After almost one year in office, French President Emmanuel Macron gave a live interview on Sunday evening with Mediapart’s cofounder and publishing editor Edwy Plenel and Jean-Jacques Bourdin of French rolling news channel BFM-TV. The wide-ranging two-hour interview, the French president’s first public appearance since France joined the US and Britain in missile strikes this weekend against the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad, was streamed live on Mediapart (with studio debates from Mediapart before and after the interview) and can be replayed here (click on screen, in French only). Together with the video in French of the full interview, arguably the first uncompromising quizzing of a French head of state, follow the highlights in English here (click on headline for article page).
As student protests and sit-ins gather momentum, railway services are disrupted with rolling strike action, and unrest simmers among healthcare staff and the legal professions, the May 1968 revolt that paralysed France and caused General de Gaulle to flee to Ireland was, say some observers, very different because it was inspired by hope and not the ambient pessimism of 2018.
A spokesman, for Khalifa Haftar, whose Libyan National Army controls much of eastern Libya and who press reports last week said was in a coma after suffering a stroke, claimed on Twitter on Friday that he had visited a Paris hospital 'for normal checkups' and would 'be back in Libya within few days'.
French foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said on Saturday that the air strikes by the US, France and Britain on Syrian targets overnight were 'proportionate and targeted' and warned that they would be repeated if the Damascus regime used chemical weapons in the future, but also insisted that France will pursue diplomatic channels to help reach an end to the Syrian civil war.
France has joined the US and Britain in attacks overnight Friday against sites in Syria identified as production plants for chemical weapons, in response to a suspected chemical attack on the Syrian rebel-held town of Douma last week.
After five days of violent clashes, local authorities have announced an end to the police-enforced evictions of environmental activists and the destruction of alternative farming projects on agricultural land at Notre-Dames-des-Landes, in NW France, first occupied in a successful bid to prevent the building of an airport on the site, but despite the move the pitched battles between protestors and gendarmes continued on Friday.
A French court on Fiday ordered that property belonging to the late rock star Johnny Hallyday and future royalty payments on sales of his music are frozen pending a ruling on a challenge brought by his elder children to his will, in which he left all his assets, speculated to be worth up to 100 million euros, to his fourth wife and their two young adopted daughters.
French President Emmanuel Macron appeared in a lengthy interview on national television on Thursday, speaking from a school classroom in a village in north-west France, when he said that despite protests over his railways reforms, and also growing opposition to reforms of university selection procedures and the justice system, he and his government will stand firm with its policies 'because the world around us is speeding up, going through great changes, and because our country must be able to choose its destiny and live better'.
Film production streaming giant Netflix's chief content officer, Ted Sarandos, said his company was pulling out of next month's Cannes Film Festival, arguably the most prestigious annual filmmakers venue, because they will not be treated equally due to a French law that stipulates films cannot be released on home entertainment platforms until 36 months after their release in cinemas.
In a series of interviews to promote his first book after leaving power last year when he was succeeded by Emmanuel Macron, his economy minister who some had maintained was his dauphin, former French president François Hollande accused the new head of state of deepening social inequalities through tax cuts that help the wealthy and business corporations.
In an unprecedented speech to Catholic bishops this week in Paris, French President Emmanuel Macron said 'We share in a confused way that relations between the Church and State have been damaged and it is up to you, as much as us, to repair them', prompting a political uproar and accusations that he undermined the secular pillar of France's constitution.
French energy giant EDF said a series of faulty welding has been discovered on pipes at its 10.5-billion-euro Flamanville nuclear plant under construction near the Channel coast in north-west France, threatening further delays to the already troubled building of the station which is now three times over budget.
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