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☆ What’s in Our Queue? Kacey Musgraves and More
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-22 | by ( Aurelien Breeden | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

I’ve been a reporter at the Paris bureau of The New York Times for nearly a decade, covering French society, politics and more. Much of my cultural intake is dictated by what I can squeeze in between work and caring for two (soon to be three) adorable young daughters. Here are five things that I’ve been enjoying recently →

Persons: I’ve Organizations: The New York Times Locations: Paris

☆ Report Finds ‘Catalog of Failures’ in U.K. Contaminated Blood Scandal
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-20 | by ( Aurelien Breeden | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

A “catalog of failures” by government and medical officials in Britain, most of them avoidable errors, led to blood contaminations that killed about 3,000 people and infected more than 30,000 others over two decades, according to a long-awaited report published on Monday. The report is the product of a six-year inquiry that the British government ordered in 2017 after decades of pressure from victims and their families, and it could pave the way for sizable compensation payments. The independent report puts a harsh spotlight on Britain’s state-run National Health Service, identifying “systemic, collective and individual failures” by British authorities as they dealt with the infections of tens of thousands of people by tainted blood transfusions or contaminated blood products between the 1970s and the 1990s. The authorities at the time refused to acknowledge those failings — including the lack of proper screening and testing of blood — by “hiding the truth,” the report said.

Persons: “ Organizations: Health Service Locations: Britain

☆ French Police Shoot and Kill Man Who Set Fire to Synagogue
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-17 | by ( Aurelien Breeden | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

The police shot and killed a man in northern France on Friday after he set fire to a synagogue in the city of Rouen and attacked officers who tried to stop him, the French authorities said. Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol, the mayor of Rouen, a city of about 110,000 people, told reporters that firefighters had brought the outbreak of flames under control and that no one other than the assailant had been harmed. The identity and motives of the man who attacked the synagogue were not immediately clear, but the French authorities were treating the incident as an antisemitic act. Local prosecutors have opened an investigation into “religiously motivated arson” and assault. The authorities in France have raised the alarm about a surge of antisemitic incidents across the country in recent months, against the backdrop of the war in Gaza.

Persons: Nicolas Mayer Organizations: Rossignol Locations: France, Rouen, Gaza

☆ Man Linked to ‘I Raped You’ Message Is Detained in France, Authorities Say
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-16 | by ( Johnny Diaz | Aurelien Breeden | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

A man accused of sexually assaulting a Pennsylvania college student in 2013 and then, years later, sending her a message that said “So I raped you” has been arrested in France, the authorities said. The man, Ian Thomas Cleary of Saratoga, Calif., had been sought since 2021, when a warrant for his arrest was issued charging him with sexual assault. Mr. Cleary, 31, was detained last month in Metz, France, according to the prosecutor’s office at the Metz Appeals Court. The prosecutor’s office said that Mr. Cleary had been arrested in connection with a case involving the possession of stolen goods. Mr. Cleary is still in detention, the prosecutor’s office said.

Persons: ”, Ian Thomas Cleary, Cleary Organizations: Court Locations: France, Saratoga, Calif, Metz, United States

☆ Hundreds of Officers Pursue Manhunt After Deadly Ambush in France
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-15 | by ( Aurelien Breeden | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

Hundreds of police officers in France were searching on Wednesday for an escaped inmate and the armed assailants who freed him during a violent ambush of a prison convoy a day earlier, an attack that left two guards dead, deeply shocked the nation and set off protests by prison guards around the country. “We’re putting considerable resources into it,” Gérald Darmanin, France’s interior minister, told RTL radio the morning after the ambush, which a small group of assailants staged at a tollbooth on a major highway about 85 miles northwest of Paris. Over 450 officers, he said, have searched the area of the country where the assailants used two cars to block the prison convoy before emerging with automatic weapons and firing repeatedly, killing two guards and injuring three others before fleeing with the freed inmate.

