(143,'Macron Declares France \'at War\' With Virus, as E.U. Proposes 30-Day Travel Ban','The New York Times','Health',31,'https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/16/world/europe/coronavirus-france-macron-travel-ban.html','Steven Erlanger','\"President Emmanuel Macron commanded the French to stay at home for at least 15 days, joining other European leaders who are taking measures never before seen in the postwar West.\r\nBRUSSELS — Adopting martial language, President Emmanuel Macron ordered the French to stay at home for at least the next 15 days, as France put in place some of the most severe measures in Europe to try to curb the raging coronavirus.\r\nThe aggressive move by France came as other countries in the region introduced measures that their leaders described as unprecedented in postwar Europe, and as the European Union proposed a 30-day shutdown of all nonessential travel into the bloc from other countries.\r\nThe movement of French citizens will be tightly restricted, starting from midday on Tuesday and lasting through at least the end of the month, with people expected to stay home, leaving only for essential activities like food shopping. Anyone violating the order faces punishment.\r\n\"\"We are at war,\"\" Mr. Macron said in an address to the nation Monday night. \"\"The enemy is invisible and it requires our general mobilization.\"\"\r\n\r\nThe French army will deploy to transport the sick to hospitals, and a military hospital with 30 intensive care beds will be set up in the eastern region of Alsace, where one of the largest infection clusters has erupted.\r\nMr. Macron was responding to severe warnings from doctors about an increasingly dire situation. Jérôme Salomon, a top official at France\'s health ministry, told France Inter radio on Monday that the situation in France was \"\"deteriorating very quickly.\"\"\r\n\r\n\"\"We are seeing that the number of cases is doubling every three days,\"\"Mr. Salomon said. \"\"There are hundreds of serious cases this morning in France\'s intensive care units,\"\"he said, adding that authorities were worried that the speed of the epidemic could provoke a \"\"saturation of the French hospital system, which we absolutely want to avoid.\"\"\r\nIn Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel announced a new raft of measures to minimize social contact: Religious services will be banned, and bars, clubs, discothèques and brothels shut. Restaurants will be allowed to open but only until 6 p.m., with wide spacing among diners, and hotels are being asked not to accept tourists. Schools across Germany were preparing for a prolonged shutdown.\r\n\r\nEven if some criticized Germany\'s response as slow, Ms. Merkel said that the measures were wide-reaching and an infringement on personal freedoms implemented only reluctantly. \"\"In the 70-year history of the German Federal Republic, we have never had to do what we must do now,\"\"the chancellor said.\r\nThe number of infections in Germany continued to climb rapidly, reaching 6,400 by Monday, but the fatality rate remains notably low: Only 16 people have died of the virus so far.\r\nThe proposed travel ban into the European Union, which could be extended beyond 30 days, was vital to keep the internal borders of the bloc — and the so-called Schengen free-travel zone — as open as possible to promote European solidarity and to help the Continent\'s economy, which appears to be heading into a recession, said Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission.\r\n\"\"The less travel, the more we can contain the virus,\"\"Ms. von der Leyen said, after a discussion on Monday with Group of 7 leaders, including President Trump, in which they agreed to coordinate research into the new disease and their social and economic responses to it.\r\nThe travel ban must be approved by the 27 member states, but Ms. von der Leyen said that there was strong support for the proposal, which will be decided on by the leaders of the bloc on Tuesday in a teleconference.\r\nThe proposal is an effort by Brussels to unify border practices after numerous member states have unilaterally shut themselves off to try to avoid further infection from travelers from where the infection rages, like Italy.\r\nSpain, also with high rates of infection, announced on Monday that it would shut its land borders at midnight to foreigners. In emergencies, member states are allowed to introduce border controls.\r\nBy late Monday, Spain had about 9,200 cases and 330 dead, which is the worst toll in Europe after Italy. Half of the Spanish cases are in the Madrid region.\r\n\r\nAustria, which has banned citizens from numerous European countries from entering, has taken one of the toughest stances in Europe, banning gatherings of more than five people and imposing steep fines for those disobeying a far-reaching curfew.\r\n\r\nFrance had already closed schools, cafes, restaurants and nonfood shops, as well as Paris parks. But the French government was taken aback by the casualness with which the French, and particularly Parisians, greeted the earlier restrictions on Sunday. The parks were full and there were crowds along the embankments and at the outdoor markets and pushing into bakeries and small food shops.\r\n\r\n\"\"There was something shocking about it,\"\"Hervé Berville, a legislator who is close to Mr. Macron, said in a telephone interview Monday. \"\"The French are not respecting the security warnings,\"\"he said. \"\"People are not following social distancing.\"\"He said that it was \"\"shocking\"\" that people were ignoring health professionals and \"\"the advice coming from the highest levels of government.\"\"\r\nSo Mr. Macron tried to convey the urgency of the need to follow the order to stay home — or else. \"\"Any violation of these rules will be penalized,\"\" he said in Monday\'s speech. The French Interior Minister, Christophe Castaner, said those caught outside without a valid reason would be fined.\r\nBut in addition to his stern warning to stay inside, Mr. Macron also promised support for the French economy and French wage-earners, saying utility bills and rent would be \"\"suspended\"\"for struggling small businesses. So would his vaunted economic reforms. And he promised: \"\"No business will be allowed to fail.\"\"\r\nGiven the movement restrictions, he also announced that a second round of local elections, scheduled for March 22, would be postponed.\r\n\"\"I know what I am asking of you is unprecedented but circumstances demand it,\"\"Mr. Macron said.\r\nItaly, Europe\'s hardest hit country, on Monday adopted emergency economic measures worth 25 billion euros, or about $28 billion, to help protect the economy, as the number of cases jumped by 2,470 to 27,980 and deaths increased by 349, to 2,158.\r\nIn announcing the measures, Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said that no Italian \"\"should feel abandoned\"\"during this crisis, and that the measures \"\"were concrete evidence of the presence of the state.\"\"\r\nFunds were being made available to postpone mortgage, loan and tax payments, and to help economic sectors hardest hit by the outbreak. Professionals, the self-employed and freelancers would receive financial support, \"\"to safeguard the period of inactivity,\"\"said Labor Minister Nunzia Catalfo, and quarantining will qualify as sick leave.\r\nMr. Conte said the measures amounted to an \"\"Italian model\"\"to \"\"confront this economic and social emergency,\"\"and he called on the European Union to follow. \"\"Italy is a promoter of a message to all the European institutions,\"\"he said.\r\nThe European Union has been criticized for moving slowly to address the crisis, but health has always been a matter for member states, not for Brussels. The proposed 30-day travel ban was done in part to protect internal trade and travel, including the smoother movement of medical supplies.\r\n\r\nMs. von der Leyen, the European Commission president, said she understands \"\"that member states do everything to protect their people, but we can\'t hamper our single market\"\" for goods and people, she said. \"\"We need a good functioning single market.\"\"\r\nThe Commission also proposed special \"\"fast-track\"\"traffic lanes to speed needed medical supplies from one country to another.\r\nShe explained that the proposed travel ban from third countries would allow exemptions \"\"for E.U. citizens coming back home, health care workers, doctors and nurses.\"\"British citizens will be treated the same as other bloc citizens until the end of 2020.\r\nThe Commission would like to get other European countries in the Schengen free-travel zone who are not members of the European Union to agree to the travel ban, including Iceland, Norway, Switzerland and Liechtenstein. The hope is that other European countries outside Schengen, plus Ireland and Britain, which are outside Schengen but have a common travel area, will also join.\r\nA Commission statement made clear that \"\"a temporary travel restriction could only be effective if decided and implemented by Schengen states for all external borders at the same time and in a uniform manner.\"\"\r\nSome 10 of the 26 countries that make up the passport-free Schengen Area, which allows for largely free movement across mainland Europe, have reintroduced border controls, a spokesman for the European Commission said.\r\nBritain, which had been taking a much less stringent approach to closures than the rest of Europe, announced moves on Monday putting it more in line with the rest of the Continent. The government is now urging people to stop going to pubs, restaurants and the theater, and is instituting strict quarantine procedures for the sick and their family.\r\n\"\"I can\'t remember anything like it in my lifetime,\"\"said Prime Minister Boris Johnson at a Monday news briefing. \"\"I don\'t think there\'s been anything like it in peacetime.\"\"\r\n\"\r\n','2020-03-31',''),(144,'How South Korea Reined In The Outbreak Without Shutting Everything Down','NPR','Health',31,'https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/03/26/821688981/how-south-korea-reigned-in-the-outbreak-without-shutting-everything-down','Jason Beaubien','\"Growth In COVID-19 Cases Has Slowed In Some Asian Countries\r\nThe number of confirmed cases over time, plotted on a logarithmic scale, shows slowing outbreaks in several Asian countries. Each increment on the Y-axis represents a tenfold increase. \r\nAs of this week, South Korea had just over 9,000 confirmed coronavirus cases, which puts it among the top 10 countries for total cases. \r\nBut South Korea has another distinction: Health experts are noting that recently the nation has managed to significantly slow the number of new cases. And the country appears to have reined in the outbreak without some of the strict lockdown strategies deployed elsewhere in the world.\r\n\"\"We\'ve seen examples in places like Singapore and [South] Korea, where governments haven\'t had to shut everything down,\"\" said Mike Ryan, head of the World Health Organization\'s Health Emergencies Programme. \"\"They\'ve been able to make tactical decisions regarding schools, tactical decisions regarding movements, and been able to move forward without some of the draconian measures.\"\"\r\nSpeaking this week to journalists, Ryan said that countries that have tested widely for the virus, isolated cases and quarantined suspected cases — in the way that South Korea and Singapore have done — have managed to suppress transmission of the virus. President Trump has also praised South Korea\'s handling of the health crisis and even asked President Moon Jae-in for help with medical equipment to fight the outbreak in the United States.\r\nThe head of the WHO, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, has called on other countries around the world to \"\"apply the lessons learned in [South] Korea and elsewhere\"\" in their own battles against the coronavirus.\r\nSouth Korea\'s foreign minister, Kang Kyung-wha, speaking to the BBC last week, said the key lessons from her country are that it developed testing for the virus even before it had a significant number of cases.\r\n\"\"In mid-January, our health authorities quickly conferred with the research institutions here [to develop a test],\"\" Kang said. \"\"And then they shared that result with the pharmaceutical companies, who then produced the reagent [chemical] and the equipment needed for the testing.\"\" \r\nSo when members of a religious sect in Daegu started getting sick in February, South Korea was able to rapidly confirm that it was COVID-19.\r\n\"\"Testing is central\"\" to the outbreak response, said Kang, \"\"because that leads to early detection. It minimizes further spread.\"\" And it allows health authorities to quickly isolate and treat those found with the virus.\r\nHong Kong and Singapore have followed similar paths in responding to this outbreak.\r\nThey\'ve used testing aggressively to identify cases — not only testing people who are so sick that they\'re hospitalized but also mild cases and even suspected cases. They\'ve quarantined tens of thousands of people who may have been exposed to confirmed cases. \r\nThe vast majority of the people ordered to quarantine at home are perfectly healthy and never do get sick, but the few who do develop symptoms can be quickly isolated further. Tedros of the WHO refers to this as cutting off the virus at the bud — basically stopping the virus from spreading further and preventing community transmission.\r\nHong Kong also reacted with incredible speed in the outbreak\'s early days. On Dec. 31, 2019, Hong Kong\'s Centre for Health Protection, the city\'s health department, sent out an alert to its doctors telling them to be on the lookout for patients presenting with fever, acute respiratory illness, pneumonia and/or shortness of breath — and particularly patients with these symptoms who\'d recently traveled to the Chinese city of Wuhan, the initial epicenter of the pandemic. Prior to this crisis, a high-speed rail line went directly from downtown Hong Kong to Wuhan (it was shut down on Jan. 30 and hasn\'t run since). \r\nThe other thing that South Korea, Hong Kong and Singapore have in common is that they\'ve been able to keep most factories, shopping malls and restaurants open. Singapore has even kept its schools open at a time when nations around the world are shutting down classrooms. \r\nJapan is another Asian country notable for its response. Although Japan has more than twice the population of South Korea and also has strong ties to China, it has recorded only a fraction of the cases that South Korea has — just over 1,000 as of Thursday. Japan hasn\'t been testing nearly as widely as South Korea, but it appears to have fended off significant community transmission by quickly investigating any flare-ups of cases, identifying who exactly is infected and then monitoring their contacts. \r\nDespite the successes in Asia in containing this virus, recently several places have seen surges in imported cases from Europe. This week, after Singapore saw an uptick in cases among people who\'d recently flown into the country, it announced new restrictions on travelers, blocking all short-term visitors from entering. \r\n\"\"Part of the reason for the tougher border measures is to ensure we keep Singapore as safe as possible,\"\" Singapore\'s minister of education, Ong Ye Kung, wrote this week in a Facebook post. He said the highly restrictive entry rules are \"\"so that daily activities, like going to work, eating out and attending school, can go on.\"\"\r\nHe argued that children are safer and more productive in school and that closing schools places a significant burden on working adults, including health care workers.\r\n\"\"Keeping our healthcare system strong is paramount in the fight against COVID-19,\"\" he said. \"\"Our frontline warriors will be much more assured if their children are in school, meaningfully engaged, in a safe and healthy environment.\"\" \r\nHe also pushed back against the idea that schools could be breeding grounds for the virus, saying there is little \"\"evidence to show that the young are vectors or spreaders of the virus. The reverse appears to be the case, where the young get infected by adults at home.\"\" (Health agencies such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention do note that even though children may often present with milder symptoms than adults, \"\"There is much more to be learned about how the disease impacts children.\"\")\r\nAnother thing that links Hong Kong, Singapore and South Korea is that they\'ve all had bad coronavirus outbreaks in the past. Hong Kong and Singapore were hit hard by SARS in 2003, and South Korea came to a standstill during a MERS outbreak in 2015.\r\nTheir experiences with these past outbreaks may have made officials more aggressive in responding to COVID-19 and possibly made residents more willing to accept intrusive measures to contain the virus.\r\nSouth Korea has used data from surveillance cameras, cellphones and credit card transactions to map the social connections of suspected cases. Hong Kong issues detailed information each evening about every newly confirmed case. While Hong Kong doesn\'t give out the names of those infected, health officials release each person\'s age, gender, street address, medical symptoms — and often the exact location of where the person works. This allows other residents to determine if they might have been in contact with the infected individual.\r\nFor instance, in late February the health department announced that a 55-year-old fry cook at a KFC restaurant on King\'s Road in the North Point neighborhood had tested positive. The department reassured residents that the heat of cooking oil probably kills the coronavirus and that patrons were not considered at risk of having contracted the virus. The fast-food branch, however, closed immediately and has remained shut. A sign on the door said the management was going to thoroughly clean the premises.\r\nAnother day in February, one of the newly diagnosed patients was a 75-year-old man living in Block 1, Seaview Garden in Tuen Mun. He first developed symptoms on Jan. 25, according to a statement released by the health department. Until he was isolated at Tuen Mun Hospital on Feb. 18, he had breakfast each morning at the Hoi Tin Garden Restaurant located at 5 Sam Shing Street, Tuen Mun — except for Feb. 15, when for some reason he didn\'t. The report details that his wife, age 83, tested positive the day before he did. \r\nThe health department also releases license plate numbers of taxi drivers who test positive and the flight numbers of infected travelers who recently arrived — again, so members of the public can determine if they might have had contact. In Singapore, the police force works with the Ministry of Health to trace connections between cases and to track chains of transmission. Singapore also makes details of these infections public in the hope that other residents will come forward if they may have come in contact with a confirmed case.\r\nThe aggressive efforts by Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore and South Korea to investigate and isolate every possible infection is exactly what the World Health Organization has been calling for since January. \r\nThe WHO\'s Maria Van Kerkhove acknowledged this week that for countries dealing with hundreds and even thousands of new cases every day, \"\"finding every case\"\" can be difficult.\r\n\"\"We hear you. This is overwhelming,\"\" Van Kerkhove said on Wednesday. \"\"But it\'s really important for us to take the examples of all these countries, look at what they did as it relates to the epidemiology in their country and learn from them.\"\"\r\n\"\r\n','2020-03-31',''),(145,'This Is How France Plans To End Lockdown From May 11','Forbes','Health',32,'https://www.forbes.com/sites/tamarathiessen/2020/04/28/french-plan-to-end-lockdown/#5771c95b1eff','Tamara Thiessen','France will gradually end its 2 month lockdown from May 11, with the “deconfinement plan” to be unfurled in two stages. Firstly there will be an end to the stay-at-home order and reopening of shops and schools, followed in early June by restaurants, bars, cafes and museums.\r\nBut the end of the two month nationwide lockdown, in place since March 17, is conditional: Firstly on maintaining lower infection rates of less than 3,000 new cases a day up until that date; secondly on no public slackening off on the current quarantine rules. If people start flouting the decree before May 11, then they will have to stay put longer warned Prime Minister Édouard Philippe. The move hinges strongly on collective civility he said announcing the measures Tuesday afternoon. “The viral chain must be replaced by a chain of solidarity ... Individual discipline and responsibility must be shared by all citizens.”\r\nThe May 11 deconfinement will be reassessed a few days ahead. Likewise with the forecast openings in June, the government will revisit the situation ahead of that date, to ensure things are going in the right direction.\r\nThe French PM says the lockdown “was an efficient instrument,” but is “not sustainable”. 60,000 lives have been saved by the quarantine measures, but now it’s time to save the economy. \"We are going to have to live with COVID-19,” he said.\r\nThe coronavirus has killed 23,293 in France according to the latest health statistics.\r\n“We must progressively, prudently and resolutely advance towards a gradual end to the lockdown,” Philippe said. The plan has three major prongs: Protect, test and isolate. “From the moment we are no longer in a lockdown, the respect of infection ‘barrier gestures’, and social distancing will take on even more importance.” France will conduct 700,000 tests a week from May 11; people who test positive will have a choice to isolate at home or in special health centers.\r\n\r\nA return to normal life will be staggered across the country, and take much longer in hotspot virus areas, designated as \'red departements\', than those where low transmissions risk rates them \'green\'.\r\nSo, all going well, what are the two major phases in the end to the French lockdown:\r\nFrom May 11:\r\nShops and businesses All stores, large and small, can reopen. So too can libraries, smaller museums and cultural centres. Thousands of marketplaces across the country will also see the light of day again. Cafes, bars and restaurants remain shut.\r\nPublic transport will gradually pick up, though services will still be reduced, with about 70% of Paris Metro and RER services. Masks will be mandatory on public transport and in taxis. They will also be “preferable” elsewhere–with some 20 million to be distributed to pharmacies ahead of May 11.\r\nEasing Of Stay-At-Home Order Individual freedom of movement will gain big strides. Instead of 1 hour of leisure a day, in a 1 km radius of one’s home, people will now be able to travel up to 100 km from their residence. That said, the government is urging people to continue working from home as much as possible.\r\nWhat About The Lockdown Permission Form? The document required to validate every outing from shopping to exercise over past weeks can be done away with, except for trips longer than 100 km. In the latter case, the form will still be necessary to prove essential travels within France or overseas, for work, family or health reasons.\r\nFrom June 2:\r\nCafes, restaurants and bars can open, along with cinemas, theatres and big museums such as the Paris Louvre. The gradual reopening will continue for months, with a review of the situation every couple of weeks.\r\nBeaches will open in June but with strict social distancing. Swimming will be allowed, sunbathing prohibited in some areas. For example the mayor of Biarritz, Guillaume Barucq, told France Soir he plans to follow the Australian example, “where people are allowed to bathe, surf, walk in the water ... but not to sunbathe or build sandcastles: they must leave the place after practicing their physical activity.”\r\nAs to summer vacations, it’s way too early to make a decision the government says.\r\nFor sporting events, fans will have to wait until September to see matches in stadiums resume (note the Tour de France has also been pushed back to late August-early September).\r\nMajor cultural events too, with over 5000 participants, will be banned until September.\r\nWith most French people on the edge of their seats for the pronouncement on the end of the lockdown, now into its 43rd day, there was both good and bad news. No doubt some were hoping for more. In the end, the level of new-found freedoms are going to depend strongly on how people behave over coming days.\r\n','2020-04-28',''),(146,'Sweden says its coronavirus approach has worked. The numbers suggest a different story','CNN','Politics',32,'https://edition.cnn.com/2020/04/28/europe/sweden-coronavirus-lockdown-strategy-intl/index.html',' Emma Reynolds','(CNN)Sweden has been an outlier during the coronavirus outbreak. The country has not joined many of its European neighbors in imposing strict limits on citizens\' lives, and images of people heading to work on busy streets, or chatting at cafes and bars have raised eyebrows.\r\nYounger children have continued to go to school, although universities and schools for older students have switched to distance learning. Businesses -- from hair salons to restaurants -- have remained open, although people have been advised to work from home where possible.\r\nOn April 7, the government introduced a bill allowing it to act quickly and take decisions on temporary measures where needed. Care home visits were banned from April 1 and the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs asked people to refrain from non-essential travel, adding: \'Keep your distance and take personal responsibility.\'\r\nAmong Nordic countries -- which share similar cultural, geographical and sociological attributes -- the contrast with Sweden is great. Finland declared a state of emergency, closed schools and banned gatherings of more than 10 people on March 16, restricted travel to and from its Uusimaa region on March 28 and closed restaurants, cafes and bars on April 1.\r\nDenmark announced widespread closures on March 11 and was among the first in Europe to close borders, shops, schools and restaurants, and to ban large gatherings. Norway began introducing travel restrictions in mid-March and has since closed schools and daycare centers, banned the use of vacation properties, canceled events and closed businesses such as hair and beauty salons.\r\nThe death rate in Sweden has now risen significantly higher than many other countries in Europe, reaching more than 22 per 100,000 people, according to figures from Johns Hopkins University, controlled for population.\r\nBy contrast, Denmark has recorded just over seven deaths per 100,000 people, and both Norway and Finland less than four.\r\nSweden has registered 18,926 coronavirus cases and 2,274 deaths among its population of 10.3 million people.\r\nDenmark has had 9,049 cases and 427 deaths in a population of 5.8 million, Norway 7,599 cases and 206 deaths among its 5.4 million people, and Finland 4,695 cases and 193 deaths in its population of 5.5 million.\r\nDenmark and Norway are now beginning to ease their lockdowns, with children returning to school in the past 10 days, in smaller classes with markers to help keep them two meters apart. Salons and other businesses with one-to-one contact will reopen in Norway from Monday. Finland has extended its restrictions until May 13.\r\nFurther afield the Czech Republic, which has a similar-sized population -- 10.7 million -- to Sweden, has recorded 7,449 cases and 223 deaths -- around two deaths per 100,000 people. It took a markedly different approach to the pandemic by shutting schools, closing restaurants and bars and most stores, restricting travel and ordering mandatory quarantines for travelers from at-risk regions in early March. It has also made it compulsory for people to wear face masks in public.\r\nSweden has not had as many deaths as Italy or Spain, which have recorded around 45 and 51 deaths per 100,000 people respectively, or even the UK, where there have been about 32 deaths per 100,000 of the population. But there are various complex differences between Sweden and these countries that make direct comparisons harder, such as Italy having an older population, more smokers, and a larger number of close-knit multigenerational households.\r\nThe Swedish approach\r\nOn March 28, a petition signed by 2,000 Swedish researchers, including Carl-Henrik Heldin, chairman of the Nobel Foundation, called for the nation\'s government to \'immediately take steps to comply with the World Health Organization\'s (WHO) recommendations.\'\r\nThe scientists added: \'The measures should aim to severely limit contact between people in society and to greatly increase the capacity to test people for Covid-19 infection.\'\r\n\'These measures must be in place as soon as possible, as is currently the case in our European neighboring countries,\' they wrote. \'Our country should not be an exception to the work to curb the pandemic.\'\r\nThe petition said that trying to \'create a herd immunity, in the same way that occurs during an influenza epidemic, has low scientific support.\'\r\nSwedish authorities have denied having a strategy to create herd immunity, one the UK government was rumored to be working towards earlier on in the pandemic -- leading to widespread criticism -- before it enforced a strict lockdown.\r\nLena Hallengren, Swedish Minister for Health and Social Affairs, told CNN: \'There is no strategy to create herd immunity in response to Covid-19 in Sweden. Sweden shares the same goals as all other countries -- to save lives and protect public health.\'\r\nJan Albert, a professor in the Department of Microbiology, Tumor and Cell Biology at the Karolinska Institutet, told CNN: \"It\'s clear that Sweden had more deaths [than many other European countries] up until now, and that\'s probably at least in part because we haven\'t had as strict a lockdown and not a lockdown enforced by law.\"\r\nBut he said he believed the majority of scientists in Sweden had been \'relatively quiet\" about the herd immunity plan because they thought it could work.\r\n\'What\'s the strategy of the other countries?\' he asked. \'It [herd immunity] was already the only thing that will eventually stop this, unless there is a vaccine in time, which is quite unlikely.\r\n\"The truth is that no one, no one in Sweden, no one elsewhere either, knows what the best strategy is. Time will tell.\"\r\nHe said that he believed that stricter lockdowns \'only serve to flatten the curve and flattening the curve doesn\'t mean that cases disappear -- they are just moved in time.\'\r\n\'And as long as the healthcare system reasonably can cope with and give good care to the ones that need care, it\'s not clear that having the cases later in time is better.\'\r\nProtecting the system\r\nAlbert believes that Sweden\'s healthcare system is coping, as does Peter Lindgren, managing director at the Swedish Institute for Health Economics (IHE). Lindgren told CNN that the number of people treated in intensive care units over several weeks had been stable, \'so in that aspect it has to be successful.\'\r\nBut he added: \'What it failed at, I think, is that there has been disease transmitted into elderly care facilities. We have deaths occurring as a consequence of that.\'\r\nHallengren, the Swedish health minister, told CNN: \'One of the main concerns now in Sweden is to strengthen the protection for those living in care homes for older people.\'\r\nShe said it was still \'far too early to draw any firm conclusions as to the effectiveness of the measures taken in Sweden.\'\r\nShe said that just because Sweden did not have a \'full lockdown\' did not mean \"that it\'s business as usual\" and that measure were being \'continuously reassessed\' with the help of experts \'to ensure that the right measures are taken at the right time.\'\r\nGatherings of more than 50 people are banned and people are \'strongly recommended\' to avoid non-essential domestic travel, she added.\r\nSweden\'s foreign minister on Monday told UK newspaper The Guardian that it was far too soon to judge her country\'s approach to Covid-19.\r\n\'There\'s been a lot of misunderstanding,\' Ann Linde said. \'We have pretty much the same goals as every other government ... And as we have always said, we are perfectly ready to go with more binding regulations if the population does not follow.\'\r\nShe said the fairly high death toll was \'certainly not part of the plan\' and said the high number of care home deaths was \'one area where we have failed.\'\r\nThe Swedish Public Health Agency this week forecast that almost a third of people in Stockholm County would have been infected by Covid-19 by May 1. That would be more than 600,000 people -- far higher than the number of cases recorded nationally so far.\r\nLess than 24 hours later, there was confusion when the health agency announced on Twitter that it had \'detected errors\' in the report, but it then said its mathematical model had been updated and reiterated that 26% of the Stockholm population would have been infected by May 1.\r\nIt said that there were approximately 75 unconfirmed cases for each reported case of Covid-19 -- but that the peak of the spread of infection had passed.\r\nSweden\'s state epidemiologist Anders Tegnell said on Friday that his country would likely be in a better place to withstand a second wave otTf coronavirus because so many people in Sweden have now been exposed to the virus.\r\nHe told the BBC that the relatively relaxed approach had \'worked in some aspects,\' since there had always been at least 20% of intensive care beds empty and able to take care of Covid-19 patients.\r\n\'We believe we passed the peak of the transmission a week ago,\' he added.