Twitter users made the French presidential election a war of green Hungarian wine and red Dutch cheese to thwart laws banning early result predictions.
With just two weeks to go before the first round of the French presidential elections, growing anger over the uncertain fate of one of the last major steel-making plants in France has returned the issues of de-industrialization, globalization and the social responsibility of corporations to the fore of the political agenda. Exhausted but triumphant, a group of workers from the ArcelorMittal steel mill in Florange, north-east France, finally reached Paris on Friday amid public cheers and a battery of TV cameras after a marathon ten-day, 330-kilometre march in protest at the feared closure of part of their plant. Mathieu Magnaudeix was there to follow the men, now known across France as ‘the ArcelorMittals’, who have become the heroes of a decimated industrial heartland.
Last month, French cereal farmer Paul François, 47, won a lengthy legal battle against US biotech giant Monsanto in a landmark ruling by a court in Lyon that could open a floodgate of complaints by farmers for chemical poisoning. François was found to have become severely handicapped as a direct result of his contamination by Lasso, a powerful herbicide produced by Monsanto. France is Europe’s biggest user, by volume, of pesticides, and worldwide only India and the United States use more. For François and other campaigners seeking to alert farmers to the dangers of chemical-based phytosanitary products, their battle targets not only the clout of the industrial lobby and a reluctance of the medical profession to recognise the illnesses caused by pesticides, but also a silent taboo among the farming community itself. Claire Le Nestour reports.
France is poised to adopt a massive new biometric registry, managed by the interior ministry, centralising the personal details of up to 60 million French people. The data bank will be created with the introduction of a new, high-tech identity card, which the government says is designed to combat fast-increasing identity fraud. While opponents dismiss the move as the disguised creation of an investigation tool for police, with inherent dangers of abusive use, the French electronics industry is lobbying for the new cards as an opportunity to become a world leader in the field of identity management. Louise Fessard reports.
Following six months of protests, the French government this week appeared ready to accept at least a partial climb-down over its contentious move to restrict the granting of work permits to foreign, non-EU students, many of whom are graduates who have been offered employment after their studies in the country. The restrictions, which the government said were prompted by "one of the most severe economic crises in history" and which critics denounced as pandering to the electorate of the far-right, caused an outcry from French academics and the business world. Carine Fouteau reports.
The French defence minister says defence giant Dassault would halt production of its Rafale multirole fighter jet if it remains unable to sell any abroad.
