French President Emmanuel Macron has arbitrated in the year-long debate over the rebuilding of Notre Dame cathedral, which was severely damaged by fire in April 2019, with a decision to return it to exactly how it was before, including its 19th-century landmark spire that was destroyed in the blaze, after several architectural projects had proposed a modern rfeincarnation, including a swimming pool on the roof.
Newly appointed French Prime Minister Jean Castex said his government is preparing for a second wave of the Covid-19 epidemic, but ruled out a repeat of the near-total lockdown on public movement which was applied at a national level between March and May, and instead locking down specific areas of any resurgence, because 'the economic and human consequences from a total lockdown are disastrous'.
A group ,of 25 women have filed complaints for rape and sexual assault covering an 11-year period against a graffiti artist, identified as Wilfrid A, who has acquired a certain celebrity in Paris for his recurrent tags anouncing 'love runs about the streets', some of which have now been re-tagged with 'rapist' replacing 'love'.
The self-financed central-Paris museum dedicated to the works of Auguste Rodin, hit hard by almost four months of closure due to the Covid-19 virus epidemic, is seeking financial relief through an allowance established by the sculptor himself that it may sell up to 12 replicas of select works, cast in bronze, every year.
As debate continues on the architectural style and materials to be employed in the rebuilding of the fire-damaged Notre Dame cathedral in Paris, an association of carpenters is arguing for axe-hewn oak wood to be used for the roof frame, as in the 13th century, and its members have gathered at a workshop in Normandy to build a truss for the iconic landmark using medieval techniques.
The new French government of Prime Minister Jean Castex, who replaced Édouard Philippe on Friday after the latter's three years in the job, was announced on Monday evening when it emerged that heavyweights from the outgoing cabinet remain in place while others were largely reshuffled, with the notable exceptions of the arrival of controversial lawyer Éric Dupond-Moretti as justice minister and Roselyne Bachelot, a former conservative sports minister under Nicolas Sarkozy, as culture minister.
The Louvre museum in Paris reopened on Monday after a shutdown of nearly four months due to the Covid-19 virus pandemic, estimated to have cost 40 million euros in lost revenue, with visitors required to wear masks and to observe individual distancing markers which kept one of its most popular exhibits, Leonardo's Mona Lisa, unobscured by the crowds it attracted before the health crisis.
A bus driver in Bayonne, south-west France was described as brain dead on Monday after challenging a group of passengers who boarded his vehicle on Sunday evening without tickets or masks which by law must be worn by all passengers on public transport.
Two former agents with the French foreign intelligence service, the DGSE, are to go on trial in a closed-door Paris courtroom on Monday accused of 'delivering information to a foreign power' and 'damaging the fundamental interests of the nation'.
The skulls of 24 Algerian fighters who were shot and decapitated by occupying French forces during the 19th-century campaign to colonize the country, and which had since been kept in a Paris museum until their return to Algeria this weekend, were buried amid an emotional ceremony at a cemetery close to the capital Algiers on Sunday.