\r\nAsked whether Sweden\'s approach will help it withstand a possible second wave, Tegnell said he believed it would. \'It will definitely affect the reproduction rate and slow down the spread,\' he said, but added that it wouldn\'t be enough to achieve \'herd immunity.\'\r\n\'We know very little about the immunity of this disease, but most of the experts in Sweden agree that some kind of immunity we definitely will have because a lot of people that have been tested so far have produced antibodies ... We hope this will make it easier for us in the long run.\'\r\nAsked whether the death toll would have been lower if Sweden had followed the same path as other European countries in introducing strict restrictions, Tegnell replied: \'That\'s a very difficult question to answer at this stage. At least 50% of our death toll is within the elderly homes and we have a hard time understanding how a lockdown would stop the introduction of the disease into the elderly homes.\'\r\nWhether Sweden\'s Covid-19 strategy has succeeded or failed may not be clear for months to come, but as countries across the globe count their dead and wonder whether they could have done more to halt the spread of the virus, the world will be watching.\r\n','2020-04-29',''),(148,'New York remains cautious as more US states ease virus lockdowns','The Times of Israel','Health',32,'https://www.timesofisrael.com/new-york-remains-cautious-as-more-us-states-ease-virus-lockdowns/','Peter HUTCHISON and Michael Mathes','AFP — More US states began lifting coronavirus lockdown orders on Monday but New York — America\'s economic engine and coronavirus epicenter — is in no hurry, with hospitalization rates still high.\r\nAs Colorado, Minnesota, Mississippi and Tennessee were among the latest states to loosen restrictions, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said he was preparing to lengthen confinement measures for badly-hit areas.\r\n\"May 15 is when the pause regulations expire statewide. I will extend them in many parts of the state,\" he told reporters.\r\n\r\nNew York is America\'s worst-hit state, with more than 17,300 COVID-19 deaths out of almost 292,000 confirmed infections. Almost 56,000 people have died across the country.\r\nCuomo plans to allow manufacturing and construction to restart in some of the state\'s least-affected areas after May 15 as part of a phased reopening.\r\nBut for now that seems about it for New York, which has been shut down since mid-March.\r\n\"We have to be smart because if you are not smart, you will see that infection rate go right back to where it was. [We] will be right back to where we were 58 days ago and nobody wants that,\" he said.\r\nCuomo said cases were not falling as quickly as he would like, with more than 1,000 new hospitalizations and 337 deaths from the disease in the past 24 hours.\r\nThe most affected part of the state, New York City, is likely to be one of the last areas of the country to reopen. A poll out Monday showed residents overwhelmingly backed the shutdown.\r\nNew York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that at least 40 miles of streets would close to traffic to give the city\'s 8.6 million residents more space to exercise outdoors, in a further sign that the end is far from in sight.\r\nAlso Monday, New York\'s elections board canceled the Democratic Party primary on June 23, citing the risk of spreading coronavirus, a move heavily criticized by leftist Bernie Sanders.\r\nAs New Jersey — the second-worst affected state with 6,000 deaths — California and the Washington DC region stay committed to continuing confinement measures for now, more than half a dozen states have started a partial reopening of their economies.\r\nSome restaurants in Georgia opened their doors Monday after beaches reopened over the weekend, despite criticism from health experts who say social distancing is still needed to stop the spread.\r\n\"We need human touch, human contact,\" 64-year-old Kim Kaseta told AFP, delighted to be at her local breakfast spot in Atlanta, where waiters and cooks wore masks.\r\nGovernor Brian Kemp said Georgia\'s shelter-in-place order would be lifted on Thursday.\r\nTennessee also permitted restaurants to reopen Monday and Texas Governor Greg Abbott announced that all retail stores, restaurants, movie theaters, malls, museums and libraries would be allowed to reopen on Friday with 25 percent capacity.\r\nAlaska, Oklahoma, Minnesota, Mississippi, Colorado and South Carolina have started to allow certain activities as well.\r\nThe moves come despite Harvard researchers and the health news site Stat warning that the majority of US states don\'t yet have sufficient testing capacity to consider relaxing the stay-at-home orders after May 1.\r\nThirty-one states and the District of Columbia are well behind, they said, with New York needing to perform between 130,000 to 155,000 tests every day, compared to the average of 20,000 per day around mid April.\r\nCuomo also said an antibody test of 7,500 people found that a quarter of New York City residents may have already survived the virus, although that doesn\'t mean they are immune.\r\n','2020-04-30',''),(149,'Coronavirus: New Zealand claims no community cases as lockdown eases','BBC','Health',32,'https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-52436658','N/A','New Zealand says it has stopped community transmission of Covid-19, effectively eliminating the virus.\r\nWith new cases in single figures for several days - one on Sunday - Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said the virus was \"currently\" eliminated.\r\nBut officials have warned against complacency, saying it does not mean a total end to new coronavirus cases.\r\nThe news came hours before New Zealand moved out of its toughest level of social restrictions.\r\nFrom Tuesday, some non-essential business, healthcare and education activity will be able to resume.\r\nMost people will still be required to remain at home at all times and avoid all social interactions.\r\n\"We are opening up the economy, but we\'re not opening up people\'s social lives,\" Ms Ardern said at the daily government briefing.\r\nNew Zealand, a country of nearly 5 million people, has reported fewer than 1,500 confirmed or probable cases of coronavirus and 19 deaths\r\nNew Zealand\'s Director-General of Health, Ashley Bloomfield, said the low number of new cases in recent days \"does give us confidence that we have achieved our goal of elimination\".\r\nHe warned that \"elimination\" did not mean there would be no new cases \"but it does mean we know where our cases are coming from\"\r\nMs Ardern said there was \"no widespread undetected community transmission in New Zealand\", adding: \"We have won that battle.\"\r\nBut she said the country \"must remain vigilant if we are to keep it that way\".\r\nHow did New Zealand respond to the virus?\r\nThe country brought in some of the toughest restrictions in the world on travel and activity early on in the pandemic, when it only had a few dozen cases.\r\nIt closed its borders, started enforcing quarantine of all arrivals in the country, brought in a stringent lockdown and mounted an extensive testing and contact tracing operation.\r\nBeaches, waterfronts and playgrounds were shut on 26 March, as were offices and schools. Bars and restaurants were also closed, including for takeaway and delivery.\r\nMs Ardern said modelling indicated New Zealand could have had more than 1,000 cases a day if it had not brought in the lockdown so early.\r\nShe said the country could never know how bad it would have been but that \"through our cumulative actions we have avoided the worst\".\r\nNew Zealand\'s remote location and easily sealable borders played in its favour when the virus broke out, experts say.\r\nBut the government has also been praised for the clarity of its messaging throughout the crisis.\r\nNew Zealanders are being told to stick to their \"bubble\" - a small group of close friends or family - and to stay 2m (6ft) away from people.\r\nMass gatherings are still banned, shopping centres remain closed and most children will remain away from school. New Zealand\'s border will remain closed.\r\nWhat\'s happening in Australia?\r\nIn Australia, the rise in infections has also slowed considerably in recent weeks. There were just 16 new cases recorded on Sunday.\r\nMuch like in New Zealand, its government has been praised for its response to the crisis and opinion polls show that trust in the country\'s leadership has risen.\r\nRestrictions are easing in some areas, with some states planning to relax social distancing rules to permit larger outdoor gatherings this week.\r\nIn Queensland from Saturday, people will be free to go shopping for clothes, have a picnic in the park or go for a swim at the beach as long as it is within a 40-minute drive from home.\r\nWestern Australia is also joining South Australia in expanding the national two-person limit on gatherings to 10 people.\r\nHowever, most Australians are still required to stay at home unless they have essential work, shopping or exercise reasons to go out.\r\nMore than a million Australians also downloaded a coronavirus contact tracing app within hours of it being released by the government.\r\nUsers of the app will be notified if they have had more than 15 minutes of close contact with another user who tests positive for Covid-19.\r\nThere are reports that Australia and New Zealand are considering opening up travel between them but no decision has been made\r\n','2020-04-30',''),(150,'EXPLAINED: Why is France\'s 35-hour week such a sacred cow?','The Local','Economy',33,'https://www.thelocal.fr/20200526/explained-why-is-frances-35-hour-week-such-a-holy-cow','N/A','\"Once again a French government is trying to have a go at the 35-hour week. But previous political attempts to tinker with the rule have not gone down well. Will this time around be different?\r\nAs French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe on Monday launched two months of intense talks to reform the French health sector, he confirmed that the 35-hour week would be one of the main points up for discussion.\r\n\"\"The key-word will be pragmatism,\"\" Philippe said about the number of hours worked in hospitals, reiterating what Health Minister Olivier Véran had told the newspaper Journal du Dimanche the day before.\r\nVéran had said he wanted to \"\"render more flexible\"\" the rules regulating working-hours in hospitals, to make it easier \"\"for those who wish\"\" to work more.\r\nHitting at the 35-hour rule is in a way political business as usual in France. Many ambitious politicians have had a go at the law, claiming it stands in the way for France\'s economy to thrive the way it should.\r\nBut in the 20 years the law has existed, no one has yet managed to roll it back. Proponents hail it as a social totem, a milestone in the fight for worker\'s rights.\r\nWhat is the 35-hour rule?\r\nThe 35-hour rule was adopted in 2000 under the Socialist Party Prime Minister Lionel Jospin, and became mandatory for all French businesses in 2002.\r\nBefore that, France\'s upper work-limit was 39 hours a week, a rule established by then-President François Mitterrand, also from the Socialist Party.\r\nWhile the 35-hour law did not make it illegal to work more than those hours, it did mean all additional hours had to be considered overtime.\r\nThe goal was to reduce unemployment by encouraging businesses to hire more people instead of making employees working more.\r\nDo the French actually work only 35 hours a week?\r\nNo, French people still work on average 39 hours a week, which is slightly lower than the EU average (40.3 hours a week).\r\nThe UK is the European country with the highest numbers of hours worked per week (42.3), followed by Cyprus, Austria and Greece - all of them between 41 and 42 hours a week.\r\n\r\nBut working more hours does not necessarily translate into more productivity. A 2018 study by the UK Trade Union Congress (TUC) saw findings proving the contrary. The TUC General Secretary told Euronews that a long-hours culture was \"\"nothing to be proud of.\"\"\r\n\r\nBut - and this is key - people who work more than 35 hours in  a week in France may be entitled to extra pay or extra days off, the precious RTT days (réductions de temps du travail).\r\nThis doesn\'t apply to everyone - generally people in management or executive positions forego RTT days and certain professions have also opted out but for many people working a 39 or 40 hour week means getting up to an extra fortnight off a year in reclaimed RTT days. \r\nFrench public sector workers who work a regular 35 hour week can get 34 RTT days a year - in addition to their statutory 25 holiday days - and private sector workers can get 27 - if they aren\'t exempt from the rule.\r\nThe gap widens as workers increase their hours. Public sector employees working more than 39 hours get 42 RTT days while the private sector employees can get 31.\r\nThere is also a difference between the public and private sector with respect to how many RTT days workers generally take, with Labour Ministry study from 2017 showing that employees in the public sector taking 46 on average and private sector employees taking 29. \r\nAll in all, the RTT system is costly for the state, and the French research institute Montaigne has suggested that France could save around €7 billion a year by increasing the regular work-week to 38 or 39 hours.\r\nSo why does the French government want to remove the rule?\r\nWell, to save money, for one.\r\nEmmanuel Macron\'s 2017 presidential campaign pledge was not to abolish the 35-hour week completely, but to \"\"return flexibility\"\" to companies.\r\nAs the government has promised to \"\"significantly\"\" increase nurses\' salaries as a part of the new plan for the future of the French health sector, they know that this will lead to higher expenses for the hospitals.\r\nThat could mean seeing the government taking on more public expenses at a time when France is entering its worst recession since 1945.\r\nIf the government rolls back the 35-hour rule from the hospital sector, nurses and other health personnel could be asked to work more without being paid extra for the supplementary hours.\r\nWhat would that mean for nurses?\r\nWhat this would mean in practice is to be thrashed out in the coming two months, as the government prepares what the Prime Minister said would be \"\"not a new direction, but a new pace\"\" for the hospital sector.\r\nUnions have already slammed the suggestion to remove the rule as \"\"not corresponding to reality,\"\" as they say most nurses generally work more than the legal limit without the extra hours necessarily being registered.\r\n\"\"A lot of people work more than 35 hours and they do overtime that is not always paid,\"\" said Laurent Berger, General Secretary of France\'s largest worker\'s union CFDT on Monday to FranceInfo.\r\n\r\nUnions say hospitals need to hire more people rather than the number of hours worked by the staff.\r\n \r\n\"\"We need to create more jobs in order for everyone to be able to take the days off that they have the right to take, as they, right now, often can\'t,\"\" said Thierry Amouroux, union spokesperson for SNPI, to Les Obs.\r\n\r\n\"\r\n','2020-06-02',''),(151,'\'Nowcasting\' the economy: how pandemic forced French forecasters to get real','Reuters','Politics',33,'https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-france-stats/nowcasting-the-economy-how-pandemic-forced-french-forecasters-to-get-real-idUSKBN22I1XF','Leigh Thomas ','PARIS (Reuters) - What do you do when you need to gauge the depth of an economic slump, so that you can make rapid crisis calls in real-time, when all the usual indicators lag reality by weeks and the whole country is in lockdown?\r\n\r\nFor French government statisticians, the answer was to shift from their usual weapons, which include hallowed and curated sources of information such as consumer spending and industrial production.\r\nInstead they improvised a new, unconventional arsenal built around data that would give real-time insight into people’s habits, such as bank card data and domestic electricity usage.\r\nJean-Luc Tavernier, head of the INSEE national stats office, described his endeavours as \"\"nowcasting\"\", an emerging field in economics of using high-frequency data to paint a contemporaneous picture of economic activity.\r\nHe told Reuters he took the decision at the end of March to ditch publication of traditional quarterly growth forecasts after France went into lockdown in the middle of the month.\r\nInstead his forecasters tapped a variety of new sources to calculate that the euro zone’s second-biggest economy was running at about two-thirds of normal, a preliminary estimate that has broadly stood up as more traditional, lagging data such as consumer spending and industrial production has come in.\r\n\"\"In a week they were able to get the data to speak and to carry out this exercise in nowcasting,\"\" Tavernier said in an interview.\r\nThe most useful tool proved to data form France’s bank card association, which under the exceptional circumstances granted the agency access to the anonymised information.\r\nThat helped inform Tavernier’s team not only that locked-down French consumers were spending far less on a day-to-day basis than in previous years but also which sectors were the hardest hit.\r\nDomestic electricity usage, meanwhile, also pointed to how much less activity there was than normal while information from business surveys helped reveal how many people were able to work from home.\r\nIN A FLASH\r\nThe new estimate of activity, which INSEE continues to update every two weeks, proved useful when it came to time to produce France’s first flash reading of gross domestic product, which was published last Thursday.\r\nOut only 30 days afte0DP readings in all countries rely on some extrapolation to fill in holes in the absence of certain hard data on consumption, production and trade that arrive later.\r\nHowever, it will not be possible to verify the accuracy until countries’ final figures are published in the weeks to come, while it is unclear if other stats agencies might be using nowcasting techniques.\r\nThe unprecedented economic shock left more up to statisticians’ discretion than normal in the flash calculations. That, however, raises questions about how comparable GDP is between countries in a time of crisis since other countries did not use similar techniques.\r\nWhile INSEE calculated the French economy contracted 5.8% in the first quarter from the previous quarter, for example, their Italian counterparts calculated 4.7% even though the country went into lockdown earlier.\r\n\"\"We shouldn’t overestimate differences seen in the period when statistics are more unstable and are perhaps less comparable than usual from one country to another,\"\" Tavernier said, predicting bigger-than-usual revisions to flash readings.\r\nThat could create a real headache for policymakers, investors and businesses who use such data for decisions that are all the more critical in a time of crisis.\r\nIn the United States, economists say the near closure of business introduced sampling error issues into closely watched data, which could make it harder to get a clearer picture of the severity of the recession there.\r\nBritain’s stats office said inflation readings were likely to be more volatile than usual in the months ahead because the shutdown there prevented statisticians from getting prices accounting for 20% of its consumer price index.\r\n\r\n','2020-06-02',''),(152,'Glimmers of hope for France’s struggling tourist industry','Arab News','Economy',33,'https://www.arabnews.com/node/1679141/world','RANDA TAKIEDDINE','PARIS: Many people in France were happy to learn that with the easing of the nation’s lockdown, they might be able to take a summer vacation as normal in July or August.\r\nPrime Minister Edouard Philippe even encouraged them to go ahead and make bookings for destinations within France, safe in the knowledge that \'the stakeholders of the tourism and hospitality sectors are committed to reimbursing them in full in the event the epidemic makes it impossible for them to go on vacation.\'\r\n\r\nInternational travel is another story, however, and caution is advised. Minister of State for European Affairs Amélie de Montchalin recommended that people hold off on booking trips to other European nations, adding: \'There is not enough certainty surrounding the situation and what will be possible in two or three months.\'\r\n\r\nAs in many other countries, the tourist industry in France has been badly affected by the coronavirus crisis. On May 14, the prime minister announced an €18 billion aid plan \'to prevent the collapse of the tourism sector, which accounts for 8 percent of France’s GDP.\'\r\n\r\nWhile the return of domestic tourism is a welcome first step toward recovery, it is not yet clear whether French borders will remain closed to non-European visitors during the holiday season.\r\n\r\n\'For the time being, we have no idea,\' said Rudy Salles, deputy mayor of Nice and former MP for the Maritime Alps region. One of the world’s most popular tourist destinations, it includes the French Riviera, Nice, Cannes and Monaco.\r\n\r\n\'The prime minister told us that the French can come on vacation. This is good news because up until now, people could not travel more than 100 kilometers from their main residence. Therefore, we are preparing a campaign to try and attract French customers.\'\r\n\r\nThere are also hopes, he said, that the borders might soon open to travelers from other European nations.\r\n\r\n\'A probable opening of inter-European borders has been discussed, which would mean that Europeans will be able to travel,\' Salles said. \'If this is the case, we think Germans, Swiss, Austrians and Scandinavians will be able to come to the French Riviera. That would be in July but, for now, nothing is certain.\'\r\n\r\nSalles said he has no idea when tourists from elsewhere in the world might be able to visit France, but added that flights from some parts of the Middle East are expected to resume later in the year.\r\n\r\n\'It looks as if the borders will remain closed to people coming from the US, Russia, and Asia,\' he said. \'Emirates and other Gulf airlines are expected to resume their flights by the autumn. We have not received any announcements about the summer but things can change very quickly.\r\n\r\n\'We are therefore unable to plan for the future since we have no reliable information.\'\r\n\r\nMany businesses and parks in Nice and on the French Riviera are open, Salles said, and the beaches are due to reopen this weekend.\r\n\r\n\'People will not be allowed to sit on their towels on the beach but they can go for walks there,\' he added. \'From June 2, restaurants, bars and cafes will also be open, along with hotels that were closed due to the lack of customers.\r\n\'The situation is the same all over the French Riviera. Nice, Antibes, Juan-les-Pins, Cannes and Saint-Tropez are all following the same regulations.\r\n\r\n\'We are working together with the Regional Council and the two Regional Tourism committees, the French Riviera Committee and the Committee for the South of France.\'\r\n','2020-05-24',''),(153,'French People are Being Told it’s Their Patriotic Duty to Eat More Cheese After Sales Have Slumped','Perishable News,com','Economy',33,'https://www.perishablenews.com/deli/french-people-are-being-told-its-their-patriotic-duty-to-eat-more-cheese-after-sales-have-slumped/','Rachel Hosie','The citizens of France have been told it\'s their patriotic duty to eat more cheese.\r\nAfter a fall in sales due to COVID-19, the dairy industry has put out a collective call for French people to increase their consumption of brie, camembert, reblochon, and more. \r\nAccording to a press release by France Terre de Lait, the French dairy industry, sales of certain cheeses in France have dropped 60%. This is largely due to the closure of markets, cheese-mongers, and restaurants, and quarantined people denying themselves their most pleasurable foods and instead only buying the basics.\r\nWhat\'s more, French citizens, wary of germs and hygiene standards, have been buying less over-the-counter cheese, The Telegraph reports.\r\nFrench cheese producers are in \"great difficulty\" as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, the industry said, with thousands of tons of cheese at risk of being thrown away.\r\nIn an attempt to combat this, it has now launched a campaign encouraging the public to increase their cheese consumption called \'Fromagissons,\' which means \'Let\'s act for cheese.\'\r\n\'The dairy industry is calling on consumers to eat cheese in solidarity with our producers of saint-nectaire, reblochon, cantal, camembert,\' the release said.\r\n\'The situation is critical and requires a rapid increase in consumption,\' president of the dairy collective Sodiaal (Société de diffusion internationale agro-alimentaire) Damien Lacombe said, as reported by French agriculture magazine Agri Culture.\r\nMichel Lacoste, president of CNAOL (Conseil National Des Appellations D\'Origine Laitières), which represents 45 traditional dairy producers, told the publication that 2,000 tons of cheese should have been sold in April, and by the end of the month, there was still 1,500 left.\r\n\'If it\'s not distributed by May 11, it will have gone off,\' he said.\r\nThe government is supporting farmers by offering financial compensation to those who have to cut back production and also allowing milk to be stored longer and at a lower temperature before making cheese, the Telegraph reports. \r\nMany dairy farmers are trying to focus more on butter, cream, and milk to stay afloat, but if the French don\'t start eating more cheese, the industry is truly \'in danger,\' according to the press release.\r\n\r\nThe \'Fromagissons\' campaign mirrors a call in neighboring Belgium for people to eat fries at home twice a week to prevent 750,000 tons of potatoes going to waste.\r\n','2020-05-04',''),(154,'France municipal elections: Greens score gains in second round','BBC','Politics',34,'https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-53213783','N/A','France\'s Green party and its left-wing allies have made significant gains in the second round of local elections.\r\nLyon, Strasbourg, Bordeaux and Besançon all voted for the party on a bad night for President Emmanuel Macron.\r\nHis centrist LREM party, which has less support at local level than nationally, failed to win in any major city.\r\nVoters were required to wear face masks under continuing measures to stop the spread of coronavirus and turnout hit a record low.\r\nOnly roughly 40% of the electorate took part in the poll on Sunday. An Élysée palace official said Mr Macron had expressed \'concern\' about the low numbers.\r\n\r\nThe first round of municipal elections was held two days before the government declared a lockdown on 17 March.\r\nThe second round, which was due a week later, was postponed until the last Sunday of June.\r\nWhat were the results?\r\nConfirming 0strong showings in the first round, Green candidates or politicians supported by the Greens have won or were poised to win in a string of cities including Lyon, Marseille, Strasbourg, Bordeaux and Nancy.\r\nCentre-right newspaper Le Figaro said France\'s \'whole political landscape has been turned upside down\', while centre-left paper Le Monde said the party was now \'a major force in opposition\' to President Macron.\r\nIn Paris incumbent Mayor Anne Hidalgo - whose Socialist party has been all but wiped out at a national level - won comfortably. Another prominent Socialist, Martine Aubry, was narrowly re-elected in Lille.\r\nFemale mayoral candidates are reportedly now on track to lead half of France\'s 10 largest cities, a record for the country.\r\n\r\nIn a rare positive development for Mr Macron, his popular Prime Minister Édouard Philippe was elected mayor of the north-western port city of Le Havre.\r\nThis could lead to a cabinet reshuffle, although the constitution allows Mr Philippe to name a substitute as mayor while he remains in the government.\r\nIt was also a successful night for the far-right National Rally party, led by 2017 presidential candidate Marine Le Pen.\r\nOne of their candidates took the city of Perpignan in the south - the largest city the far-right has won since the 1990s. Ms Le Pen declared a \'real victory\' on Sunday.\r\n','2020-06-29',''),(155,'Brexit FURY: Angry French vow to break law to get UK fish \'You better warn your police!\'','Express','Politics',34,'https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1302546/Brexit-fishing-France-news-trade-deal-UK-waters-latest-French-fishermen',' GERRARD KAONGA','BRITAIN has been warned French boats may still choose to fish in British waters regardless of what Brexit trade deal is agreed with the EU.\r\nSky News\' Adam Parsons accompanied French fishermen as they sailed in British waters to catch fish. Mr Parsons spoke with some members of France\'s fishing industry and exposed their fears regarding the future of their trade and the impact Brexit could have on their sector. Mr Parsons spoke to Emilie, a lobster seller whose husband catches fish in UK waters who detailed plans to continue seeking catch around Britain regardless of whether the UK Government agrees to it or not. \r\n\r\nShe said that she hoped French fishermen will battle to fish in the UK regardless of any agreement struck between Brussels and London during the Brexit negotiations.\r\nLobster seller Emilie said: \"Knowing our fishermen they better warn the police over there.\r\n\'They will go out fishing regardless, they won\'t get killed off.\r\n\'Already, here in France, we are under huge restrictions on fishing, which doesn\'t apply to other European countries.\r\n\'We can\'t fish certain species and others can, we can\'t sell crab claws, but you go over to Holland and they can sell them.\r\n\'What does that mean? Why do the French have more restrictions than others?\r\n\'It is as if the French fishing industry is being allowed to die out.\r\n\'But the foreign industry is allowed to survive? That is not normal.\r\n\'So I hope they are going to go to battle and that they continue to fish in British waters, whether they like it or not.\'\r\nAnother French fisherman admitted a potential change to the current fishing agreement makes him nervous.\r\nFisherman Laurent Merlin said: \"We are really frightened that a hard Brexit will prevent us from fishing in British waters.\r\n\'The majority of our fishing happens in these waters, so for us, that would be the end of our jobs.\r\n','2020-06-29',''),(156,'French Court Strikes Down Most of Online Hate Speech Law','The New York Times','Society',34,'https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/18/world/europe/france-internet-hate-speech-regulation.html','Aurelien Breeden','\"The court ruled that the new law disproportionately infringed on freedom of speech. It was a blow to the government\'s efforts to regulate content on tech platforms.\r\nPARIS — A top French court on Thursday struck down critical provisions of a law passed by France\'s parliament last month to combat online hate speech, dealing a severe blow to the government\'s effort to police internet content.\r\nThe court\'s ruling comes as authorities around the world try to regulate what can be shared on vast internet platforms like Facebook, YouTube or Twitter, all American companies with attitudes toward free speech and government oversight that often differ from Europe\'s.\r\nThe flagship provision in France\'s new law, which was supported by President Emmanuel Macron\'s government and sponsored by his party, created an obligation for online platforms to take down hateful content flagged by users within 24 hours. If the platforms failed to do so, they risked fines of up to 1.25 million euros, or about $1.4 million.\r\nBut the Constitutional Council, a French court that reviews legislation to ensure it complies with the French constitution, noted in its ruling on Thursday that the measure put the onus for analyzing content solely on tech platforms without the involvement of a judge, within a very short time frame, and with the threat of hefty penalties.\r\nThe court said this created an incentive for risk-averse platforms to indiscriminately remove flagged content, whether or not it was clearly hate speech.\r\nThe law\'s provisions \"\"therefore infringe upon the exercise of freedom of expression and communication in a way that is not necessary, suitable, and proportionate,\"\" the court said in a statement.\r\nThe court also struck down a part of the law that obligated tech platforms to remove — within one hour — content flagged by the authorities as child pornography or terrorist propaganda, arguing that the extremely short time frame and lack of independent review of the content also violated freedom of expression.\r\nOnly minor measures in the law, like the creation of an official online hate speech watchdog, still stand.\r\nOpponents of the law praised the ruling. The hate speech bill had angered politicians on both the left and right as well as tech platform lobbyists and digital liberty advocacy groups. Even some of the government\'s own advisory bodies for digital matters had expressed misgivings.\r\n\"\"Too often one makes bad laws with good intentions!\"\" Philippe Bas, a right-wing Republican lawmaker in France\'s Senate, said on Twitter.\r\nOne lobbying group that includes Google and Facebook in France said in a statement that it was \"\"letting out a big sigh of relief after the ruling,\"\" while La Quadrature du Net, a digital rights advocacy group — and fierce critic of those very tech giants — cried \"\"Victory!\"\" against a law that \"\"organized an abusive censorship of the internet.\"\"\r\nLaetitia Avia, the lawmaker from Mr. Macron\'s party who sponsored the bill in France\'s lower house of Parliament, said in a statement on Thursday that she did not intend to \"\"give up the fight,\"\" and that the court\'s ruling was a \"\"road map to improve a plan that we knew was unprecedented and therefore perfectible.