Tag Archives: France

French PM Announces Four Week Lockdown For Paris

The Washington Post reports: French Prime Minister Jean Castex on Thursday announced that Paris and several other parts of the country will enter a new lockdown Friday night, as the more transmissible coronavirus variant first identified in Britain is prompting a surge in hospitalizations. The lockdown measures are expected to be in place for four weeks, Castex said during a …

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Former French President Sentenced For Corruption

The BBC reports: Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy and two former associates have been sentenced to three years in jail – two of them suspended – for corruption. Sarkozy, 66, was found guilty of trying to bribe a magistrate, Gilbert Azibert, by offering a prestigious job in Monaco in return for information about a criminal inquiry into his political party. …

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Fashion Icon Pierre Cardin Dies At Age 98 [VIDEO]

The New York Times reports: Pierre Cardin, the visionary designer and licensing pioneer who invented the business of fashion as it is conducted today, has died. He was 98. His death was confirmed on Tuesday by the French Academy of Fine Arts. He died at the American Hospital in Neuilly-sur-Seine, just outside Paris, his family said. He clothed the famous …

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France Eases Blockade On Shipping With UK [VIDEO]

Reuters reports: More than 4,500 lorries, among a huge backlog of trucks stranded for days in the British port of Dover, crossed the Channel on Friday after extra troops were deployed to step up coronavirus testing, a minister said. Ferry services between Dover and the French port of Calais resumed on Thursday, ending a blockade France had imposed for several …

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Lufthansa Airlifts Food To UK Amid Trucking Chaos

The BBC reports: Germany’s Lufthansa is airlifting fresh fruit and vegetables to the UK on Wednesday as firms seek to beat the lorry chaos at sea ports. The airline said it is carrying 80 tonnes of food from Frankfurt to Doncaster Sheffield Airport for grocers including Tesco and Sainsbury’s. Almost 3,000 lorries remain stuck in Kent despite moves to re-start …

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UK May Face Food Shortages After France Shuts Border

The Wall Street Journal reports: The U.K. was braced for potential food shortages and disruption to manufacturing Monday if France continued a ban on freight as well as people traveling from Britain in an effort to stop the spread of a new strain of the coronavirus. The move to bar entry from the U.K., announced by Paris late Sunday, cuts …

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Ailing Macron Blames Himself For Contracting COVID

Agence France-Presse reports: French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday blamed his COVID-19 on a combination of negligence and bad luck, urging his compatriots to stay safe as critics called out slip-ups in his behavior to prevent infection, from a close-quarters handshake to repeated big-group meals over the past week. In what looked like a self-shot video from the presidential retreat …

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French President Emmanuel Macron Tests COVID+

Reuters reports: French President Emmanuel Macron has tested positive for coronavirus, his office said on Thursday, sparking a track and trace effort targeting EU leaders and senior officials who met him in recent days. “The President of the Republic has been diagnosed positive for COVID-19 today,” Macron’s office said in a statement. “This diagnosis was made following a PCR test …

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Ex-Vatican Envoy Guilty Of Sexual Assaults On Men

The Associated Press reports: A Paris court on Wednesday convicted a former Vatican ambassador to France of sexually assaulting five men in 2018 and 2019, and handed him a suspended 8-month prison sentence. Retired Archbishop Luigi Ventura, 76 — who was not present in court — was “shattered” by the verdict, according to his lawyer, Solange Doumic. Ventura has repeatedly …

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France To Ease Lockdown, Keep Bars And Eateries Shut

Reuters reports: France will start easing its COVID-19 lockdown this weekend so that by Christmas, shops, theatres and cinemas will re-open and people will be able to spend the holiday with the rest of their family, French President Emmanuel Macron said on Tuesday. In a televised address to the nation, Macron said the worst of the second wave of the …

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France Becomes Second EU Nation To Pass 1M Cases

Axios reports: France has become the second country in Western Europe to surpass 1 million COVID-19 cases, Johns Hopkins University data shows. The big picture: France had reported 1,000,369 cases and 34,075 deaths from the coronavirus by Thursday morning, per JHU. French President Emmanuel Macron declared a state of health emergency and imposed a curfew on virus hot spots earlier …

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France Declares Emergency As COVID Cases Soar

Reuters reports: The French government on Wednesday declared a public health state of emergency, giving officials greater powers to impose new measures to contain the spread of COVID-19. Announcing the decision in a statement, the government said the epidemic was a public health disaster which endangered the health of the population and justified the adoption of strict measures. The government’s …

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Paris On High Alert Amid Surge, All Bars To Re-Close

The BBC reports: Paris will shut all bars completely from Tuesday after the French government raised the city’s coronavirus alert to maximum following a period of high infection rates. Bars, gyms and swimming pools will all be closed for two weeks in a bid to curb the spread of the virus, the city’s police chief said. But restaurants will remain …

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France To Ban Wild Animals In Circuses, Marine Parks

The Associated Press reports: France’s environment minister has announced a gradual ban on using wild animals in traveling circuses, on keeping dolphins and killer whales in captivity in marine parks and on raising mink on fur farms. Barbara Pompili, France’s minister of ecological transition, said in a news conference Tuesday that bears, tigers, lions, elephants and other wild animals won’t …

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European Leaders Warn Of New Lockdown Amid Surge

The New York Times reports: In France, President Emmanuel Macron warned on Friday that the authorities were doing “everything to avoid a new lockdown.” A day later, the country reported over 7,300 new virus cases, its highest daily tally since March 31 and a number that sent its seven-day average to a new record of 4,668. As Germany faces its …

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France Mandates Face Masks In All Indoor Spaces

ABC News reports: France is taking a new step in the fight against the spread of the new coronavirus making the wearing of the mask mandatory in closed public spaces from today. The Minister of Health, Olivier Véran [photo], said on Saturday that the obligation to wear a mask would apply in shops, “establishments open to the public”, “covered markets” …

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France Ditches “Minister of Attractiveness” Job Title

Politico reports: When the English Twitter account for the French foreign ministry revealed Franck Riester’s new title of junior minister for trade and “attractiveness,” it immediately elicited mocking online and questions about whether it had been mistranslated. In France, the term “attractivité” is often used to refer to attracting investment. The French foreign ministry assured its followers it had looked …

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France Bans Use Of Trump’s Drug Hydroxychloroquine

Reuters reports: The French government on Wednesday cancelled a decree allowing hospital doctors to administer hydroxychloroquine as a treatment to patients suffering severe forms of COVID-19, the illness caused by the new coronavirus. The move, which takes immediate effect, is the first by a country since the World Health Organization said on Monday it was pausing a large trial of …

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French Pharma To Give US “Preference” On Vaccine

Bloomberg News reports: Americans will likely get Sanofi’s Covid-19 vaccine before the rest of the world if the French pharmaceutical giant can successfully deliver one. That’s because the U.S. was first in line to fund Sanofi’s vaccine research, Chief Executive Officer Paul Hudson said in an interview with Bloomberg News. He warned that Europe risks falling behind unless it steps …

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French Ordered To Stay Home For At Least 15 Days

The New York Times reports: Adopting martial language, President Emmanuel Macron ordered the French to stay at home for at least the next 15 days, as France put in place some of the most severe measures in Europe to try to curb the raging coronavirus. The aggressive move by France came as other countries in the region introduced measures that …

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