Persons: We’re, Gérald Organizations: RTL Locations: France, Paris

☆ Roman Polanski Did Not Defame British Actress, French Court Rules
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-14 | by ( Aurelien Breeden | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

A court in Paris ruled on Tuesday that the film director Roman Polanski did not defame Charlotte Lewis, a British actress who has accused him of raping her, by asserting in a 2019 interview that she was a liar. Delphine Meillet, one of Mr. Polanski’s lawyers, told reporters after the ruling that it was “an extremely important day for the rights” of the director, who is 90. “The question the court was addressing was whether you can defend yourself publicly when you are publicly accused,” Ms. Meillet said. “The answer is yes.”Ms. Lewis, 56, has accused Mr. Polanski of raping her four decades ago, when she was 16, during a casting session at his home in Paris. She told reporters at the courthouse on Tuesday that she would appeal the ruling, for which the court did not explain its reasoning.

Persons: Roman Polanski, Charlotte Lewis, Delphine Meillet, ” Ms, Meillet, “, Ms, Lewis, Polanski, ”, it’s Locations: Paris, British

☆ At Least 2 Officers Killed in Ambush on Prison Convoy in France
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-14 | by ( Aurelien Breeden | More About Aurelien Breeden | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

At least two prison officers were killed in northern France on Tuesday after armed assailants ambushed a convoy at a road tollbooth and freed an inmate, the French authorities said. Éric Dupond-Moretti, France’s justice minister, said on the social media platform X that three other prison officers had been seriously injured in the episode, which occurred near Incarville, a town in the Eure area northwest of Paris. President Emmanuel Macron said the attack was a “shock to us all.”“The Nation stands by the families, the injured and their colleagues,” he said on X.Gérald Darmanin, France’s interior minister, said on X that “hundreds” of police officers had been deployed to apprehend the escaped inmate and the assailants who had freed them.

Persons: Éric Dupond, Moretti, Emmanuel Macron, ”, Gérald Locations: France, Incarville, Eure, Paris

☆ Gérard Depardieu Ordered to Stand Trial in Sexual Assault Case
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-29 | by ( Aurelien Breeden | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Gérard Depardieu was ordered on Monday to stand trial on criminal charges that he sexually assaulted two women during a 2021 film shoot in France, deepening the French actor’s legal woes and further tarnishing his global reputation as he faces a growing number of accusations of sexual violence. The Paris prosecutor’s office announced that Mr. Depardieu, 75, would be tried in October over allegations that he sexually assaulted the two women on the set of “Les Volets Verts,” or “The Green Shutters,” a movie by the French director Jean Becker that was released in 2022. The prosecutor’s office did not identify the two women or provide any details about the alleged assaults. Lawyers for Mr. Depardieu did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Monday evening, but the actor has repeatedly denied any sexual misconduct in the past. The order to stand trial was a serious development for Mr. Depardieu — one of the most prominent men in France to face accusations of sexual wrongdoing, especially since a new wave of allegations swept through the French movie industry in recent months.

Persons: Gérard Depardieu, Depardieu, Jean Becker Organizations: Mr Locations: France, Paris, French

☆ Macron, Battling the Far Right at Home, Pushes for a Stronger Europe
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-25 | by ( Roger Cohen | Aurelien Breeden | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The nearly two-hour speech reflected Mr. Macron’s conviction that only a reinforced and “sovereign” European Union — a “Europe power,” as he puts it — can save the continent from strategic irrelevancy in an unstable world that is dominated by the United States and China and confronting wars in Europe and the Middle East. “We must be lucid about the fact that our Europe is mortal,” Mr. Macron declared before an audience of government ministers, European ambassadors and other dignitaries. “It can die. It can die and whether it does depends entirely on our choices.”The speech, at the Sorbonne University in Paris, was a follow-up to one that Mr. Macron gave in the same location in September 2017. Then, Mr. Macron discussed the future of Europe and the European Union as a young, recently elected and disruptive president still enjoying a political honeymoon.

