poor

Billionaire François Pinault, 81, who founded a luxury goods group that includes Gucci, says president does not understand  'the little people'.

In 2012 the Left attracted its biggest shares of votes in the presidential election from the poorest sectors of society. But after François Hollande's presidency that support has dwindled. In the regional elections in 2015 this electorate turned instead towards the far-right Front National, headed by Marine Le Pen. The signs are that large numbers of France's poorest voters will also back Le Pen in the first round of the presidential election in April. Academic and Front National specialist Nonna Mayer analyses the figures.

Funeral costs in France can often be beyond the means of the least well-off and their surviving relatives. In one region an association has teamed up with an insurance company to offer low-cost cover to ensure that the poor can organise a dignified final ceremony. In other areas local associations are naming and shaming local councils in a bid to force them to carry out their legal obligations to provide decent burial arrangements for the most disadvantaged. Mathilde Goanec reports.

In a book of conversations with journalists to be published Thursday, the French president claimed his former partner Valérie Trierweiler betrayed him by misconstruing his description of the poor as 'toothless', but on Wednesday she revealed what she said was a text message from him using the term in a derogatory manner.

The FT reports from a neighbourhood in France's second city where poor immigrants and the poor indigenous white working class cohabit.

In magazine interview beleaguered French president hits back at former partner's claim he mocked the poor, calling it a 'lie that hurts me'.

Beleaguered president says he was 'elected for five years by the French people' and that serving the poor is the 'reason for my existence'.

Valérie Trierweiler's claim that in private François Hollande jokingly refers to poor as 'the toothless' set to damage socialist leader.

According to many financial experts, last year marked a turning point in which the world finally began to put the financial crisis behind it. But if 2013 was the year when stock and property markets recovered to pre-crisis levels, it was also a period when the gap between the super rich and everyone else widened to levels not seen for practically a century. In the United States, as much as half of national income went to the very rich, a concentration of wealth last seen in 1917. In Europe poverty has made a comeback, and the most disadvantaged are scrambling to feed themselves and their families. Martine Orange reports.

An estimated eight million people in France live in cold habitations which they cannot afford to heat, causing them significantly more illnesses than those in comfortably-heated homes. That is the conclusion of the first-ever methodical and large-scale study of the problem in France, presented in a report by a leading French charitable association for the poor, the Abbé Pierre Foundation. As Jade Lindgaard reports, social workers and environmental activists largely agree that the issue, for long overlooked in France, should be recognised as an integral part of the country's policy on energy transition, due to be the subject of a bill of law before parliament next year.

Experts forceast low yield from many French vineyards after a combination of a cold, wet spring and severe hailstorms during the summer.

This week a major national conference has been taking place to highlight the crippling level of poverty on France, which affects around 8.6 million people. Ministers, officials, trade unions representatives and workers from local voluntary associates have been meeting to thrash out a plan of action. Mediapart's Rachida El Azzouzi travelled to Calais in north-west France to see the reality of poverty at first hand. In one area of the town she found that all that is handed down from generation to generation is poverty and unemployment.