\"\"\r\nStrong anti-hate speech laws already exist in France, often with criminal penalties, but Ms. Avia and other supporters of the new law had argued that those rules, instituted before the emergence of social media platforms, held little sway online.\r\n\"\"Our message must be clear: what isn\'t tolerated in public spaces mustn\'t either on the internet, no more than we can let racist, anti-Semitic, LGBT-phobic, sexist comments proliferate online with impunity,\"\" Ms. Avia said in her statement.\r\nThe French justice ministry said in a statement later on Thursday that the government was \"\"studying the possibility of reworking\"\" the hate speech measures by taking into account the court\'s ruling.\r\nFrance\'s law was based in part on a similar one in Germany, where Facebook and other companies could face fines of up to 50 million euros if they systematically fail to remove \"\"obviously illegal\"\" content within 24 hours.\r\nOther countries are also grappling with how to regulate online content. In Britain, policymakers are drafting a new online harms bill that would restrict certain violent and extremist content from being shared. European Union officials are also weighing new rules that could hold companies liable for material posted on their sites.\r\nIn the United States, the Justice Department this week released recommendations to repeal parts of a law that gives internet platforms broad immunity from lawsuits for words, images and videos that people post online.\r\n\"\r\n','2020-06-30',''),(157,'How French Soccer Fell Apart','The New York Times','Sport',34,'http://vps676482.ovh.net/webcalendar-1.6/www/index.php/jauth/login/formFO','Elian Peltier, Tariq Panja, Rory Smith','\"PARIS — Finally, it seemed, the battle was over. After a month of uncertainty and infighting and turmoil, French soccer at last had closure. The highest administrative court in the country, the Conseil d\'État, had made its ruling: The soccer season was finished.\r\nExcept that it wasn\'t.\r\nWhile the court ruled that the final standings for France\'s top two divisions would stand, it had blocked the relegation of the two clubs that had finished at the bottom of Ligue 1, Amiens and Toulouse, and commanded the sport\'s authorities to explore alternative solutions. They have until June 30 to find one.\r\nAnd then, a few hours later, Olympique Lyonnais — the club which had most ardently opposed the curtailment of the season — published a statement briefly taking note of the court\'s decision and then outlining why, precisely, it was wrong. Lyon\'s bombastic, belligerent president, Jean-Michel Aulas, committed his club to continuing \"\"its substantive action before the Conseil d\'État.\"\"\r\nWhat nobody in France can quite explain is how, exactly, it came to this. On April 28, as the spreading coronavirus pandemic was causing uncertainty for sports leagues around the world, France was the only one of Europe\'s major leagues to have a degree of clarity: The country\'s prime minister, Édouard Philippe, had stood before parliament and declared — to the surprise of most of France\'s clubs — that the 2019-20 season was over.\r\n\r\nElsewhere in Europe, leagues pressed on with ideas about how to resume play, but it seemed a distant prospect, rooted more in hope than expectation. The pandemic was raging. The road ahead was filled with obstacles.\r\nFrance, at least, had made a call. \"\"It was the right decision for the moment,\"\" said Stéphane Saint-Raymond, the communications director at U.N.F.P., the French players\' union.\r\nSix weeks later, France is still alone. Germany\'s Bundesliga returned to the field a month ago. In Spain, La Liga resumed on Thursday night. Italy and England will follow suit in the next few days.\r\nAll French soccer can do, now, is try to pick through the causes and consequences of its decision. French clubs have been left to wonder what the league will look like next season, how deep the financial damage will run. There is a more pressing question, though: why France took this path, and who — exactly — was responsible for choosing it.\r\n‘A Ping-Pong Game\'\r\nFor the owners of France\'s teams, the answer to the latter is clear: The decision was imposed from on high. \"\"Nobody votes to scuttle their own ship,\"\" said Bernard Caïazzo, the president of Saint-Etienne, one of the teams that, in theory, benefited from the season\'s abrupt end. One of France\'s most storied clubs, Saint-Etienne had been hovering just above the relegation zone when the season was halted.\r\n\"\"Nobody in soccer wanted to hurt our own economy,\"\" he said. \"\"I can say that, on behalf of the Ligue 1 clubs, there was no consultation with us.\"\"\r\nThe politicians remember it slightly differently. \"\"The decisions are taken by the authorities in question,\"\" Roxana Maracineanu, France\'s sports minister, said last month, referring to the L.F.P., the body that governs French soccer\'s top two tiers.\r\nThe testimony of Philippe runs along the same lines. \"\"It does not belong to me to pronounce on the decisions of leagues and federations,\"\" he said a few hours after delivering the statement declaring the soccer season to be over.\r\n\"\"It has been a Ping-Pong game between the league and government,\"\" said Ahmet Schaefer, the owner of the second division club Clermont Foot. \"\"The government saying the league stopped the season, and the league saying to the government, ‘You told me to do so.\' I have never seen that.\"\"\r\nThe problem, for many, is that — in contrast to almost every other major European league — there is no firewall between the soccer authorities and the government in France. The L.F.P. ultimately answers to the French soccer federation, which is itself controlled by the sports ministry.\r\n\"\"Whether we like it or not, French sports is ruled by the government,\"\" said Xavier Thuilot, Saint-Etienne\'s general manager. \"\"So when the prime minister says, ‘The championships won\'t resume,\' it\'s not a piece of advice. It\'s an order.\"\"\r\nFor his boss, Caïazzo, the events of the last few weeks have proved that French soccer needs a structural overhaul: It must, he said, seek to emulate the model of England\'s Premier League, where the clubs are effectively shareholders in a private enterprise. \"\"This crisis has shown that the way French soccer is organized doesn\'t work anymore,\"\" he said.\r\nNot long before Philippe made his announcement, France\'s clubs were busily preparing to restart. What they didn\'t know was that the political tide had turned.\r\n\r\nScarlet Letters\r\nFrance\'s clubs submitted a detailed dossier to the government, outlining the protocols for their return to training, on April 20. The document concluded that, if the clubs could return to training by May 11, they would be able to play again in mid-June and finish the season before an August cutoff date suggested by UEFA, European soccer\'s governing body.\r\n\"\"It was pretty clear for everyone that we would resume in mid-June and finish six or seven weeks later,\"\" said Schaefer, though other executives believe that the clubs lacked flexibility. French soccer has a new television contract, with the Spanish broadcaster Mediapro, that was set to start this summer; it is worth a record $1.5 billion a season, and the clubs wanted to finish this season as soon as possible so as not to jeopardize it.\r\nAround the same time, though, the U.N.F.P. — the powerful players\' union — was conducting two pieces of research. In one, they commissioned a sports economist to assess the potential cost of not resuming the season. The study found a direct impact of $435 million, with a top end that could rise as high as $800 million. Part of that, though, might be offset by a state-backed loan and the increase in broadcast income from the new rights deal.\r\nThe second was a survey of the union\'s members, asking how they felt about a restart. About 80 percent said they did not wish to play as the pandemic tore through France. \"\"We did not agree to play again without total security,\"\" said Saint-Raymond, the union\'s communications director. \"\"We are not more important than the rest of the population,\"\" he added.\r\nThe union lobbied the French soccer federation to abandon the campaign to return — a significant move, Saint-Raymond said — and, a few days later, the union\'s co-president, Sylvain Kastendeuch, published an Op-Ed in Le Monde making that view public.\r\nEmmanuel Macron, the French president, had consulted with a number of clubs, as well as the L.F.P. and the French federation, throughout the shutdown. (He had also reached out to contemporaries like Germany\'s Angela Merkel, Le Parisien reported, perhaps in the hope that France\'s decision would start a domino effect, and provide some political cover.)\r\nThere was already substantial unease in government at the idea of players having access to virus tests at a time when front-line workers and the general public did not; the pandemic was still at its peak, and French citizens could not even walk the streets without written permission. Kastendeuch\'s intervention swayed the decision.\r\nTo some, his call sent precisely the opposite of the desired message. \"\"If everyone goes back to work and is exposed to the virus, and soccer is still at home, we are underlining that it is isolated from society, that players are protected,\"\" Clermont\'s Schaefer said.\r\nTwo days after Philippe\'s announcement, France\'s shellshocked clubs held a video conference to discuss their next step, but by that stage they had lost what little power they had.\r\nThe league had formed a panel of three executives to negotiate what money was still owed for the current broadcast agreements, believed to be in the region of $273 million. But both rights holders, Canal Plus and beIN Sports, had immediately made clear they believed their commitments were over.\r\nThe players did not want to play; the government did not want the league to resume; the broadcasters had little interest in showing it if it did. The only way to stem the losses was to prioritize the new Mediapro contract.\r\nAulas and Lyon, worried about missing out on the Champions League for the first time in 20 years, wanted to keep fighting. So, too, did Amiens and Toulouse, who didn\'t contest the ending of the season but who didn\'t want to be relegated, either. For the vast majority, though, there was no way out. The season was over. Paris St.-Germain was declared champion.\r\nNot Quite a Soccer Nation\r\nWhy no other major league followed France\'s lead is open to debate. To some, though, the reason it has not reversed course could be found in a survey published last month by the magazine So Foot: Only 22 percent of people who regularly watch Ligue 1 games, the survey found, actively miss the competition.\r\n\"\"We are maybe not a soccer nation in the same way as Italy or Spain is,\"\" one Ligue 1 executive said. \"\"It explains why there has been no public outcry.\"\"\r\nWithin soccer, too, there is something of a split as to how enduring the effects of the decision might be. A government loan of $255 million to cover the lost revenue from the final tranche of this year\'s television payments, as well as offering to reduce clubs\' tax burden, may help. Still, even P.S.G., the country\'s richest club, estimates it might lose $113 million because of the decision to go dark.\r\n\"\"No business can run without resources for six months,\"\" said Caïazzo, the Saint-Etienne president. \"\"French soccer is at a complete standstill. We are going to be less competitive than our European neighbors, no doubt.\"\"\r\nWhat is not yet clear is what the indirect cost will be. Much of French soccer is traditionally financed by selling players to richer clubs in England, Spain and Germany. The Premier League has paid French clubs more than $1 billion for players in the last five years alone.\r\n\"\r\n','2020-06-30',''),(158,'Sarkozy’s conviction carries echoes for Trump','The Washington Post','Politics',48,'https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/03/02/sarkozy-convicted-trump-similarities/','  Ishaan Tharoor','The ex-president was a polarizing figure, a firebrand who relished in ruffling the feathers of opponents to the left. At home, he demonized immigrants and ethnic minorities and aped the rhetoric of the far right. His penchant for shattering norms, including efforts to politicize the judiciary, drew the ire of critics. Abroad, he raised eyebrows after conspicuously courting Middle East potentates. His glamorous wife, at least for a time, was more admired than him.\r\nEventually, the public tired of his act and the support of a motivated base proved insufficient; he became a one-term president, cast out of power by a national electorate eager for a return to “normalcy.” Stripped of the shield of presidential immunity, he then found himself mired in spiraling legal battles. He raged against the \'grotesque\' witch hunt against him, but could not forestall an ignominious reckoning.\r\nNo, we’re not talking about former president Donald Trump. On Monday, a French court found former French president Nicolas Sarkozy guilty of corruption and influence peddling. He was given a three-year sentence, two years of which were suspended. He may still avoid actual jail time following appeals, but the reputational damage, at the very least, is done — Sarkozy is only the second head of state in modern France to be convicted of corruption.\r\nThe echoes of what’s happening to Sarkozy ought to be ringing loud for Trump. Despite considerable differences in the political contexts where they operated, the two share elements of a political style. In his memoir published last year, former president Barack Obama described Sarkozy as an incorrigible narcissist, “his chest thrust out like a bantam cock’s … never straying from his primary, barely disguised interest, which was to be at the center of the action and take credit for whatever it was that might be worth taking credit for.”\r\n\r\nBoth Trump and Sarkozy demanded absolute loyalty from those around them — as a Le Monde editorial once noted, with Sarkozy it was either \'allegiance or vengeance.\' And they harnessed a divisive, angry agenda to get their way. \'After Sarkozy’s million-miles-an-hour presidency, France — like America now — was running on fumes,\' wrote CNN’s Cyril Vanier last year. “The country was exhausted. For many voters, the passions unleashed, the acrimony, the national soul-searching hadn’t been sustainable.”\r\n\r\nTrump was impeached an unprecedented two times by the House on charges including abuse of power; Sarkozy is now contemplating a spell in prison for the same. \'The charges against Sarkozy, who was president between 2007 and 2012, were centered around the question whether the former French leader was behind a deal with a magistrate to illegally receive information on inquiries linked to him, using false names and unofficial phone lines,\' explained my colleague Rick Noack. \'According to the prosecution, Sarkozy and his then-lawyer and longtime friend Thierry Herzog attempted to bribe the magistrate, Gilbert Azibert, by offering him a high-profile position in return for information. The incident took place after Sarkozy had left office.\'\r\nSarkozy also faces other legal woes, including allegations that he received campaign funding from the late Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi in 2007, an investigation into whether he fraudulently overspent in his failed 2012 reelection bid and a probe launched January into alleged influence-peddling after Sarkozy signed a lucrative contract with a Russian insurance company.\r\nIn court, Sarkozy rejected the various charges against him. \'Never abused my influence, alleged or real,\' he said in December. \'What right do they have to drag me through the mud like this for six years? Is there no rule of law?\'\r\nBut prosecutors argued that he was finally facing the consequences for his abuse of power. \'The events would not have occurred if a former president, as well as a lawyer, had kept in mind the magnitude, the responsibility, and the duties of his office,\' prosecutor Jean-Luc Blachon told the court in Paris as the trial concluded.\r\nThe legal dragnet is tightening around Trump, too. While Republican senators guaranteed his second acquittal on impeachment charges last month, Trump as a private citizen still faces a crowded slate of criminal and civil litigation, including his role in stoking the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, his pre-presidency business dealings and defamation claims by women who allege he assaulted them, claims he has denied. The allegations are in some instances far more grave than those associated with Sarkozy.\r\nBut though the stain of illegal activities doomed Sarkozy’s attempt at a political comeback in 2016, Trump seems still in pole position to make a new bid for the presidency in 2024. He took center stage Sunday at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference and, unrepentant, once more delivered his customary airing of grievances and falsehoods. Rather than work to sideline the former president, the bulk of the Republican Party appears still in his thrall.\r\n\r\nThat may change as the legal cases against Trump and some close allies start to catch up. \'There has to be some consequence for telling these lies — because when you lie to people, they take action based on what they think is true,\' said Philadelphia City Commissioner Al Schmidt, a Republican who received threats after false allegations of fraud in the counting of the city’s votes, to The Washington Post. \'Because it’s such a dangerous new thing that occurred, there has to be some reconciliation. Moving on isn’t enough.\'\r\n','2021-03-02',''),(159,'A third national lockdown seems likely in France as hospitals are overwhelmed.','The New York Times','Health',48,'https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/31/world/covid-france-lockdown.html','N/A','PARIS — More than a year after the government in France ordered its first national lockdown to fight back the Covid-19 pandemic, the authorities now seem to have little choice but to do the same again, as infections rise sharply across the country and hospitals in Paris are overflowing.\r\nPresident Emmanuel Macron will address the country at 8 p.m. on Wednesday and is expected to announce new restrictions, possibly bringing in a third national lockdown, which he has long tried to avoid.\r\nFrance on Tuesday reported more than 5,000 people in intensive care units for the first time since last April, with bed shortages in hospitals in the most affected areas becoming acute. And the slow vaccine rollout has not prevented an outburst of infections, as an average of about 37,000 daily new cases have been reported over the past week.\r\n\'The outlook is worse than frightening,\' Jean-Michel Constantin, the head of the intensive care unit at the Pitié-Salpêtrière hospital in Paris, told RMC radio on Monday.\r\n\'We’re already at the level of the second wave and we’re quickly getting close to the threshold of the first wave,\' he said. \'April is going to be dreadful.\'\r\nNew restrictions were introduced on the regional level in mid-March in an attempt to stave off a third wave of infections, affecting about a third of the population, including the Paris region. The rules forced businesses that are considered nonessential to close, ordered residents to limit their outdoor activities to places within six miles of their homes and banned travel to or from regions where infections were rising.\r\nBut as infections nonetheless stubbornly rose, pressure has been building on Mr. Macron to implement tougher measures.\r\nWriting in Le Journal du Dimanche, 41 doctors from the Paris region warned that hospitals may soon become so stretched that they will have to choose which patients to try to save.\r\n\'All indicators show that the current measures are and will be insufficient to quickly reverse the alarming curve of contaminations,\' they wrote.\r\nMr. Macron, in the same newspaper, said that he would \'look at the effectiveness of the containment measures in the coming days, and we’ll take others if they are necessary.\'\r\nIn late January, Mr. Macron made a calculated gamble of resisting a new national lockdown, hoping that his government could tighten restrictions just enough to fight back a rise in infections.\r\nThat strategy seemed to be working until mid-March, when infections rose sharply and the vaccination campaign failed to gather speed, amid the disarray of the rollout of the AstraZeneca vaccine.\r\nThe health authorities on Tuesday said that about 8.3 million people had received at least a first shot of the coronavirus vaccine, or about 12 percent of the total population. The government plans to vaccinate 10 million people by mid-April and 30 million by the summer.\r\nBut France still lags behind some other Western countries in its vaccine rollout. Britain has vaccinated 46 percent of its population and the United States 29 percent, according to data from The New York Times.\r\nMany doctors and epidemiologists are calling for a lockdown comparable to that of early 2020, when the authorities enforced some of the strictest Covid-19 restrictions in Europe, ordering people to stay inside except for a few exceptions. Schools, which France has kept open since last June, unlike many of its neighbors, could also be forced to close as the virus is increasingly spreading in classrooms.\r\n','2021-03-31',''),(160,'Long-lost Fragonard painting resurfaces in France','France24','Politics',48,'https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20210325-long-lost-fragonard-painting-resurfaces-in-france','N/A','Article 5\r\nLong-lost Fragonard painting resurfaces in France\r\nA painting by the Rococo master Jean-Honore Fragonard not seen in over two centuries has been discovered in eastern France and will be put up for sale in June, the auction house managing the sale said Thursday.\r\nThe small oval portrait of a \"Philosopher Reading\" was discovered hanging high on a wall in a home by an expert at the Encheres-Champagne auctioneers in Epernay, who had been tasked with an estate inventory.\r\nThe family had not paid any attention to the painting in years, but the expert noticed a barely legible inscription of the artist\'s name on the back of its gilded frame.\r\n\"Despite the layers of dust and the yellowed varnish, the energy of his painting remains perfectly recognisable,\" said Stephane Pinta of the Turquin expertise firm in Paris that authenticated the work.\r\nUnlike the sensual pastel scenes that secured Fragonard\'s place in the pantheon of 18th-century masters, the muted illustration of the philosopher poring over his texts was one of just a handful of aged men he depicted.\r\nIt dates from 1768-1770, when Fragonard was moving beyond his more whimsical scenes of stolen kisses in gardens to explore more contemplative subjects that nonetheless exalted the pleasure of painting.\r\nIt also appears to have been executed with the artist\'s trademark virtuosity and speed, Pinta said: \"The paint seems to be moulded or sculpted, at times even applied directly with a finger.\"\r\n\"The artist has reached the summit of his talent. Freed from the extreme minutia of the Rococo style, his brush strokes are quick, precise and incredibly expressive,\" he said.\r\nIts value has been estimated at 1.5 to two million euros ($1.8 to $2.4 million) for a sale set for June 26 in Epernay.\r\n','2021-04-05',''),(161,'Millions of websites offline after fire at French cloud services firm','Reuters','Economy',48,'https://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-ovh-fire-idUSKBN2B20NU','N/A','Millions of websites offline after fire at French cloud services firm\r\nPARIS (Reuters) - A fire at a French cloud services firm has disrupted millions of websites, knocking out government agencies’ portals, banks, shops, news websites and taking out a chunk of the .FR web space, according to internet monitors.\r\n\r\nThe fire, which broke out on Wednesday shortly after midnight at OVHcloud, destroyed one of four data centres in Strasbourg, in eastern France, and damaged another, the company said.\r\nThere was no immediate explanation provided for the blaze, which erupted just two days after the French cloud computing firm kicked off plans for an initial public offering.\r\nEurope’s largest cloud services provider told clients including the French government, the Centre Pompidou and cryptocurrency exchange Deribit to activate their disaster recovery plans following the blaze.\r\n“Firefighters were immediately on the scene but could not control the fire” in the affected data centre, founder and chairman Octave Klaba said on Twitter. He said the plan for the next couple of weeks would include rebuilding the centres’ equipment and checking their fiber optic connections.\r\nSome 100 firemen fought the blaze which sent a thick plume of black smoke into the night sky. Video images showed firefighters dousing one smouldering, multi-storey building in the early morning as they cooled down the site.\r\nFounded by Klaba in 1999, OVHcloud competes against U.S. giants Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Corp’s Azure and Alphabet Inc’s Google Cloud, which dominate the market.\r\n“OVH is a pretty important hosting company on the internet,” said Mike Prettejohn, who directs UK-based network security company Netcraft. He said the affected servers hosted 3.6 million websites, including niche government platforms in France, Britain, Poland and the Ivory Coast.\r\nPrettejohn estimated that just under 2% of the sites with the French .FR domain extension had been affected.\r\nFrench politicians have championed OVHcloud as a possible alternative to U.S. cloud services providers, but it has so far lacked the scale and financial clout to dent their market share.\r\nThe company said on Monday it had started the process for a potential IPO, without giving details.\r\nThe Strasbourg centres were among OVHcloud’s 17 data centres in France, and 32 globally.\r\nSeveral clients said their websites had gone offline or emails could not be accessed. There was no immediate news of any major data losses.\r\nThe Centre Pompidou, one of France’s best known art complexes, said its website was down. Cryptocurrency exchange Deribit said its blog was down but that trading had not been impacted, free chess server Lichess.org said it had lost 24 hours’ worth of games history and news outlet eeNews Europe said its websites were offline.\r\nPR agency Caroline Charles Communication said its data was held at another site but that it had lost access to emails in the middle of Paris Fashion Week.\r\nOVHcloud declined to comment on its fire safety protocols. The site did not pose a toxic risk, it added.\r\n','2021-04-05',''),(162,'France and Germany swoop to buy Russia\'s Sputnik vaccine','CITY AM','Politics',48,'https://www.cityam.com/france-and-germany-swoop-to','Poppy Wood','France and Germany held discussions with Russian President Vladimir Putin last night to supply doses of the country’s Sputnik Covid vaccine as suspicions over the Astrazeneca jab continue to proliferate across the continent.\r\nFrench President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel held a video call with the Russian premier to discuss \'co-operation\' over vaccine supplies.\r\nIt comes after fresh limitations on the Astrazeneca jab in several European countries over mounting fears about potential side effects.\r\nGerman authorities last night suspended the use of the vaccine in under-60s after identifying 31 cases of blood clots known as cerebral sinus vein thrombosis. Among the cases, 29 involved women and nine resulted in death.\r\nMerkel said it was not possible to ignore potential risks associated with the jab, despite its widespread approval from global health bodies including the European Medicines Agency.\r\nUnder-60s in Germany are still able to take the vaccine but only after \'consultation with the doctor… and with an individual risk analysis\', ministers of Germany’s 16 states said in a statement last night.\r\nScientists said it was possible the blood clots were just chance events among the 2.7m doses of the Astrazeneca jab delivered in Germany so far. \r\nCanada also restricted the use of the jab to under-55s yesterday, while France has yet to authorise its use for younger age groups.\r\nNumber 10 last night reiterate its support for the Astrazeneca vaccine, insisting it was \'safe, effective and has already saved thousands of lives\'.\r\n\'Over 30m people have already received their first dose of a vaccine, and we are on track to offer jabs to all over-50s by 15 April and all adults by the end of July,\' said a Downing Street spokesperson.\r\nHousing and communities secretary Robert Jenrick also voiced his support for the jab this morning, telling Sky News: \'We’re 100% confident in the efficacy of the vaccine, that’s borne out by study after study, by our own independent world-class regulators\r\n\'Recent research, for example, by Public Health England [showed] that thousands of people’s lives have been saved since the start of this year alone thanks to our vaccine programme.\'\r\nRussia has already signed a deal with Swiss company Adienne Pharma & Biotech, allowing a subsidiary to begin producing the Sputnik vaccine in Italy by July.\r\nMerkel said last week: \'On the Russian vaccine, I have been of the opinion for some time that we should use any vaccine that has been approved by the European medicines regulator.\'\r\n','2021-03-31',''),(163,'France\'s COVID-19 cases slow but hospitalisations creep up','Reuters','Health',49,'https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/number-french-covid-intensive-care-patients-increases-second-day-running-2021-05-03/','N/A','France\'s new daily COVID-19 infections fell to an almost two-months low on average on Monday, a figure warranting the government\'s decision to start unwinding the country\'s third lockdown.\r\nBut after falling for five days in a row, the number of people hospitalised for the disease went up by 132, a second consecutive increase, at 28,950.\r\nAnd among those, the total amount of patients in intensive care units also rose for the second day running, by 45, at 5,630.\r\nThat total is down by almost 400 from a recent peak of 6,001 reached a week ago but is still twice as high than the 2,500-3,000 range the government had set itself to exit France\'s second lockdown on Dec 15.\r\nThis Monday, a restriction limiting people to a 10 kilometre (6.21 mile) radius from their homes was lifted and secondary schools partly reopened.\r\nFrom May 19, France will start relaxing a 7 p.m. nightly curfew - enforced since mid-December - and allow cafes, bars and restaurants to offer outside service.\r\nFrench health authorities reported 3,760 new confirmed COVID-19 cases, at 5.66 million, the world\'s fourth-highest.\r\nThe 2.76% week-on-week increase stayed below the 3% threshold for the second day running, a sequence unseen since end July.\r\nAnd the seven-day moving average of daily new infections, which evens out reporting irregularities, stood at 21,716, going below the 22,000 limit for the first time since March 10 versus more than a recent peak of 42,225 reached on April 14.\r\nThe COVID-19 death toll increased by 311, at 105,310, the eighth-highest globally.\r\nDespite the pressure still weighing on the hospital system, the government is hoping an acceleration in the vaccination drive will allow it to keep on shelving restrictive measures.\r\nMore than 16.1 million person in France received at least one COVID-19 vaccine shot, a total representing 24.1% of the country\'s population and 30.7% of the adult population.\r\nAlmost 6.7 people received two shots, meaning 10% of the population is now fully vaccinated, versus, for example, 32% in the United States.\r\n','2021-05-03',''),(164,'French banks told to speed up response to climate change','Reuters','Economy',49,'https://www.reuters.com/article/climate-change-fra','Hew Jones','LONDON (Reuters) - French banks and insurers should speed up their response to climate change, France’s banking regulator said on Tuesday, after publishing what it called the world’s first climate-related stress test of banks.\r\n\r\n\r\nOther financial watchdogs around the world will also be conducting similar tests on the finance industry to help to reduce the impact of climate change on economies. Banks and other finance companies will have to disclose to investors the impact of climate change on their balance sheets under proposed European Union rules.\r\nThe ACPR, the banking supervisory arm of the Bank of France, conducted a voluntary pilot test on nine banks and 15 insurers - accounting for nearly all their respective sectors - to measure resilience to common \'scenarios\' like a slow response to climate change.\r\nIt covered a 30-year period from 2020 to 2050, looking at risks from “transitioning” or moving from polluting to more climate-friendly assets and from physical risks like fires and floods.\r\nThe watchdog found that the companies’ exposures to transition risks were \'rather moderate\', but the expected increase in claims and premiums for some insurance risks was particularly noticeable.\r\nThere are also uncertainties over how fast climate change will unfold and data gaps, the watchdog said.\r\n\'In the light of these results, banking institutions and insurers now need to step up their efforts to combat climate change by integrating the risks associated with climate change into their financial risk assessment process,” Bank of France First Deputy Governor Denis Beau told reporters.\r\nThe results will have no impact on how much capital the financial firms must currently hold, and there will be no specific, follow up actions.\r\n\'The aim of the exercise was.. to stimulate thought, analysis and promote a better integration of climate risks into risk management at firms,\' Beau said.\r\nThe French Banking Federation, an industry body, said the results showed the resilience of French banks, with relatively modest exposures to sectors like mining, oil and agriculture.