But new entry restrictions on travellers from India will be imposed to fight the spread of a contagious coronavirus variant, a French government official said.
Mediapart has published a series of investigations into the circumstances of the 7.8-billion-euro sale by France to India of 36 Rafale fighter jets, which is clouded by suspicions of large-scale corruption. In this short video with English subtitles, Yann Philippin explains the key revelations and background of Mediapart’s investigations into this most complex story.
In this final report in a three-part investigation into the controversial sale by France to India of 36 Rafale fighter aircraft, Mediapart reveals, with hitherto unpublished documents, how an influential Indian business intermediary was secretly paid millions of euros by Rafale manufacturer Dassault Aviation and French defence electronics firm Thales. They succeeded in removing anti-corruption clauses from the fighter contract which was subsequently signed by then French defence minister, now foreign minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian. Yann Philippin reports.
In this second of a three-part series of investigations into the controversial sale by France to India of 36 Rafale fighter aircraft, Mediapart details how the then head of the French public prosecution services’ financial crimes branch, Éliane Houlette, shelved investigations into evidence of corruption behind the deal, despite the contrary opinion of her colleagues. France’s current president, Emmanuel Macron, and his predecessor, François Hollande, are cited in the allegations levelled in the case. Houlette has since justified her decision as preserving “the interests of France, the workings of institutions”. Yann Philippin reports.
In 2016 France and India signed a 7.8-billion-euro deal for the purchase of 36 Rafale jet fighters made by French defence group Dassault. Mediapart can reveal that, alongside this controversial deal, Dassault also agreed to pay one million euros to a middleman who is now under investigation in India in connection with another defence deal. The French anti-corruption agency Agence Française Anticorruption (AFA) discovered this separate arrangement during a routine audit of Dassault. The AFA nonetheless decided not to alert the prosecution authorities over the payment. This is the first part of Mediapart's investigation into a state scandal which also raises questions over the both the justice system and the political authorities. Yann Philippin reports.
Paris is to deploy its amphibious assault ship, the Tonnerre, and the frigate Surcouf to sail twice through waters claimed by Beijing, to assert its own presence in the region.
In a video released on Friday, Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo, who as 'Daft Punk' brought the French underground house scene into the international charts with hits like 'One More Time', 'Da Funk' and 'Around The Worlddresse'd, announced in their iconic robot costume a farewell in the desert before one of them self-destructed.
The new cases took the total number of confirmed cases in France to 1.66 million, close behind Russia, which, with 1.73 million cases has the world's fourth-largest number after the US, India and Brazil.
The celebrated and prolific French-British actor Michael Lonsdale, whose cinema career spanned six decades and included star roles in films by directors Orson Welles, René Clément, Marguerite Duras, Alain Resnais and Louis Malle, and who also played villain Hugo Drax in the Bond film Moonraker and deputy Commissioner Claude Lebel in The Day of the Jackal, has died at his home in Paris aged 89.
