Rachid Ramane, President of the Federation of Artistic and Cultural Associations of Niger, emphasizes that they won’t beg and asserts that Nigerien artists are part of the global artistic community. He adds, “We can’t remove our cultures from the world’s culture.”
Ramane also points out that Niger, Burkina Faso, and Mali are facing significant challenges and are simply seeking independence and autonomy. He urges understanding from others.
The French General Directorates for Cultural Affairs issued a letter instructing national drama and choreography centers to halt all projects involving nationals from Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso.
Garba Mahamane Lawali, director of the Niger musical training and promotion center, believes that cultures that remain closed and isolated are destined to decline. He highlights Africa’s openness to the world and suggests that France needs to adapt to this new era intelligently.
Currently, Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso are experiencing diplomatic tensions with France due to political turmoil led by military juntas that ousted democratically elected leaders. France has suspended development aid and budget support operations with these countries, escalating the situation.
The French Ambassador to Niger is allegedly living in captivity in the French embassy, according to President Emmanuel Macron, who also charged military leaders with obstructing food deliveries to the mission.
According to Macron, the ambassador is surviving solely on “military rations” and was speaking to media in the eastern town of Semur-en-Auxois on Friday.
“As we speak, we have an ambassador and diplomatic staff who are literally being held hostage in the French embassy,” he said.
“They are preventing food deliveries,” he said, in an apparent reference to Niger’s new military rulers. “He is eating military rations.”
Niger’s military leaders had initially instructed French ambassador Sylvain Itte to leave the country following the overthrow of President Mohamed Bazoum on July 26. However, despite a 48-hour ultimatum issued in August, the French government refused to comply and did not recognize the legitimacy of the military government.
France, along with most of Niger’s neighbors, condemned the coup.
President Emmanuel Macron stated that the French ambassador “cannot go out, he is persona non grata, and he is being refused food.” When asked whether France would consider recalling the ambassador, Macron indicated that any decision would be made in coordination with President Bazoum, whom he considers the legitimate authority and communicates with daily.
France maintains approximately 1,500 troops in Niger and has emphasized that any redeployment would need to be negotiated with President Bazoum.
The new leaders of Niger have terminated military cooperation agreements with France and have requested the swift departure of French troops.
Macron has consistently rejected calls to withdraw the French ambassador, a position supported by the European Union (EU), which has described the demand as “a provocation.” Like France, the EU does not recognize the authorities that took power in Niger.
The Sahel region, located south of the Sahara, has experienced a series of coups in recent years, with military regimes replacing elected governments in countries such as Mali, Burkina Faso, Guinea, and Niger, prompting concerns and responses from regional and international actors.
Last week, Colonel Amadou Abdramane, a spokesperson for Niger’s coup leaders, accused France of amassing forces and equipment in West African countries, potentially for a “military intervention” against Niamey.
Niger is also in a standoff with the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), which has threatened military intervention if diplomatic efforts to reinstate President Bazoum are unsuccessful.
According to what is known, the event occurred at the weekend in Bordeaux after Ireland’s World Cup match against Romania.
Irish police, the Garda, said its personnel helping Irish fans at the Rugby World Cup in France “are liaising with local authorities in relation to an alleged incident.”
It also stated that French police should handle the situation.
The Bordeaux public prosecutor’s office reported that forensic investigations are ongoing and that video surveillance camera photographs from the scene are being examined.
A man was found in Dinard, a seaside resort in northern Brittany. He had been reported missing and was discovered on Tuesday.
He died sadly when the UK was participating in the World Defence Rugby competition in France.
Investigators think that the man may have died because he fell by accident, according to local prosecutor Fabrice Tremel.
Two coaches from the team have said that they recognized his body. We have learned that the man was in the Royal Navy.
Mr Tremel shared with a news outlet called Ouest France that at the same time the body was found, the English rugby military team reported to the police station in Saint-Malo about one of their players who went missing.
The coaches have recognized the body.
A closer examination of the player’s body will be done on Wednesday to find out exactly how they died.
The police found the player on the rocks at Port Nican, which is near the tip of Avenue de la Vicomte.
The British team is currently staying in Dinard and they have been practicing in the nearby town of Saint-Malo.
They will be playing against Fiji in the semi-final on Sunday at the Commandant Bougouin Stadium in Rennes, after winning against Spain with a score of 128-3, which is the best score in the team’s history.
The government department responsible for protecting the country has been asked for a response.
Earlier this year, a soldier from Britain died by drowning after accidentally falling into a river in Estonia. This happened while he was walking back to his home after spending time with his friends during the night.
A boat transporting asylum seekers capsized in the English Channel, killing six people.
Following a coordinated operation by the British and French coastguards, 51 persons have been saved.
Although the severity of the other injuries is unknown, several individuals were observed being carried off a lifeboat at Dover, Kent, on stretchers.
The RNLI reported that a lifeboat crew launched immediately before 4:00 BST.
According to France’s Maritime Prefecture of the Channel and the North Sea, up to six persons were transported by helicopter to a hospital in Calais, where one person was later declared dead.
According to a local prosecutor who spoke to AFP news agency, the first casualty was an Afghan male between the ages of 25 and 30.
According to a volunteer on board, migrants were using their shoes to bale water out of the sinking boat.
There were too many people on the boat, Anne Thorel remarked in reference to her group’s 54 lifesaving efforts that included one woman.
15,826 persons had used a small boat to cross the Channel as of August 10.
It is expected that Suella Braverman, the home secretary, will preside over a meeting with Border Force representatives.
Her ‘thoughts and prayers’ were with the people impacted by the tragedy in the Channel, she continued.
According to a spokeswoman for the UK government, “We are aware of an incident in the Channel.” A coordinated response is being developed by HM Coastguard, and more details will be given as soon as possible.
In addition to Folkestone and Langdon Bay coastguard rescue teams, the Dover Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) crew and South East Coast Ambulance have been dispatched to assist.
Natalie Elphicke, a Dover MP, stated that the episode demonstrated the necessity for combined patrols on the French coast.
The French authorities should, she argued, “clearly” prevent these crammed-to-capacity death traps from ever leaving the French shore.
The Refugee Council’s chief executive, Enver Solomon, hailed the rescues for their efforts while pleading with the UK government to create a “orderly and humane asylum system.”
Stephen Kinnock, a shadow immigration minister, called the most recent occurrence “an appalling, deeply shocking tragedy.”
“We need to halt these crossings and take down the nefarious people smugglers.”
He stated on Twitter that “there can be no more headline-chasing gimmicks or madcap schemes that just make everything worse.”
The prosecutor’s office in Boulogne has started an inquiry.
Niger has now joined the ranks of West African countries where the military has taken control, following the footsteps of Burkina Faso, Guinea, Mali, and Chad – all of which were former French colonies.
Interestingly, since 1990, a significant 78% of the 27 coups in sub-Saharan Africa have taken place in Francophone nations, prompting some analysts to question whether France, or the lingering effects of French colonialism, bear responsibility for these events.
Many of the coup plotters themselves appear to support this notion. For instance, Colonel Abdoulaye Maiga, who assumed the role of prime minister in Mali under the military junta in September 2022, vehemently criticized France, implying a connection to the country’s political upheaval.
Criticising “neocolonialist, condescending, paternalist and vengeful policies”, Mr Maiga alleged that France had “disowned universal moral values” and stabbed Mali “in the back”.
Anti-French vitriol has also flourished in Burkina Faso, where the military government ended a long-standing accord that allowed French troops to operate in the country in February, giving France one month to remove its forces.
In Niger, which neighbours both countries, allegations that President Mohamed Bazoum was a puppet for French interests were used to legitimise his removal from power, and five military deals with France have since been revoked by the junta led by Gen Abdourahmane Tchiani. Partly as a result, the coup was followed by popular protests and attacks on the French embassy.
The historical record provides some support for these grievances. French colonial rule established political systems designed to extract valuable resources while using repressive strategies to retain control.
So did British colonial rule, but what was distinctive about France’s role in Africa was the extent to which it continued to engage – its critics would say meddle – in the politics and economics of its former territories after independence.
Seven of the nine Francophone states in West Africa still use the CFA franc, which is pegged to the euro and guaranteed by France, as their currency, a legacy of French economic policy towards its colonies.
