Modelling agent Jean-Luc Brunel, 74, who was an associate of disgraced late US financier Jeffrey Epstein to whom he is accused of trafficking women and minors as well as also raping and assaulting models in France, has been formally placed under investigation and remanded in preventive detention following his arrest at Charles-de-Gaulle airport on Wednesday.
Immunologist Jean-François Delfraissy, president of the Frances advisory body on Covid-19, the Scientific Council, said the coronavirus vaccine rollout will take longer than previously envisaged, and that a return to normal life post-epidemic is not likely to occur before the autumn of 2021.
The French president, who on Thursday went into self isolation after being diagnosed with Covid-19, had the previous evening met with around ten senior aides and elected officials for a dinner which went on until midnight, while regulations imposed on the public to slow the coronavirus epidemic stipulate no more than six adults should meet socially together and all must be back home by 8pm.
A Paris court on Thursday sentenced Ayoub El Khazzani, 31, to life imprisonment after finding him guilty of attempted murder on an Amsterdam-Paris high-speed train in August 2015, when his shooting attack was foiled after a bloody fight with US passengers, while the court also handed three accused accomplices jail sentences of, variously, between seven and 27 years.
French President Emmanuel Macron has testsed positive for Covid-19, his office announced on Thursday, and as a result his prime minister Jean Castex and several several European leaders recently in contact with the 42-year-old are now self-isolating
French Prime Minister Jean Castex said on Wednesday that the Pfizer/BioNTech anti-Covid-19 vaccine could begin to be administered in France in late December if it is approved by the European Union regulatory agency at a key meeting next week.
A Paris court on Wednesday handed 14 defendants jail sentences ranging from four years to life imprisonment for their part in helping terrorist gunmen in their shooting massacres over three days in January 2015 at the offices of Charlie Hebdo magazine and of hostages at a Jewish supermarket, and the murder of a trainee policewoman, killing a total of 17 people.
Lawyers representing French interior minister Gérald Darmanin, 38, have confirmed he has been questioned 'at his own request' by magistrates investigating rape allegations filed against him by a woman who he claims he was in a consenting relationship with.
President Emmanuel Macron has announced plans to hold a referendum in France on whether the issues of battling climate change and protection of the environment should be included in the country's constitution.