Persons: Emmanuel Macron, Mr, Macron Organizations: ”, Sorbonne University, European Union Locations: France, Europe, Ukraine, United States, China, Paris

☆ At Least 5 Die Trying to Cross English Channel, Including a Young Girl
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-23 | by ( Aurelien Breeden | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

At least five people, including a young girl, died at sea off the coast of northern France on Tuesday during an attempt to cross the English Channel, the French authorities said, as governments on both sides of the waterway struggle to deter migrants from making the dangerous voyage to Britain. The people who died were on an inflatable boat that was heavily overloaded with over 100 people, according to the French authorities. The boat was one of several vessels that were spotted on Tuesday morning by the French Coast Guard near the town of Wimereux. Jacques Billant, the prefect for the Pas-de-Calais area, told reporters in Wimereux that several people had fallen out of the boat. The coast guard dispatched several vessels to assist, including semirigid inflatable boats and a tugboat, and found several people who were unconscious and in critical condition aboard.

Persons: Jacques Billant Organizations: French Coast Guard Locations: France, Britain, Wimereux, Rwanda, Calais

Public safety officials in England, France and Spain said Tuesday that they would step up security for matches this week in the Champions League, Europe’s marquee soccer competition, after ISIS-related groups called for violent attacks on the contests. The first of four quarterfinal matchups were scheduled in London and Madrid on Tuesday, and were to feature some of the top clubs in world soccer: Spain’s Real Madrid; the English giants Arsenal and Manchester City; and Germany’s Bayern Munich. Two other high-profile matches will take place on Wednesday in Paris and Madrid. “We don’t know what location might be particularly targeted, neither in what conditions,” the French interior minister, Gérald Darmanin, told reporters in Paris. The ministry said security measures at the matches in Madrid had been increased and additional agents deployed.

Persons: Gérald Darmanin Organizations: Champions League, ISIS, Spain’s, Arsenal, Manchester City, Germany’s Bayern Munich, ”, El Mundo Locations: England, France, Spain, London, Madrid, Spain’s Real Madrid, Paris, Spanish, El

☆ #MeToo Stalled in France. This Actress Might Be Changing Things.
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-03 | by ( Catherine Porter | Aurelien Breeden | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Judith Godrèche did not set out to relaunch the #MeToo movement in France’s movie industry. She came back to Paris from Los Angeles in 2022 to work on “Icon of French Cinema,” a TV series she wrote, directed and starred in — a satirical poke at her acting career that also recounts how, at the age of 14, she entered into an abusive relationship with a film director 25 years older. Then, a week after the show aired, in late December, a viewer’s message alerted her to a 2011 documentary that she says made her throw up and start shaking as if she were “naked in the snow.”There was the same film director, admitting that their relationship had been a “transgression” but arguing that “making films is a kind of cover” for forms of “illicit traffic.”She went to the police unit specialized in crimes against children — its waiting room was filled with toys and a giant teddy bear, she recalls — to file a report for rape of a minor.

Persons: Judith Godrèche, — Organizations: French Locations: Paris, Los Angeles

☆ From New England to Notre-Dame, a U.S. Carpenter Tends to a French Icon
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-29 | by ( Aurelien Breeden | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Notre-Dame Cathedral sat in the pre-dawn chill like a spaceship docked in the heart of Paris, its exoskeleton of scaffolding lit by bright lights. Pink clouds appeared to the east as machinery hummed to life and workers started clambering around. A crane hoisted them onto the nave of the cathedral, which was devastated by fire in 2019. Mr. Silver — a 41-year-old American-Canadian carpenter — is something of an unlikely candidate to work on the restoration of an 860-year-old Gothic monument and Catholic landmark in France. It also has given them a way to show the world that their manual tools and techniques have stood the test of time.