France also forged defence agreements that saw it regularly intervene militarily on behalf of unpopular pro-French leaders to keep them in power.
Image caption,Demonstrators in Niger also condemned neighbouring countries that have imposed economic sanctions since the coup
In many cases, this strengthened the hand of corrupt and abusive figures such as Chad’s former President Idriss Déby and former Burkinabe President Blaise Compaoré, creating additional challenges for the struggle for democracy.
Although France did not intervene militarily to reinstate any of the recently deposed heads of state, all were seen as being “pro-French”.
Worse still, the relationship between French political leaders and their allies in Africa was often corrupt, creating a powerful and wealthy elite at the expense of African citizens.
François-Xavier Verschave, a prominent French economist, coined the term Françafrique to refer to a neocolonial relationship hidden by “the secret criminality in the upper echelons of French politics and economy”. These ties, he alleged, resulted in large sums of money being “misappropriated”.
Although recent French governments have sought to distance themselves from Françafrique, there are constant reminders of the problematic relations between France, French business interests and Africa, including a number of embarrassing corruption cases.
It is therefore easy to understand why one Nigerien told the BBC that: “Since childhood, I’ve been opposed to France… They’ve exploited all the riches of my country such as uranium, petrol and gold.”
Such scandals were often swept under the carpet while France’s African political allies were strong, and France’s military support helped to maintain stability.
In recent years, the ability of France and other Western states to ensure order has deteriorated, leaving them increasingly vulnerable to criticism.
Despite considerable funding and troops, the French-led international response to Islamist insurgencies in the Sahel region has failed to enable West African governments to regain control of their territories.
This was particularly significant to the fate of civilian leaders in Burkina Faso and Mali because their inability to protect their own citizens created the impression that French support was more of a liability than a blessing.
In turn, growing popular anger and frustration emboldened military leaders to believe that a coup would be celebrated by citizens.
Yet, for all of the mistakes France has made in its dealings with its former colonies in Africa over the years, the instability Francophone states are currently experiencing cannot be solely laid at its door.
It has hardly been the only former colonial power to prop up authoritarian leaders abroad.
Image caption,Some of those opposed to French involvement in Niger have shown their support for Russia instead
During the dark days of the Cold War, the UK and the United States helped prop up a number of dictators in return for their loyalty, from Daniel arap Moi in Kenya to Mobutu Sese Seko in what was then Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The strong relationship between coups and the former colonial power was also much less prevalent in previous eras. Four of the countries that have seen the highest number of coup attempts since 1952 are Nigeria (8), Ghana (10), Sierra Leone (10), and Sudan (17), which all experienced British rule.
While the recent trend of coups in Francophone states may reflect the legacy of Françafrique coming home to roost, it has also been underpinned by “unprecedented” levels of insecurity in parts of West Africa and the Sahel region, with “armed groups, violent extremists and criminal networks” undermining public confidence in civilian governments, according to the UN.
Each of the coups over the last three years has also been driven by a specific set of domestic factors that demonstrate the agency of African political and military leaders.
In Mali, the background to the coup included an influx of extremist forces following the the collapse of the Libyan state in 2011, allegations the president had manipulated local elections, and mass anti-government protests orchestrated by opposition parties in the capital.
The trigger for the coup in Niger appears to have been President Bazoum’s plans to reform the military high command and remove Gen Tchiani from his position.
This is a strong indication that the coup was not really intended to strengthen Nigerien sovereignty, or to aid the country’s poorest citizens, but rather to protect the privileges of the military elite.
The mixed motives of recent coups are well demonstrated by the speed with which many of the new military governments have sought to replace one problematic relationship with an external ally with another.
At the recent Russia-Africa summit in St. Petersburg, leaders from Burkina Faso and Mali declared their support for President Vladimir Putin and the invasion of Ukraine.
As in the past, the beneficiaries of these global alliances are likely to be the political elite rather than ordinary citizens. There are already reports that in May, troops from the Wagner group, in alliance with Putin’s government at the time, were responsible for the torture and massacre of hundreds of civilians in Mali as part of anti-insurgency operations.
Reducing French influence is therefore unlikely to be a straightforward boon for political stability, and in decades to come we may well see a new generation of military leaders attempting to legitimise further coups on the basis of the need to rid their countries of malign Russian influence.
Leonard Mbulle-Nziege is a research analyst at Africa Risk Consulting (ARC) and Nic Cheeseman is the director of the Centre for Elections, Democracy, Accountability and Representation at the University of Birmingham.
The French foreign ministry announced on Saturday that France will assist ECOWAS’s attempts to undermine the military coup in Niger.
On Saturday, Niger Prime Minister Ouhoumoudou Mahamadou and the Niger ambassador met in Paris with French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna.
Earlier, Colonna said the coup leaders in Niamey had until Sunday to hand back power, otherwise a threat by member countries of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to stage a military intervention had to be taken “very seriously”.
“The threat is credible,” she said on French public radio.
On Saturday, France did not provide explicit details regarding whether its support would involve military assistance for an ECOWAS intervention in Niger.
On the preceding Friday, ECOWAS announced that its military chiefs had reached an agreement on a potential intervention plan in Niger.
“All the elements that will go into any eventual intervention have been worked out,” ECOWAS commissioner Abdel-Fatau Musah said.
These included “the resources needed, and including the how and when we are going to deploy the force”, he added.
“We want diplomacy to work, and we want this message clearly transmitted to them [the junta] that we are giving them every opportunity to reverse what they have done,” Musah said.
The leaders of the coup have threatened to use force against you.
Mali and Burkina Faso, both under military leadership since 2020, have issued warnings that any regional intervention would be viewed as a “declaration of war” against them.
Russia, which has been expanding its presence in the Sahel region in recent times, expressed the belief that a foreign intervention would not lead to a resolution of the crisis.
In contrast, neighboring countries Benin and Germany advocated for continued diplomacy to de-escalate the situation.
On Friday, the United States announced the suspension of some aid to Niger in response to the coup.
Washington is pausing “certain foreign assistance programmes benefitting the government of Niger”, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement.
“As we have made clear since the outset of this situation, the provision of US assistance to the government of Niger depends on democratic governance and respect for constitutional order,” Blinken said, adding that Washington would continue to review its foreign assistance as the situation on the ground evolves.
Blinken did not specify what programmes would be affected but said life-saving humanitarian and food assistance, as well as diplomatic and security operations to protect US personnel, would continue.
“We remain committed to supporting the people of Niger to help them preserve their hard-earned democracy and we reiterate our call for the immediate restoration of Niger’s democratically-elected government,” Blinken said.
A young woman was jailed after a newborn was found in a bag at her suburban Paris home, dead and maimed.
The unnamed 21-year-old woman reportedly gave birth in the commune of Stains, which is situated in the Seine-Saint-Denis area in the northern suburbs of the French capital.
The young woman, who lives with her parents, informed two of her acquaintances that she had given birth.
In front of her friends, she allegedly claimed that the infant was stillborn and threatened to dismember it.
The young woman may have given birth on July 17, according to police.
She was reportedly detained on Sunday for committing voluntary homicide on a child under the age of 15.
Doctors labelled her mental state as “fragile” and after being released from the hospital on Monday, she was admitted to a mental health facility.
According to reports, French prosecutors said that they had discovered the newborn “dismembered, in a rucksack, in her room.”
Authorities are looking into whether or not the young woman was aware that she was pregnant and whether she had denial of pregnancy, a condition where a woman is subconsciously aware of her pregnancy but denies it.
Police are looking into whether the young woman’s parents knew about her pregnancy or the possible infanticide.
The inquiry, according to police, is still ongoing.
The prosecutor’s office told CNN on Thursday that the item that was brought to the Elysee palace had “a piece of a finger, a fingertip it seems.”
It further stated that as of Monday, police had opened an investigation for a “threat of a crime or offence against an elected official.”
According to CNN station BFMTV, it is thought that the fingertip belonged to the sender.
The Elysee is the official home in Paris of French President Emmanuel Macron, who has held office since 2017.
In the past year, Macron’s government has struggled to ease public anger over a controversial pension reform plan, and then following the police killing of a teenager in the outskirts of Paris.
Hundreds of police officers and volunteers searched for a toddler who vanished from a town in the French Alps, but they found “no sign” of him.
Émile, who is two and a half years old, vanished on Saturday while visiting his grandparents in Le Vernet, Alpes-de-Haute-Provence.