\r\nThe Bank of France is host to the secretariat for the Network for Greening the Financial System, a group of central banks creating best practice in regulating banking risks from climate change.\r\nThe ACPR said its pilot would help to inform the Bank of England’s own climate stress test in June, and a test the European Central Bank will conduct in 2022.\r\nThe ACPR’s own test will become a regular event, with the next one scheduled for 2023/2024\r\n','2021-05-04',''),(165,'Covid-19: French vaccine appointments go unclaimed, reviving debate on who should qualify','France 24','Politics',49,'Internet','N/A','Covid-19: French vaccine appointments go unclaimed, reviving debate on who should qualify\r\nhttps://www.france24.com/en/europe/20210428-covid-19-french-vaccine-appointments-go-unclaimed-reviving-debate-on-who-should-qualify\r\nSome Covid-19 vaccination centres in France have been offering time slots but are struggling to find takers. Faced with this situation, several elected officials and members of the scientific community are calling for more people to be eligible for vaccination. For now, however, the government is keeping its current rules – only those 55 and over qualify – in place.\r\nThe numbers are impressive: 6,591 vaccination time slots were available in Rouen in France’s northwest on Wednesday according to the website Vite Ma Dose, which lists all available appointments at vaccination centres and pharmacies. The number of slots hit 11,700 in Marseille and was almost quadruple that at 43,000 in Lyon. In total, the platform listed 273,163 available vaccination slots in France on Wednesday. \r\nWhile France wants to accelerate its vaccination campaign – the country passed the symbolic mark of 20 million injections on Tuesday – some people who have been granted access to a jab now seem reluctant to make an appointment.\r\nInternet users have been sharing screenshots of dozens of unused time slots on social networks in recent days. Under the hashtag #LesJeunesVeulentLeVaccin (#YouthWantTheVaccine), many are also calling for a relaxation of the criteria for access to vaccination so that young people, in particular, can receive their first dose.  \r\nCurrently in France, only people over 55 years old; people over 50 with a comorbidity (certified by a doctor’s note); people of any age with one of the high-risk conditions listed by the government; and workers in certain high-risk professions can be vaccinated.   \r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\"We have an epidemic that currently causes 300 deaths per day on average,\" epidemiologist Catherine Hill told FRANCE 24. \"It is therefore necessary to vaccinate the population as soon as possible.”\r\n\"It was logical, at the beginning, to vaccinate the people most at risk,\" she said. “But if, from now on, we have available doses that are not being administered to priority recipients, then we might as well administer them to younger people.”\r\n‘It is urgent to expand vaccination’\r\nThe gigantic “vaccinodrome” at the Stade de France just north of Paris is among the vaccination centres that are struggling to find takers, a somewhat surreal situation as the incidence rate of Covid-19 in Seine-Saint-Denis, the working-class département (administrative territory) that includes the stadium, is 550 cases per 100,000 inhabitants, according to data published by France’s National Health Agency. \r\nThe population there is younger, on average, than it is nationwide, said Stéphane Troussel, the council chairman of Seine-Saint-Denis. \"With the vaccinodromes multiplying in Île-de-France (the Paris region) and the allocation of additional doses, it is urgent to expand vaccination, in particular to frontline workers in the most affected areas with the youngest populations,\" he said on Twitter.\r\nTroussel’s top health deputy said that all doses are currently finding takers in an interview on France Info Tuesday, but admitted “drawing from the waiting lists more and more often\" even if it that means vaccinating people who are not currently within the government’s approved categories.\r\nTroussel\'s call to expand vaccination is shared by Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo, who wants to relax age limits for vaccine recipients. \"It\'s a scandal that doses are not being used when so many people want to be vaccinated. It is time to be more flexible and pragmatic,\" she told France Info.\r\nVincent Maréchal, a professor of virology at the University of Paris-Sorbonne, fears that the current waiting period will discourage young people from getting vaccinated when their time comes. \"We are in a country where there is a real mistrust of the vaccine,\" he told FRANCE 24. \"And yet we have people ready to get vaccinated who cannot. We don\'t want this situation to result in a flurry of discouraged people in a few weeks.”\r\n\"We know that vaccinating helps protect against severe forms of Covid-19,\" Maréchal said. \"There is also increasing evidence that vaccination can limit the circulation of the virus. But for that, we need to vaccinate en masse.”\r\nNo lack of demand \r\nStanislas Niox-Chateau, the head of Doctolib, an online medical booking platform, tried to sound reassuring at a Wednesday press conference. \"The vaccination campaign against Covid-19 does not suffer from a lack of demand,” he said. “At least, in the vaccination centres offering BioNTech/Pfizer and Moderna vaccines.\"\r\nNiox-Chateau doesn’t see unfilled vaccination time slots as resulting from a shortage of willing recipients, but rather the increased number of doses delivered to France each week. It is perfectly normal that with more doses there will be more appointments, he said.\r\n\"Every day, Doctolib offers about 250,000 appointments. Every day, these appointments are taken,\" he said, specifying that the waiting time between making an appointment and getting the jab is currently nine days on average.\r\nNiox-Chateau explained, however, that he has no data on people who make same-day appointments, especially at the last minute. \"Doctolib connects individuals with vaccination centres,\" after which the centres themselves decide whether to accept off-target people or not.\r\n\"Moreover, it would be very difficult to accelerate vaccination with BioNTech/Pfizer and Moderna,\" Niox-Chateau added, noting the very high usage rates for the two vaccines. According to France’s Regional Health Directorate, the utilisation rate of the BioNTech/Pfizer vaccine was 91 percent, up from 89 percent on March 30, and 82 percent for the Moderna vaccine against 65 percent a month before.   \r\n\"Vaccine supplies are improving every day,\" said virologist Maréchal. \"If the demand is there, why not extend vaccination now? Why not, for example, open up vaccination but create a system so that priority people remain priority?\"\r\nRather than calling for an expansion of France’s vaccination programme, Niox-Chateau said that there are still many slots available for the AstraZeneca jab with Paris doctors and pharmacists.\r\nThe AstraZeneca vaccine is administered at a rate of 45,000 doses per day when \"we could reach 100,000 to 150,000\", he said. The rate of use of the AstraZeneca vaccine, shunned by part of the French population in the wake of reports of blood clotting in a small number of recipients, was at only 73 percent on April 25.\r\nThe potential for more daily jabs should first benefit the \"7 million French people over 60 who still don’t have an appointment”, he said.\r\nFrance’s Health Minister Olivier Véran acknowledged Tuesday that a number of large vaccination centres had open slots and called on those eligible for vaccination \"to rush to their phone or computer to look if the centre closest to them has openings\".\r\n“An expansion of the vaccination programme\" would be \"premature\" at this stage, Prime Minister Jean Castex said after a Cabinet meeting Wednesday. But he did not close the door on an eventual expansion of the eligible categories if it is confirmed that available appointments were “not being honored”.\r\n','2021-05-11',''),(166,'Resume French way of life: Macron lays out four-stage plan for lifting France’s lockdown','The Local','Politics',49,'Internet','N/A','French President Emmanuel Macron detailed on Thursday how France will lift its \"partial lockdown\" in a series of steps including ending the nighttime curfew and reopening cafés, bars and gyms\r\n\r\nDetailing the long-awaited reopening plan, the president chose an interview with a group of French regional newspapers, rather than his usual TV broadcasts.\r\nThe president has opted for a four-stage process, with three weeks between each stage in order to assess the impact on Covid numbers.\r\nAs with previous reopening plans, the latter stages are dependent on the health situation remaining under control and could be pushed back if numbers start to climb again.\r\nThere is also an option for regional measures if some places still have high Covid rates.\r\nMacron in his interview with papers including Le Parisien said: “I am confident that the whole of France will be able to move to the May 19th stage.\r\n“The measures will be national, but we will be able to activate ’emergency brakes’ in areas where the virus is circulating at too high a rate.”\r\nReopening could be delayed in any town or département which has a 7-day incidence rate of more than 400 new cases per 100,000 people, a sudden jump in rates and intense pressure on local health services.\r\nThe reopening plan will now be the subject of consultation with businesses and other stakeholders, before Prime Minister Jean Castex presents a more detailed version during the week of May 10th.\r\nHere’s the outline of the plan:\r\nMonday, May 3rd\r\nTravel rules will be lifted with the end of the 10km rule and no more need for attestations for anyone out between 6am and 7pm.\r\nSecondary schools go back to in-person classes after four works of holidays and distance learning while high schools (lycées) return to a minimum of 50 percent of in-person classes. The percentage of in-person versus online teaching will be set by each school.\r\nAll other rules remain the same.\r\nThe following will happen only if the health situation allows, and could be done on a regional basis:\r\nWednesday, May 19th\r\n•	Curfew will be pushed back to 9pm from the current 7pm start.\r\n•	Reopening of the “non-essential” shops which are currently closed\r\n•	Reopening of cinemas, theatres and museums, with number restrictions\r\n•	Reopening of open-air sports facilities\r\n•	Cafés, bars and restaurants will be able to reopen their outdoor terrace spaces only, with a maximum of 6 people per table\r\n•	Gatherings of up to 10 people allowed again in public places\r\n•	Reopening of open-air or covered sports facilities to spectators, with number restrictions\r\n•	Wednesday, June 9th\r\n•	Implementation of a pass sanitaire – a ‘health passport’ showing either a vaccine certificate or recent Covid test that will be compulsory to access certain areas or events\r\n•	Curfew pushed back to 11pm\r\n•	Cafés, bars and restaurants allowed to reopen indoor spaces, with a maximum of 6 people per table\r\n•	Possible public events including concerts and sports matches with a maximum of 5,000 people – only with a pass sanitaire\r\n•	Opening borders to non-EU tourists and visitors – only with a pass sanitaire, more details HERE\r\n•	Relaxation of the rules on remote working to allow people back to offices and workplaces\r\n•	Reopening of public meeting rooms with a maximum of 5,000 people – only with a pass sanitaire\r\n•	Reopening of indoor sports centres and gyms\r\nFull details of exactly how the ‘health passports’ will work have not yet been revealed, but here’s what was involved in a pilot scheme of the pass.\r\nFor people in France wanting to access large gatherings, concerts etc this would be via the TousAntiCovid tracker app, which has recently been updated to allow test results and vaccine certificates to be scanned. The app then creates a QR code which can be read by staff at events or concert venues.\r\nExactly how this will work for international travellers is for the present less clear, especially since the EU are also in the process of creating a digital pass which France is keen to use.\r\nWednesday, June 30th\r\n•	End of the curfew\r\n•	Possibility of events of more than 1,000 people, indoors or outdoors. Entrants will need a valid pass sanitaire\r\nDuring the interview, Macron said it was time to start “resuming our French-style way of life”, citing the need for “conviviality”, culture and sport.\r\nBut people needed to remain “careful and responsible”, he said.\r\nMacron, who is expected to seek re-election next year, drew strong criticism for rejecting calls by medical experts to order a third national lockdown in late January to bring down a stubbornly high coronavirus caseload.\r\nTwo months later he finally relented and introduced a partial lockdown from April 3rd.\r\nIn the interview with regional media he defended his handling of the health crisis, saying: “We were enlightened by science and took the decision to prioritise the human aspect above all.”\r\nHe added: “The daily life of the country cannot be reduced to the evolution of infection curves. I am obliged to look at the consequence of the closure of a school, when a child will not have a meal a day; or the consequence when a business is asked to close for several weeks. I know their distress today. We must take all of this into account.”\r\nThe president said that the big difference between this and previous reopenings was the vaccine programme, although he resisted calls to scrap the priority groups system and allow everyone to access a vaccine.\r\nHe said: “We will continue to prioritise by age because it is the most effective. Vaccinating the most vulnerable reduces the pressure on hospital services.\r\n“But we have doses in stock. We are therefore going to open up vaccination to all those over 18 years of age who are seriously overweight (BMI greater than 30) as of May 1st. I invite the 2.3 million French people concerned to go to the vaccination centers starting this weekend.”\r\n','2021-05-11',''),(178,' What Trump could learn from the fall of France\'s own fiery \'law and order\' president','CNN','Politics',42,'https://edition.cnn.com/2020/10/12/europe/trump-france-sarkozy-analysis-intl/index.html','Cyril Vanier','Americans are on the eve of a momentous political choice this November. But for a jump on how the story goes from here, consider what happened in France, where another \'back to normal\' candidate challenged a firebrand incumbent.\r\nLet me explain: I was born and raised in Paris, France and on the eve of the 2016 US presidential election, I relocated with my family to the southern state of Georgia for CNN International.\r\nWe were still unpacking our suitcases on election night, when the polls sent then-Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton home and Republican nominee Donald Trump to the White House. And I had barely gotten behind the anchor desk by the time Trump spoke of \'American carnage\' in his inaugural address, setting the tone for his presidency.\r\nIn the years that followed, I had a front row seat as Trump took a wrecking ball to presidential norms. As I watched the endless presidential transgressions, unrelenting media coverage, and bitterness on both sides of the political divide, it started to feel... familiar.\r\nIt reminded me of France a decade earlier, where then-French President Nicolas Sarkozy had reveled in incensing liberals, dominating the headlines, and borrowing from the lexicon of the far-right.\r\nTo say the norms of presidential behavior were broken during his first term would be an understatement. Highlights of Sarkozy\'s colorful conduct as president include him telling a hostile bystander, \'get lost, asshole!\' and egging a heckling fisherman to \'come down and say it!\' His post-election holiday on the private yacht of a French billionaire -- a no-no in French politics -- was never quite forgiven. And his controversial push to strip French nationality from foreign-born citizens who committed grave crimes never made it past parliament.\r\nOf course, he is not Trump. Sarkozy is a conservative career politician who knew the affairs of state inside out. He didn\'t make a habit of insulting political opponents, promote conspiracy theories, or alienate France\'s closest allies. And he was chummy with US Democrats: In 2008, he embraced Barack Obama, then a senator vying for the Democratic nomination, in Paris; in 2016, he favored Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.\r\nSarkozy even tried to pump the brakes midway through his presidency. Following a rout in regional elections and a waning popularity, he softened his tone -- to \'presidentialize himself\' as the French press described it. More in control, less erratic, less confrontational. \'We need authenticity, not histrionics. I must be minimalist,\' Sarkozy told French newspaper Le Journal du Dimanche, a year before his reelection bid.\r\nBut it was too late. And this is where the parallels matter most: After Sarkozy\'s million-miles-an-hour presidency, France -- like America now -- was running on fumes. The country was exhausted. For many voters, the passions unleashed, the acrimony, the national soul-searching hadn\'t been sustainable.\r\nAnd Sarkozy\'s raucous re-election campaign, like Trump\'s today, did nothing to suggest a second term might offer something different. When your brand is firebrand, it\'s hard to slow down. On all his signature issues, Sarkozy leaned in: Naked appeals to the far-right, a pledge to halve the flow of immigration because there were \"too many foreigners in our country,\" attacks on the media and diatribes against vague \'intermediary bodies\' impeding his government\'s work.\r\nHis base loved it but it wasn\'t enough.\r\nIn 2012, Sarkozy lost to socialist candidate François Hollande, an opponent so devoid of charisma he elicited the nickname \'Mr. Normal.\' Critics\' nicknames for him included \'Flanby,\' a gelatinous caramel desert for kids, and \'Culbuto,\' a tumbler toy which rolls in every direction.\r\nThe truth is that Nicolas Sarkozy beat himself. He was his own worst enemy. His approval rating clocked in at 36% one month before the election according to the IFOP polling institute, the worst ever for an incumbent at the time. His disapproval rating also set records, at 64%.\r\nHollande had only to ride the wave of anger against the incumbent. And that\'s what he did: Asked during the French presidential debate what kind of president he would be, Hollande spent half of his three minutes detailing what he wouldn\'t be: An anti-Sarkozy manifesto, widely considered the signature moment of the debate. Four days later, he was the president-elect.\r\nTherein lies the lesson from France: After years of saturating the media, breaking cultural and political taboos, there comes a point when the politics of transgression stop working. Voters, after a while, have heard too much. And they hunger for \'Mr. Normal.\'\r\n','2020-10-12',''),(179,'Brexit: Why France is raising the stakes over fishing','BBC','Politics',42,'https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-54526145','Lucy Williamson','In a cramped cabin, with the green waters of the Channel bobbing and tipping outside, Laurent Merlin listens to messages from Dutch and Belgian fishermen crackling over the radio.\r\nSharing their positions helps avoid any clashes - a technique that works better at sea than at summits.\r\nWith less than three months to go until Britain leaves the EU single market, fishing has become a key sticking point in negotiating a trade deal to replace it. Especially when it comes to access for EU fishermen in UK waters.\r\nEuropean leaders are due to meet on Thursday to try to find a way forward.\r\n\r\nLaurent Merlin is based in Boulogne-sur-Mer, a city at the heart of France\'s fishing industry.\r\nHis grandfather used to fish in the waters off Scotland, while his father fished in the Channel.\r\n\'We might decide to flex our muscles\'\r\nToday, three-quarters of Laurent\'s own crabs and lobsters come from British fishing grounds. He\'s worried that the ebb and flow of post-Brexit trade negotiations could sink boats like his if they\'re denied access.\r\n\'If we can\'t enter British waters, it\'s practically the end of our profession,\' he said.\r\nA quarter of France\'s national catch comes from Britain\'s fish-rich waters. In northern ports like Boulogne-sur-Mer, fishermen are dependent on them.\r\n\'If there\'s no deal, we\'re going to ask that the French get the French waters,\' Mr Merlin explained. \'That the Belgians go back to Belgium, and the Dutch as well. Because if all those boats get kicked out and come here [to French fishing grounds], it\'ll be unbearable.\'\r\n\r\nThe UK is said to have suggested changing the way its fish stocks are allocated, and tapering off EU catches there over three years.\r\n\'Fishermen are for no deal\'\r\nFrance has so far refused any change to the current arrangements, saying it won\'t abandon its fishermen. \'No deal is better than a bad deal,\' the government says.\r\nAnnaïg Le Meur is a Brittany MP from President Emmanuel Macron\'s party. \'I think the fishermen are for no deal,\' she told me. \'They are afraid, and when people are afraid they choose either yes or no, not the solutions in between.\'\r\nBut talk to fishermen in Boulogne, and many say they would accept a compromise on their British quotas, rather than lose access completely.\r\nStéphane Pinto, the deputy head of the regional fishing committee in Boulogne, told me: \'It would be a lot more acceptable to have 80% of the catch in British waters than nothing at all.\'\r\nWhat about 60% of the catch?\r\n\'Errrr…. that\'s not viable,\' he said. \'But with some sort of financial compensation? Maybe.\'\r\n\r\nThe EU\'s chief negotiator has pleaded with leaders for some wriggle room on fishing that would allow the two sides to find a compromise.\r\nWhy Macron appears hard line\r\nFrance has said it will not consider fishing separately from the rest of the deal. A source at the Elysée Palace said the country would not negotiate over fishing rights \'like carpet merchants\'\r\nwithout assessing the overall package.\r\nSome fishermen fear they will be sacrificed for British agreement on other key issues, like state aid.\r\nAnd with new British legislation allowing the UK to break part of its withdrawal agreement with the EU, trust is in short supply.\r\n\'We do want to trust the UK,\' Clément Beaune, France\'s Europe minister said. \'[But] what we have seen in the last weeks regarding the withdrawal agreement is extremely worrying. There will be no agreement on future relations if we don\'t have full confidence on respect of the withdrawal agreement.\'\r\n\r\nDespite the French government\'s tough line, many here believe a deal on fishing is possible. So why does President Emmanuel Macron seem more hard line than the fishermen themselves?\r\n\r\nJournalist John Lichfield has covered the EU fishing industry, from France and Brussels, for more than 30 years. He says there are high political stakes for Mr Macron in the northern part of France.\r\n\'The north of France around Boulogne is hugely important for the presidential election in 2022,\' he says. \'The regional president... might well be one of Macron\'s main rivals at that time, so he [Macron] needs to be seen to be supporting what is already a struggling area economically.\'\r\nBut Mr Macron is not the only one facing pressures.\r\n\r\n\'What is going to be more difficult is [UK PM] Boris Johnson turning on its head some of the exaggerated rhetoric there\'s been around fishing and Brexit in the British imagination, and certainly in the Conservative imagination, in the past two or three years,\' says Mr Lichfield.\r\n\'And so it\'s probably harder for Boris Johnson to make that deal [on fishing] than it is for Macron.\'\r\nBut it\'s not just EU industries that could lose out if there\'s no deal on fishing.\r\nAt Boulogne\'s fish market, buyers are up before dawn to choose fish for their restaurant tables. Three quarters of Britain\'s catch is sold to the EU.\r\nA no-deal risks a kind of mutually assured destruction for fishermen on both sides of the Channel.\r\nBut navigating contested waters like these is much harder for negotiators in Brussels than fishermen in Boulogne.\r\n\r\n','2020-10-12',''),(180,'Macron has enjoyed wielding his authority during Covid – and the French don\'t like it','The Guardian','Society',42,'https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/oct/16/emmanuel-macron-covid-french-france-restrictions-president','Cole Stanger','It\'s not quite a lockdown, but the new measures announced by President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday come pretty close. Starting this Saturday, Paris and eight other metropolitan areas, home to some 20 million people, will see curfews imposed on all non-essential activity between 9pm and 6am for at least four weeks.\r\nWith France now well into its second wave of Covid-19 – the last week has seen 120,000 new cases alongside a steady uptick in hospitalisations – fresh restrictions had come to be seen as inevitable. Still, as the shower of criticism from across the political spectrum has made clear, that hasn\'t made the new measures any less grating.\r\nMuch of the groaning stems from a broader sense of frustration shared by the public: while French authorities may have fared better than their counterparts in the US or UK – less dithering in the early stages and less amateurism overall – there is nevertheless a sense that the government hasn\'t fully met the challenge. One need only look to neighbouring Germany, which counts both far fewer deaths and a fraction of the caseload today.\r\nTo be fair, French authorities have tackled some of the most glaring deficiencies from the spring in addition to extending some vital economic aid. There is no longer a shortage of masks, and in the cities where wearing one is required, people largely follow the rules. While still insufficient, testing is also on the rise. Meanwhile, the pillar of the government\'s support system for workers – a broad expansion of partial unemployment benefits – has been extended until at least the end of the year. (In France, employees put on this scheme are paid 84% of their net salary, more generous than the latest job support scheme in the UK.)\r\nBut French people also tend to hold the state to a high standard. If they\'re making personal sacrifices, they rightfully expect something in return. And polls show they\'ve been disappointed with what they\'ve been offered.\r\nThe French were already among the most critical in Europe of their government\'s response. According to one opinion study in May, strong majorities of Germans and Britons (and even 50% of Italians) believed their government was handling the crisis well, while two-thirds of French people felt just the opposite. That lack of confidence persists. A poll last month found that 62% in France still didn\'t have faith in Macron and his government to successfully fight the pandemic.\r\nMuch of the mistrust took root in the early days of the crisis. Just as their counterparts did elsewhere in Europe, government officials repeatedly told the public that wearing masks was unnecessary. We now know there was a shortage of masks at the time and that the government was desperately scrambling to replenish its stock behind closed doors.\r\nAnd yet, to this day, high-ranking officials haven\'t offered credible explanations for why those initial recommendations turned out to be so patently and fatally false. In one blistering column lambasting the state for keeping citizens in the dark, journalist Edwy Plenel quotes from the pages of historian Marc Bloch\'s Strange Defeat, the classic 1940 analysis of France\'s defeat at the hands of Nazi Germany: \"Our people deserve to be trusted, to be taken into the confidence of their leaders\".\r\nMore recent criticism has focused on the state\'s management of la rentrée, the collective return to school and work after summer vacation. According to the government\'s latest weekly data, universities and schools now make up a staggering 35% of Covid clusters under investigation, more than any other source. The second largest source are workplaces, generating about a fifth of current outbreaks.\r\nBafflingly, the government continues to urge people to go to work. While the state officially encourages \"telecommuting\", it has left the final say on the matter to individual employers who, in large numbers, have apparently decided it\'s not worth the hassle. That insistence on a physical on-the-job presence is proving especially inflammatory under the new restrictions: according to the government\'s logic, meeting friends on a cafe terrace at night is too risky, and yet packing into an enclosed warehouse or office is safe, so long as one follows the right precautions. As an MP from the left wing La France Insoumise party wryly put it: \"Macron is locking down the hours of freedom that French people have. Does the virus disappear in the morning?\" Another conservative MP and second-in-command of the right wing Les Républicains party also slammed the \"absurdity\" of policies that call for \"curfew at night, but metro in the day\".\r\nIn the meantime, contact tracing systems have proven largely inadequate, with the president himself acknowledging the failure of the government\'s \"StopCovid\" application and vowing to unveil a new-and-improved version next week. (The current iteration has been downloaded just 2.6m times, far less than its counterparts in the UK or Germany, which, last month, counted 12m and 18m downloads respectively.) Earlier this week, the French prime minister, Jean Castex, revealed he didn\'t even have the app on his phone himself, all the while repeatedly and incorrectly referring to it as \"TéléCovid\". One bemused commenter online quipped that Castex must have been looking for it on his Minitel, the infamous French-designed precursor to the internet that never quite took hold abroad.\r\nAmplifying each of these missteps, trip-ups and inadequacies is the government\'s highly verticalised process for approving and communicating policies. Of course, top-down decision-making is a feature of the French state and, in particular, the turbocharged Fifth Republic presidency designed by Charles de Gaulle. But Macron has done little to break with those traditions – to the contrary, he has basked in the aura of his authority, unveiling each of the key changes in Covid policy in a string of highly choreographed, nationally televised primetime speeches.\r\nThe French can be unforgiving of their politicians, and unsurprisingly, Macron has been personally taking the heat for his management of the crisis. This is one of the risks of his approach to the job: shining a spotlight on executive action can magnify success, but it can also make for an easy target when things go wrong.\r\n','2020-11-06',''),(181,'French government contradicts itself on new Paris curfew','Politico','Society',42,'https://www.politico.eu/article/france-government-paris-coronavirus-curfew/','Pierre-Paul Bermingham ','Curfew is \'absolutely not decided at this stage,\' says prime minister\'s office.\r\nThe French prime minister\'s office denied that a coronavirus-related curfew was being reinstated in Paris, after government spokesman Gabriel Attal announced the measure earlier on Tuesday morning.\r\nAttal stated on BFM TV that the government \"will restore a curfew in Paris and maybe in the Ile-de-France [wider Paris] region.\" Asked what time the curfew would begin, he responded \"9 p.m., I think,\" adding that the interior minister would give details later in the day.  \r\nBut a curfew is \"absolutely not decided at this stage,\" the prime minister\'s office said in a statement less than an hour later.\r\nIn conjunction with the Paris police prefecture and the municipality of Paris, \"a decision will be made in the next few days.\" According to the statement, the measure would consist of imposing a time at which businesses authorized to open during lockdown would have to close, \"in light of certain situations observed in Paris at evening times.\"\r\nAttal cited parties in a Paris courtyard and in a bar in nearby Évry-Courcouronnes as examples of such situations, also pointing to the 14,000 people who have been fined for breaking lockdown without justification, out of over 100,000 controls carried out since Friday.\r\nLater Tuesday morning, Health Minister Olivier Véran explained that the Paris prefect had approached the government to discuss measures to prevent large gatherings, which Véran said \"could be correlated to a certain number of [open] businesses in the evening.\"\r\nFrance had imposed a 9 p.m. curfew on October 17 in Paris, the Île-de-France region, and eight other metropolitan areas. The curfew was later extended to further areas, before being replaced by a national lockdown which started October 30.\r\nThis was the latest in a series of confusions over the restrictions this week, including over what products and stores should be deemed \"essential\" during lockdown, and which officials should be announcing those decisions.\r\n','2020-11-06',''),(182,'Why France’s lockdown could turn into a sales bonanza for Amazon','N/A','Politics',42,'Internet','N/A','Why France’s lockdown could turn into a sales bonanza for Amazon\r\n\r\nAmazon agreed to suspend its French advertising campaign for its Black Friday sales, on request from junior economy minister Agnès Pannier-Runacher\r\nThe French government’s decision to ban supermarkets and big retailers from selling goods deemed “nonessential” could amount to a blank check for U.S. retailer Amazon AMZN, -1.04%, which already enjoyed success in the country in spite of being much-maligned.\r\n•	The lockdown originally announced by French President Emmanuel Macron last week included the closure of all bookstores, whereas big retailer chains were allowed to keep selling books.