Persons: Dame Cathedral, Hank Silver, Silver, — Organizations: Dame, Mr Locations: Paris, France, New York City, New England

☆ Outcry in France as Principal Steps Down Over Head Scarf Incident
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-28 | by ( Aurelien Breeden | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

A Paris school principal’s decision to step down after he received online death threats over an incident involving a Muslim student’s head scarf has prompted national outrage this week in France. Camera crews have descended on the school and the government said it planned to sue the student, accusing her of making false accusations — the latest flashpoint in a debate over French secularism and the treatment of the country’s Muslim minority. Officials say the incident occurred on Feb. 28 at the Lycée Maurice-Ravel when the school’s principal asked three students to remove their head scarves on school grounds. Two of the students complied, but a third refused, causing an “altercation,” according to the Paris prosecutor’s office. Since 2004, middle and high school students in France have been barred from wearing “ostentatious” symbols that have a clear religious meaning, like a Catholic cross, a Jewish skullcap or a Muslim head scarf.

Persons: Maurice, Ravel Organizations: Paris Locations: France

☆ A French-Malian Singer Is Caught in an Olympic Storm
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-26 | by ( Roger Cohen | Aurelien Breeden | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

In four months, France will host the Paris Olympics, but which France will show up? Torn between tradition and modernity, the country is in the midst of an identity crisis. Right-wing critics say Ms. Nakamura’s music does not represent France, and the prospect of her performing has led to a barrage of racist insults online against her. The outcry has compounded a fight over an official poster unveiled this month: a pastel rendering of the city’s landmarks thronging with people in a busy style reminiscent of the “Where’s Waldo?” children’s books. An opinion essay in the right-wing Journal du Dimanche said “the malaise of a nation in the throes of deconstruction” was in full view.

Persons: Aya Nakamura, Waldo, ”, Napoleon, Dimanche Organizations: Paris Olympics, French Locations: France, Malian, Paris, Invalides

☆ Ready, Set, Garçon! Paris Waiters Race as Storied Contest Returns
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-24 | by ( Aurelien Breeden | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

On Sunday, for the first time in over a decade, Paris revived a tradition: an annual race of cafe and restaurant waiters. About 200 men and women swerved, jostled and jogged 1.2 miles through the city streets, which were lined with cheering crowds. The race, which was first held in the early 20th century, had been on hiatus since 2012 because of a lack of funding. But Paris officials saw an opportunity for the city to shine before hosting the Summer Olympics, which kick off in July. It was also a moment to illustrate that sipping coffee at a cafe or wine in a bistro was as integral to the capital’s cultural heritage as its most famous landmarks.

Persons: swerved Organizations: City Hall Locations: Paris

☆ Guy Wildenstein, Art Family Patriarch, Found Guilty in Tax Trial
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-05 | by ( Aurelien Breeden | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Guy Wildenstein, the international art dealer, was found guilty in France on Tuesday of massive tax fraud, the latest twist after years of legal entanglements that have unraveled the secrecy that once surrounded his powerful family dynasty. Mr. Wildenstein, 78, the Franco-American patriarch of the family and president of Wildenstein & Co. in New York, was sentenced by the Paris Appeals Court to a four-year prison sentence, with half of it suspended, and the other half to be served under house arrest with an electronic bracelet. The court also sentenced him to pay a one million euro fine, or about $1.08 million. Prosecutors had said that he was trying to dodge hundreds of millions of euros in inheritance taxes. At the trial, which was held in the fall, they had requested a slightly more lenient prison sentence for Mr. Wildenstein, but they had also requested a much larger €250 million fine, or about $270 million.