The hunt for him in the countryside was suspended earlier this evening, four days later.
Local prosecutor Rémy Avon said the ‘physical search’ could go no further, adding there was ‘no sign’ of the little boy.
More than 100 hours have passed since the toddler went missing (Picture: Gendarmerie Nationale)
‘The judicial investigation into the causes of the disappearance will continue,’ he said.
‘In particular by analysing the considerable mass of information and elements collected over the past four days.’
There have been a number of theories about what really happened, including that the Émile was accidentally killed by a car or a tractor, with the driver hiding the body.
Mr Avon said the possibilities that the boy had been murdered, kidnapped, or got involved in an accident were all being look at.
‘All these theories are active, nothing has been ruled out,’ he stressed.
The site has also been off limits to outsiders as of yesterday while the search for his whereabouts continued.
This comes just hours after it was revealed that blood was discovered on the front of a car in the region, which has been sent for scientific analysis.
‘At the moment we don’t even know if it is human blood,’ an investigating source said.
The United Nations has urged France to address deep-rooted issues of racism within its law enforcement following the fatal shooting of a 17-year-old boy of Algerian descent.
The teenager, identified as Nahel M, was killed by the police during a traffic stop in a Paris suburb three days ago.
In response to the ongoing riots that have erupted across the country, resulting in widespread destruction of property and violence, President Macron is convening a crisis meeting to address the situation.
The French government is actively exploring various measures to restore calm, including the suspension or restriction of public transportation in major cities such as Paris, Marseille, and Lyon starting from Friday evening.
The authorities have made nearly 900 arrests, while approximately 250 police officers have been injured in the unrest. The turmoil has also extended to the French overseas territory of Réunion located in the Indian Ocean.
The UN’s call to address systemic racism within law enforcement highlights the need for France to confront these underlying issues in order to achieve lasting peace and social harmony.
Admit it: most days you greet the morn with oscitancy. In addition to referring to the act of yawning, oscitancy also refers to drowsiness (often demonstrated by yawns) as well as to general dullness or sluggishness. Oscitancy has a related adjective in the form of oscitant, which is used to describe one who is yawning with drowsiness (“the sweetly oscitant infant”) or, less kindly, to one who is lazy or stupid (“an oscitant ne’er-do-well”). Both words have their origin in the Latin oscitare, meaning “to yawn,” itself from the inspired combining of os (“mouth”) and citare (“to put in motion”).
A stretching and stiffening especially of the trunk and extremities (as when fatigued and drowsy or after waking from sleep)
There’s nothing wrong with a good stretch, and there’s no shame in accompanying or quickly following your oscitancy with pandiculation. The word comes to English by way of the French, who took it from the Latin pandiculari, meaning “to stretch oneself. Pandiculari comes from pandere, meaning “to spread, unfold,” the root also of expand.
The act of moving from place to place : walking
After you have sat up in bed and put feet to floor, if you then proceed to walk, you are engaging in ambulation. The word comes from the Latin ambulare, meaning “to walk.”
The verb form of ambulation is, unsurprisingly, ambulate. It has related adjectives too: ambulant means “moving about,” while ambulatory shares the meaning of ambulant but has several other meanings as well. Even better are a host of other uncommon ambulare words, among them circumambulate (“to circle on foot especially ritualistically”), deambulation (“the act of walking abroad or about”), obambulate (“to walk about”), noctambulist (“a person who walks while asleep”), and the slightly more common synonym of that last one, somnambulist.
A long deep breath : sigh
Whether your first suspiration of the day precedes or follows your first sip of coffee (or your first check of Twitter), be aware that this word is from wholly uninteresting origins: the Latin word suspirare, meaning “to sigh.” Sigh.
James Joyce didn’t mind, apparently:
With deep inspiration he returned, retraversing the garden, reentering the passage, reclosing the door. With brief suspiration he reassumed the candle, reascended the stairs, reapproached the door of the front room, hallfloor, and reentered. — Ulysses, 1922
1 aObsolete: the taking of food : eating b : the part of a Communion service in which the sacrament is received 2 : the act of chewing
No, this word is not some new-fangled portmanteau referring to the education of (or by) men. It refers—in 16th century texts, anyway—to the act of eating. It also refers to the act of chewing, but mostly when that chewing is done by an invertebrate. The word does have some current use referring to something involving humans: manducation is also the part of a Communion service in which the sacrament is received.
(Other obscure and overly complex words for eating exist, but we’ve already covered mastication (chewing) and deglutition (swallowing) in “Strange Words for Body Functions”, which, uh, see.)
Intestinal rumbling caused by moving gas
We are sorry if you did not choose your breakfast wisely, but be assured that noises emanate from the bellies of us all from time to time. The technical word for such emanating noises sounds about as dignified as it feels. Borborygmus traces back to the Greek borboryzein, a verb meaning “to rumble” that is believed to be of onomatopoeic origin. The fact that saying “borboryzein” repeatedly provides a decent sound effect for this clip from Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times (1936) is a silent movie supports this theory:
The plural of borborygmus is, by the way, borborygmi.
A glance of the eye; especially: Ogle
Did you sit down to work, turn on your computer, and find your intended brief social media oeillades turning into lingering surveys of the entire internet? There, there. It happens to everyone. At least with this particular iteration you’re learning something. Though oeillade does indeed sometimes refer to a simple glance of the eye, it more often refers to the kind of glance that constitutes flirtation.
Hiccup
We hope you do not suffer from singultuses daily. If you suffer from them even weekly we feel for you and hope the knowledge of this obscure Latin word helps make the best of an annoying situation. Hiccup is, naturally, a synonymous and helpfully onomatopoeic term.
Festivity, merrymaking
The best days include some jollification, and some of the best jollification includes cat pictures. Jolly had been around for centuries before someone recognized what adding -ification to the word could do for the language. Jolly is believed to come from an Old Norse word meaning “midwinter festival.”
A lulling to sleep
When the day’s work has done, and the laughter of the jollifying cats has waned, there is (in an ideal world) a gentle consopition. We don’t know why such a lovely word as this one has fallen nearly completely out of the language but it has: the entry even sports an obsolete label. The word has a ho-hum Latin pedigree—it’s from sopor, meaning “deep sleep,” the likely source also of soporific—but almost no one uses it anymore, which we think is a shame.
There also exists a verb sopite to sopite you—if, that is, obscure words put you to sleep. It is also used to mean “to put an end to (something, such as a legal claim).”
Source: merriam-webster.com
DISCLAIMER: Independentghana.com will not be liable for any inaccuracies contained in this article. The views expressed in the article are solely those of the author’s, and do not reflect those of The Independent Ghana
France is totally committed to helping Ghana and its neighbors battle terrorism in the area, according to Madam Chrysoula Zacharopoulou, the FrenchMinister of State for Development, Francophonie, and International Partnership.
Speaking at a press conference held to climax her three-day visit to Ghana which is part of the Three Nations African Tour (Benin, Togo and Ghana), she said both Ghana and France have a common determination to promote peace and stability which is a key aspect of democracy in the sub-region.
“Just to speak about the regional situation, we share a common determination to promote peace, stability and democracy and of course dialogue in this region. France is fully committed to supporting Ghana and the neighbour countries in the fight against terrorism,” she said.
She went on to highlight the relationship betweenGhanaand France, describing it as an excellent relationship that needs to be strengthened even more.
“Ghana is a very important partner for France, we have excellent relations and it is a crucial time for your country and it was very important for me to be here and to re-assess the friendship, and my strong commitment” she added
Madam Chrysoula appreciated the efforts of the President Akufo-Addo and Ghanaians for her reception into the country
“I would like to thank President Akufo-Addo and all the Ghanaian people for the welcome. I would like to say that I was impressed by the activity and the vitality and innovation of your country and of course your people. And I saw that there is a profound desire to deepen our relationship with France” she stressed.
The minister’s visit to Ghana comes on the back of the visit of the US Veep, Kamala Harris to Ghana.
Each year, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) encourages a large number of countries to enter their movies in an effort to win the award for best foreign feature. Eight African countries have successfully submitted ahead of the 95th Academy Awards, including Uganda, which did so for the first time.