\r\n•	After an uproar, the French government decided to ban retailers from selling books and other cultural goods such as CDs or DVDs.\r\n•	It then extended the ban, and supermarkets will now be banned from selling  items such as clothes, shoes, beauty products, toys, jewels or household equipment, because small independent specialist stores will be forced to close.\r\n•	Online retailers are not included in the restrictions, which mean that Amazon is now expected to become the main beneficiary of the measures, even though the government set aside €100 million to help small businesses set up online sites.\r\n•	Amazon agreed to suspend its French advertising campaign for its Black Friday sales, due Nov. 27, on request from junior economy minister Agnès Pannier-Runacher, who said the planned campaign was “not at all appropriate.”\r\nThe outlook: The hesitations and u-turns of the French government illustrate the sometimes arbitrary and improvised character of lockdown measures, which are bound to hit businesses differently depending on their size. Expect more French calls to press ahead with a global digital tax on internet giants.\r\nThe row over who is banned and who isn’t will put pressure on the government when the time comes to decide whether or not to prolong the current lockdown, which expires on Dec. 1. In France, as in the rest of Europe, the Christmas season accounts to about 20% of annual retail sales.\r\n\r\n\r\n','2020-11-11',''),(183,'Paris RIOTS: French police fire tear gas and charge at protestors blocking street','Express','Politics',42,'N/A','N/A','Paris RIOTS: French police fire tear gas and charge at protestors blocking street\r\nhttps://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1355426/Paris-riot-protests-lockdown-latest-update-France-news-Emmanuel-Macron\r\n\r\nRIOTS broke out in Paris this morning, as high school students protested against the lack of social distancing in schools.\r\nDozens of high school students were involved in the protests, which took place outside several Parisian schools. Violent scenes erupted outside Lycée Colbert, in the 10th arrondissement in Paris, as police attempted to disperse students by charging into them and spraying tear gas.\r\n\r\nPupils at the school had blockaded the three main entrances with large bins.\r\nShocking videos and photos from the scene show the officers brutally attempting to clear the main door.\r\nThe officers were wearing masks and holding shields as they attempted to make ground and disperse the young protestors.\r\nSome students were injured in the clash.\r\n\r\nFollowing a number of failed attempts, police eventually removed the students from outside the school and cleared the bins blocking the entrance. \r\nAround 60 students have been fined for their involvement in the protests.\r\nFrance entered a second national lockdown last week, but schools remain open.\r\nHigh school students are demanding the closure of schools, as they claim there are not sufficient measures in place to protect pupils and staff from the spread of coronavirus.\r\nOne student said: \"We are asking for real confinement, to preserve our health but also that of teachers and our families.\"\r\nA number of other demonstrations took place outside other Parisian schools today, including at Hélène-Boucher high school, in the 20th arrondissement, and the Maurice-Ravel high school, a neighbour of Hélène-Boucher.\r\nIn the 4th arrondissement, the Sophie-Germain high school was also blocked.\r\nOn Thursday October 29, French President Emmanuel Macron declared a second national lockdown will be introduced from October 30 until at least December 1.\r\nUnder the new rules, people are only allowed to go to work if home working is not possible, buy essential goods, attend medical appointments and exercise for one hour a day.\r\nPeople are banned from travelling between regions and have to remain within 1km from their homes.\r\nThey also have to carry a form explaining why they are outside.\r\nSchools have remained open.\r\nFrance reported a record 52,518 new COVID-19 cases on Monday, while the country’s death toll rose by 416 to 37,435.\r\nHealth Minister Olivier Véran has said one Parisian is getting infected with the deadly virus every 30 seconds, while every 15 minutes there is a Parisian arriving in hospital as a result of COVID-19.\r\n','2020-11-11',''),(184,'Christmas: Petition for French ski stations to open','The Connexion French news and views','Travel',43,'https://www.connexionfrance.com/French-news/Thousands-sign-petition-for-French-ski-stations-at-Christmas','Hannah Thompson','Thousands of people have signed a petition calling for the total reopening of all ski stations in France over Christmas, after the government ordered them to remain closed until January.\r\nThe call, named Cet hiver, je skie (\"This winter, I am skiing/will ski\"), is also supported by president of the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region, Laurent Wauquiez.\r\nThe petition was launched by 70 ministers and mountain industry professionals, and published on Saturday November 28 alongside an open letter in newspaper Le Journal du Dimanche.\r\nAt the time of writing, it has gathered more than 21,500 signatures.\r\nIt was also notably supported by Jean-Luc Boch, president of of French mountain association France Montagne and ANMSM; Alexandre Maulin, president of the Domaines Skiables de France (DSF); Éric Brèche, president of ski instructors’ union Syndicat National des Moniteurs du Ski Français (SNMSF); and many local MPs.\r\nIt calls on President Emmanuel Macron to “rethink” his decision and allow the “mountain to be open”.\r\nThe open letter said: “Mr President of the Republic, do not kill the French mountains! The decisions taken may purely and simply condemn them. We have worked to safely welcome people who love the mountains.\r\n“We have made proposals to the government and commitments were made by your ministers. Our only ask is that we are listened to.”\r\nThe letter continued that Christmas represents “between 20-25% of a business that only takes place for barely four months of the year” and that “Christmas is major for the mountain”.\r\nFrance has around 350 ski stations, which employ around 120,000 seasonal workers per year - with around 12-25% of business takings usually coming in over the Christmas period. The industry is worth €11 billion per year.\r\nClosure confirmation\r\nIn his televised speech on deconfinement plans on Tuesday November 24, President Macron said it was \"\"very hard to see how [ski stations] could open for the holiday period\"\", and on Thursday November 26, Prime Minister Jean Castex confirmed this.\r\nRather than an increased risk of Covid-19 spreading between skiers - although this is a risk - the main concern is that extra tourists and possible skiing accidents might pile pressure onto already overloaded local hospitals.\r\nMr Macron and Mr Castex have said it is more likely that stations will be able to reopen “in January”.\r\nMore calls to open stations\r\nThe petition is not the only call in recent days asking for ski stations to open.\r\nPresident of small and medium business federation Medef, Geoffroy Roux de Bézieux, has also criticised the government’s decision.\r\nIn an interview with Europe1/Les Échos/CNEWS, he said: “Solutions cannot simply [come] from the head of state. [This question] must be a real discussion between professionals, doctors, and scientists, and the government can find a solution.”\r\nSimilarly, mayor of Nice Christian Estrosi has called for two local downhill ski stations - as well as a neighbouring cross-country ski field - to reopen, but only for Alpes-Maritimes residents and second-home owners, in an attempt to “save their opening” over the important Christmas period.\r\nMr Boch also said that Macron\'s words had been a “cold shower” to the industry, and said that France needed to open because Switzerland and Austria are so far planning to open, in contrast to Germany and Italy.\r\nHe said: “Our main competitors in Europe are Austria and Switzerland, not Germany or Italy.”\r\n\r\n','2020-12-01',''),(185,'Dogs being trained to sniff out COVID-19 even before symptoms develop','Financial Review','Health',43,'https://www.afr.com/policy/health-and-education/dogs-being-trained-to-sniff-out-covid-19-even-before-symptoms-develop-20201125-p56hql','Jill Margo','Sniffer dogs are being tested around the world, including in Australia, to see if they can become the next line of defence against COVID-19.\r\nJust as they are used to detect drugs, explosives, malaria and some cancers, so preliminary research suggests they may be able to detect COVID-19 even when a person has no symptoms.\r\n\r\nIt is hoped they will supplement existing tests. Ideally, they could be walked though crowds to sniff out people with COVID-19 in stadiums, malls, schools, airports and train stations. They could also be useful in hospitals and quarantine locations.\r\nResearchers from the University of Adelaide’s school of animal and veterinary sciences, who are part of an international alliance to train sniffer dogs to detect COVID-19 infection in sweat, are expected to release results of their research this week.\r\nThey have been co-ordinating the Australian arm of the alliance, comparing Australian dogs\' ability to detect volatile organic compounds (VOCs) induced by COVID-19 with standard diagnostic laboratory testing.\r\nThe international team, led out of the National Veterinary School in Alfort, France, has preliminary results showing specialised working dogs can detect these VOCs with an 83 per cent to 100 per cent success rate.\r\nBut, apart from one published pilot study from Germany, all the research to date is preliminary, according to a news report in the journal Nature.\r\nSeveral studies have been placed on early preprint platforms, but have not yet been peer reviewed. While there is optimism in the field, scientists caution against making big claims from small data sets, under pandemic pressure.\r\nHigh success rate\r\nIn the German pilot, eight dogs from the armed forces identified 83 per cent of positive cases and 96 per cent of negative ones.\r\nEarly this month, a group called International K9 Team held an online workshop to share preliminary results and devise methods for co-ordinating research.\r\nIt heard dogs in Finland and Lebanon identified cases days before conventional tests picked up the virus, suggesting they may detect infection before symptoms develop.\r\nSome illnesses give off distinct patterns of VOCs. As these molecules evaporate, they create a scent that dogs can detect.\r\nWhile the COVID-19 virus may have a unique VOC signature, it is suggested dogs may detect the hosts\' inflammatory response. French researchers found dogs detect the virus in sweat.\r\nAcross the globe, coronavirus detector dogs are now being trained in countries including the United Arab Emirates, Chile, Argentina, Brazil and Belgium.\r\nA French–Lebanese project that trained 18 canines used two of its top dogs in a trial at an airport in Lebanon. It reported the animals were 100 per cent accurate in identifying negative cases and correctly detected 92 per cent of positive cases.\r\nTwo months ago, sniffer dogs began patrolling Helsinki Airport as part of a four-month trial. And in London, canines from the Medical Detection Dogs facility are being tested for their efficacy in picking up the scent of coronavirus.\r\nFor a sniffing trial in the US, researchers from the University of Pennsylvania are now collecting sweat samples from 1000 T-shirts worn overnight by people who have tested positive or negative for COVID-19.\r\nSo, does this work put dogs at risk? Early in the pandemic, people feared dogs could contract the virus and spread it to each other, and to humans. Recent studies suggest dogs are not susceptible – the virus cannot replicate in them.\r\n','2020-12-01',''),(186,'Covid-19 puts dampener on Christmas reopening of iconic Paris stores','France 24','Economy',43,'https://www.france24.com/en/france/20201129-covid-19-puts-dampener-on-christmas-reopening-of-iconic-paris-stores','Ségolène ALLEMANDOU','After another month of lockdown, the doors are finally open again at Paris’s flagship department stores. The Christmas lights are on and the festive window displays are in place, but, with tourists noticeably absent, there might not be much for the stores to celebrate this Christmas.\r\n\r\nNon-essential shops were finally allowed to reopen across France on November 28. With Christmas fast approaching, these major stores are looking forward to welcoming their old customers back in an attempt to save a disastrous economic year and hopefully look forward to 2021 with some optimism. But the dearth of tourists will have a serious impact on their annual revenue.\r\nOn one of Paris’s most famous shopping streets, Boulevard Haussman, the landmark Parisian department stores are already dressed up in their Christmas finery. The annual festive window displays show no traces of the coronavirus scrooge and the giant Christmas tree is in pride of place at the heart of the Galeries Lafayette.\r\n\'Reopening four weeks before the Christmas holidays is very good news for our members,\' says Yohann Petiot, general manager of Alliance du Commerce, which brings together department stores and clothing and footwear retailers. \'Now we\'re going to do everything we can to save Christmas\'.\r\n\'2020 has been very difficult for department stores,\' Petiot explains in an interview with FRANCE 24. Over the course of the year, these key Paris shops have had to contend with three full months of shuttered windows.\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\nThe CEO of the Galeries Lafayette group, Nicolas Houzé, estimated the loss to be as much as half of the sales for the entire year in an article in Le Monde. That company did at least benefit from the earlier opening of the BHV DIY department, the Lafayette food shop and the Italian delicatessen Eataly, as they fell into the category of essential shops.\r\nThe situation is much gloomier for neighbouring store Printemps, which this week announced a redundancy plan aimed at ensuring its survival. Seven stores will be forced to close in the coming months, threatening 430 jobs out of the 3,000 staff the group currently employs.\r\nThis restructuring comes not only as a result of the Covid-19 crisis: the group has been losing momentum for several years and the clothing market has fallen by 15% over the past decade. \'Added to these economic challenges, there were the terrorist attacks, the Yellow Vest demonstrations, the transport strikes,\' explains a spokesperson for Printemps. \'Covid aggravated an already dire situation.\'\r\n\r\nTourists contribute 40%-50% of trade\r\nState financial aid – including a partial unemployment grant and help with commercial leases for the month of November, when department stores were forced to close – has helped to absorb some of the losses due to the crisis. \'But there is no contingency plan for all the stock we already have, we must somehow sell what we’ve got,\' says Petiot.\r\nPetiot hopes that customers will flood back to the big stores \'out of solidarity\' to help reduce the stockpile. But Paris luxury goods shops will have to rely on a local clientele for the meantime, as international tourists are still not allowed to travel to France. \'This represents a huge loss of income. Tourists represent 40% to 50% of the sales,\' he says. \'The exceptions are the shops BHV and Bon Marché, which are more oriented towards a Parisian clientele\'.\r\nSince the 1980s, Paris’s landmark department stores – which have existed for more than a century – have always relied on a high-end foreign clientele, says Sabine Heitz-Spahn, a marketing professor at the University of Lorraine who specialises in city shops. \'This clientele is motivated by the pleasure of buying luxury goods at a lower tax rate, certainly, but they also come to discover the majesty of these shops. It\'s a key tourist experience.\'\r\nThese classic department stores are now suffering as a result of this strong dependence on foreign consumers, having failed to invest sufficiently in online retail.\r\n\'Management did not realise the importance of digital in recent years. As a result, they have invested little in digital tools,\' Heitz-Spahn explains. \'This was a huge strategic mistake, even before the arrival of Covid-19.\'\r\n\r\nCovid accelerated digital transformation\r\nThis year\'s two lockdowns did have the knock-on effect of forcing flagship stores to quickly immerse themselves in distance selling services: click & collect, e-reservations, online shopping, personal shopper by video.\r\n\'The Covid-19 crisis has acted like a foot on the pedal in our digital transformation,\' says Petiot.\r\n\r\nAfter the first lockdown, Galeries Lafayette sales staff also learned to focus on a more local clientele, especially the younger customers, by attracting them via social networks.\r\n\'We highlight key products from our collections via Stories on Instagram,\' says a ready-to-wear manager, who prefers to remain anonymous. \'It\'s up to us to recreate a sense of longing.\'\r\nThe end of this second lockdown is accompanied by at least a real glimmer of hope: the possibility of a vaccine in the coming months.\r\n\'For us, this vaccine signals the possibility of an imminent return of our important international business,\' says Petiot.\r\n','2020-11-29',''),(187,'Covid-19 puts dampener on Christmas reopening of iconic Paris stores','France 24','Economy',43,'https://www.france24.com/en/france/20201129-covid-19-puts-dampener-on-christmas-reopening-of-iconic-paris-stores','Ségolène ALLEMANDOU','After another month of lockdown, the doors are finally open again at Paris’s flagship department stores. The Christmas lights are on and the festive window displays are in place, but, with tourists noticeably absent, there might not be much for the stores to celebrate this Christmas.\r\n\r\nNon-essential shops were finally allowed to reopen across France on November 28. With Christmas fast approaching, these major stores are looking forward to welcoming their old customers back in an attempt to save a disastrous economic year and hopefully look forward to 2021 with some optimism. But the dearth of tourists will have a serious impact on their annual revenue.\r\nOn one of Paris’s most famous shopping streets, Boulevard Haussman, the landmark Parisian department stores are already dressed up in their Christmas finery. The annual festive window displays show no traces of the coronavirus scrooge and the giant Christmas tree is in pride of place at the heart of the Galeries Lafayette.\r\n\'Reopening four weeks before the Christmas holidays is very good news for our members,\' says Yohann Petiot, general manager of Alliance du Commerce, which brings together department stores and clothing and footwear retailers. \'Now we\'re going to do everything we can to save Christmas\'.\r\n\'2020 has been very difficult for department stores,\' Petiot explains in an interview with FRANCE 24. Over the course of the year, these key Paris shops have had to contend with three full months of shuttered windows.\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\nThe CEO of the Galeries Lafayette group, Nicolas Houzé, estimated the loss to be as much as half of the sales for the entire year in an article in Le Monde. That company did at least benefit from the earlier opening of the BHV DIY department, the Lafayette food shop and the Italian delicatessen Eataly, as they fell into the category of essential shops.\r\nThe situation is much gloomier for neighbouring store Printemps, which this week announced a redundancy plan aimed at ensuring its survival. Seven stores will be forced to close in the coming months, threatening 430 jobs out of the 3,000 staff the group currently employs.\r\nThis restructuring comes not only as a result of the Covid-19 crisis: the group has been losing momentum for several years and the clothing market has fallen by 15% over the past decade. \'Added to these economic challenges, there were the terrorist attacks, the Yellow Vest demonstrations, the transport strikes,\' explains a spokesperson for Printemps. \'Covid aggravated an already dire situation.\'\r\n\r\nTourists contribute 40%-50% of trade\r\nState financial aid – including a partial unemployment grant and help with commercial leases for the month of November, when department stores were forced to close – has helped to absorb some of the losses due to the crisis. \'But there is no contingency plan for all the stock we already have, we must somehow sell what we’ve got,\' says Petiot.\r\nPetiot hopes that customers will flood back to the big stores \'out of solidarity\' to help reduce the stockpile. But Paris luxury goods shops will have to rely on a local clientele for the meantime, as international tourists are still not allowed to travel to France. \'This represents a huge loss of income. Tourists represent 40% to 50% of the sales,\' he says. \'The exceptions are the shops BHV and Bon Marché, which are more oriented towards a Parisian clientele\'.\r\nSince the 1980s, Paris’s landmark department stores – which have existed for more than a century – have always relied on a high-end foreign clientele, says Sabine Heitz-Spahn, a marketing professor at the University of Lorraine who specialises in city shops. \'This clientele is motivated by the pleasure of buying luxury goods at a lower tax rate, certainly, but they also come to discover the majesty of these shops. It\'s a key tourist experience.\'\r\nThese classic department stores are now suffering as a result of this strong dependence on foreign consumers, having failed to invest sufficiently in online retail.\r\n\'Management did not realise the importance of digital in recent years. As a result, they have invested little in digital tools,\' Heitz-Spahn explains. \'This was a huge strategic mistake, even before the arrival of Covid-19.\'\r\n\r\nCovid accelerated digital transformation\r\nThis year\'s two lockdowns did have the knock-on effect of forcing flagship stores to quickly immerse themselves in distance selling services: click & collect, e-reservations, online shopping, personal shopper by video.\r\n\'The Covid-19 crisis has acted like a foot on the pedal in our digital transformation,\' says Petiot.\r\n\r\nAfter the first lockdown, Galeries Lafayette sales staff also learned to focus on a more local clientele, especially the younger customers, by attracting them via social networks.\r\n\'We highlight key products from our collections via Stories on Instagram,\' says a ready-to-wear manager, who prefers to remain anonymous. \'It\'s up to us to recreate a sense of longing.\'\r\nThe end of this second lockdown is accompanied by at least a real glimmer of hope: the possibility of a vaccine in the coming months.\r\n\'For us, this vaccine signals the possibility of an imminent return of our important international business,\' says Petiot.\r\n','2020-11-29',''),(188,'Uproar in France over proposed limits on filming police','AP News','Society',43,'https://apnews.com/article/race-and-ethnicity-police-paris-france-police-brutality-5bd3fbcaa92dcd7658f5047d03d89f56','Sylvie Corbet','French activists fear that a proposed new security law will deprive them of a potent weapon against abuse — cellphone videos of police activity — threatening their efforts to document possible cases of police brutality, especially in impoverished immigrant neighborhoods.\r\n\r\nFrench President Emmanuel Macron’s government is pushing a new security bill that makes it illegal to publish images of police officers with intent to cause them harm, amid other measures. Critics fear the new law could hurt press freedoms and make it more difficult for all citizens to report on police brutality.\r\n\'I was lucky enough to have videos that protect me,\' said Michel Zecler, a Black music producer who was beaten up recently by several French police officers. Videos first published Thursday by French website Loopsider have been seen by over 14 million viewers, resulting in widespread outrage over police actions.\r\nTwo of the officers are in jail while they are investigated while two others, also under investigation, are out on bail.\r\nThe draft bill, still being debated in parliament, has prompted protests across the country called by press freedom advocates and civil rights campaigners. Tens of thousands of people marched Saturday in Paris to reject the measure, including families and friends of people killed by police.\r\n\'For decades, descendants of post-colonial immigration and residents in populous neighborhoods have denounced police brutality,\' Sihame Assbague, an anti-racism activist, told The Associated Press.\r\nVideos by the public have helped to show a wider audience that there is a \'systemic problem with French police forces, who are abusing, punching, beating, mutilating, killing,\' she said.\r\nActivists say the bill may have an even greater impact on people other than journalists, especially those of immigrant origin living in neighborhoods where relationships with the police have long been tense. Images posted online have been key to denouncing cases of officers’ misconduct and racism in recent years, they argue.\r\nAssbague expressed fears that, under the proposed law, those who post videos of police abuses online may be put on trial, where they would face up to a year in jail and a 45,000-euro ($53,000) fine.\r\n\'I tend to believe that a young Arab man from a poor suburb who posts a video of police brutality in his neighborhood will be more at risk of being found guilty than a journalist who did a video during a protest,\' she said.\r\nAmal Bentounsi’s brother, Amine, was shot in the back and killed by a police officer in 2012. The officer was sentenced to a five-year suspended prison sentence. Along with other families of victims, in March she launched a mobile phone app called Emergency-Police Violence to record abuses and bring cases to court.\r\n\'Some police officers already have a sense of impunity. ... The only solution now is to make videos,\' she told the AP. The app has been downloaded more than 50,000 times.\r\n\'If we want to improve public confidence in the police, it does not go through hiding the truth,\' she added.\r\nThe proposed law is partly a response to demands from police unions, who say it will provide greater protection for officers.\r\nAbdoulaye Kante, a Black police officer with 20 years of experience in Paris and its suburbs, is both a supporter of the proposed law and strongly condemns police brutality and violence against officers.\r\n\'What people don’t understand is that some individuals are using videos to put the faces of our (police) colleagues on social media so that they are identified, so that they are threatened or to incite hatred,\' he said.\r\n\'The law doesn’t ban journalists or citizens from filming police in action ... It bans these images from being used to harm, physically or psychologically,” he argued. “The lives of officers are important.\'\r\nA \'tiny fraction of the population feeds rage and hatred\' against police, Jean-Michel Fauvergue, a former head of elite police forces and a lawmaker in Macron’s party who co-authored the bill, said in the National Assembly. \'We need to find a solution.\'\r\nJustice Minister Eric Dupond-Moretti has acknowledged that \'the intent (to harm) is something that is difficult to define\' and the government appears ready to back revamping part of the proposed law.\r\nActivists consider the draft law one more step in a series of security measures passed by French lawmakers to extend police powers at the expense of civil liberties.\r\nA statement signed by over 30 groups of families and friends of victims of police abuses said that since 2005, \'all security laws adopted have constantly expanded the legal field allowing police impunity.\'\r\nRiots in 2005 exposed France’s long-running problems between police and youths in public housing projects with large immigrant populations.\r\nIn recent years, numerous security laws have been passed following attacks by extremists.\r\nCritics noted a hardening of police tactics during protests or while arresting individuals. Hundreds of complaints have been filed against officers during the yellow vest movement against social injustice, which erupted in 2018 and saw weekends of violent clashes.\r\nInterior Minister Gerald Darmanin said out of 3 million police operations per year in France, some 9,500 end up on a government website that denounces abuses, which represents 0.3%.\r\nFrance’s human rights ombudsman, Claire Hedon, is among the most prominent critics of the proposed law, which she said involves \'significant risks of undermining fundamental rights.\'\r\n\'Our democracy is hit when the population does not trust its police anymore,\' she told the National Assembly\r\n','2020-11-30',''),(189,'Uproar in France over proposed limits on filming police','AP News','Society',43,'https://apnews.com/article/race-and-ethnicity-police-paris-france-police-brutality-5bd3fbcaa92dcd7658f5047d03d89f56','Sylvie Corbet','French activists fear that a proposed new security law will deprive them of a potent weapon against abuse — cellphone videos of police activity — threatening their efforts to document possible cases of police brutality, especially in impoverished immigrant neighborhoods.\r\n\r\nFrench President Emmanuel Macron’s government is pushing a new security bill that makes it illegal to publish images of police officers with intent to cause them harm, amid other measures. Critics fear the new law could hurt press freedoms and make it more difficult for all citizens to report on police brutality.\r\n\'I was lucky enough to have videos that protect me,\' said Michel Zecler, a Black music producer who was beaten up recently by several French police officers. Videos first published Thursday by French website Loopsider have been seen by over 14 million viewers, resulting in widespread outrage over police actions.\r\nTwo of the officers are in jail while they are investigated while two others, also under investigation, are out on bail.\r\nThe draft bill, still being debated in parliament, has prompted protests across the country called by press freedom advocates and civil rights campaigners. Tens of thousands of people marched Saturday in Paris to reject the measure, including families and friends of people killed by police.\r\n\'For decades, descendants of post-colonial immigration and residents in populous neighborhoods have denounced police brutality,\' Sihame Assbague, an anti-racism activist, told The Associated Press.\r\nVideos by the public have helped to show a wider audience that there is a \'systemic problem with French police forces, who are abusing, punching, beating, mutilating, killing,\' she said.\r\nActivists say the bill may have an even greater impact on people other than journalists, especially those of immigrant origin living in neighborhoods where relationships with the police have long been tense. Images posted online have been key to denouncing cases of officers’ misconduct and racism in recent years, they argue.\r\nAssbague expressed fears that, under the proposed law, those who post videos of police abuses online may be put on trial, where they would face up to a year in jail and a 45,000-euro ($53,000) fine.\r\n\'I tend to believe that a young Arab man from a poor suburb who posts a video of police brutality in his neighborhood will be more at risk of being found guilty than a journalist who did a video during a protest,\' she said.\r\nAmal Bentounsi’s brother, Amine, was shot in the back and killed by a police officer in 2012. The officer was sentenced to a five-year suspended prison sentence. Along with other families of victims, in March she launched a mobile phone app called Emergency-Police Violence to record abuses and bring cases to court.\r\n\'Some police officers already have a sense of impunity. ... The only solution now is to make videos,\' she told the AP. The app has been downloaded more than 50,000 times.\r\n\'If we want to improve public confidence in the police, it does not go through hiding the truth,\' she added.\r\nThe proposed law is partly a response to demands from police unions, who say it will provide greater protection for officers.\r\nAbdoulaye Kante, a Black police officer with 20 years of experience in Paris and its suburbs, is both a supporter of the proposed law and strongly condemns police brutality and violence against officers.\r\n\'What people don’t understand is that some individuals are using videos to put the faces of our (police) colleagues on social media so that they are identified, so that they are threatened or to incite hatred,\' he said.\r\n\'The law doesn’t ban journalists or citizens from filming police in action ... It bans these images from being used to harm, physically or psychologically,” he argued. “The lives of officers are important.\'\r\nA \'tiny fraction of the population feeds rage and hatred\' against police, Jean-Michel Fauvergue, a former head of elite police forces and a lawmaker in Macron’s party who co-authored the bill, said in the National Assembly. \'We need to find a solution.\'\r\nJustice Minister Eric Dupond-Moretti has acknowledged that \'the intent (to harm) is something that is difficult to define\' and the government appears ready to back revamping part of the proposed law.\r\nActivists consider the draft law one more step in a series of security measures passed by French lawmakers to extend police powers at the expense of civil liberties.\r\nA statement signed by over 30 groups of families and friends of victims of police abuses said that since 2005, \'all security laws adopted have constantly expanded the legal field allowing police impunity.\'\r\nRiots in 2005 exposed France’s long-running problems between police and youths in public housing projects with large immigrant populations.\r\nIn recent years, numerous security laws have been passed following attacks by extremists.