France is a great trading nation. France is the world's sixth largest food exporter. Why are French farmers and French politicians so viscerally hostile to trade? French farmers get over 9 billion a year in subsidies from Brussels, more than any other country. And yet they oppose any EU trade agreement which would help other industries but might provide limited competition to farmers.
France has banned 10 British anti-migrant activists for attempting to stop migrants and asylum seekers from crossing into the United Kingdom on small boats, the French Ministry of Interior has announced. In a statement on Wednesday, the ministry said it had been alerted to the actions of activists with the so-called Raise the Colours group, searching for and destroying small boats and engaging in propaganda activity on the northern French coast.
It was announced in 2025 but came into effect from the start of 2026 - French museums can now charge higher prices to visitors from non-EU countries. There are, however, exemptions for non-EU citizens who are resident in France, as well as concession prices plus a number of groups who qualify for free entry. Here's a breakdown of the new rules;
The plaintiff, hired in 2009 as a vice president in the French branch of Credit Suisse's UK operations, believed she had been discriminated against "because of her sex, her pregnancy and her status as a mother". In court, she cited about 10 incidents to support her claim, including "structural sex discrimination within the company" and the "sudden termination of her variable compensation coinciding with her pregnancy".
The roll out of Europe's EES biometric border system was due to be stepped up this week across Europe, but what does that mean for travellers heading between France and the UK via Dover, the Eurotunnel or Eurostar terminals? Passengers might have expected longer waits at some French border crossing points from this week, as registrations for the EU Entry/Exit System (EES), the new EU digital border system, were due to be stepped up in line with phased rollout plans.
Since its debut in 2021, The White Lotus has become an unlikely kingmaker in the world of high-end travel. Each season's setting, from Hawaii to Sicily, has enjoyed a measurable boost in desirability, with hotels and destinations finding themselves reframed through the show's glossy, satirical lens. Equal parts escapism and social commentary, the series has proven especially potent in shaping where affluent travelers want to be seen next.
Paris prosecutors on Monday requested six-year prison sentences for two former narcotics squad police officers who replaced confiscated cocaine with sugar paste. The defendants, Thierry C, 60, and Christophe J, 50, were members of the French capital's nighttime anti-drugs taskforce but were expelled from the police following their arrests in December 2022. Along with prison sentences, the prosecutor requested the confiscation of €600,000 from the bank account of Thierry C. and a €200,000 fine against Christophe J.
The satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, known globally and tragically for being the target of an Islamist attack in 2015 published a caricature of me. And it was appallingly racist. A huge, toothy grin, an enormous mouth, the cartoon depicts me dancing on a stage before an audience of laughing white men, adorned with a banana belt on a largely exposed body. The headline: The Rokhaya Diallo Show: Mocking secularism around the world.
Many French supermarkets have empty shelves in the egg section, with retailers blaming bad weather and bird flu for the shortages. In recent weeks many consumers in France have reported egg shortages, with pictures of empty shelves shared on social media. Retailers say that a long-term problem has been made worse by recent outbreaks of bird flu, coupled with the snowy weather that hit France last week, causing widespread transport disruption.
goTom continues its strategic growth trajectory in 2026, investing in expertise, international expansion and product innovation to further consolidate its position as a leading European SaaS platform for digital ad sales management. Today (12th January, 2025), the company welcomes three new team members: Yasin Korkmaz joins as senior account executive, Laurent Meuzard takes on the role of country director for France, and Megan Balschun strengthens the product team as product manager.
A French court on Friday handed a suspended sentence to a 74-year-old man who last year broke an egg on the head of the leader of France's main far-right party -- and possible presidential candidate -- Jordan Bardella. It also ordered the retired farmer, identified in court as Jean-Paul, to pay a €1,000 ($1,160) fine, as well as damages to Bardella of €500 for harming his image and €600 to contribute to his legal fees.