With only three wins out of nine nominations in this particular category, African nations have had a mixed record at the Oscars. Algeria won the Best Foreign Language Film award for the first time at the 41st Academy Awards in 1969 with “Z,” a political satire, back when the category was still known as Best Foreign Language Film. With its anti-war black comedy “Black and White in Color,”Côte d’Ivoire won the award in 1976, and South Africa’s “Tsotsi,” directed by Gavin Hood, won it in 2005.
These eight movies are the ones that made it through the selection and submission processes and are vying to represent Africa this season. The 15-film shortlist will be revealed on December 21st 2022, and the final five nominees will be revealed on January 24th, 2023, along with the other categories.
Algeria: Our Brothers
Rachid Bouchareb, a three-time Oscar contender (all in the category of foreign cinema), continues with Our Brothers, his career-long investigation of the legacy of Frenchcolonialism in Algeria. The crime thriller, which is based on actual events from December 1986, describes the difficulties faced by a police inspector as he attempts to look into a drunken officer’s murder of a French-Algerian student on the same night that students are protesting for reforms to higher education.
Cameroon: The Planter’s Plantation
Nigerian superstar Nkem Owoh plays a supporting part in Dingha Young Eystein’s musical drama The Planter’s Plantation. The movie, which is set in the 1960s, follows the struggles of Enanga (Nimo Loveline), a strong young woman who battles valiantly to protect a plantation left to her late father by a departing colonial official. The movie is marketed as a look at neo-colonization in the area.
Kenya: TeraStorm
A bunch of African superheroes band together in a fictitious Nairobi city to try to stop an ancient wizard from destroying the planet with a potent artefact. Kenyan filmmaker Andrew Kaggia took a risk by choosing the computer-animated science fiction movie TeraStorm.
Morocco: The Blue Caftan
The Blue Caftan by Maryam Touzani, which made its debut at the Cannes Film Festival, is the movie on this list that is anticipated to advance the furthest. The Blue Caftan pokes fun at a subject that is still prohibited in many conservative communities and questions the bounds of honour and covert obsessions while balancing them against the essential desire for independence and sexual emancipation.
Senegal: Xalé
With this vibrant, richly detailed drama about a 15-year-old student and her twin brother, who dream of a better life in Europe, veteran director Moussa Sène Absa is in good form. The visually stunning and exquisitely stylized Xalé seamlessly combines narrative traditions and styles, ranging from regional folklore to traditional musicals and Western-inspired soap operas.
Tanzania: Tug of War
A captivating historical romance from the 1950s that takes place in colonial Zanzibar The film Tug of War, which was directed by Amil Shivji, is based on the award-winning novel of the same name by Shafi Adam Shafi, a prominent figure in Swahili literature.
Tunisia: Under the Fig Trees
The world is reduced to a single summer day for a bunch of fig harvesters doing gig work in an orchard whose dishonest management wants to take advantage of them in Erige Sehiri’s brilliant debut full-length film.
Uganda: Tembele
Morris Mugisha’s Tembele, an award-winning drama about the title character, a garbage guy performed by Patriq Nkakalukanyi, is Uganda’s first-ever Oscar entry. Tembele is a mentally sick garbage guy who starts to lose his sense of reality after his young son dies. The movie explores how Tembele and others around him are affected by this tragedy. Tembele “suggests that it is OK for a man to cry and vulnerability is no crime especially if you’re grieving,” claims filmmaker Mugisha.
School bus transporting 40 young children home from a trip to the French Alps crashed down a wooded hill and into a creek, according to authorities. The driver and his companion were hospitalized with serious injuries.
According to Fabien Mulyk, mayor of the town of Corps, where the incident occurred, 18 children and one other adult were treated for minor wounds.
The kids, he claimed, were “all doing fine.”
The regional prosecutor has opened an investigation into the incident. The mayor said the ‘most probable scenario’ is that the driver had some kind of medical problem while behind the wheel.
Local officials told French media that weather conditions were clear when the bus left the road, and no ice or snow on the section where the bus vehicle crashed. They said all the children were wearing seat belts.
A photo from the town published online showed the bus leaning off the slope of a ravine in a tangle of dried branches with its windshield shattered.
President Emmanuel Macron has said the age of French meddling in Africa was “far ended” as he launched a four-nation trip of the continent to repair fraying ties.
With Russian and Chinese influence expanding in the area, the continent has once again become a diplomatic battleground, and anti-French sentiment is at an all-time high in certain former French colonies.
Macron said France harboured no desire to return to past policies of interfering in Africa before an environment summit in Gabon, the first leg of his trip.
“The age of Francafrique is well over,” Macron said in remarks to the French community in the capital Libreville, referring to France’s post-colonisation strategy of supporting authoritarian leaders to defend its interests.
“Sometimes, I get the feeling that mindsets haven’t moved along as much as we have, when I read, hear and see people ascribing intentions to France that it doesn’t have,” he added.
“Francafrique” is a favourite target of pan-Africanists, who have said that after the wave of decolonisation in 1960, France propped up dictators in its former colonies in exchange for access to resources and military bases.
Macron said France harboured no desire to return to past policies of interfering in Africa before an environment summit in Gabon, the first leg of his trip.
“The age of Francafrique is well over,” Macron said in remarks to the French community in the capital Libreville, referring to France’s post-colonisation strategy of supporting authoritarian leaders to defend its interests.
“Sometimes, I get the feeling that mindsets haven’t moved along as much as we have, when I read, hear and see people ascribing intentions to France that it doesn’t have,” he added.
“Francafrique” is a favourite target of pan-Africanists, who have said that after the wave of decolonisation in 1960, France propped up dictators in its former colonies in exchange for access to resources and military bases.
Macron said France harboured no desire to return to past policies of interfering in Africa before an environment summit in Gabon, the first leg of his trip.
“The age of Francafrique is well over,” Macron said in remarks to the French community in the capital Libreville, referring to France’s post-colonisation strategy of supporting authoritarian leaders to defend its interests.
“Sometimes, I get the feeling that mindsets haven’t moved along as much as we have, when I read, hear and see people ascribing intentions to France that it doesn’t have,” he added.
“Francafrique” is a favourite target of pan-Africanists, who have said that after the wave of decolonisation in 1960, France propped up dictators in its former colonies in exchange for access to resources and military bases.
Macron and his predecessors, notably Francois Hollande, have previously declared that the policy is dead and that France has no intention of meddling in sovereign affairs.
Military revamp
Macron on Monday said there would be a “noticeable reduction” in France’s troop presence in Africa “in the coming months” and a greater focus on training and equipping allied countries’ forces.
France has in the past year withdrawn troops from former colonies Mali, Burkina Faso and the Central African Republic (CAR).
The pullout from Mali and Burkina Faso, where its soldiers were supporting the Sahel nations to battle a long-running armed rebellion, came on the back of a wave of local hostility.
In his remarks on Thursday, Macron insisted the planned reorganisation was “neither a withdrawal nor disengagement”, defining it as adapting to the needs of partners.
These fields of cooperation included fighting maritime piracy, illegal gold mining and environmental crimes linked to regional drug trafficking, itself driven by a “terrorist movement” in the Lake Chad area, he said.
More than 3,000 French soldiers are deployed in Senegal, Ivory Coast, Gabon and Djibouti, according to official figures.
The proposed revamp concerns the first three bases but not Djibouti, which is oriented more towards the Indian Ocean.
Another 3,000 troops are in the Sahel region of West Africa, including in Niger and Chad.
Forest protection drive
Macron landed in Libreville on Wednesday and will later head to Angola, the Republic of Congo and the neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
His comments came before several heads of state were due to attend the One Forest Summit in Libreville, which will focus on preserving rainforests that play a vital role in the global climate system.
The forests of the vast Congo River Basin represent are among the planet’s largest carbon sinks.
They are also home to huge biodiversity including forest elephants and gorillas, and bear traces of the settlement of early humanity.
But they face threats such as poaching, deforestation for the oil, palm and rubber industries, and illegal logging and mineral exploitation.
Macron spoke of the challenges of mobilising international finance as he and Gabonese environment minister Lee White toured the Raponda Walker Arboretum, a protected coastal area north of Libreville.
“We always speak of billions in our summits, but people see little of it on the ground because the systems are imperfect,” he said.
