Keyword: interview

In an interview with the Financial Times, and during a week of heightening diplomatic tensions between Paris and Beijing, French President Emmanuel Macron said it would be 'naive' to believe the Chinese authorities had dealt better with the Covid-19 virus crisis than Western democracies, and that in China 'There are clearly things that have happened that we don't know about'.

In an interview with The New York Times while in temporary exile in Italy, author Gabriel Matzneff, once celebrated by Parisian literary circles for his accounts of sex with underage girls and boys in France and abroad, and who is now under investigation in France for the sexual abuse and grooming of a minor, said he felt 'like the living dead, a dead man walking', turning on his former admirers for 'showing their cowardice', and accusing those who now denounce him of hypocracy.

In an interview with The Guardian, Philippe Martinez, head of one of France's biggest cross-trades unions and which has spearheaded the opposition to Emmanuel Macron's plans to reform the pension scheme, said the French president 'is so sure of himself, but he’s playing with fire', warning that the 'rancour' created by the reforms will be paid by the government 'one day or another'.   

 In an interview with the magazine The Economist ahead of a London summit to mark 70th anniversary of the founding of the North Atlantic Treaty Alliance (Nato), French President Emmanuel Macron said weakening US commitment to the alliance has depleted its strength and that 'What we are currently experiencing is the brain death of Nato', while he urged Europe to think of itself as a 'geopolitical power' to ensure it remained 'in control' of its destiny.   

In his first interview since prompting the worst crisis of Emmanuel Macron's presidency, disgraced security aide Alexandre Benalla said 'my case has been used to settle scores' and accused 'politicians and police' of using him as 'weak link' with which to hurt the French president.

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).

Amid the controversy of sex assault allegations against two of her fellow members of government, French gender equality minister Marlène Schiappa tells The New Yorker why she could not remain in a government with a minister placed under investigation for rape, and why she is determined to see through proposed legislation that makes pressing sexual advances in a public place an offence.

French President Emmanuel Macron, speaking in a television interview with the BBC, said he shared the outrage of African countries after US President Donald Trump reportedly described Central American and African nations as ‘shithole countries’ at a White House meeting with lawmakers earlier this month.

French defence minister Florence Parly has warned that the fight against the so-called Islamic State group, which has lost most of the territory it once controlled in Iraq and Syria, is far from over as it is re-organising itself into an underground terrorist network.

French President Emmanuel Macron, visiting an industrial site in central France where jobs are to be cut, used strong language to suggest that protesting workers would do better to abandon militant campaigns and apply for jobs at a nearby factory where staff are needed, prompting accusations that he showed contempt for the plight of those made redundant.

Maverick centrist Emmanuel Macron, the former French economy minister who is currently tipped by opinion polls to reach the two-horse final round of presidential elections in May, has warned Britain that 'you don’t get a passport and you don’t get access to the single market when you decide to leave' the European Union.

In an interview with the BBC, French Prime minister Manuel Valls has hinted that state of emergency powers, introduced after last year's Paris terrorist attacks, would be prolonged to next spring when the country holds presidential and parliamentary elections.

The former deputy director of Sarkozy's 2012 presidential election campaign said the latter has lied over his knowledge of account fixing scandal.

The actress, 71, who's new film will open the Cannes Film Festival, says France no longer has true stars while no-ones are now in the limelight.