Links

In a Twitter post in English by the French foreign affairs ministry announcing the composition of France's new government, it detailed that former culture minister Franck Riester was now the new 'minister for foreign trade and attractiveness', prompting widespread mockery and an official correction of his title to the little more convincing 'minister for foreign trade and economic attractiveness'.

On the 80th anniversary of the date when the notorious Vichy regime took power in German-occupied France, Jim Wolfreys, a senior lecturer in French and European politics at Kings College London, analyses the reactionary currents in French politics and society it drew upon, and its legacy.

A 59-year-old bus driver in the south-west French town of Bayonne who was beaten and left brain dead by a group of men passengers on Sunday allegedly in a row over their refusal to wear face masks as required by law, died on Friday in hospital.

French economy and finance minister Bruno Le Maire said plans to introduce a national tax on digital tech firms, including Google, Facebook and Amazon 'will be unchanged' unless an international agreement on the subject is reached by the end of 2020, despite US threats of slapping retaliatory tariffs on French products like wine, cheese and luxury goods.

Paris prosecutors have announced the opening of a nationwide investigation into fraudulent claims, amounting to  millions of euros, by organised crime gangs for state payment of salaries for employees furloughed by the Covid-19 epidemic during the two-month lockdown on public movement in France which began mid-March.

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.