Other presidents expected to attend the summit are host Ali Bongo Ondimba of Gabon; Denis Sassou Nguesso of the Republic of Congo; Faustin-Archange Touadera of the CAR; Chad’s Mahamat Idriss Deby Itno; and Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo of Equatorial Guinea.
The gathering kicked off on Wednesday with exchanges between ministers, civil society representatives and experts.
Macron will head to the former Portuguese colony of Angola on Friday, where he is set to sign an accord to develop the agricultural sector as part of a drive to enhance French ties with anglophone and Portuguese-speaking Africa.
He will then stop in the Republic of Congo, another former French colony, where Sassou Nguesso has ruled for a total of almost four decades, and neighbouring DRC.
Last year, Macron toured Cameroon, Benin and Guinea-Bissau in his first trip to the continent since winning re-election, seeking to reboot France’s post-colonial relationship with the continent.
The tour was to “show the commitment of the president in the process of renewing the relationship with the African continent”, a French presidential official said, who asked not to be named. It signalled that the African continent is a “political priority” of his presidency.
Equatorial Guinea‘s vice-president has accused French telecom operator Orange SA of “fraudulently” giving the .gq domain name to the Netherlands, forcing the African nation‘s institutions to pay to use the domain.
Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue said Equatorial Guinea had “discovered that the French from the Orange company engaged in fraudulent manipulation by ceding our domain #gq to the Dutch.”
“Now, we have to pay them to use our own domain, which makes it challenging to set up an institutional website with gq for the country,” he wrote on Twitter on Thursday.
“What have we done to France for it to plunder African countries in this manner? We are once again hindered by their trickery. The West should stop taking advantage of Africa,” he added.
Orange SA has not responded to the claims.
The vice-president, son of long-serving President Teodoro Obiang Nguema, has previously accused Spain, France and the US of interfering in his country’s internal affairs.
In 2020, a French court fined him 30m euros ($32.9m; £26.6m) for embezzling public funds, giving him a suspended jail term and ordering the confiscation of his assets.
The .gq domain name was launched in 1997 by Equatorial Guinean mobile operator Getesa and is reported to be prone to spam, phishing and other malicious use.
A French court has ordered the removal of a statue of the Virgin Mary from a small town, alleging that the religious display violates the separation of church and state.
The statue is located at a crossroads in La Flotte, a municipality of 2,800 inhabitants on the popular holiday island Ile-de-Re, off France’s Atlantic coast.
The statue was erected by a local family after World War II in gratitude for a father and son having returned from the conflict alive.
Its initial home was a private garden, but the family later donated it to the town which set it up at the crossroads in 1983.
In 2020, it was damaged by a passing car, and the local authorities decided to restore the statue and put it back in the same place, but this time on an elevated platform.
Complaint
That move triggered a legal complaint by La Libre Pensee 17, an association dedicated to the defence of secularity, on the basis that a French law dating back to 1905 forbids religious monuments in public spaces.
A court in Poitiers followed the argument as did, on appeal, the regional court in Bordeaux, ordering La Flotte to remove the statue, according to a press statement.
Local mayor Jean-Paul Heraudeau called the discussion around the statue “ridiculous” because, he said, it was part of the town’s “historical heritage” and should be considered “more of a memorial than a religious statue”.
But while the court accepted that the authorities had not intended to express any religious preference, it also said that “the Virgin Mary is an important figure in Christian religion,” which gives it “an inherently religious character”.
According to Catholic doctrine going back to the New Testament, God chose Mary to give birth to Jesus while remaining a virgin, through the Holy Spirit.
Catholicism, and several other religions, venerate Mary as a central figure in their faith, and she has been the subject of countless works of art over the centuries.
La Flotte has six months to remove the statue, the court said.
The foreign ministers of France and Germany have arrived in Addis Abeba, the capital of Ethiopia, to endorse the peace accord that put an end to two years of violence in the northern Tigray area.
Germany’s Annalena Baerbock, said the pair would be discussing the need for lasting peace and accountability, food security in the region as well as the wider partnership between the European and African Unions.
Tens of thousands of combatants and Tigrayan civilians died during months of brutal fighting, marked by numerous allegations of war crimes.
There’s growing evidence that French rescue services failed to respond adequately to a migrant boat that sank in the Channel last November, with at least 33 people on board.
Only two of the passengers survived the disaster.
Transcripts of emergency calls made to the French coastguard, seen by the BBC, suggest that desperate passengers were repeatedly told to call UK emergency services, despite being in French waters when they first requested help.
And a French police investigation, leaked to the newspaper Le Monde, appears to suggest that the French coastguard never sent help to the scene, despite a specific UK request to do so.
The BBC also heard evidence that another migrant boat was passed back and forth between the two nations’ rescue centres, just a few days before the Channel disaster.
One year on, the grey waters of the Channel still hold many secrets.
Beneath the cliffs at Cap Gris-Nez, the waves continue to slosh against the rocks; the coastline worn to a fine point, jutting out into the sea.
It’s from this clifftop that the French coastguard monitor the Channel for boats in distress, and send rescuers to help.
IMAGE SOURCE,GETTY IMAGES Image caption, Many of those who died were from Iraqi Kurdistan, and their bodies were repatriated there for burial
At 01:48 on 24 November last year, according to documents seen by the BBC, operators in the control room at Cap Gris-Nez received the first call from the stricken migrant boat.
The passengers were asked to send their exact location from their mobile phones. When it arrived, some fifteen minutes later, it positioned the boat more than half a mile inside French waters.
French operators alerted the UK coastguard in Dover, according to the documents. Twenty minutes later, after receiving an updated location from the boat, they sent Dover the co-ordinates, saying it was now in British waters.
Shortly afterwards, the UK sent a message saying the dial tones of mobile phones on the boat appeared to locate it in France.
But French operators continued – for more than two hours – to urge passengers to call the UK for help, documents suggest, even when a French patrol reported that the boat was still in French waters.
The newspaper, Le Monde, quoting a leaked French police report, says the UK authorities sent a rescue vessel to the scene – but that they also asked France to send its patrol boat, Le Flamant, because it was closer.
Le Flamant was never sent, the paper says.
The UK’s Maritime Accident Investigation Branch, which is leading the British inquiry, confirmed in an interim report that some of the events leading to the disaster did take place in British waters.
It said the Dover control room “dispatched UK surface and air assets to search the area where the distressed migrants were assessed to be. However, nothing was found”.
‘You won’t be saved’
One account of testimony from a French operator on duty that night, seen by the BBC, says that Le Flamant was already helping another boat in difficulty. Le Monde says the police report disputes this.
Transcripts of conversations from the night show French operators repeatedly assuring those clinging to the sinking wreckage that help was on its way, as passengers screamed in the background.
In one exchange, an operator appears to mock the caller after the line is cut, saying, “Oh well, you can’t hear me, you won’t be saved. ‘My feet are in the water’ – I didn’t ask you to leave.”
Material seen by the BBC also suggests that another boat passing close to the scene that night was turned away by French operators, after it offered to intervene.
The two survivors were eventually rescued by a fishing vessel the following afternoon.
“If these people were in French waters and if at any moment there was negligence, an error, there will be sanctions,” France’s Minister for the Sea, Hervé Berville, told parliament.
The BBC requested an interview with Mr Berville last week. His team refused the request and refused to give a comment, instead referring the BBC to the minister’s comments in parliament and adding that there is an “ongoing investigation” into the incident.
The BBC then made a request for an interview with the French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin. His team did not respond.
But sources within the French judiciary have told the BBC they are currently considering whether to focus the investigation more closely on the role of French rescue services.
Maria Thomas, a UK lawyer representing one survivor and more than a dozen victims’ families, says there is a lack of urgency or answers from the British side. “The families want a full public inquiry, with full transparency,” she told us.
“We have concerns about the adequacy of the search and rescue operation carried out when [UK] border force assets were deployed, both in terms of the search patterns used and communication with the boat.”
‘They are laughing at us’
The question of who should take the lead in rescue operations in the Channel depends to some degree on where the incident takes place, but also where the first distress call is made from, and which nation’s resources are best placed to assist.
Those resources are increasingly stretched, as the number of small boat crossings rise. Rescue teams on both sides of the Channel can be called to save hundreds of lives in a single night. Some in France had warned this was a disaster waiting to happen.
But the apparent passing of responsibility across the Channel was not unique to this tragedy, the BBC has learned.