\r\nCritics noted a hardening of police tactics during protests or while arresting individuals. Hundreds of complaints have been filed against officers during the yellow vest movement against social injustice, which erupted in 2018 and saw weekends of violent clashes.\r\nInterior Minister Gerald Darmanin said out of 3 million police operations per year in France, some 9,500 end up on a government website that denounces abuses, which represents 0.3%.\r\nFrance’s human rights ombudsman, Claire Hedon, is among the most prominent critics of the proposed law, which she said involves \'significant risks of undermining fundamental rights.\'\r\n\'Our democracy is hit when the population does not trust its police anymore,\' she told the National Assembly\r\n','2020-11-30',''),(190,'France weighs forcing coronavirus-infected patients to isolate','France 24','Politics',43,'Internet','N/A','France weighs forcing coronavirus-infected patients to isolate\r\nhttps://www.france24.com/en/europe/20201127-france-weighs-forcing-coronavirus-infected-patients-to-isolate\r\nAs France seeks to ease its Covid-19 lockdown and stem the virus\'s spread, French President Emmanuel Macron this week proposed compelling those infected to isolate from others. His prime minister Jean Castex followed suit and promised draft legislation on the matter soon. Already, though, the prospect of forcing people to fall in line on coronavirus has been met with scepticism – and raised plenty of questions – even on Macron\'s own side of the political aisle.\r\n\r\nDetailing his roadmap to bring France\'s second lockdown to an end during a televised address on Tuesday, Macron said he wanted \"the government and Parliament to provide for conditions to insure the isolation of contaminated people, including in a more constraining way\". The president also pledged to support those affected \"in material, health and psychological terms\".\r\nHow was Macron\'s proposal received? In a word: Isolation, sure. Forcible confinement, maybe not.\r\nCastex, for his part, said the intention isn\'t \"control for controlling\'s sake\" but to \"have a constraint that is better respected\" and one that will be supported \"by reinforced human and medical resources\" so that \"this isolation will be better accepted and therefore more effective\". The prime minister didn\'t specify what the new measures would look like.\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\nSanctions and questions\r\nAs France waits to hear more, the question marks grow. How does the government expect to issue such new coercive measures? What will the punishment be for non-compliance? How will the state support coronavirus-infected individuals \"materially and psychologically\"? All of which are considerations Macron wants to open for debate.\r\nOne thing is certain, lawmakers are already pondering the possible details and thrashing the issues out.\r\nGérard Larcher, the conservative speaker of the Senate, suggested they tread carefully given that what\'s at stake is no less than impinging on a \"fundamental freedom\". The veteran senator seemed to brush aside Macron\'s appeal for lawmakers of all parties to merely debate the issue on the floor and hold it to a vote, saying the matter \"deserves a debate from top to bottom, which only draft legislation can bring\".\r\n\"A parliamentary debate isn\'t sufficient. Real debate in Parliament is when there is draft legislation and it isn\'t enough for us to debate and have a vote,\" Larcher told Europe 1 radio on Thursday. \"If there must be constraint, it must respect a certain number of conditions: Respect of doctor-patient confidentiality, support for people, what the clauses of this isolation are.\" \r\nThe Socialist minority leader in the lower-house National Assembly, for her part, said she didn\'t think isolating people was a good idea. \"If we have coercive measures, French people will no longer go get tested\", Valérie Rabault told Sud Radio. \"It\'s much riskier as a strategy than having an incentivised strategy.\"\r\nThe far-right isn\'t pleased with the idea, either. National Rally leader Marine Le Pen questioned the logistics of a plan that makes isolation mandatory. \"There comes a time when you have to face reality: Are we going to send police officers to the homes of people who test positive to see if the people are really home?\" she asked Wednesday on Sud Radio, suggesting the government \"stop taking decisions it can\'t put into practice\".\r\nLe Pen\'s second-in-command, National Rally Vice-President Jordan Bardella, also wondered how feasible the measures would be and said he would rather \"convince than constrain\". The European Parliament lawmaker said he is \"irritated\" by the government\'s \"permanent infantilising\" of French people.\r\nDoubts persist, too, within the ranks of Macron\'s centrist majority. Former interior minister Christophe Castaner, who is now the lower-house majority leader for Macron\'s La République en Marche party, has remained prudent, saying he supports compelling infected people to isolate, but only if doctor-patient confidentiality is respected.\r\n\"I\'m in favour if we manage to guarantee... medical secrecy, which is the domain of the state health insurer. The monitoring needs to take place within that framework,\" Castaner said Wednesday on LCI television.\r\n\"If, on the other hand, it\'s a file where you or I, if we have Covid-19... find ourselves in a file that is widely distributed, including to internal security forces, to the police, to the gendarmerie for conducting checks in the street, I\'m against,\" explained Castaner, who oversaw law enforcement as interior minister for nearly two years until July.\r\nLast Friday, meeting carers at a hospital in Brittany, Castex himself displayed scepticism over the notion of mandatory isolation. \"I am persuaded that there are people who, if you tell them \'you have an obligation to isolate yourselves\', they will not get themselves tested,\" the prime minister told the healthcare workers.\r\nHealthcare providers divided\r\nIndeed, politicians aren\'t the only ones expressing reservations over obliging compliance. Healthcare providers in France aren\'t certain it would work, either.\r\n\"The interest of mandatory isolation is limited,\" Dr Jean-Paul Harmon, a Paris-area general practitioner and honorary president of the French Federation of Doctors (FMF), told the 20 Minutes news site. \"I\'m not really convinced that passing an additional law, that is coercive, is necessary. People are contagious even before having symptoms, so they contaminate their entourage before they\'re tested, [and] so before they are subject to any possible mandatory isolation.\"\r\nMacron\'s fledgling proposal does dovetail with the appeal that one healthcare collective has been making. The France Assos Santé group represents 85 healthcare-user associations and has been pleading for the government to impose coercive coronavirus measures. The collective wants stricter isolation with \"a complete restriction on movement and visits\" for those who test positive and the contact cases in their circle. The goal, they say, is simple: To avoid a third lockdown.\r\nCoercive isolation elsewhere in Europe\r\nLegally speaking, \"a law that coerces a patient to isolate is conceivable in principle as long as it is limited in scope since the public health objective takes precedence over everything else,\" Jean-Philippe Derosier, a public law professor at the University of Lille, told FRANCE 24. \"But it is a good bet that coercion, in these circumstances, is less well-suited than efficiently educating the public would be. Similar measures applied in other countries have not necessarily proven effective.\"\r\nMandatory isolation rules reinforced by sanctions have already been put into place by France\'s neighbours in Europe, including Switzerland, Britain and Belgium.\r\nIn Italy, infected individuals who don\'t respect their quarantine restrictions face three to 18 months behind bars and fines from €500 to €5,000. The rules are even more strict in Spain; there, first-time offenders are subject to a €3,000 fine, while someone repeatedly violating isolation rules risks a penalty of up to €600,000.\r\nGreece has the strictest punishment; any infected person found violating Covid-19 quarantine rules – without contaminating anyone else – faces five years in jail. That penalty can rise to 10 years if the offender has infected at least one other person while violating the rules and up to 15 years if that contamination causes death. If the quarantine-breaker infects several people who die, the penalty can be life in prison.\r\nOther countries have gone further in terms of the means in place to monitor isolating coronavirus-infected patients. South Korea has turned to technologies like smartphone data tracing to enforce quarantine rules and has gone so far as to impose that an infected person who hasn\'t respected isolation rules be fitted with an electronic monitoring device.\r\nFrance isn\'t there yet. But the attempt to isolate people without coercive measures during the first lockdown in the spring had a manifestly limited impact; the hotels and other establishments requisitioned for the purpose then stood largely empty. Questions also remain over how to tend to infected people\'s social connections, considered so important during this difficult period, particularly in terms of the mental health of society\'s most vulnerable. All are elements French lawmakers will have to consider in the days to come.\r\n','2020-12-04',''),(191,'Lorry drivers get stuck in miles of M20 queues ','Daily mail','Travel',43,'Internet','N/A','Lorry drivers get stuck in miles of M20 queues as French authorities test Channel Tunnel border controls they say will be in place if there is no Brexit deal (while blocking off half the available lanes)\r\nhttps://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8982493/Lorry-drivers-stuck-miles-M20-queues-French-authorities-test-border-controls.html\r\n\r\nLorry drivers were left stuck in miles of M20 queues as French authorities tested Channel Tunnel border controls they say will be in place if there is no Brexit deal.\r\nGetlink, which operates the Channel Tunnel, said the queues were \'not representative\' of a no-deal Brexit, as half of the available lanes were blocked off. \r\nHighways England also said it had closed the entry and exit sliproads at Junction 11 in Kent today due to the number of HGVs parked on the hard shoulder.\r\nThe delays were caused by French authorities \'testing the impact of EU and Schengen immigration controls\' at the Eurotunnel terminal in Folkstone in the event of no deal. \r\nA spokesman for Getlink told MailOnline: \'They [the tests] were carried out by French authorities to test the impact of EU and Schengen immigration controls in the event of a no deal. \r\n\'The queues are not representative however, as they were only using half of the available lanes/booths available.\'\r\nThe spokesman earlier said: \'The backlog (of traffic) built up this morning during tests conducted by the authorities in preparation for Brexit.\'\r\nThey added this afternoon that traffic was now flowing \'smoothly\' through the terminal and services were operating as normal.\r\nIt is understood that further intermittent border tests will be carried out before the Brexit transition period comes to an end on December 31.\r\nPhotographs showed dozens of freight lorries queued along the M20. \r\n\r\nHighways England tweeted: \'M20 coastbound at J11 Westenhanger - the entry slip is now closed due to heavy congestion in the area due to delays at Eurotunnel.\r\n\'Due to the heavy congestion with HGV\'s at this location, for safety reasons we have also closed the exit slip at J11 Westenhanger due to the amount of lorry\'s parking up along the hard shoulder all the way back to exit slip.\'\r\nA spokesperson for The Road Haulage Association told MailOnline: \'There is much speculation as to how the motorway network leading to and from the ports will work with or without a deal. \r\n\'The subsequent delays or congestion are unavoidable, but necessary at this time as testing is in progress.\'\r\nThe Channel Tunnel connects Folkestone to Coquelles near Calais in France.  \r\n','2020-12-04',''),(192,'France: More than 2,500 break virus restrictions at illegal rave','BBC','Health',44,'https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-55513167','N/A','An illegal warehouse rave that began on New Year\'s Eve in France in defiance of coronavirus precautions has been shut down by police after arrests and clashes.\r\nSome of the 2,500 ravers in Lieuron near Rennes in Brittany had planned to party until Tuesday.\r\nPolice issued fines to revellers found leaving and the organisers were being identified as the party ended.\r\nA number of party-goers were from the UK and Spain, police said.\r\nAttendees clashed with police, setting fire to a car and throwing objects at officers attempting to shut the event down. At least three officers were injured.\r\n\r\nA driver was apprehended with turntables, speakers and a generator in the boot of the vehicle, according to French TV station BFM TV.\r\nPolice trying to stop the event faced \'fierce hostility from many partygoers\', a statement from local authorities said.\r\nBut at 05:30 local time on Saturday the ravers began to accept the party was over and started to leave the two disused warehouse hangars, the local prefecture said.\r\nInterior Minister Gérald Darmanin said on Twitter that trucks, sound equipment and generators were seized at the scene and an investigation has been opened.\r\nMore than 1,200 fines were issued for non-compliance with the curfew, not wearing a mask and attending an illegal gathering, Mr Darmanin said.\r\n\r\nOn Friday authorities said they had opened a sanitary cordon around the party and anyone leaving the event was urged to self-isolate for seven days.\r\nOne of the party-goers, who gave his name as Jo, told the AFP news agency that \'very few had respected social distancing\' at the event.\r\nA number of people slept in their cars before returning to dance, Le Monde newspaper reports.\r\nOne reveller told Le Monde that the rave was \'very well organised\' with food stalls inside.\r\nAnother, who came with four friends from Finisterre in north-west France, told the newspaper that she had wanted to \'escape\' for a few hours.\r\nOn Friday an interior ministry crisis meeting was held and all vehicle exits from the rave were blocked as police sought to shut down the party.\r\n\r\nFrance introduced strict rules ahead of the New Year including a curfew from 20:00 until 06:00.\r\nMore than 100,000 police officers were deployed across the country to break up parties and enforce the curfew.\r\nOfficers were instructed to break up underground parties as soon as they were reported, fine participants and identify the organisers.\r\nFrance has recorded more than 2.6 million coronavirus cases and 64,892 deaths since the pandemic began.\r\nOfficers elsewhere in Europe have also had to break up events in recent days.\r\nPolice dispersed a mass gathering near the Spanish city of Barcelona on Saturday where 300 people had been partying for more than 40 hours.\r\n','2021-01-03',''),(193,'Brexit: Boris Johnson\'s father applies for French citizenship','BBC','Politics',44,'https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-55499773','N/A','The father of UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson says he is applying for French citizenship now that Britain has severed ties with the European Union.\r\nStanley Johnson told France\'s RTL radio he had always seen himself as French as his mother was born in France.\r\nThe 80-year-old former Conservative Member of the European Parliament voted Remain in the 2016 Brexit referendum.\r\nHis son Boris spearheaded the Leave campaign and later took the UK out of the EU as prime minister.\r\n\r\nStanley Johnson explained his reasons for seeking French citizenship in an interview broadcast on Thursday, hours before the UK was due to leave EU trading rules.\r\n\'It\'s not about becoming French,\' he told RTL. \'It\'s about reclaiming what I already have.\'\r\nHe pointed out that his mother was born in France to a French mother. \'I will always be European,\' he added.\r\nStanley Johnson won a seat in the European Parliament when direct elections were first held in 1979, and later worked for the European Commission. As a result, Boris spent part of his childhood in Brussels.\r\nBrexit issues have divided the Johnson family. The prime minister\'s sister, the journalist Rachel Johnson, left the Conservative Party to join the Liberal Democrats ahead of the 2017 election in protest against Brexit.\r\nTheir brother, the Conservative MP Jo Johnson, resigned from the cabinet in 2018 to highlight his support for closer links with the EU.\r\n','2020-12-31',''),(194,'France under pressure to speed up coronavirus vaccine rollout','Politico','Health',44,'https://www.politico.eu/article/france-under-pressure-to-speed-up-coronavirus-vaccine-rollout/','Helen Collis','Doctors and politicians in France are calling on the government to ramp up its COVID-19 vaccination drive, warning the current strategy risks increasing skepticism around the vaccine.\r\nA letter by the National Academy of Doctors, reported in Le Monde on Thursday, said procedures like collecting consent, checking for medical concerns in a vulnerable population and observing the patient for fifteen minutes after injection are slowing the rollout.\r\n\"These excessive precautions risk ... giving rise to a growing misunderstanding of the campaign, whose kick-off seems to lack determination,\" the letter read.\r\nFewer than 100 people were vaccinated in the first three days — far fewer than other EU countries.\r\nThe academy called for vaccination procedures in nursing homes to be simplified and sped up, and for doses to be prioritized for the most affected regions.\r\nVaccine skepticism in France has long been a problem. An Ipsos Mori poll this week showed that even as infection rates increased, only 40 percent of French respondents said they would take the vaccine when it becomes available — 14 percentage points lower than the same survey in October.\r\nPoliticians from all sides are calling on the government to change tack.\r\nValérie Rabault, president of the Socialist Party in the National Assembly, called for quicker administration of the vaccine to caregivers in an interview with L’Obs on Wednesday. \r\nWhile MPs Damien Abad and Jean Leonetti, from the center-right Les Républicains, called for an emergency hearing with Health Minister Olivier Véran to discuss the vaccine strategy. France, they said, was \"wearing Europe\'s dunce cap,\" according to France Info.\r\n\r\nEarlier in the week, Véran defended the strategy, telling France 2 that collecting consent before vaccination, \"is a sign of confidence.\"\r\n','2021-01-05',''),(195,'We\'ve got UK\'s crabs!\' French fishermen boast of new haul BEFORE getting Brexit licence','Express','Politics',44,'https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1449045/brexit-news-fishing-france-french-fishermen-uk-waters-latest-france-permit-Boulogne-VN','Claire Anderson','A French fishing captain, identified only as Laurent, has admitted he caught crabs, lobsters, sea snails and other fish before he secured a permit to access British waters. He told Sky News he did not have time to wait for paperwork to be processed because his livelihood relied on it. Laurent said that he needed to access crab and lobster pots in British waters but would not wait for his papers to arrive. \r\nLaurent said: \"These are Mr Johnson\'s crabs! Happy New Year.\"\r\nHis admission makes a mockery of the Brexit deal, signed just days ago with specific focus on ensuring Britain secured control of its own waters. \r\nLaurent added: \"When the news came through on December 24 that we wouldn\'t immediately be affected by Brexit, we were relieved.\r\n\"But then came a panic in the early hours of December 30, when we were told that we would still need a permit in order to fish in UK waters in the future.\"\r\nFishermen need fishing permits from Friday to access British waters after a deal was signed on December 31.\r\n\r\nBoris Johnson said he recognised it would be a \"difficult period\" for the EU during the adjustment period over fishing rights.\r\nHe told MPs: \"I\'ve always recognised that this was going to be a difficult period for our European friends and partners because they\'ve been fishing in these waters for decades, if not centuries.\r\n\"And first, as the House will know, they sought an adjustment period of 14 years, but our negotiators whittled that down to five and a half years during which the UK\'s share, in that five and a half years the UK\'s share of our fish in our waters will rise from over half today to around two-thirds.\r\n\"And of course we\'d have liked to have done this more quickly, but it\'s also true that once the adjustment period comes to an end, there will be no limit other than the limits that are placed by the needs of science and conservation on our ability to make use of our marine wealth.\"\r\nBut Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer branded the EU deal \"thin\".\r\nHe said: \"It\'s often said there\'s nothing simple about Brexit but the choice before the House today is perfectly simple. Do we implement the treaty that has been agreed with the EU or do we not?\r\n\"That is the choice. If we choose not to, the outcome is clear, we leave the transition period without a deal, without a deal on security, on trade, on fisheries, without protection for our manufacturing sector, for farming, for countless British businesses and without a foothold to build a future relationship with the EU.\r\n\"Anyone choosing that option today knows there is no time to renegotiate, there\'s no better deal coming in the next 24 hours, no extensions, no humble addresses, no SO24s, so choosing that option leads to one place - no deal.\"\r\n\r\nTory Sir Bill Cash added: \"There remain challenges on fishing and in relation to Northern Ireland. We must use our new and renewed sovereignty to exercise the political muscle it gives us to resolve these challenges, we can and I believe we will. Regaining our right to govern ourselves is a true turning point in our great history.\"\r\nThe evolution of modern parliamentary democracy he said \"has been the bedrock of our freedom and enabled us with the leadership of Churchill to repel the danger of conquest in May 1940\".\r\nRecalling a conversation with Margaret Thatcher on Europe, he added: \"Our Prime Minister Boris Johnson has achieved what all those years ago I was told was impossible. I refused to believe them, so did the Maastricht rebels, and last year the 28 Tory Spartans which opened the way to where we are today.\r\n\"We have now won back our sovereignty despite those European pieces of paper, we owe our Prime Minister - the country owes him - our deepest congratulations on his achievement.\"\r\n','2021-01-05',''),(196,'French judge rules \'noisy\' frogs of Grignols must go','The Guardian','Livestock',44,'Internet','N/A','French judge rules \'noisy\' frogs of Grignols must go\r\nMichel and Annie Pécheras told to drain pond after nine-year legal battle with neighbour\r\nhttps://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/15/french-judge-rules-noisy-frogs-grignols-must-go\r\n\r\nThe French courts have had their final word: Grignols’ grenouilles (frogs) must go.\r\nThe frogs of a Dordogne village have been served notice after a judge decided they make so much noise during the mating season that they are a nuisance to the neighbours.\r\nAfter nine years of legal battles, Michel and Annie Pécheras have been told they have 90 days to drain the 300 sq-metre pond at their home in the village of Grignols: population 587, and get rid of the amphibians.\r\nEnvironmental campaigners say some of the frogs are protected species.\r\nMichel Pécheras says he re-excavated the historic pond that had been filled in and moved it away from his neighbours’ property 12 years ago.\r\nHe told journalists his neighbour Jean-Louis Malfione did not complain at the time and even asked who had done the work so he could create a pond on his own property.\r\nHowever, in 2012 Malfione brought legal action, backed by a bailiff who claimed the noise the frogs made at certain times of the year reached 63 decibels when recorded from the open window of the neighbour’s bedroom.\r\nIn 2014 the case was first thrown out by a local court but later upheld by a Bordeaux judge. Since then it has bounced back and forth between legal jurisdictions. An appeal by environmental campaigners for the frogs to be moved before the pond was destroyed also failed.\r\nUnder threat of hefty fines and prison after a judgment this month, the Pécheras have begun emptying the pond, also home to fish and ducks and an oasis for passing wildlife including herons, deer and wild boar.\r\nIn the meantime, the environment group Société pour l’Étude et l’Aménagement de la nature dans le Sud-Ouest is appealing to the cour de cassation, the highest court in France. The Association Cistude Nature claims there are six protected species of frog in the pond.\r\n','2021-01-16',''),(197,'French snail farmers lament sluggish year as Covid crisis dents sales','The Guardian','Economy',44,'Internet','N/A','French snail farmers lament sluggish year as Covid crisis dents sales\r\n\r\nhttps://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/01/french-snail-farmers-lament-sluggish-year-as-covid-crisis-dents-sales\r\n\r\nFor France’s heliciculteurs, or snail farmers, 2020 was a desperately sluggish year.\r\nWith seasonal festivities all but cancelled, Christmas markets called off, a lack of tourists and restaurants shut down because of the coronavirus crisis, business has slowed to, well, a snail’s pace.\r\nEscargots, edible land snails often served in their shells with butter and garlic, are a classic hors d’oeuvre at the traditional end-of-year celebrations in France and snail farmers usually expect to make up to 70% of their sales in November and December. Now they are wondering what to do with their escargatoire.\r\n“We sell essentially for the end-of-year celebrations, but with the Christmas markets cancelled it’s been a difficult time,” Grégory Laude, a snail farmer near Dunkirk told his local newspaper.\r\nFrance has about 400 snail farmers producing for this specific seasonal market. Several have branched out in recent years into hosting tourists, many of them from the UK and US, but they too have been absent in 2020.\r\nTo make matters worse, the producers say they have been excluded so far from government schemes intended to help small farmers and businesses during the Covid-19 pandemic.\r\nHervé Ménelot, a snail farmer in Burgundy, said: “We’re not organised as a federation at the national level and we’re defending small operations so it’s not easy to make ourselves heard … unlike foie gras and cider apple producers. All we’re asking for is the same treatment.”\r\nFour representatives wrote to ministers in the autumn to alert them to snail farmers’ difficulties. As a result, agriculture ministry officials say they will benefit from emergency financial aid to the “festive sector”, added to the list of financial beneficiaries from the Covid-19 recovery fund in December.\r\nArchaeologists in southern Europe have uncovered large quantities of snail shells among stone tools and animal remains in pits used for cooking during the early Gravettian era, suggesting that Palaeolithic humans in Spain began eating snails around 30,000 ago.\r\nThe Romans considered escargots a food for the elite. In French cuisine, they are taken from their shells, killed, cooked with garlic butter, wine or stock and put back in the shells with the sauce. They are usually served in special dishes with individual depressions for 12 snails.\r\nOne snail farmer, Hubert Hédoin, however, told Vendée television all was not lost and that the leftover snails, currently hibernating, would be pickled or canned.\r\n','2021-01-16',''),(198,'Covid-19: Top adviser warns France at \'emergency\' virus moment','BBC','Health',45,'https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-55791459','N/A','France\'s top medical adviser said on Sunday that a third national lockdown would probably soon be needed to combat coronavirus in the country.\r\nA strict curfew was implemented last weekend, but cases continue to climb.\r\nProf Jean-Francois Delfraissy, head of the scientific council that advises leaders on Covid-19, said \'there is an emergency\' and this week was critical.\r\nHe called for swift government action, amid rising concerns about the spread of new variants of the coronavirus.\r\nProf Delfraissy said data showed a new more transmissible variant first detected in the UK now makes up between 7-9% of cases in some French regions and will be hard to stop.\r\nHe said the country was in a better situation than others in Europe, but described the new variants as the \'equivalent of a second pandemic\'.\r\n\'If we do not tighten regulations, we will find ourselves in an extremely difficult situation from mid-March,\' the advisor warned during an interview with BFM television.\r\nThe French government is expected to meet on Wednesday to decide if further measures are needed.\r\n\r\nOfficials have so far resisted implementing a third national lockdown, preferring an overnight curfew system which allows schools to stay open.\r\nBut daily infection numbers are rising - with the seven-day moving average now above 20,000 despite the 18:00 curfew.\r\nFrench Prime Minister Jean Castex previously said restrictions could be imposed \'without delay\' if the situation deteriorated further.\r\n\r\nThe country\'s virus death toll topped 73,000 on Sunday, as the country tightened restrictions on arrivals into the country.\r\nUnder new rules anyone entering from inside the EU by air or ferry must now present a negative Covid-19 test result within 72 hours of travel. Those entering France from the EU by road, including cross-border workers, will not be required to take a test.\r\nPresident of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, said last week that all non-essential travel \'must be strongly advised against\' but EU nations have so far agreed to keep borders open.\r\n','2021-02-25',''),(199,'Covid-19: France closes borders to most non-EU travel','BBC','Health',45,'https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-55863069','N/A','France has imposed new Covid-19 border restrictions, but has once again resisted a new nationwide lockdown.\r\nAll but essential travel from outside the EU has been banned, while testing requirements on travellers from within the EU has been tightened.\r\nPM Jean Castex said France\'s night curfew would be more tightly enforced and large shopping centres would close.\r\nBut the measures were seen as mild and favouring the economy. Some doctors fear they will not curb infections.\r\nWhat are the new border measures?\r\nMr Castex said that from Sunday, apart from exceptional reasons, \'any entry into France and any exit from our territory to or from a country outside the European Union will be prohibited\'.\r\nA number of countries are exempted, as they are not considered at risk. They are Australia, South Korea, Japan, New Zealand, Rwanda, Singapore and Thailand.\r\nIn addition, arrivals from inside the EU, and several other neighbouring states - Andorra, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Monaco, Norway, San Marino, the Vatican and Switzerland - will have to present a negative polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test.\r\nAll arrivals, not just by air and sea, but by land too, must comply with the test rule.\r\nThere are exemptions, including cross-border workers and hauliers, and other groups such as students, health workers and diplomats, although the list is not fully defined.\r\nThe new Covid variants are the main motivating factor, and travel to the UK, which has been hit by the UK - or Kent - variant, is \'strongly discouraged\'.\r\nThere were few specific details about how the measures would be enforced, particularly on those arriving by road and having to provide test results.\r\nWhat are the other measures?\r\nThe closure of all non-food shopping centres with a surface area greater than 20,000 sq m (215,000 sq ft)\r\nIncreased police presence to check non-compliance with the overnight curfew that runs between 18:00 and 06:00, as well as clampdowns on illegal restaurant openings and clandestine parties\r\nWorking-from-home rules to be reinforced so that it is encouraged wherever possible\r\nThe shopping centre rule affects some 400 malls and 25,000 businesses. Small traders were relieved not to be be included.\r\nThe other measures appeared more general, with French media saying they were fairly mild and an attempt to slow the virus without harming the economy further.\r\nFor now, schools remain open across the country.\r\nSome health sector experts were unconvinced the measures would be of use in controlling rising infections.\r\nMahmoud Zureik, professor of public health at the University of Versailles-Saint-Quentin, told French news network BFMTV: \'Unfortunately I fear it is too late. It is not enough.\'\r\nWhy no lockdown?\r\nThe threat of a third national lockdown in France has loomed large all week, following warnings by top health officials that one would be needed amid high hospital rates and the spread of new variants.\r\n But there is a lot of public opposition - more than 50% in an Elabe Institute poll oppose a strict lockdown, compared to 93% support last spring.\r\nMr Castex said in his televised statement on Friday a lockdown could still be prevented.\r\n\'We know the grave impact [of a lockdown]. Tonight, looking at the data of the past few days, we consider that we can still give ourselves a chance to avoid one,\' he said.\r\n\'The coming days will be decisive. Let\'s be very vigilant.\'\r\nWhere is France with the virus?