To the backdrop of a second major heatwave in France this summer, a political debate has opened over the use of air-conditioning, which the far-right has promised to encourage with a 'major' national plan, and which the Left, beginning with the Greens, counters is only treating the symptoms of climate warming while fuelling it, rather than removing its underlying causes.
The vast wildfire that last week swept through around 16,000 hectares of land in the Corbières region of southern France also destroyed the 100-year-old vines of winemaker Jean-Marie Dubois and the stock of 1,300 bottles of his prized white wine.
An exhibition now on until November at the Paris Institut du Monde Arab is showcasing the rich history of what is present-day Gaza, displaying objects that trace the artistic and commercial development of a place that has been a crossroads of cultures since Neolithic times.
Media revelations about the use of outlawed filtering of mineral water by French companies, chief among them Nestlé's subsidiary Perrier, and allegations of a cover-up of the practices by both the firms and conniving ministers, are now joined by concern about the over-pumping of water tables which are fast diminishing amid the effects of climate change.
The gigantic wildfire which, in barely more than 48 hours, burnt through about 17,000 hectares (42,000 acres) of vegetation and forestland in southern France this week has finally been halted. For an explanation of the magnitude of this exceptional wildfire, the tactics employed to contain it, and the lessons to be learned from it, Mickaël Correia turned to Éric Brocardi, a senior firefighter and spokesman for France's National Federation of Firefighters, who described the events this week as a "turning point".
Local winemakers and mayors have blamed the state-subsidized uprooting of vineyards in the Corbières region of southern France, the scene of this weeks mega-wildfire, for the rapid spread of the flames which they claim would otherwise have been slowed by the moist plantations.
Amid increasing tensions between France and Algeria, notably over refusal by Algiers to accept its deported nationals and recognition by Paris of Morocco's sovereignty over the disputed territory of Western Sahara, president Emmanuel Macron has asked his government to adopt a tougher stance against the former French colony.
One person has died and at least nine others injured, one seriously, in what has become the largest wildfire in France since two decades, which by Wednesday afternoon had destroyed more than 16,000 hectares in the southern Corbières region, close to the Pyrenees, and which about 2,000 firefighters were still trying to contain 24 hours after it first erupted.
A 47-year-old Moroccan man is being held in police custody after he was filmed lighting a cigarette from the 'eternal flame' above the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, situated under the Arc de Triomphe on the Champs Elysées avenue in central Paris, in an act described by interior minister Bruno Retailleau as 'unworthy and deplorable'.
Beginning in May, Mediapart has been publishing a series of reports regularly sent to it from inside the Gaza Strip by two young Palestinians. Nour Elassy, a 22-year-old journalist, who is also a poet and writer, and Ibrahim Badra, a 23-year-old journalist and human rights activist, have been chronicling the grim reality of life and death in Gaza as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continues to wage a genocidal war against the population of about 2.1 million. Elassy last month arrived in France to study political sciences, while Badra remains in Gaza where “famine shows no mercy”, he writes in this latest despatch. “It steals our lives silently, weakens our bodies, and leaves us to face death alone.”
An undercover investigation by the BBC has exposed the activities and network of a violent gang organising clandestine crossings of the Channel to Britain from France.
An agreement between Britain and France allowing the UK to return some migrants who arrive in England via clandestine crossings of the Channel came into force on Tuesday.
Nour Attaalah, a 25-year-old Gazan who was awarded a scholarship to study political sciences in France, left the country for Qatar on Sunday after she was found to have posted on social media calls for the killing of Jews, causing a political row which has led to the suspension of the scholarship scheme for students from Gaza.
In 1899 a French-led military expedition left widespread carnage and death in its wake as it marched across parts of West Africa. Soldiers from the so-called Voulet-Chanoine Mission – otherwise known as the Central African Mission – looted, killed and raped in areas that are today part of the nation of Niger. Descendants of those communities hit by the military mission's rampage are now calling on France, via organisations at the United Nations, to acknowledge and make amends for those colonial crimes. Paris has flatly refused, amid a major breakdown in diplomatic relations with Niger. Report by Rémi Carayol.
Stories of the abuse of pupils at Notre-Dame-de-Bétharram private Catholic school in south-west France have grabbed the headlines in recent months, and have been the subject of parliamentary debate and a high-profile report by Members of Parliament. But how many pupils and former pupils have taken their own lives after suffering abuse at this and other such schools? That question has been notably absent from the many debates sparked by the Bétharram affair. Yet there are many such cases. Mediapart has spoken to witnesses and loved ones, who tell of lives and families that have been torn apart. Sarah Brethes and Mathilde Mathieu report.