Another boat, full of people trying to cross to the UK, found itself in a similar position just four days before the tragedy last year.
Audio messages sent to a migrant helpline in Dunkirk on 20 November describe stranded passengers struggling to get help.
“We’ve called all the numbers,” the caller says. “When I call 999, they say to call France; and the French say call to United Kingdom. And both of them are laughing at us.”
And later: “Sir, we are still waiting and no one is coming. Really scared that no one is coming. Please, try to send someone.”
The BBC approached the UK and French coastguards for comment about these allegations too. A Maritime and Coastguard Agency spokesperson said the coastguard’s fundamental role was to “save lives at sea by responding to any person in distress”.
IMAGE SOURCE,BBC/COURTESY OF ZANA MAMAND MOHAMMAD Image caption, Twana was one of the dozens who died last November after their boat sank in the Channel
Rafael Cuzin was the call-handler on duty that day at the helpline, run by the charity Utopia56.
“The location of the boat was really close to the UK waters,” he said. “I called the French coastguard. They said that the UK coastguard had let the boat drift into French waters.”
A French lifeboat was sent to rescue them. “[But] it could have ended badly,” says Rafael. “That situation really echoed what happened on 24th.”
Zana Mamand Mohammad’s brother Twana was one of those who never returned from the Channel. Last week, Zana retraced his brother’s journey from Iraqi Kurdistan to France, to testify in the investigation here.
“I told him a hundred times: your life is more important than anything else,” Zana told me. “These people were not seen as human beings.”
“You can see [from the transcripts] how awful it is,” said Zana’s lawyer Thomas Ricard.
“We need to understand exactly how this articulation between the two coastguards functions: whether there is a logistical issue, whether there is a resources issue, whether there is a human side of things. If anyone is liable, that needs to be investigated.”
Twana’s body has never been found; another part of this story held by the waters of the Channel.
In the year since the tragedy some 40,000 people have crossed from France to the UK in small boats; the waters still lap at the French coastline beneath Cap Gris-Nez, whispering their fickle promise to carry small boats from shore to shore.
Akon has finally addressed that time he gifted French Montana a fake watch.
“I get the watch I put one on, he came and said, ‘I got something for you bro,’” Akon explained during an appearance on Real 92.3’s Cruz Show this week. “He was happy, I was happy. We lit, we lit. Now mind you I’m not really knowing there’s specific brands [of] watches and all that, I wasn’t really a watch guy. I just saw something I liked that looked nice and I got it. French clearly went to his jeweler and got it checked out, and the jeweler was like, ‘Yo, this is fake.’”
French told his side of the story back in 2017, but Akon maintains that he had no idea it was a “fake” watch when he gifted it to the rapper.
“He was like, ‘What do you mean fake?’” Akon continued. “I was like, ‘What do you mean fake? The shit tick, don’t it? The shit work, right?’” He said it was actually a replica of a specific brand, but he had no clue.
“Not only was I upset because I paid, like, five grand for each watch… In my mind that was expensive for a watch,” Akon said. “But obviously for a Hublot that was no money, that was a huge discount. … So I’m like, ‘This ungrateful ass n***a.”
French President Emmanuel Macron was physically attacked by a man on Tuesday in the city of Tain, located in the country’s south.
Macron, who according to reports is on a regional tour, run towards a crowd standing behind a bariccade with his security personnel in tow.
The president is heard greeting the crowd with a section responding to his salutation.
The first man Macron reached and attempted to shake hands with landed a slap on the president’s left cheek before his security detail whisked him away whiles others along with the police apprehended the attacker.
The video of the slap has since gone viral of social media platforms with a number of people making mockery of the incident.
A French protestor slaps Macron in the face in the city of Tain, shouting “down with Macron”
A fire at the cathedral in the French city of Nantes is believed to have been started deliberately, prosecutors say.
Three fires were started at the site and an investigation into suspected arson is under way, Prosecutor Pierre Sennes said.
The blaze destroyed stained glass windows and the grand organ at the Saint-Pierre-et-Saint-Paul cathedral, which dates from the 15th Century.
It comes a year after the devastating fire at Notre-Dame cathedral in Paris.
But the local fire chief said the fire in Nantes had been contained and was “not a Notre-Dame scenario”.
“The damage is concentrated on the organ, which appears to be completely destroyed. The platform it is situated on is very unstable and risks collapsing,” Laurent Ferlay told reporters.
The cathedral roof had not been touched by the blaze, he said.
President Emmanuel Macron has reacted, tweeting: “After Notre-Dame, the St Peter and St. Paul Cathedral is in flames. Support to the firefighters who are taking all the risks to save the Gothic jewel.”
The French fire service tweeted footage of the blaze.
The fire began in the early morning, with massive flames visible from outside the building. More than 100 firefighters brought it under control after several hours.
Mr Sennes said the national police would be involved in the investigation and a fire expert was travelling to Nantes
“When we arrive at a place where a fire has taken place, when you see three separate fire outbreaks, it’s a question of common sense, you open an investigation,” he said.
Newsagent Jean-Yves Burban said he heard a bang at about 07:30 local time (05:30 GMT) and saw flames when he went out to see what was happening.
“I am shook up because I’ve been here eight years and I see the cathedral every morning and evening. It’s our cathedral and I’ve got tears in my eyes,” he told Reuters.
This is not the first fire at the cathedral. It was damaged by Allied bombing in 1944, during World War Two, and then in 1972 its roof was largely destroyed.
It was rebuilt 13 years later with a concrete structure replacing the wooden roof.
In 2015 a huge fire destroyed part of the 19th Century basilica of Saint-Donatien in Nantes.
French superchef Alain Ducasse is using a ventilation system similar to those in hospital operating theatres to reopen one of his Paris restaurants.
Ducasse, whose restaurants have 17 Michelin stars – the most of any chef in the world – is installing the sophisticated system in his historic Allard bistro in the chic Saint Germain des Pres district of the French capital so it can open later this month.
French restaurants have been allowed to serve on their terraces for 10 days but strict social distancing rules mean the interiors remain off-limits.
Diners in Paris bistros and cafes traditionally sit almost elbow to elbow on small tables – a nightmare for restaurateurs who have been told by that tables must now be at least one metre apart.
“No restaurant can survive with only half of its customers,” Ducasse told AFP as he unveiled his air filtration system at the Allard, whose tables will also be screened off with sail cloth blinds.
Large white air “socks” decorated with drawings of the gods and goddesses of the wind hangover every table from the overhead ventilation pipes, gently pushing stale air away.
And customers will also be offered round transparent “separators” to be placed on their table for additional safety when French restaurants are due to fully reopen on June 22.
Ducasse said his prototype will “give extra safety to customers in confined spaces” and was a possible solution for tightly packed bistros which could lose half their tables if distancing rules are rigidly applied.
Designer Patrick Jouin, whose work is displayed at MOMA in New York as well as the Paris Pompidou Centre, said he talked to scientists and virologists before coming up with the air system.
‘Appropriate modernity’
He said its efficiency was comparable to those used in hospital operating theatres and intensive care units.
Juin said he contacted Ducasse in April to try and square the circle of social distancing, which he knew could be disastrous for restaurants in the long term.
The designer said that his extraction and filtration system means the safe distance between people can be reduced from a metre to 32 centimetres (about a foot).
Ducasse insisted the system does not spoil the atmosphere of the 1930s institution, with its red velvet banquettes and period wallpaper.
“We have preserved the spirit of the place,” he told AFP. “I love the idea of the just and appropriate modernity we have put into the DNA of this 1930s restaurant.
“Even if COVID-19 disappears, I will keep this design,” Ducasse vowed.
The chef said he wanted to “show that it was possible to do things differently and not just to passively accept (the constraints imposed by the virus), but to actively work with them.”
Jouin said normal restaurant air conditioning systems work very fast, which ironically can actually help concentrate the viral charge.
So he had to come up with a way of reducing the speed while “changing more of the air”.
“We take the air from the outside and pass it through a filter which makes it absolutely clean. Into that, we inject slightly cooled pure air above each table at a very low speed.”
Jouin refused to say how much the system cost but insisted it was not expensive. “Restaurants will be able to afford it,” he said.
A French political power couple lost their appeal Wednesday against a money laundering conviction, capping a fall from grace spurred by accusations they illegally pocketed millions of euros in public funds while in office.