France has delayed this year's Group of 7 summit by one day to avoid a scheduling conflict with an Ultimate Fighting Championship fight card planned at the White House on 14 June, according to two officials with direct knowledge of the G7's preparations. The summit, hosted by France in the Alpine resort town of Evian-les-Bains, was originally scheduled for 14 to 16 June, a date that coincides with US Flag Day and US president Donald Trump's 80th birthday.
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging. At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground.
We are living in a world of great powers, with a real temptation to divide up the world, Macron said. We are being subjected to neocolonial aggressiveness by certain parties. The president's words arrive less than a week after the United States attacked Caracas and captured the Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro and his wife. Macron's statement also comes after the Trump administration insisted on a possible annexation of Greenland.
In total, 19 dual nationals were stripped of their French passports in 2025, according to figures published in the police gazette l'Essor de la gendarmerie. The process followed convictions in the French courts, all for terrorism-related offences. The figures represent a fall on the previous year, when 41 people had their French passports removed. In 2023, 11 dual nationals lost their French citizenship, in 2022 six did, and four each in 2021 and 2020.
Ben Hodges said the proposed multinational force, discussed this week by the British and French leaders with Ukraine's president Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Paris, had to be robust enough to deal with likely Kremlin-orchestrated provocations. The coalition of the willing has to have real force and rules of engagement that allow it to immediately react and respond to any violations, he said. Captains can't be having to call back to Paris or London to find out how to deal with a Russian drone.
Airports in Paris and Amsterdam were the worst affected, with the Dutch authorities saying more than 1,000 travellers had been forced to spend the night at Schiphol, one of Europe's busiest hubs. Six people have died in weather-related accidents as the continent reels from the most bitter cold snap of the winter so far. Five of those deaths were confirmed in France on Tuesday, while a woman died in Bosnia as heavy snow and rain sparked floods and power outages across the Balkans.
How to properly get rid of your Christmas tree, are Christmas cash gifts taxable? Everything that changes in 2026 for foreigners in France, all you need to know about the winter sales, and the cost of French citizenship if you're not Amal and George Clooney We start with one of the crucial practicalities of January. With Christmas over and the rush back to work and school officially starting on Monday,
The French civil aviation authority has reportedly asked airlines to reduce by 15 percent flights in an out of Paris' three airports (Charles de Gaulle, Orly and Beauvais), leading to some cancellations. Anyone with a flight is advised to contact their airline before travelling to the airport. Other arrivals into Paris were delayed because of the snow, although flights are still taking off and landing in Paris. A cyclist walks on the snow-blanketed Champs-de-Mars in Paris on January 5, 2026.
A restaurant has been fined €8,000 for refusing to serve tap water, contrary to French law which says that free tap water must always be available if requested. The restaurant in the upmarket ski resort of Val Thorens has been fined €8,000 by the country's anti-fraud office, for telling customers that tap water was not available in the establishment. A press release from the Direction générale de la Concurrence, de la Consommation et de la Répression des fraudes (DGCCRF), said that the restaurant, Les Aiguilles du Péclet in Val Thorens,
A Paris court has found 10 people guilty of online harassment of the French first lady, Brigitte Macron, by posting or reposting malicious comments on social media that claimed falsely that she was a man. Eight men and two women, aged 41 to 60, including a school sports teacher, an art gallery owner and a publicist, were on Monday given sentences ranging from a compulsory course in understanding online harassment to an eight-month suspended prison sentence.
Public space is often understood as belonging to no one in particular, collectively accessible yet institutionally maintained, yet a growing number of initiatives are challenging this assumption by testing shared management and distributed ownership models. In Paris, Adoptez un banc introduces a sponsorship-based approach, allowing individuals and groups to support temporarily and symbolically claim responsibility for historic public furniture without compromising its collective use.
Nine meters (30 feet) beneath the waves, they found it: a vast, man-made stone wall, averaging 20 meters (66 feet) wide and two meters (6.6 feet) tall. The structure consists of some 60 massive granite monoliths, set directly onto the bedrock in pairs at regular intervals. Smaller slabs and packing stones fill in the gaps, locking the whole into a single, deliberate construction. With an estimated total mass of around 3,300 tons, this is the largest underwater structure ever discovered in France.