Persons: Guy Wildenstein, Wildenstein, Daniel, Alec Organizations: Franco, Wildenstein, Paris Appeals, Prosecutors Locations: France, New York, Paris

☆ European Leaders to Gather in Paris to Bolster Ukraine at ‘Critical Moment’
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-26 | by ( Constant Méheut | Aurelien Breeden | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

European leaders were set to gather in Paris on Monday in an attempt to showcase unity and resolve in their support for Ukraine as the embattled country confronts a dire situation on the battlefield against Russia and in Washington, where Republicans in Congress are blocking badly needed financial aid. The meeting, convened by President Emmanuel Macron of France, is scheduled to include about 20 or so heads of state and top officials, including from Britain, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland and Spain. President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine is to attend the evening meeting by videoconference. “We are at a critical moment,” Mr. Macron said on Saturday during a visit to a major agricultural fair in Paris, adding that the meeting would “bolster our position” and give Ukraine more “visibility” for the coming months. “Russia cannot win in Ukraine,” he added.

Persons: Emmanuel Macron, Volodymyr Zelensky, videoconference, Mr, Macron Organizations: ” Locations: Paris, Ukraine, Russia, Washington, France, Britain, Germany, Netherlands, Poland, Spain

☆ Eiffel Tower Is Closed for 4th Day as Its Workers Strike
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-22 | by ( Aurelien Breeden | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Anthony Aranda, a 23-year-old tourist from Peru, had only two days to visit Paris with his cousin, so getting to the top of the Eiffel Tower featured prominently on his to-do list. But on Thursday, he had to cross it off that list without stepping foot on France’s famed Iron Lady. A labor strike, now in its fourth day, was keeping the tower closed. “We are traveling to London next, so this was our last chance,” Mr. Aranda said in the drizzling rain as he looked up at the wrought-iron monument. The site is so symbolic, in fact, that medals created for the Games will be encrusted with iron from the tower itself.

Persons: Anthony Aranda, Mr, Aranda Organizations: Eiffel, Games Locations: Peru, Paris, London, Spain

☆ Gold, Silver and … Iron? Olympic Medals Will Have Piece of Eiffel Tower
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-08 | by ( Aurelien Breeden | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Athletes who win medals at the 2024 Summer Olympics and Paralympics in Paris won’t just win gold, silver or bronze. Their medals will also include a piece of iron — wrought-iron, to be exact, from the Eiffel Tower itself. Organizers of the Games said Thursday that each of the 5,084 medals created for the Paris events will be decorated on one side with a hexagon-shaped piece of iron recovered from the French capital’s iconic landmark. “This exceptional object had to meet another very strong symbol of our country and our capital,” Tony Estanguet, the president of the Paris 2024 organizing committee, said at an event to unveil the medals’ design in Saint-Denis, a northern suburb of Paris where several Olympic events will be held. Mr. Estanguet said the iron used in the medals will be recycled fragments from the Eiffel Tower’s original 1889 construction that had been sitting unused in a warehouse after renovation work.

Persons: ” Tony Estanguet, Denis, Estanguet Organizations: Games, Eiffel Locations: Paris won’t, Paris, Saint

☆ French Farmers’ Unions Urge End to Roadblocks Amid Government Proposals
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-01 | by ( Aurelien Breeden | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

France’s main farmer’s unions called on Thursday for an end to roadblocks across the country after expressing cautious satisfaction with a flurry of new government announcements to appease them, in the first sign of a possible reprieve after more than a week of protests disrupted traffic nationwide. It was not immediately clear whether the approximately 10,000 farmers at the 100 or so barricades would heed the union leaders’ call and go home after days of blocking key roads with tractors and bales of hay, including in Paris, to express a wide range of deeply rooted grievances. The unions said that they would monitor closely the government’s promises of new financial aid and a loosening of regulations in the run-up to a major farming trade fair scheduled for this month in Paris. “The action is not ending,” Arnaud Rousseau, president of the National Federation of Farmers’ Unions (the FNSEA), France’s largest and most powerful farmers’ union, said at a news conference in Paris. “It is transforming.”