Patrick and Isabelle Balkany, right-wing politicians who for years governed the chic Paris suburb of Levallois-Perret, were sentenced to prison terms of five and four years respectively.
But they were not ordered behind bars immediately pending an appeal to France’s highest court. Patrick Balkany had been released to house arrest in February because of health problems.
The two had already lost in March an appeal against tax fraud convictions after they were found guilty of using offshore accounts to hide at least 13 million euros ($14.4 million) in assets from the tax authorities, including luxury villas in the Moroccan city of Marrakesh and in the West Indies.
On Wednesday, the appeals court confirmed the seizure of assets as well as the payment of one million euros ($1.1 million) in damages, saying the couple had implemented a system of “persistent fraud”.
Patrick Balkany, 71, who appeared in the Paris courtroom without his wife, made no comment after the decision.
His lawyer Romain Dieudonne said he had five days to decide on a further appeal, while his wife’s lawyer Pierre-Olivier Sur told reporters the ruling was “excessive.”
The jail terms handed down last year – extremely rare for French politicians – were widely heralded as proof that the legal system no longer shirks from holding the powerful to account.
Patrick Balkany was first elected mayor of Levallois-Perret in 1983 and also held a seat in parliament for many years.
A larger-than-life figure with a penchant for cigars, he was a close friend of former president Nicolas Sarkozy and the late rocker Johnny Hallyday, and was credited with spurring an economic revival in the city.
But critics said the couple was making themselves rich at the same time, and prosecutors opened an investigation in 2013 after a former political ally told judges he had deposited millions of euros for the couple in Swiss bank accounts.
The couple had argued that their wealth was mainly inherited – Isabelle’s Tunisian Jewish father made a fortune in rubber production while Patrick’s father, an Auschwitz survivor, founded a luxury clothing chain in post-war Paris.
Both had already been handed suspended prison sentences in 1996 for the personal use of municipal employees, including one employed as their private chauffeur.
Kabuga is accused of bankrolling and arming the ethnic Hutu militias that waged the 100-day killing spree against Rwanda’s Tutsis and moderate Hutus. Rwanda’s most wanted fugitive, was arrested on Saturday in a Paris suburb.
In his first appearance in public in more than two decades, Kabuga was brought into the courtroom in a wheelchair, dressed in jeans and a blue jumper and wearing a face mask.
The octogenarian’s voice was weak, but audible, as he confirmed through an interpreter his identity and parents’ names. He gave his date of birth as March 1, 1933.
His lawyers said in a statement ahead of the hearing that Kabuga had the right to be presumed innocent and opposed being transferred from France to a UN tribunal that handles crimes against humanity based in Tanzania.
Defence lawyer Laurent Bayon told the court Kabuga wished to be tried in France.
Prosecutor seeks transfer to UN custody
The court will decide whether to hand Kabuga to the UN International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals (IRMCT). The international court is based in the Hague, Netherlands and Arusha, Tanzania.
The IRMCT’s chief prosecutor told Reuters, the court had already requested Kabuga be transferred to United Nations custody.
Kabuga could be held initially in The Hague rather than Africa due to coronavirus travel restrictions, said prosecutor Serge Brammertz.
The French court granted a request by the defence to defer the hearing and set the next date for May 27.
Exiting the courtroom, Kabuga raised his fist as several relatives including one son voiced encouragement.
Genocide ‘financier’
Kabuga’s arrest marked the end of a more than two-decade-long hunt that spanned Africa and Europe.
A one-time tea and coffee tycoon, he is accused of being a main financier of the genocide, paying for the militias that carried out the massacres, as well as importing huge numbers of machetes, according to the UN tribunal’s indictment.
He also co-owned Radio Television Milles Collines, the infamous radio station that fanned the ethnic hatred by broadcasting anti-Tutsi messages.
The United States had placed a $5 million bounty on his head.
It would be “unacceptable” for French drug giant Sanofi to give priority to the US market if it develops a Covid-19 vaccine, a French minister has warned.
Deputy Finance Minister Agnès Pannier-Runacher was responding to comments by Sanofi CEO Paul Hudson, who said “the US government has the right to the largest pre-order because it’s invested in taking the risk”.
Many labs worldwide are involved in research to find a Covid-19 vaccine.
Vaccines usually take years to develop.
“For us, it would be unacceptable for there to be privileged access to such and such a country for financial reasons,” Ms Pannier-Runacher told France’s Sud Radio.
Earlier this month the EU chaired a global online summit to boost coronavirus research, and secured pledges of $8bn (£6.5bn) from some 40 countries and donors. The funding is aimed at developing a coronavirus vaccine and treatments for Covid-19.
The UK co-hosted the summit but the US and Russia did not take part.
The EU insisted on Thursday that all countries should get equal access to a vaccine.
“The vaccine against Covid-19 should be a global public good and its access needs to be equitable and universal,” said European Commission spokesman Stefan de Keersmaecker, quoted by AFP news agency.
International collaboration
Sanofi’s Coronavirus vaccine research is partly funded by the US Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (Barda).
But in recent years Sanofi has received tens of millions of euros in tax credits from the French government to help its research.
On Thursday Sanofi’s chief in France, Olivier Bogillot, said “the goal is to have this vaccine available to the US as well as France and Europe at the same time”.
Speaking on French news channel BFMTV, he said that would only be possible “if Europeans work as quickly as the Americans”, and added that the US government had pledged to spend “several hundreds of millions of euros”.
Last month Sanofi also teamed up with Britain’s GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) to work on a vaccine, though trials have not yet started.
Sanofi’s head of vaccine research, John Shiver, says “we are using an existing technology that was designed for influenza, and we’re applying it to the new virus that causes Covid-19 disease”.
Sanofi says GSK “will contribute its adjuvant technology, an ingredient added to enhance the immune response, reduce the amount of vaccine protein required per dose and improve the chances of delivering an effective vaccine that can be manufactured at scale”.
The candidate vaccine is expected to enter clinical trials in the second half of 2020 and to be available by the second half of 2021.
It would be “unacceptable” for French drug giant Sanofi to give priority to the US market if it develops a Covid-19 vaccine, a French minister has warned.
Deputy Finance Minister Agnès Pannier-Runacher was responding to comments by Sanofi CEO Paul Hudson, who said “the US government has the right to the largest pre-order because it’s invested in taking the risk”.
Many labs worldwide are involved in research to find a Covid-19 vaccine.
Vaccines usually take years to develop.
“For us, it would be unacceptable for there to be privileged access to such and such a country for financial reasons,” Ms Pannier-Runacher told France’s Sud Radio.
Earlier this month the EU chaired a global online summit to boost coronavirus research, and secured pledges of $8bn (£6.5bn) from some 40 countries and donors. The funding is aimed at developing a coronavirus vaccine and treatments for Covid-19.
The UK co-hosted the summit but the US and Russia did not take part.
On Thursday Sanofi’s chief in France, Olivier Bogillot, said “the goal is to have this vaccine available to the US as well as France and Europe at the same time”.
Speaking on French news channel BFMTV, he said that would only be possible “if Europeans work as quickly as the Americans”, and added that the US government had pledged to spend “several hundreds of millions of euros”.
Sanofi’s Covid-19 vaccine research is partly funded by the US Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (Barda).
But Sanofi has received tens of millions of euros in tax credits from the French government in recent years to help its research.
Last month Sanofi also teamed up with Britain’s GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) to work on a vaccine, though trials have not yet started.
Sanofi’s head of vaccine research, John Shiver, says “we are using an existing technology that was designed for influenza, and we’re applying it to the new virus that causes Covid-19 disease”.
Sanofi says GSK “will contribute its adjuvant technology, an ingredient added to enhance the immune response, reduce the amount of vaccine protein required per dose and improve the chances of delivering an effective vaccine that can be manufactured at scale”.
The candidate vaccine is expected to enter clinical trials in the second half of 2020 and to be available by the second half of 2021.
It would be “unacceptable” for French drug giant Sanofi to give priority to the US market if it develops a Covid-19 vaccine, a French minister has warned.
Deputy Finance Minister Agnès Pannier-Runacher was responding to comments by Sanofi CEO Paul Hudson, who said “the US government has the right to the largest pre-order because it’s invested in taking the risk”.
Many labs worldwide are involved in research to find a Covid-19 vaccine.
