France news

France news

"Everyone should take their cue from us, instead of criticising us," he said at the Munich Security Conference, after US Vice President JD Vance used his address at the annual gathering last year to attack European policies on immigration and free speech. "I believe that Europe is inherently strong and can be made even stronger yet," he added.

The European Central Bank said Friday it had fined French bank Credit Agricole €7.55 million ($9 million) for failing to properly identify climate change-related risks that could affect its balance sheet. "Credit Agricole did not sufficiently assess the materiality of its climate-related and environmental risks" by a deadline set after an investigation in 2024, the ECB said in a statement, adding the bank was late by "75 full days".

High winds and hard rain brought chaos across southern France, northern Spain and parts of Portugal on Thursday, forcing cancellations of flights, trains and ferries and disruption on roads. French officials said a truck driver was killed when a tree smashed through his windscreen, while dozens were injured in weather-related incidents in Spain and a viaduct in Portugal partially collapsed because of flooding.

French police have detained a 50-year-old woman after the bodies of two infants were found in a freezer in eastern France, with the suspect admitting to freezing her newborns, prosecutors said on Thursday. The discovery was made after the woman, who had nine children from three different fathers, had abruptly left the family home in the eastern town of Aillevillers-et-Lyaumont in December.

It's long had a reputation as the city of romance, but now the French capital is supporting a growing number of businesses that will arrange an extravagant marriage proposal in a landmark setting - for a hefty fee, of course. The luxury marriage proposal business is booming in Paris with agencies charging international clients thousands of euros to pop the question in a 'romantic' setting in the City of Love.

If you spend any time scrolling French TikTok, watching French YouTubers, or hanging out near a high school or university café in Paris, Marseille, or Lyon, you'll quickly notice that the French you learned in class isn't exactly what young people are speaking today. French Gen Z slang is a fast-evolving mix of , Arabic and Romani influences, texting shortcuts, and words born from rap and street culture.

The contentious decision came as part of a "National Strategy for Food, Nutrition and Climate," setting out the government's aims until 2030 on balancing a healthy diet while reducing greenhouse gas emissions. It was supposed to be published in 2023, the culmination of a direct-democracy initiative that immediately raised the hackles of agriculture lobbies that accused the government of threatening their livelihoods.

Famed Paris modern art museum the Pompidou Centre said Wednesday it had filed a legal complaint and suspended an employee after a hidden camera was found in the women's toilets of its offices. A statement from the famed modern art space, which closed its doors last year for renovations, said an employee had discovered "an image-recording device" on January 14th in offices housing building management and security staff near its main site.

"We will move to elections when all the necessary security guarantees are in place," Zelensky told reporters, including AFP journalists, in a voice note. "I have said it's very simple to do: establish a ceasefire, and there will be elections," he added. If Russia also agrees, it may be possible to "end hostilities by summer", Zelensky said.

Nine officers from the French riot police have gone on trial in Paris accused of beating peaceful protesters who were sheltering from teargas during the gilets jaunes (yellow vests) anti-government demonstrations in 2018. The case at Paris's criminal court is one of the biggest trials over alleged police violence during the unrest in 2018 and 2019, when hundreds of thousands of protesters in fluorescent jackets took to the streets over rising fuel taxes in what morphed into broader anti-government protests against the president, Emmanuel Macron.

According to Christian Louboutin, there are three parts of France where locals proudly claim their regional identity before their national one: the Basque Country, Corsica, and Brittany. The latter, a rocky peninsula on France's northwestern coast, is where the shoe magnate's family is from. "I love the Breton climate, which is very garden-friendly," he says. "And the pride that the people take in their culture and traditions."

Belleville has always been a little bit rowdy, whether it meant to be or not. Long before it was folded into Paris in 1860, it existed as its own working-class wine village perched on a hill, slightly removed from the city both geographically and ideologically. In recent years, as Paris's 10th and 11th arrondissements have slid fully into hipster territory, and even the gritty Barbès neighborhood feels increasingly polished, Belleville has held onto its identity with surprising resolve.

Olympic gold medalist Imane Khelif says she is willing to undergo genetic sex testing to compete in the Olympics should the International Olympic Committee (IOC) require it. "Of course, I would accept doing anything I'm required to do to participate in competitions," the 26-year-old cisgender Algerian boxing champion told CNN this week, stipulating that she would only submit to testing by the IOC. According to CNN, Khelif's statement marks the first time she has publicly addressed the possibility of having to submit to genetic testing

Dozens of messages contained in the latest tranche of Epstein files lay bare the attempts by Donald Trump's former chief strategist Steve Bannon to tap Jeffrey Epstein for support and funding to bolster European far-right parties. The messages mostly date to 2018 and 2019, when Bannon, after being sacked by Trump, regularly visited Europe in his quest to forge a movement in the European parliament uniting ultra-rightwing and Eurosceptic forces from several countries including Italy, Germany, France, Hungary, Poland, Sweden and Austria.