The French actor, 75, will stand trial in Paris on Monday charged with physically abusing two women during filming of Les Volet Verts in 2021, and is accused by a total of 21 women of sexual assault, including rape, prompting six investigations.
A typed text of The Little Prince, one of the most translated books worldwide, containing handwritten notes and doodles by its author Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, who disappeared in mysterious circumstances while flying over the Mediterranean for the Free French forces in 1944, will be sold at the at the Abu Dhabi Art Festival in November for 1.25 million dollars.
In a riposte at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s claim that his country is waging a war of civilisations, French President Emmanuel Macron last Thursday said he was “not sure that one defends a civilisation by spreading barbarism oneself”. It was the latest example of Macron’s hardening stance towards the Israeli government, which has included his calls for sanctions on arms sales, and the strained relations with Netanyahu in particular. Ilyes Ramdani reports on the background to the French president’s shifting position over the Middle East conflict.
During the seventh week of an unprecedented mass rape trial in the southern French town of Avignon, more of the 51 defendants, accused of separately raping Gisèle Pelicot over a nine-year period as she lay unconcious from drugs secretly administered by her husband, took to the stand and denied knowingly raping her.
An international conference hosted by France to raise funding for humanitarian missions and military aid for Lebanon, increasingly ravaged by the war between Israel and Hezbollah, has attracted a total of 1 billion dollars in pledges, announced French foreign minister Jean-Noël Barrot.
As consumers increasingly turn their backs on the tannin-rich wines of Bordeaux, winegrowers in the region are ripping out their vines and turning to the planting of other crops and even laying solar panels for electricity production.
Gisèle Pelicot, 71, who was subjected to rape by dozens of strangers over many years when her husband sedated her into a comatose state and recruited men online to sexually abuse her, on Wednesday took to the stand at the trial in southern France when she told the court women who have been raped must know that 'it's not for us to have shame'.
French President Emmanuel Macron is to make a state visit to Morocco beginning on October 28th, in a move to mend high tensions between Paris and Rabat over recent years with what Moroccan King Mohammed VI called 'a renewed and ambitious vision covering several strategic sectors'.
Israel does not intend to bring the war in Gaza and Lebanon to a halt with its military successes against Hamas and the Hezbollah, writes Mediapart co-founder and former publishing editor Edwy Plenel in this op-ed article. Israel’s war aim, beyond the riposte to the October 7th 2023 Hamas attacks, is to bring an end to the project for a Palestinian state, and its supporters, he argues, and everything must be done to halt this unending war.
French scientists are studying the contents of a 144-year-old bottle of Vin Tonique Mariani, an apéritif invented by a Corsican pharmacist, which was a forebear of Coca-Cola and which is now under revival, to establish whether its ingredients really meet past claims of its ability to cure nervous conditions and impotency.
Private equity firm CD&R is in exclusive talks to buy 50% stake in Sanofi's consumer healthcare arm Opella which makes the best-selling Doliprane drug in France; meanwhile the French government has also bought a small stake in the company and has warned the American buyers of penalties if they shift production abroad.
The new French government under prime minister Michel Barnier plans to make savings of up to 60 million euros through tax rises and spending cuts. At least five billion euros of these scheduled savings in the 2025 budget – which will be debated by MPs this week - will hit France's local authorities, to the dismay and concern of regional political leaders. Here, mayors from three very different communities all tell Mediapart of the real-life consequences that these cuts will have locally, in particular on public services and in adapting to climate change. Interviews by Ilyes Ramdani.
Demonstrators gathered across France to show their support for mass rape victim Gisèle Pelicot whose ongoing trial saw her ex-husband as well as some 50 defendants – aged from 26 to 74 – take the stand.
Last summer the town of Échirolles in south-east France witnessed a surge of violence as drug-related shootings left two people wounded. The town, which is in the suburbs of the city of Grenoble, is now trying to fight back and the mayor recently wrote to President Emanuel Macron pleading for more resources to be able to tackle the problem of drug dealing and its impact on local residents. As Yannis Angles reports from Échirolles, the town council is also taking its own initiatives, including moving people out of a building that is notorious as a hotspot for the illicit trade.
A Parisian driver has been accused of intentionally running over a cyclist who got in his way. Protests are planned across the country following the cyclist's tragic death.