Vaccines usually take years to develop.
“For us, it would be unacceptable for there to be privileged access to such and such a country for financial reasons,” Ms Pannier-Runacher told France’s Sud Radio.
Earlier this month the EU chaired a global online summit to boost coronavirus research, and secured pledges of $8bn (£6.5bn) from some 40 countries and donors. The funding is aimed at developing a coronavirus vaccine and treatments for Covid-19.
The UK co-hosted the summit but the US and Russia did not take part.
On Thursday Sanofi’s chief in France, Olivier Bogillot, said “the goal is to have this vaccine available to the US as well as France and Europe at the same time”.
Speaking on French news channel BFMTV, he said that would only be possible “if Europeans work as quickly as the Americans”, and added that the US government had pledged to spend “several hundreds of millions of euros”.
Sanofi’s Covid-19 vaccine research is partly funded by the US Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (Barda).
But Sanofi has received tens of millions of euros in tax credits from the French government in recent years to help its research.
Last month Sanofi also teamed up with Britain’s GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) to work on a vaccine, though trials have not yet started.
Sanofi’s head of vaccine research, John Shiver, says “we are using an existing technology that was designed for influenza, and we’re applying it to the new virus that causes Covid-19 disease”.
Sanofi says GSK “will contribute its adjuvant technology, an ingredient added to enhance the immune response, reduce the amount of vaccine protein required per dose and improve the chances of delivering an effective vaccine that can be manufactured at scale”.
The candidate vaccine is expected to enter clinical trials in the second half of 2020 and to be available by the second half of 2021.
German reporter Ann-Kathrin Stracke says the former leader touched her buttocks repeatedly during a 2018 interview.
Ms Stracke said the global MeToo movement, which has highlighted sexual harassment and assault against women, inspired her to come forward.
The 94-year-old has denied the charge.
An emailed statement from Mr Giscard d’Estaing’s lawyer reported in the New York Times said he did not remember the incident, was not aware of any complaint, and that he was considering legal action after the “particularly undignified and offensive media attack”.
Ms Stracke filed a report in France about the incident in March. The German reporter told news agency AFP she decided to tell her story because “I think that people should know that a former French president harassed me sexually”.
She has also said the MeToo movement “showed me how important it is to talk about these matters in the open”.
What are the allegations? French newspaper Le Monde and German paper Sueddeutsche Zeitung first reported the allegations last week.
Ms Stracke, now 37, travelled to Paris in December 2018 to interview Mr Giscard D’Estaing for German public broadcaster WDR.
After speaking to the former leader the reporter said she asked for a photo with her and the team. He allegedly put his arm around her waist before moving it down to her buttocks. She said she was unable to push his hand away.
One French woman in eight raped – report The ex-president then suggested they look at photos on his office wall. During this time Ms Stracke said he again touched her buttocks, and then followed her and touched her again as she tried to move away.
“I tried to remove this hand, I did not succeed, and I was surprised by how strong he was,” she reportedly said, later describing the incident as “extremely uncomfortable”.
A cameraman then knocked over a lamp to distract Mr Giscard D’Estaing. As the team left, the former president allegedly kissed her on the cheek and said “Sweet dreams” to Ms Stracke in German.
Ms Stracke said she told her managers a few days later about the incident, who then reportedly hired an employment law firm to interview her and the cameraman.
In April 2019 the firm concluded the pair were “overall credible and suggest that the facts were exactly as described”. A spokeswoman for WDR said the company knew of the incident and backs Ms Stracke’s complaint.
According to Süddeutsche Zeitung, Mr Giscard D’Estaing’s office said he did not remember the meeting. “If what is alleged were true he would of course be very sorry, but he has no recollection of it,” chief of staff Olivier Revol told Le Monde. Mr Revol said he was astonished by the allegation as the former president had never been accused of any such thing before.
Who is President Giscard D’Estaing?
Mr Giscard d’Estaing led his country from 1974 until 1981 and is the longest-living French president in history. During his term he legalised abortion, simplified divorce and lower the voting age to 18.
The former president has also written two romantic novels. The second, published in 2009 and entitled The Princess and the President, depicted an affair between the French head of state and the fictional Princess of Cardiff – a character many believe was based on Princess Diana.
Mr Giscard d’Estaing has since insisted the allegations against him are entirely made up. He has two sons with his wife, Anne-Aymone.
Peugeot carmaker PSA (PEUP.PA), one of many car companies around the world to have been hit hard by the coronavirus, said on Monday that it would gradually restart production at sites over the course of this week.
PSA said a first wave in the partial resumption in industrial activity would take place between May 4 and May 11, with French sites gradually re-starting from May 11 onwards.
The company added it would have reinforced health and safety measures at sites, such as checking the temperatures of employees, and supplying masks, hydro-alcoholic gel and protective glasses, and social distancing between staff.
French rugby authorities and club presidents reached agreement Thursday to cancel the 2019-2020 season and concentrate on ensuring the 2020-2021 campaign starts in September.
The season was halted in mid-March due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The decision to end the season was made with the LNR and the presidents of the clubs in the top-flight Top 14 and second tier Pro D2 divisions.
It still needs to be rubberstamped by the league’s steering committee at a date still to be arranged.
French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe announced this week that professional sport could not take place until September in France, where over 25,000 people have died from Coronavirus.
The league said that after discussions with the presidents of Top 14 and Pro D2 clubs it had abandoned plans to hold a final phase of matches at the end of August.
“We propose to declare that this 2019-2020 season is at an end and focus on organising the launch of the 2020-2021 editions of the two championships from September 2020,” the LNR added in a statement.
It now looks likely the season will end without a champion being declared and without relegation or promotion.
Bordeaux-Begles were eight points clear in the Top 14 standings with nine games left to play. Well-financed Paris-based club Stade Francais were bottom.
The league hopes to start their new season on September 5.
Clubs must present plans to the sports ministry about what health precautions they will take for players.
French authorities have registered a record monthly rise in the number of people seeking unemployment benefits.
The number of claimants rose by 7% to just over 246,000 – the highest since records began in 1996.
Over 3.7 million people are registered for benefits in France, and more than 10 million people have been temporarily laid off from work due to the coronavirus outbreak.
The French Open has been postponed until September due to the coronavirus pandemic, the French Tennis Federation confirmed on Tuesday.
The Paris clay-court tournament – one of tennis’ four Grand Slam events – was scheduled to take place from May 24 to June 7, but is now slated to run from September 20 to October 4, dates that could cause significant disruption to the sport’s calendar.
Wimbledon organisers say they “continue to plan” for the grass-court Grand Slam to go ahead, despite it being scheduled to start just three weeks after the original French Open final date.
“The whole world is affected by the public health crisis connected with COVID-19. In order to ensure the health and safety of everyone involved in organising the tournament, the French Tennis Federation has made the decision to hold the 2020 edition of Roland-Garros from 20th September to 4th October 2020,” a statement from tournament organisers said.
“Though nobody is able to predict what the situation will be on 18th May, the current confinement measures have made it impossible for us to continue with our preparations and, as a result, we are unable to hold the tournament on the dates originally planned.
“In order to act responsibly and protect the health of its employees, service providers and suppliers during the organisation period, the FFT has chosen the only option that will allow them to maintain the 2020 edition of the tournament while joining the fight against COVID-19.
Despite announcing the closure of the Wimbledon museum, shop, and community sports ground, the All England Lawn Tennis & Croquet Club insist that plans remain in place for the tournament to begin on June 29.
AELTC chief executive Richard Lewis said: “At the heart of our decision-making is our commitment to the health and safety of our members, staff, and the public, and we are grateful to the government and public health authorities for their advice and support.
“While we continue to plan for The Championships at this time, it remains a continuously evolving situation and we will act responsibly, in the best interests of wider society.”
Meanwhile, the French Open’s new date could create further problems, with it scheduled to start just a week after the completion of the usual final major of the year, the US Open, which would leave players an abnormally short amount of time to change surfaces and time zones.
The proposed date also directly clashes with the Laver Cup, an annual men’s event, which Roger Federer was heavily involved in the creation of, that sees players from Europe take on a world team.
It remains unclear whether tournament organisers sought the approval of the ATP and WTA (elite men’s and women’s tours) before announcing the change of date.
Former British women’s No 1, Laura Robson, expressed her surprise at the move.