\r\nFrance reported 820 new deaths on Friday, taking the total recorded nationally to more than 75,000. It has recorded the sixth highest number of infections in the world.\r\nMore than 25,000 people are in hospital with the virus - including more than 3,000 in intensive care - but Mr Castex said the health situation was \'better controlled in France than in many of our neighbours\'.\r\nHealth Minister Olivier Véran warned this week that the new, more transmissible variants were now \'actively spreading\' in France, despite the current restrictions.\r\nFriday\'s announcement also comes amid a growing row between the EU and vaccine companies about supply shortfalls.\r\nFrench officials say they have given first doses to 1.45m people so far, but delivery shortages from Pfizer and Moderna are further slowing their rollout.\r\nWhat are other countries doing?\r\nFrom Saturday, Germany has banned most travellers from countries hit hard by new variants. The countries are the UK, Ireland, Portugal, Brazil, South Africa, Lesotho and Eswatini.\r\nThe move is expected to last until 17 February.\r\nAlso from Saturday, the Czech Republic has banned non-essential entry into the country, again to try to curb the new variants.\r\nPortugal on Thursday banned non-essential overseas travel by air, land or sea for its citizens for a fortnight.\r\nBelgium on Wednesday banned non-essential trips out of the country until 1 March.\r\nIn contrast, Italy said on Friday it would move more areas into less-restrictive rules from Monday, despite health officials warning it was risky. No areas would be classified as \'red\', which brings tough travel and business restrictions.\r\n','2021-02-01',''),(200,'Resistance in the kitchen: French restaurateurs strap on aprons in defiance of Covid-19 closures','France 24','Society',45,'https://www.france24.com/en/france/20210129-resistance-in-the-kitchen-french-restaurateurs-strap-on-aprons-in-defiance-of-covid-19-closures','Louise NORDSTROM','Ever since France\'s stringent Covid-19 restrictions were put in place last March, leading to the temporary – and in some cases permanent – closure of the country\'s restaurants, a resistance movement has quietly been brewing in French kitchens. On Wednesday, one restaurateur made the fight public by opening his doors for lunch, in open defiance of the ban. Others say they plan to strap their aprons back on, too.\r\n\r\n\"O bella ciao, bella ciao, bella ciao, ciao, ciao!\" The Italian folksong later linked to the World War II anti-fascist partisan movement could be heard Wednesday reverberating off the walls of Poppies, a bistro in the Mediterranean city of Nice. The song, delivered over steaming hot plates of gnocchi or lentils, rang out in protest at the government\'s ban on in-house dining and in support of the restaurant\'s owner, Christophe Wilson, who moments later would be taken to the local police station.\r\n\r\nWilson\'s open act of defiance underscores the growing frustration felt by many French restaurateurs, whose businesses have been among some of the hardest hit as France tries to curb another wave of Covid-19 infections.\r\nAfter a two-month closure during the country\'s first lockdown in the spring, restaurants and bars were once again ordered to close – except for take-away food orders– during a second lockdown that began October 30. When the latest lockdown was lifted in mid-December, non-essential shops and other services were allowed to reopen, but restaurants, bars and cafés have remained closed in order to avoid gatherings in restricted spaces without face masks.\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\nThe government has said they will remain shuttered until at least mid-February, but many such businesses have already been forced to permanently shut their doors. \r\n\"When I see Carrefour or Prima and all these multinationals where hundreds of people are massed together, I can no longer accept it,\" Wilson told reporters during the controversial re-opening of his restaurant, which saw an estimated 100 lunch guests gathering to show their support. \"Someone needs to get everyone fired up, and if I have to be the one who takes that risk, so be it,\" he said.\r\nWilson was released on Thursday, Nice-Matin newspaper reported, saying the restaurant owner had not been detained by police for his act of civil disobedience, but because his chef was found to have expired working papers. \r\nMass disobedience on February 1\r\nBut the fire has already started. In early January, Stéphane Turillon, a restaurant owner in the eastern commune of Doubs, declared he would no longer suffer in silence.\r\n\"We\'re at war. This time I\'m going to war and I\'ll open my restaurant on February 1, 2021, at noon [and even] if the government doesn\'t allow me, I\'ll open with force. Please share en masse,\" he wrote on his Facebook page.\r\nTurillon\'s announcement has since grown into a nationwide campaign, with restaurateurs across France vowing to get in on next week\'s disobedience act en masse. \r\n\"More than 200,000 restaurants in France are suffering, and many of them are in agony. Let\'s show our solidarity with France\'s gastronomic culture,\" the campaign\'s main Facebook group \"My restaurant opens on February 1\", stated. On Thursday, the page had attracted more than 21,300 supporters.\r\nClandestine openings\r\nThe kitchen resistance movement in France has expanded in other ways. French daily newspaper Le Parisien last week published an investigative report on the increasing number of clandestine restaurants operating in the capital.\r\nThe journalists (who visited many of the restaurants themselves) recounted how they, at one upscale restaurant, entered the premises via a service door and were then ushered into a fully packed back room where they were seated alongside both police officers and judges.\r\n\"We\'re fully booked at every lunch service. It\'s true that with the [government] assistance and this illegal opening we can survive. If we stopped, it would be the death of us,\" the restaurant owner told the paper.\r\n\"Eating in a restaurant isn\'t any more dangerous than taking the [crowded] metro, or going to a company cafeteria,\" he said.\r\nAccording to Paris police, more than 390 restaurants and bars in the capital and its suburbs have been fined since November for breaching the in-house service ban.\r\nNot everyone is enthusiastic about the French underground restaurant movement, however. Although support has poured in on Twitter for Nice restaurateur Wilson under the hashtag #LiberezChristophe (release Christophe), his decision has also triggered criticism.   \r\n\"Oh please… The guy opens up his restaurant even though it\'s prohibited by decree […] He deserves everything he\'s getting. Zero pity. Zero tolerance,\" Twitter user IanMontpellier wrote. \r\nJogaouTV was more measured in his Twitter critique: \"About the Nice restaurant that opened, on the one hand I can understand it because they are suffering. But the fact that there were no anti-Covid precautions in the photos I have seen totally annoys me. There\'s not even any distance between the tables… Help.\"\r\nTwitter user JoelMistigri35 applauded the fact that Wilson had been apprehended by police, and drew parallels between his act of defiance and Ireland\'s sharp rise in Covid-19 cases. \"VERY GOOD. The explosion of Covid cases in Ireland is due to their obstinate refusal to close bars and restaurants. It reminds me of the young man who went blind after refusing  to wear [protective] tinted glasses when watching a solar eclipse.\"\r\nIn addition to hefty fines, those who flount France\'s onsite eating ban could find themselves stripped of any financial assistance they have been receiving during the Covid-19 epidemic (currently set at €10,000 a month or 20% of turnover up to €200,000 a month, based on 2019 revenues), and be forced to close their establishments for an additional two to three months.','2021-02-05',''),(201,'France Says Europe Vaccine Strategy Safer Than U.K.\'s','Bloomberg','Society',45,'https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-02/france-says-europe-s-vaccine-strategy-is-safer-than-the-u-k-s',' Ania Nussbaum ','France is taking the lead in defending Europe\'s faltering vaccine program, and a jab at the U.K. in the process.\r\n\"The Brits are in an extremely difficult health situation,\" France\'s junior minister for European Union affairs, Clement Beaune, said on France Inter radio. \"Understandably, they are taking many risks in this vaccination campaign.\"\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nBeaune cited the U.K.\'s decision to focus on the first vaccine jabs and its reliance on AstraZeneca Plc despite doubts over its efficiency on older people. \"I don\'t think citizens would accept us taking risks that contradict scientific recommendations,\" he said.\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\nWith nations all over the world counting on Covid-19 vaccines to return normality as swiftly as possible, delivery delays in Europe announced by vaccine-makers Pfizer Inc and AstraZeneca sent chills through the bloc -- which is trailing the U.K. when it comes to vaccination -- and gave ammunition to anti-EU politicians like Marine Le Pen in France.\r\nBeaune defended the EU\'s decision to purchase the doses in common, an approach that avoided a race between member states and put the bloc\'s less affluent countries on an equal foot with its richest countries such as Germany or France.\r\nMore from\r\nGlaxo, CureVac Team Up to Create Next Wave of Covid-19 Shots\r\nGlaxo Joins CureVac; WHO Experts Visit Wuhan Lab: Virus Update\r\nAstra Shot Shows 82% Efficacy With U.K.\'s Two-Dose Interval\r\nWhy the Mutated Coronavirus Variants Are So Worrisome\r\n\r\nHad countries purchased vaccines on their own, \"each government -- imagine Germany, France, Italy -- would be calling labs to have doses delivered to get in ahead of their neighbors,\" Beaune said on Monday. Buying the vaccine in common also allowed the EU to obtain better prices.\r\n\r\nAnother plank in Macron\'s plan to revive the European project is set to advance on Wednesday when EU government envoys in Brussels will seek a common stance on the \"Conference on the Future of Europe\" -- a debate lasting several months that aims to bring member states closer together.\r\nThe conference \"is an opportunity to underpin the democratic legitimacy and functioning of the European project as well as to uphold the EU citizens support for our common goals and values, by giving them further opportunities to express themselves,\" according to the document the EU government envoys are due to adopt.\r\nThe concept is based on ideas laid out by the French president in 2017 from Pnyx, a hill that was the center of Athenian democracy more than 2,500 years ago. It was later adopted by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.\r\nFrance\'s most immediate problem however remains the vaccine rollout. Of 67 million inhabitants, about 1.5 million have received the jab. It plans to give the first dose to 2.4 million more patients by end February, compared to an initial target of 4 million. Government officials have defended their strategy by insisting on the need to focus on most vulnerable people first, and on obtaining their consent as well as following scientific guidelines on doses.\r\nLater on Tuesday, France\'s Health Agency is set to give its green light to AstraZeneca\'s vaccine, but it\'s unclear if it will be recommended for people over 65.\r\nAcross the Channel, British politicians have been ready to use France to score cheap points.\r\n\"We\'ve got the very best people in this country and we\'ve obviously got the best medical regulator, much better than the French have, much better than the Belgians have, much better than the Americans have,\" Education Secretary Gavin Williamson told LBC Radio in December. \"That doesn\'t surprise me at all because we\'re a much better country than every single one of them.\"\r\nWith some French hospitals starting to transfer patients to relieve pressure on intensive-care units and more contagious forms of the virus on the rise, the French government is closely monitoring indicators and remains ready to move quickly if a third lockdown is needed.\r\nFor now, President Emmanuel Macron is holding off calls for a full lockdown, as he seeks to navigate pressure from doctors to contain the new coronavirus variants and the need to protect the economy, while avoiding the risk of civil disobedience amid mounting fatigue. Instead, he strengthened curfew controls, imposed extra border checks and announced the closure of malls.','2021-02-05',''),(202,'Tens of thousands protest against new French security bill','The Guardian','Society',45,'Internet','N/A','Article 5\r\nTens of thousands protest against new French security bill\r\nhttps://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/30/tens-of-thousands-of-people-across-france-protest-against-new-security-bill\r\n\r\nTens of thousands of protesters turned out in dozens of French cities on Saturday to oppose a security bill they say will restrict the filming and publicising of images of police brutality.\r\nDemonstrators also protested against the restrictions imposed to halt the spread of coronavirus and to stand up for the cultural sector, which has been especially hard-hit by the measures.\r\nThose joining the demonstrations included activists from the gilets jaunes (yellow vests) movement that gripped France for more than a year before the pandemic restricted large-scale protests.\r\nAmong the protesters were young people calling for the right to hold rave parties, such as one in Brittany that attracted 2,400 people at the start of the year.\r\n“I have two reasons for coming today – the comprehensive security law and also to support culture,” said Kim, a 24-year-old civil service intern.\r\n“Lots of stores are open, the Metro is packed, yet cultural sites are closed, even though we can apply protective measures [against coronavirus],” she said.\r\nThe demonstrators are protesting against draft legislation that would ban the filming of police activities, which the ruling La République En Marche party of Emmanuel Macron, France’s president, has said it would rewrite.\r\nBut people are also protesting against the use of surveillance tools such as drones and pedestrian cameras.\r\nFootage of white police beating a black music producer in his Paris studio on 21 November has fuelled anger over the legislation, condemned by many as signalling a swing to the right by Macron.\r\nAccording to interior ministry figures, 32,077 people turned out to protest across France, significantly down on the 133,000 they said attended the largest protest against the measures, back in November – although organisers put the true turnout then at more than half a million people.\r\nOrganisers put the fall in numbers down to the coronavirus restrictions, poor weather and the fact that this was just the latest in a long series of such protests.\r\nFrance has recorded 75,000 deaths from coronavirus since the outbreak began and the country is bracing for another possible lockdown.\r\nIn Paris, the large Place de la République was half full, AFP journalists reported, while about 3,000 people gathered in Montpellier, southern France.\r\nAt about 5pm, an hour before the start of the overnight 6pm to 6am curfew now in place as a measure against coronavirus, clashes broke out between a group of about 50 young people and police.\r\nAfter being pelted with projectiles, the police used water cannon to clear the square. The Paris prosecutors office said 26 people had been detained.\r\nHundreds turned out for similar rallies in other cities.\r\nThe government argues that the proposed law is needed because police officers have become the targets of attacks and of calls for violence against them posted on social media.\r\nBut French media say a “new national plan of law enforcement” is being used to limit media coverage of demonstrations.\r\nThe proposed security law, which has already been approved by the National Assembly, is to be examined by the Senate, France’s upper parliamentary chamber, in March.\r\n\r\n','2021-02-10',''),(203,'Social distancing alarms cause a stink at French hygiene firm','France24','Politics',45,'Internet','N/A','Social distancing alarms cause a stink at French hygiene firm\r\nhttps://www.france24.com/en/france/20210114-social-distancing-alarms-cause-a-stink-at-french-hygiene-firm\r\n\r\nA global maker of wipes and toilet paper has created a stink among its French employees after asking them to carry a device that goes off if they violate social distancing rules in the workplace.\r\n\r\nThe personal alarm system emits a warning sound of 85 decibels -- about the same as a lawnmower -- if the wearer gets too close to a colleague, according to outraged union representatives at the group.\r\nIt is set to be trialled at the French sites of personal hygiene specialist Essity, a Swedish company that makes hand soap, tissues, sanitary products and napkins. \r\nThe CFDT union denounced the alarms as \"a system comparable to ones that try to dissuade dogs from barking,\" adding that it would be stressful and \"infantilising\" for employees. \r\nReached for comment at the company\'s headquarters, spokesman Karl Stoltz told AFP that \"it is just tested in France\". \r\n\r\nEmployees have been told that the alarms are for their own safety and that the devices will be deactivated in the company canteen, toilets and medical areas.\r\nThe sensors will not be personalised and do not have a system enabling the company to locate them, according to management.\r\nThe proposals are set to be discussed at a personnel meeting next week, but employees are already warning that the devices will end up like many of the company\'s single-use products.  \r\nChristine Duguet, a union representative from the CFDT, predicted that \"they\'ll finish in the rubbish bins or stay in a cupboard. This is complete nonsense.\"\r\n','2021-02-10',''),(204,'Sarkozy’s conviction carries echoes for Trump','The Washington Post','Politics',47,'https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/03/02/sarkozy-convicted-trump-similarities/','Ishaan Taroor','The ex-president was a polarizing figure, a firebrand who relished in ruffling the feathers of opponents to the left. At home, he demonized immigrants and ethnic minorities and aped the rhetoric of the far right. His penchant for shattering norms, including efforts to politicize the judiciary, drew the ire of critics. Abroad, he raised eyebrows after conspicuously courting Middle East potentates. His glamorous wife, at least for a time, was more admired than him.\r\nEventually, the public tired of his act and the support of a motivated base proved insufficient; he became a one-term president, cast out of power by a national electorate eager for a return to \'normalcy.\' Stripped of the shield of presidential immunity, he then found himself mired in spiraling legal battles. He raged against the \'grotesque\' witch hunt against him, but could not forestall an ignominious reckoning.\r\nNo, we’re not talking about former president Donald Trump. On Monday, a French court found former French president Nicolas Sarkozy guilty of corruption and influence peddling. He was given a three-year sentence, two years of which were suspended. He may still avoid actual jail time following appeals, but the reputational damage, at the very least, is done — Sarkozy is only the second head of state in modern France to be convicted of corruption.\r\nThe echoes of what’s happening to Sarkozy ought to be ringing loud for Trump. Despite considerable differences in the political contexts where they operated, the two share elements of a political style. In his memoir published last year, former president Barack Obama described Sarkozy as an incorrigible narcissist, \'his chest thrust out like a bantam cock’s … never straying from his primary, barely disguised interest, which was to be at the center of the action and take credit for whatever it was that might be worth taking credit for.\'\r\n\r\nBoth Trump and Sarkozy demanded absolute loyalty from those around them — as a Le Monde editorial once noted, with Sarkozy it was either \'allegiance or vengeance.\' And they harnessed a divisive, angry agenda to get their way. \'After Sarkozy’s million-miles-an-hour presidency, France — like America now — was running on fumes,\' wrote CNN’s Cyril Vanier last year. \'The country was exhausted. For many voters, the passions unleashed, the acrimony, the national soul-searching hadn’t been sustainable.\'\r\n\r\nTrump was impeached an unprecedented two times by the House on charges including abuse of power; Sarkozy is now contemplating a spell in prison for the same. \'The charges against Sarkozy, who was president between 2007 and 2012, were centered around the question whether the former French leader was behind a deal with a magistrate to illegally receive information on inquiries linked to him, using false names and unofficial phone lines,\' explained my colleague Rick Noack. \'According to the prosecution, Sarkozy and his then-lawyer and longtime friend Thierry Herzog attempted to bribe the magistrate, Gilbert Azibert, by offering him a high-profile position in return for information. The incident took place after Sarkozy had left office.\'\r\nSarkozy also faces other legal woes, including allegations that he received campaign funding from the late Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi in 2007, an investigation into whether he fraudulently overspent in his failed 2012 reelection bid and a probe launched January into alleged influence-peddling after Sarkozy signed a lucrative contract with a Russian insurance company.\r\nIn court, Sarkozy rejected the various charges against him. \'Never abused my influence, alleged or real,\' he said in December. \'What right do they have to drag me through the mud like this for six years? Is there no rule of law?\'\r\nBut prosecutors argued that he was finally facing the consequences for his abuse of power. \'The events would not have occurred if a former president, as well as a lawyer, had kept in mind the magnitude, the responsibility, and the duties of his office,\' prosecutor Jean-Luc Blachon told the court in Paris as the trial concluded.\r\nThe legal dragnet is tightening around Trump, too. While Republican senators guaranteed his second acquittal on impeachment charges last month, Trump as a private citizen still faces a crowded slate of criminal and civil litigation, including his role in stoking the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, his pre-presidency business dealings and defamation claims by women who allege he assaulted them, claims he has denied. The allegations are in some instances far more grave than those associated with Sarkozy.\r\nBut though the stain of illegal activities doomed Sarkozy’s attempt at a political comeback in 2016, Trump seems still in pole position to make a new bid for the presidency in 2024. He took center stage Sunday at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference and, unrepentant, once more delivered his customary airing of grievances and falsehoods. Rather than work to sideline the former president, the bulk of the Republican Party appears still in his thrall.\r\n\r\nThat may change as the legal cases against Trump and some close allies start to catch up. \'There has to be some consequence for telling these lies — because when you lie to people, they take action based on what they think is true,\' said Philadelphia City Commissioner Al Schmidt, a Republican who received threats after false allegations of fraud in the counting of the city’s votes, to The Washington Post. \'Because it’s such a dangerous new thing that occurred, there has to be some reconciliation. Moving on isn’t enough.\'\r\n','2021-03-02',''),(205,'https://www.france24.com/en/sport/20210301-french-rugby-chief-says-coach-galthi%C3%A9-breached-covid-19-bubble','France 24','Sport',47,'https://www.france24.com/en/sport/20210301-french-rugby-chief-says-coach-galthi%C3%A9-breached-covid-19-bubble','N/A','France head coach Fabien Galthié did not stay inside the team\'s bubble before a COVID-19 outbreak in the French squad that has led to the postponement of a Six Nations game, according to the French rugby federation president.\r\n\r\nSpeaking to French television station France 3 on Sunday, Bernard Laporte confirmed that Galthié left the team bubble to watch his son play a rugby match after France thrashed Italy last month in its opening Six Nations match.\r\nLaporte stopped short of criticizing Galthié, though.\r\n\'I don\'t see where the problem could be. But then again, I\'m not a doctor,\' Laporte said, insisting that he continues to have confidence in his coach.\r\n\'For me, he has the right to leave from the moment he is masked. He was outside and masked,\' Laporte said.\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\nGalthié was among the members of the French squad who tested positive for coronavirus. The outbreak prompted the postponement of France\'s match against Scotland last weekend. France had won its previous two matches.\r\nInvestigations have been launched into the outbreak by the federation and the government.\r\nThe initial accusations are focused on Galthié after the L’Equipe newspaper first reported that he breached health protocols that were tightened so the tournament itself could go ahead. L’Equipe said Galthie broke the rules before the win against Ireland and reported that some players went out to eat in Rome before routing Italy 50-10.\r\nLaporte said the players who went out to eat waffles in Rome had been tested again upon their return. He added that \'obviously, zero risk does not exist.\'\r\nFrance Sports Minister Roxana Maracineanu has ordered an internal investigation and its conclusions are expected later this week. The Six Nations was in jeopardy until her government gave its go-ahead to the tournament three weeks ago only after approving the French federation\'s stricter sanitary controls.\r\nA new date for the game between Scotland and France has yet to be announced\r\n','2021-03-01',''),(206,'On the COVID-19 frontline but half of French care home workers don\'t trust vaccine','www.reuters.com','Society',47,'https://www.reuters.com/article/health-coronavirus-france-vaccines/on-the-covid-19-frontline-but-half-of-french-care-home-workers-dont-trust-vaccine-idUSL5N2KZ6I2','N/A','On the COVID-19 frontline but half of French care home workers don\'t trust vaccine\r\nhttps://www.reuters.com/article/health-coronavirus-france-vaccines/on-the-covid-19-frontline-but-half-of-french-care-home-workers-dont-trust-vaccine-idUSL5N2KZ6I2\r\nPARIS (Reuters) - Marie-France Boudret, who works in a French home for the elderly, watched a patient suffocate to death in front of her because COVID-19 had infected his lungs. But when her employer offered her a vaccine against the virus, the nurse hesitated.\r\n\r\n“I have some doubts,” said Boudret, 48. “I prefer to wait.”\r\nAround half of health workers in French care homes do not want to be vaccinated, according to the group of experts guiding the state’s vaccine rollout - compared to only 20% of the residents who have not been inoculated.\r\nIf significant numbers of care home workers do not get the jab, they could transmit the disease to residents who are not vaccinated and at high risk of serious illness, say advocates for the elderly.\r\nOne reason for the scepticism is that those recommending the vaccine are the same people - the French state - whom care home workers blame for their low pay and tough working conditions, said Malika Belarbi, a care worker and trade union official.\r\n“There’s a complete loss of trust,” she said.\r\nThe issue is not unique to France.\r\nIn Germany, care home operator BeneVit Group surveyed staff in November and found only 30% wanted to get vaccinated.\r\nPeter Burri, head of ProSenectute, Switzerland’s biggest advocacy group for seniors, said at most half of nursing staff in the medical sector were willing to get inoculated.\r\nGETTING THE JAB?\r\nAt a care home in Clamart, south of Paris, on Monday, 66-year-old Marie-Dominique Chastel was playing a parlour game with residents. Chastel, an activity coordinator at the home, declined the jab because she said her own immune system could fight off COVID-19.\r\nShe said some relatives of residents had asked if she was going to get vaccinated. “My response was: ‘I’m going to wait a bit’,” she said.\r\nBoudret, the care home nurse, recalled fighting in vain to save her patient during the first wave of the virus. The same day two more of her patients died.\r\n“That day, I broke. It was the last straw,” she said. She said she felt neglected and under-appreciated by the state, citing short-staffing and problems with equipment.\r\nSince then, she has had COVID-19. She was unwell for a couple of days, but is now fully recovered.\r\nStaff at her care home, in the Paris suburb of Boulogne-Billancourt, were offered appointments to get the vaccine.\r\nBoudret said she was not in a high-risk group and felt there had not been time to properly assess the jab.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\nRegulators around the world have repeatedly said speed will not compromise safety and vaccine developers have said they will not cut corners in testing for safety and efficacy.\r\nThe quicker results have stemmed from conducting in parallel trials that are usually done in sequence and can take years.\r\nTrials for the shots developed by Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson have shown only temporary side-effects.\r\nFrance’s state drug safety watchdog has said the procedure for approving the vaccines ensures they are safe and that it monitors side-effects and has seen nothing to warrant stopping their use.\r\nThe number of French care home workers declining the vaccine is half what it was in December, said Patrick Peretti-Watel, head of research at France’s National Institute for Health and Medical Research.\r\nBut Peretti-Watel, also a member of the government’s vaccine strategy steering committee, said getting more of them inoculated would require tackling the harm done by disputes over pay and working conditions.\r\n“It’s a question of winning trust,” he said.\r\n','2021-03-09',''),(207,'Tempers fray over France’s vaccine strategy','ft.com','Society',47,'https://www.ft.com/content/8cb348fd-e5f1-4450-9178-246cd4a8e549','N/A','Tempers fray over France’s vaccine strategy\r\nhttps://www.ft.com/content/8cb348fd-e5f1-4450-9178-246cd4a8e549\r\n\r\n\r\nFrance’s vaccination campaign, which has been heavily criticised for its slow progress, is beginning to reduce Covid-19 infections, hospitalisations and deaths among people over 80. But with cases rising among younger adults, the government must decide whether more restrictions are needed to contain the spread of the virus. President Emmanuel Macron tried to sound optimistic on Monday when he was asked by a young man in the Paris suburb of Stains whether the government could make life easier by having the 6pm-6am nationwide coronavirus curfew start an hour later each night. “We have to hold on for a few more weeks, four to six weeks,” Macron said. A few hours later, Macron’s health minister Olivier Véran had to spell out the bad news: the target date was a minimum, and people should not count on any relaxation soon because “the curfew and the current restrictions will be in place for at least the next four to six weeks”. Since the New Year, France has teetered on the brink of imposing lockdown measures as demanded by many doctors and epidemiologists, and as adopted in Germany and the UK, but so far rejected by Macron. He hopes that vaccinations and existing controls — including the continued closure of restaurants and bars — will be enough to protect hospitals from an unmanageable surge of new Covid-19 patients.\r\n\r\n\r\nMore than 85,000 of France’s 67m people have been killed by the pandemic in the past year, but Macron is wary of imposing another nationwide lockdown on a weary population. There has been a fierce debate in recent weeks over the merits of his determination to keep schools open unlike elsewhere in Europe, but at the same time many French flout the current rules by holding secret parties or ignoring the curfew. Nor does the president want to inflict further damage on the economy. “It’s a risky bet but remains similar to strategies seen elsewhere in Europe,” said Antoine Flahault, director of the Institute of Global Health at the University of Geneva. “Basically leaders wait till the situation is extreme to respond with tough measures — as in the UK or Portugal around Christmas.”\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nFlahault recommends a “zero Covid” strategy of complete suppression, not least because of the rapid spread in Europe of new variants of the virus. These variants are more infectious than the early forms of the virus and in some cases will sap the effectiveness of the vaccines slowly being rolled out across the continent. “The situation is very tense because it can escape from control at any moment with an exponential rise in the infection curve,” he said, noting that new cases in France had risen from an already high plateau of about 11,000 per day in December to 20,000 now, which made it impractical to trace contacts or contain clusters. In the UK, which has a similar-sized population, the latest data show nearly 6,400 new cases per day. After two nationwide lockdowns in the spring and autumn of last year, the French government has so far this year adopted a piecemeal approach to dealing with steadily rising infections. It has imposed weekend-only lockdowns on Dunkirk in the north and Nice in the south and placed 20 départements, including the whole of the Paris region, under increased surveillance.