Persons: ’, “, ” Arnaud Rousseau, ” Organizations: National Federation of Farmers ’ Unions Locations: Paris, “

☆ Farmers Block Traffic Near Paris Before Prime Minister’s Speech
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-30 | by ( Aurelien Breeden | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

Barricades of tractors and bales of hay snarled traffic around Paris on Tuesday for a second day as hundreds of angry farmers blocked roads in and out of the French capital before a major policy speech by France’s prime minister. The authorities closed off whole sections of at least seven major highways around Paris because of the protests, sometimes for several miles, as farmers demanded solutions to their varied list of demands on farming subsidies, environmental regulations and foreign competition. About 1,000 protesters with more than 500 tractors formed the road barricades around Paris, according to estimates by the French authorities reported in the news media. The traffic bottlenecks, while bad, did not encircle the city and were not crippling, and broader disruptions to the French capital, such as delayed deliveries of food and other products, were so far limited.

Locations: Paris

☆ French Lawmakers Vote to Enshrine Abortion Rights in Constitution
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-30 | by ( Aurelien Breeden | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

French lawmakers on Tuesday overwhelmingly approved a bill to enshrine abortion rights in France’s Constitution, the first step in a complex legislative process that began in direct response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. Prime Minister Gabriel Attal called the vote a “great victory.”Unlike in the United States, most of France’s political parties broadly support the right to abortion, which was legalized in 1975, and there is no immediate or serious threat to its legality. Putting that right into the Constitution would not change the availability of abortion in France, where both residents and foreigners can terminate pregnancies. But the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health overturning the constitutional right to an abortion set off alarm bells in Europe and galvanized efforts in France to protect the right as inalienable. Activists have also made the case that abortion rights are increasingly under threat in European countries like Poland and Italy, making it all the more urgent to enshrine it in France in case future governments try to roll it back.

Persons: Roe, Wade, Emmanuel Macron, Gabriel Attal Organizations: U.S, National Assembly, Jackson Locations: France’s Constitution, U.S ., United States, France, Dobbs v, Europe, Poland, Italy

☆ French Farmers Lay ‘Siege’ to Paris in Growing Standoff
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-29 | by ( Aurelien Breeden | Catherine Porter | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Last week Mr. Attal rushed to farming regions in the south of France and offered a series of rapid concessions as he tried to head off widening demonstrations on roadways from food producers nationwide. Their grievances are so varied that the protests present an increasingly precarious moment for the government that defies easy solutions. Many farmers say foreign competition is unfair, wages are too low, and regulation from both the government and the European Union has become suffocating. “I am determined to move forward,” Mr. Attal said on Sunday after visiting farmers in the Indre-et-Loire area of central France. But he also warned that “there are things that cannot change overnight.”

Persons: Gabriel Attal, Attal, Mr Organizations: European Union Locations: Paris, France, Indre, Loire

☆ Top Council Rejects Much of France’s Tough Immigration Law
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-25 | by ( Aurelien Breeden | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

France’s Constitutional Council struck down large chunks of a tough new immigration law on Thursday, in a widely expected ruling that said many measures that were added by President Emmanuel Macron’s government under right-wing pressure were unlawful. The nine-member council, which reviews legislation to ensure that it conforms to the Constitution, said in a statement that it had partially or completely struck down over a third of the 86 articles in the law, which was passed in December — including restrictions on foreigners’ access to government subsidies, limitations on the reunification of migrant families and the creation of yearly immigration quotas set by Parliament. Overhauling France’s immigration rules was one of Mr. Macron’s second-term priorities, and under ordinary circumstances, the council’s decision could be seen as a stinging rebuke. The French leader had called the new law a necessary “shield” to deal with the pressure of migrants illegally entering the country. But because of the way the law came to pass and the nature of the measures that were rejected, Thursday’s ruling may paradoxically give Mr. Macron some relief.

Persons: Emmanuel Macron’s, Macron’s, Thursday’s Organizations: France’s Constitutional Locations: France’s

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