Keyword: France

A man celebrates France's victory in the World Cup on Sunday in the Goutte d'Or neighbourhood of Paris. © Rachida El Azzouzi

After winning the football World Cup tournament in Russia, France’s national football team arrived home on Monday, when rejoicing crowds turned out to applaud them riding a double-decker bus along the Champs-Elysées avenue in central Paris, before a reception at the presidential palace. Since France’s victory over Croatia in the final on Sunday, streets across the country have been swamped in a flag-waving, car-horn blazing party of multi-coloured jubilation. But, warns Mediapart political commentator Hubert Huertas, while this temporary moment of collective joy is one to embrace, it heralds no change for the country’s underlining social, political and economic problems.

The New Yorker's Adam Gopnik argues that 'the French team, now the finest in the world’s most popular sport, is entirely dependent for its greatness on immigration, on the extraordinary things that only a cosmopolitan civilization can achieve'.

Rescued migrants on board the MV Lifeline shortly before disembarking in Malta. © Reuters

Late in June, after days of diplomatic wrangling, 234 migrants rescued off the Libyan coast while attempting to reach Europe in flimsy dinghies were finally allowed to disembark in Malta after several countries agreed to receive quotas from the group. Earlier this month, 51 of them arrived in France. Mediapart travelled to Toulouse, where some were given provisional accommodation, to listen to the harrowing stories of their experiences in Libya, where black Africans are subject to endemic racism and many become the prey and prisoner of vicious local militias. “If an Arab catches you, he sells you,” said one of the survivors. “When you are black, you are a commodity, you’re bought and sold on.” Mathilde Mathieu reports. 

Mirroring scenes in towns and cities across the France, the Champs-Elysées avenue and other thoroughfares in central Paris were filled on Sunday evening by tens of thousands of jubilant and chanting supporters of the national football team after its victory over Croatia in the World Cup final in Moscow.

In the final of the football World Cup tournament held this summer in Russia, a largely young France team brimming with individual talent beat a hard-fighting but unlucky Crotia by four goals to two in a highly entertaining match marked by questionable refereeing decisions. 

French Prime Minister Édouard Philippe on Friday announced a raft of new measures aimed at improving the efficiency of its anti-terrorism apparatus, including the creation of a dedicated counter-terrorism public prosection service and placing the management of investigations in the hands of the country's domestic intelligence agency, the DGSI.

Tourists urged to make online bookings up to three months in advance to see sights without having to battle through huge crowds.

Parliamentary report puts pressure on state-backed power utility EDF which operates nuclear plants and faces massive bill to extend their life.

The men, including an Iranian diplomat,will face claims they were involved in a plot to bomb an Iranian opposition rally on the outskirts of Paris.

It will cover all 16 year olds and will be divided into two distinct phases; a one-month compulsory stage and a three-month voluntary period.

Shops have been stoned or defaced with anti-meat graffiti and stickers, Federation of Butchers says, and 15 shops splashed with fake blood.

New combat jet intended to replace French Rafales made by Dassault Aviation and German Eurofighters from 2040. 

A report published by NGO Oxfam says its interviews with migrant children trying to cross from Italy to France on the Riviera border found complaints of being 'physically and verbally abused, and detained overnight in cells without food, water or blankets and with no access to an official guardian', and also claims that some children had the soles of their shoes cut off before being sent back to Italy.

Some of the migrants rescued by the Aquarius were transferred to Italian coastguard ships in a convoy heading for Spain. © Karpov / SOS Méditerranée

The odyssey of the migrant rescue ship Aquarius offers a new example of the violence of Europe-wide immigration policies, and not only those of the far-right in power in Italy, writes  Mediapart co-editor Carine Fouteau. For the migrants onboard the Aquarius, who will eventually arrive in a state of exhaustion in Spain, the ship’s long and deviated route for a safe haven is yet further confirmation that they and others like them are simply considered as a burden by European countries – if, that is, they manage to arrive alive on the continent’s shores.