\r\n \r\nIf Macron’s lockdown decisions have had mixed reviews — some in France say they are too strict and others insist they are not strict enough — his handling of the other anti-Covid weapon at his disposal, vaccination, has been roundly condemned on all sides. That is partly because the EU as a whole has been slower than the UK and the US in producing and procuring vaccines, which has left Macron and Clément Beaune, his Europe minister, on the defensive as they sing the praises of the EU’s joint procurement policy. “The message here is, ‘We have to show that the EU works and is benefiting us,” said Georgina Wright of the Institut Montaigne think-tank in Paris. Yet even when compared with its EU neighbours, the country’s vaccination programme has fallen short. “This is the biggest problem for France,” said Wright. “It’s shocking and it really is a French problem.” France has struggled to accelerate its vaccination campaign since it began in late December, but still aims to have offered a jab to all adults who want one by the end of summer. The country has administered 6.7 vaccine doses per 100 people in its population as of February 28, according to Our World in Data, putting it at the back of the pack in the EU and far behind global pacesetters such as the UK with 31, the US on 23 and Israel on 95. In Europe, Denmark had managed 10.8, Spain 8.2, Germany 7.6, and Italy 7.2.\r\n\r\n\r\nHealth officials in France insisted one reason for the slow rollout is that they initially focused narrowly on the elderly living in care homes and the otherwise vulnerable. They also believed they had to move carefully given the exceptionally high levels of scepticism about vaccines among the French. Another more embarrassing reason is France’s failure to make the most of the AstraZeneca vaccine deliveries that began arriving a month ago and will increase significantly in March and April. Macron himself said wrongly at the end of January that all the indications were that AstraZeneca was “almost ineffective” for the over-65s, when in fact there was simply insufficient data at the time. This week the government reversed its decision not to use AstraZeneca for the over-65s, and the pace of vaccination is expected to pick up. Still, as of Monday, France had used only 24 per cent of the 1.1m Oxford/AstraZeneca doses it had received, according to health ministry data. In contrast, France had used about 90 per cent of the 4.2m doses of the BioNTech/Pfizer vaccine it has received to date. “France managed the first part of the pandemic better than the UK, but the second part, since we’ve had vaccines, has been much better managed in the UK than in France,” said Nicolas Bouzou, economist at consultancy Asterès. “They added errors on top of errors on vaccination.” The question now is whether the French vaccination programme can be accelerated in time to avert the need for harsh new lockdown measures. “The bet that the infections will fall with current restrictions is not totally impossible so political leaders may pin their hopes on it,” said Flahault. “But if the infections surge then these countries will have lost valuable time.”\r\n\r\n','2021-03-09',''),(208,'France blasts \'pathetic\' attempts to discredit Pfizer vaccine online','Reuters','Health',50,'https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/france-blasts-pathetic-attempts-discredit-pfizer-vaccine-online-2021-05-25/','Stephane Mahe','Several French social media sites say they have been approached by a communications agency which offered them money to spread negative publicity about the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine, a ploy the health minister described as dangerous and irresponsible.\r\nLeo Grasset, whose DirtyBiology Youtube channel has more than a million subscribers, said on his @dirtybiology Twitter account that he had been offered money to criticise the Pfizer shot.\r\n\'I have received a partnership proposal to bust the Pfizer vaccine in video. Huge budget, a client who wants to remain anonymous .... if you see videos about this, you will know that it is a set-up,\' he tweeted.\r\nHe added that the address of London-based agency which had contacted him was a fake.\r\nIt was not clear how many people had received such requests, where they originated or why they targeted the Pfizer vaccine, the most commonly administered in France, a country which has a tradition of vaccine skepticism.\r\nPfizer did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.\r\nPfizer (PFE.N) and German partner BioNTech last November became the first drug manufacturers to report successful initial data from a large coronavirus vaccine clinical trial.\r\nIn April, a European Union report said that Russian and Chinese media were systematically seeking to sow mistrust in Western COVID-19 vaccines in their disinformation campaigns aimed at the West.\r\nOne of the operators of \'Et ca se dit medecin\' (\'And that calls itself a doctor\'), which has about 30,000 followers on Twitter and 90,000 on Instagram, also said on RMC TV he had been offered money to discredit the Pfizer vaccine.\r\nI do not know where this comes from, from France or abroad,\' French Health Minister Olivier Veran said on BFM TV on Tuesday. \'It is pathetic, it is dangerous, it is irresponsible and it does not work.\'\r\n','2021-05-06',''),(209,'French police protest in Paris to demand a government crackdown on attacks','France 24','Society',50,'https://www.france24.com/en/france/20210519-french','News wires','French police officers held a huge demonstration outside parliament Wednesday to press for a law that protects the protectors who are feeling vulnerable to attacks, angry and useless. \r\n\r\nThe rally by security forces represented a bold and unusual move for members of an institution that stresses duty and discretion. The protest also morphed into what looked like a campaign stop for politicians ahead of regional elections next month and a presidential race next year, with security a top concern.\r\nInterior Minister Gerald Darmanin showed up at the start, squeezing through a packed crowd of hundreds waving labor union flags. Representatives from the far-right National Rally and a multitude of other parties were expected to attend. The politicians clearly hope to send a message that security matters and police officers, a considerable voting pool, are their friends.\r\n\'You must help us, Mister Minister,\' an officer said with emotion to Darmanin.\r\n\'Every morning when I awake, every night when I sleep, I think of you,\' Darmanin said, adding that his presence at the protest was \'normal\' given his role as France\'s top cop.\r\n \r\nPolice unions gave notice ahead of the rally that politicians would not be allowed to make speeches. \'No one will confiscate the words of police or citizens,\' said a statement by 10 unions holding the demonstration.\r\nWith two officers killed in recent weeks - one in a terrorist attack and another by a suspected 19-year-old delinquent - and constant encounters with young people who throw objects and fireworks, police are angry.\r\n\'Paid to Serve, Not to Die\'\r\n\'Paid to Serve, Not to Die\' read a giant banner in front of the National Assembly, the lower chamber of parliament.\r\nPolice are calling for a law that guarantees jail time for those who assault them and for a justice system that punishes the small-time offenders they arrest and re-arrest after courts set them free.\r\nPolls show broad support for police, but critics cite instances of brutality, including a man who died this year after a beating. A group of organizations filed a lawsuit in January contending systemic racism in France\'s security forces.\r\nOfficers reject what they label as \'police bashing\' that undermines their work.\r\nDarmanin\'s presence at Wednesday\'s protest triggered a deluge of criticism. The hardline interior minister has made chasing down neighborhood drug dealers a priority.\r\nFrench President Emmanuel Macron, who is expected to run for reelection in 2022, has put security high on his agenda. However, police want more than a list of promises, such as guaranteeing a 30-year prison sentence for anyone convicted of killing an officer.\r\n','2021-05-19',''),(210,'French Open: Japan’s Naomi Osaka could be kicked out of tournament over media boycott','scmp.com','Sport',50,'Internet','N/A','French Open: Japan’s Naomi Osaka could be kicked out of tournament over media boycott\r\n\r\nCiting mental health reasons, the four-time grand slam champion said she would not be speaking to the press at Roland Garros stadium in Paris\r\n•	Osaka has been fined US$15,000 for refusing to fulfil her media commitments after a first-round victory over Romania’s Patricia Maria Tig\r\n\r\nNaomi Osaka has been warned she faces being thrown out of the French Open should she continue her media boycott.\r\nThe four-time grand slam champion announced on social media ahead of the tournament that she would not be doing any press at Roland Garros, citing mental health reasons.\r\nIt has not gone down well with the tournament and drew an unusually punchy joint statement from the four grand slams, who threatened Osaka with severe sanctions should she not reconsider her stance.\r\nA statement on Sunday said: “We have advised Naomi Osaka that, should she continue to ignore her media obligations during the tournament, she would be exposing herself to possible further code of conduct infringement consequences.\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n“As might be expected, repeat violations attract tougher sanctions including default from the tournament and the trigger of a major offence investigation that could lead to more substantial fines and future grand slam suspensions.”\r\nOsaka has been fined US$15,000 for refusing to fulfil her media commitments after a 6-4, 7-6 (7-4) first-round victory over Patricia Maria Tig.\r\nThe statement continued: “The Roland Garros teams asked her to reconsider her position and tried unsuccessfully to speak with her to check on her well-being, understand the specifics of her issue and what might be done to address it on site.\r\n“A core element of the grand slam regulations is the responsibility of the players to engage with the media, whatever the result of their match, a responsibility which players take for the benefit of the sport, the fans and for themselves.\r\n“As a sport, there is nothing more important than ensuring no player has an unfair advantage over another, which unfortunately is the case in this situation if one player refuses to dedicate time to participate in media commitments while the others all honour their commitments.”\r\nDespite her media snub, Osaka did take part in a short and rather awkward on-court interview for the few hundred fans allowed into Court Philippe Chatrier following her victory over Romanian Tig.\r\n“I’m very glad that I won,” said the 23-year-old, who skipped the tournament last year after winning her third slam title at the US Open.\r\n“It’s a very beautiful court. I’ve only played two matches here, one was before the roof and one is right now. Hopefully I’ll keep it going.”\r\nRegarding her movement on clay, Osaka, who next meets another Romanian in Ana Bogdan, said: “I would say it’s a work in progress. Hopefully the more I play, the better I’ll get.”\r\nPetra Kvitova, a semi-finalist last year, saved a match point in the second set against Greet Minnen before coming through 6-7 (3-7), 7-6 (7-5), 6-1.\r\nAngelique Kerber has won titles at the other three slams but her chances of completing the set appear remote after a third successive first-round loss.\r\nThe German, twice a quarter-finalist in Paris, was beaten 6-2, 6-4 by a very in-form player in qualifier Anhelina Kalinina, who has now won her last 14 matches.\r\nAmerican Danielle Collins, who is back on tour after undergoing surgery for endometriosis, battled to a 6-2, 4-6, 6-4 victory over China’s Wang Xiyu.\r\nRussian Elena Vesnina, meanwhile, defeated Olga Govortsova 6-1, 6-0 in her first singles match at a grand slam since taking maternity leave in 2018.\r\n\r\n','2021-06-01',''),(211,'French lawmakers approve COVID \'health pass\' at second attempt','Reuters','Politics',50,'Internet','N/A','French lawmakers approve COVID \'health pass\' at second attempt\r\n\r\nFrance\'s National Assembly approved on Wednesday the creation of a COVID-19 \"health pass\" that people can use to attend sports events, festivals and theme parks with large crowds, a hotly contested government measure to help safely re-open the economy.\r\nThe health pass, which will come into effect from June 9, will provide proof that a person has either been vaccinated against the coronavirus, holds a recent negative PCR test, or is recovering from COVID-19 and therefore has natural antibodies.\r\nThe proposal was initially shot down in the lower house on Tuesday evening over fears it would impinge on civil freedoms, a rare defeat for President Emmanuel Macron\'s ruling party, after centrist MoDem allies rebelled.\r\nMoDem lawmakers accused the government of being deaf to the party\'s red lines.\r\nThe health pass was approved on a second vote in the early hours of Wednesday after the government shortened the transition period during which it will be able to re-impose restrictions such as a curfew without the permission of parliament once France\'s state of emergency is lifted on June 2.\r\nFrance has begun slowly unwinding a third national lockdown despite registering nearly 20,000 new cases every day and with intensive care wards still saturated.\r\nOn May 19, restaurants, cafes and bars will be allowed to reopen for outdoor service and shops, museums and cinemas will reopen. Three weeks later, places of worship and sports stadiums will be allowed to admit up to 5,000 people and foreign tourists will be allowed to visit the country.\r\nMacron has said the health pass, which can be digital or paper-based, will curb the spread of the virus at events with crowds of more than 1,000 people. It will not be used for every day venues such as restaurants and cinemas or for access to public transport.\r\nThe legislation now passes to the Senate.\r\n','2021-06-01',''),(212,'Spectator speaks out after causing ‘worst Tour de France crash ever seen’','news.com.au','Sport',51,'https://www.news.com.au/sport/cycling/spectator-speaks-out-after-causing-worst-tour-de-france-crash-ever-seen/news-story/ec5d87b8d6a3c01a96609b11178871ec','N/A','The spectator who caused a horrific Tour de France crash then fled the scene has spoken up as the disturbing reaction to her act was revealed.\r\nTour de France organisers will withdraw their legal complaint against the spectator who caused a mass pileup in the iconic race on Saturday.\r\nAn arrested cycling spectator told investigators she feels ashamed of her \'stupidity\' and is worried about the huge public interest in her case, a prosecutor said.\r\nThe 30-year-old woman, who has not been named, was arrested on Thursday, five days after the accident on Saturday that left dozens of cyclists nursing cuts and bruises and one with fractured hands — described by some as the \'worst crash ever seen\' at the Tour de France.\r\nWearing a bright yellow coat, she was caught on camera during the first stage of the race in northwestern Brittany holding up a large cardboard sign with the words \'Go! Grandpa and granny\' in front of the cyclists.\r\nRiding on the outside of the tightly packed peloton, German cyclist Tony Martin was unable to avoid colliding with the sign and the ensuing pileup led to a five-minute delay as riders and bikes were untangled.\r\n\'The suspect has expressed her feelings of shame and fear about the consequences of her act,\' local prosecutor Camille Miansoni told reporters at a press conference that was shown live by some French TV channels.\r\n\'She said she is worried about the media attention for what she has called her ‘stupidity’,\'Miansoni added from the city of Brest.\r\n\r\nThe accident has sparked a debate about safety and spectator conduct at the Tour de France, where fans are allowed to line the roads, but has also inflamed passions and led to widespread abuse of the woman on social media.\r\nLocal police chief Nicolas Duvinage said that an appeal for witnesses posted on Facebook led to more than 4000 messages, some of which \'were verging on incitement to violence\'.\r\n\'We need to stay reasonable and calm on social networks,\' he told the press conference. \'The suspect has some personal vulnerabilities and we need to avoid a lynching in the media or on social media.\'\r\nProsecutor Miansoni explained that the woman had gone to watch the race with her partner as it passed several kilometres from their home in rural Brittany.\r\nThe message on her sign — which she showed in the direction of television cameras, meaning her back was turned to the riders — was intended for her grandparents who were watching on TV at home like millions of others.\r\nMiansoni added that she had no previous criminal record and a decision would be made shortly on whether to charge her with putting others in danger through negligence and causing unintentional bodily harm.\r\nEarlier, the organiser of the Tour de France race said it was withdrawing its legal complaint against her.\r\n\'The incident has been blown out of all proportion,\' director Christian Prudhomme told AFP.\r\n\'So we’d like to calm things down now that the message has got across that the roadside fans need to be careful.\'\r\n\r\nMartin, a six-time Tour de France stage winner, had earlier called for a severe punishment.\r\n\'Not only did she fail to stick around and help us get up from the floor, she didn’t present herself to the police or present her excuses,\' the 36-year-old told German publication Bild.\r\nMartin, who competes for Team Jumbo-Visma, is still in the Tour but Spain’s Marc Soler is one of the riders who had to leave after the crash in which he fractured both hands.\r\nSoler told Spain’s La Vanguardia newspaper on Wednesday he intended to lodge an official complaint about the woman.\r\n\'People come to the race to mess around and at the end of the day they go home alight, but we cyclists pay for it with our bodies,\' he said\r\n','2021-07-02',''),(213,'France elections: Tough lessons for presidential rivals','BBC','Politics',51,'https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-57640200','Hugh Schofield','Here are five takeaways from the elections, which present a more complicated picture than many had expected.\r\n1. Nothing inevitable about hard right\r\nMarine Le Pen\'s far-right party is being cast as the big loser in the regional vote. Which is a trifle unfair. In the PACA (Provence-Alpes-Côte d\'Azur) region on the Mediterranean her candidate probably would have won but for the left-winger standing down. It shows that the far right - even as the biggest party - is still highly vulnerable when its opponents gang up against it.\r\nNo, if the National Rally (RN) is the loser it is because it was expected to be the winner. Before the first round there was talk of it gaining not just PACA but maybe two or three other regions. Instead it has nothing - and its chance to prove its credentials as a trustworthy party of power has gone.\r\nThis is going to lead to unhappy ructions within the party, which holds its annual conference in Perpignan next weekend. There are voices calling for Marine Le Pen to return to her party\'s core values: opposition to immigration and Islam, and support for national sovereignty. She has gone soft, these voices are saying, and look where it\'s got us.\r\n2. Don\'t misinterpret the pro-incumbent vote\r\nSome are calling these elections a triumph for democracy, because for once the incumbents all got re-elected. In other words, the French voter has moved on from his/her obsession with ousting those in power and is now reflecting maturely on their merits.\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\nNothing could be further from the truth. There is no encouragement at all for President Emmanuel Macron in these results. Far from being the end of anti-incumbency, they are the furtherance of anti-incumbency. Because for most French voters, the incumbent is him.\r\nThe president may feel protected by his strong personal ratings (as opposed to his party\'s dismal ones), and by the knowledge that the presidential race is a very different affair from the regionals.\r\nBut the anti-Paris, anti-establishment feeling that first manifested itself with the yellow vest protesters (gilets jaunes) is very much alive in the country and waiting for a chance to bite. President Macron is in fact very vulnerable.\r\n\r\n3. Left-right has not disappeared\r\nThe old parties of right and left have been waiting for this moment for nearly five years. Tired of being told that the new politics is about Macron versus Le Pen, open versus closed, forward versus backward, they are delighted to be able to show that competence, organisation and yes, ideology, still count for something.\r\nAll 12 French mainland regions were retained by the parties that ruled them already - and this offers both a vindication and a boost for those centre-righters and centre-lefters who now want to enter the presidential fray.\r\nInevitably it is the centre-right which is drawing the most succour from the results. This is because the battleground to decide who will be the challenger against Mr Macron next year is situated on the right. It is Ms Le Pen versus Xavier Bertrand or Valérie Pécresse or Laurent Wauquiez.\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n4. French politics is splintering\r\nIn several of the second-round regional votes on Sunday there were four candidates competing. In two of them there were five candidates (a quinquagulaire in French). This is unprecedented and not what the system was designed for.\r\nThe two-round vote - which also applies in presidentials - was built on the assumption of two broad camps, one left and one right. In the second round, the champions of each would rally their side and slug it out.\r\nBut the changing face of politics means there are now several parties with a reasonable chance of making it to the second round. In regional elections the qualification is a minimum 10% first-round vote - which is why so many made it through.\r\nIn the presidentials it is different: only the top two candidates go through. But that means that the first round suddenly becomes crucial. What if Macron, Le Pen, a centre-right candidate, a Green-Socialist alliance candidate and a far-left candidate like Jean-Luc Mélenchon are all hovering around the 17% mark? Fancy a Le Pen-Mélenchon run-off anyone?\r\n\r\n5. Abstention makes the heart grow fonder\r\nYes, abstention was indeed the big winner at the regionals - 66% not voting is a record (if you exclude referendums). It means the results are impossible to interpret and even those who did badly - like Ms Le Pen and Mr Macron - can use abstention to explain away their disappointment.\r\n\r\nSome say it is part of a democratic crisis. What is more obviously true is that the French - like others - view politics through a national prism. Regional elections do not excite - except when there is a chance to give the government a kicking. And as we have seen, in these elections there was no such chance because Macron\'s party barely exists in local politics.\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\nBut next year\'s presidentials are a different matter. There, the people will turn up to vote.\r\n\r\n','2021-07-28',''),(214,'16km slick off Brittany coast after ship accidentally dumps oil in sea','Connexion France','Economy',51,'https://www.connexionfrance.com/French-news/Oil-slick-off-Brittany-coast-after-ship-accidentally-dumps-100-litres-near-wind-farm-site','N/A','16km slick off Brittany coast after ship accidentally dumps oil in sea\r\n\r\nThe ship was working as part of a new offshore wind farm project when the accident happened. Authorities are now working to prevent the oil washing up on the Breton coast\r\nA 16km-long oil slick has been reported off the Brittany coast, after a drilling ship helping to build a new wind farm accidentally dumped oil into the sea.\r\nThe 138-metre-long drill ship Aeolus was working in the bay of Saint-Brieuc, near the site of a future wind farm run by Breton wind farm company Ailes Marines, when the accident happened yesterday, at around 06:30 on June 14.\r\nThe commander of the ship raised the alert. \r\nThe Brest maritime authority took charge of the report, and said: “The pollution, first observed by the Cleanseanet satellite, then confirmed by a customs plane at 14:20, caused a slick 16 kilometres long and 2.7 kilometres wide.”\r\n\r\nAn anti-pollution ship, Le Sapeur, has arrived on-site today (June 15). It will work to ensure the slick does not wash up on the Breton coast.\r\nLe Sapeur is owned by la Marine nationale in Brest, specialists in dealing with sea pollution. It is accompanied by a 300-metre-long barge, which has absorbent pads designed to soak up the oil.\r\nPlane and satellite observation of the slick will also continue today.\r\nThe Aeolus is owned by Dutch shipping company Van Oord, which has been served notice that it must work to stop causing danger by pollution.\r\n\r\nAiles Marines, the Breton company in charge of developing, constructing, and running the planned offshore wind farm, has told the maritime authorities in Brest that the Aeolus has been ordered to leave the bay of Saint-Brieuc this morning, and return to a Dutch port to have its drilling components checked.\r\nMaritime authorities have not yet confirmed the scale of risk that the pollution may cause to the Breton coast. A plane is set to fly over the area this morning to give more precise information.\r\nHowever, authorities have confirmed that the dumped oil is less viscous and less difficult to clean up than heavy fuel oil, and may evaporate and dissolve into the seawater.\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n \r\nMystery oil spill in Corsica\r\nIt comes as Corsica is still dealing with the after-effects of a 35km-long oil spill off its coast four days ago.\r\nYesterday it was confirmed that another beach – Targo, in Conca – had been evacuated and closed due to the spill, with black lumps reported on the sand. \r\nIt is the third beach to have been closed as a result of the slick; Favone beach in Corse-du-Sud closed first, followed by Solaro beach, near Solenzara.\r\nSeveral tonnes of oil were already cleaned up over the weekend.\r\nFrançois Chazot, prefect director in Corse-du-Sud, said: \"Mayors have issued orders to close beaches [polluted by oil]. A range of methods are being used to fight against this oil patch.\r\n“We have had some sporadic arrivals [of oil] on the beaches, and are dealing with them on a case-by-case basis. The mayor has organised clean-up operations with the resources of the local council, the fire brigade and the civil security service, to enable the beaches to be reopened.”\r\nInvestigations ongoing\r\nThe spill was discovered on Friday June 11 during a military exercise. Maritime and air authorities are now observing the area to ascertain the extent of the damage. Investigators are still searching for the ship suspected of dumping the oil.\r\nChristine Ribbe, spokeswoman for the Mediterranean maritime prefecture, told the AFP on Monday 14: “Very scattered and very fine micro pellets [of oil] were observed by [our] planes.”\r\nThe Marseille prosecutor has opened an investigation into the spill, and said in a press release yesterday that “everything is being done to identify the captain and the company responsible for this pollution”.\r\nAnalysis on the weather, sea currents, wind and the state of the sea will be used in an effort to determine where the oil may have been dumped, and by what ship. The condition of the slick suggests that the oil was dumped recently, authorities said.\r\nThree ships have been identified as possible perpetrators so far, but other ships may be contacted for information. If the spill is found to be illegal, and the perpetrators found guilty, the captain and shipping company responsible could face fines running to many millions of euros.\r\n','2021-07-08',''),(215,'French court dog helps soothe anxious victims of crime','BBC','Society',51,'https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-57481565','N/A','French court dog helps soothe anxious victims of crime\r\n\r\nA man in handcuffs sits on a bench waiting to appear before a judge. He\'s been escorted to court by two police officers from a nearby jail.\r\nMeanwhile, a mother and her two daughters are huddled with their lawyer, fine-tuning their strategy before their imminent court appearance in what sounds like a messy divorce.\r\nIt\'s the type of scene familiar in courtrooms across France - except for one detail. The chief prosecutor in this part of south-west France is wandering the corridors in his legal robes with a beautiful, trim but muscular, black Labrador on a lead.\r\n\r\nJaded lawyers and harried judicial staff rush out of their offices to stroke five-year-old Lol the dog.\r\nTwo years ago, Lol became what\'s thought to be the first dog in Europe to provide official judicial support in court to crime victims, especially those who have suffered from violence or sexual abuse. He knows this court house better than any repeat offender.\r\nProsecutor Frédéric Almendros heard about a similar experiment in the north-western US city of Seattle and decided to give it a try in his court.\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\nTrained to stay calm\r\nOn the day I meet Lol, it is his day off, and with temperatures above 30C, he would clearly rather spend it in his kennel at the nearby fire station where he lives.\r\nThe Labrador has been trained to remain calm with strangers, including young children. He can handle tense, vocal and emotional situations such as cross-examinations, where a tearful rape victim comes face to face with their attacker.\r\n\"After examining a case I call for the dog\'s help if I believe its comforting presence will help victims open up about what happened, or even when they have to testify in court,\" says Mr Almendros. \"The dog sitting next to them in court has often helped victims handle the stress of a trial.\"\r\nSo far Lol has appeared in 80 different criminal investigations with victims ranging from three to 90 years old.\r\nIn one case an elderly couple traumatised by a violent burglary were only able to explain to police officers what happened with the dog in their presence.\r\nAlexia Mesthe runs a local branch of a national charity called France Victims. She and her colleagues, including social workers and jurists, assist around 600 people a year, of whom many are victims of domestic sexual abuse.\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\"Lol has been trained to nuzzle up next to victims, and that physical touch reassures them and helps them confront the legal challenges they will face,\" she says.\r\nBringing \'humanity\' to the legal system\r\nUnlike courts in the big French cities where drugs-related offences are common, here in the rural department of Lot it is sex abuse and domestic violence that make up the majority of criminal cases.\r\nInitially Mustapha Yassfy, a family lawyer and head of the local Bar association, had to persuade his reluctant colleagues to get involved in the trial project. But now lawyers call for Lol\'s intervention when they think it can help move a case forward.\r\n\"We believe in this programme, the dog has a specific role, he participates in the whole judicial process by bringing humanity to the legal system,\" he told the BBC.\r\n\r\nThe scheme has proven so successful over the past two years that other courts across France have \"borrowed\" Lol. Several now have their own dogs, including the towns of Nevers and Nîmes.\r\nThe Palais de Justice - a massive court house in the Paris suburb of Bobigny, and one of the busiest in France - will get its own dog too.\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\nIn fact, 20 French court jurisdictions are expected to have dogs by the end of next year. Golden retrievers have proven as useful as Labradors.\r\n\r\nAt the moment, the dogs in court have no official legal status but that could change soon.\r\nFrench MP Huguette Tiegna from President Macron\'s ruling La République en Marche party, along with 20 colleagues are pushing a bill through parliament that would give the animals judicial recognition on the grounds they help victims.\r\n\"If the bill becomes law it will also provide state financing from the ministry of justice for the dogs - a crucial step, as training Lol for his role cost €17,000 (£14,600, $20,600) and 11 eleven months,\" Ms Tiegna told the BB\r\nLol is making a name for himself well beyond south-west France.\r\nHe has been driven to the European Parliament to participate in a seminar on crime and how to assist victims. And when President Macron, who owns a cross-breed black Labrador, spent two days in the Lot this month he asked the team looking after Lol what he eats and about his temperament.\r\nThe Lot department\'s chief prosecutor, Frédéric Almendros, says the next experiment starts at the end of the month to see whether Lol can help reform violent criminals.\r\nIn his words: \"If anyone can turn a repeat offender, its Lol.\"\r\n','2021-07-08',''),(216,'UK’s restrictions on travellers from France excessive, says French minister','The Guardian','Politics',52,'https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/19/uks-restrictions-on-travellers-from-france-excessive-says-french-minister','Angelique Chrisafis','Despite rise in Covid cases, France’s infections stand at less than a third of daily reported cases in Britain\r\n\r\nBritain’s restrictions on travellers from France seem excessive, the French European affairs minister has said as France attempts to contain rising Covid cases – which stand at less than a third of the daily reported cases in the UK.\r\n\'We don’t think that the United Kingdom’s decisions are totally based on scientific foundations. We find them excessive,\' Clément Beaune told BFM TV after the UK decided that visitors would need to quarantine for 10 days after arriving from France amid concern over the Beta variant.\r\nFrench authorities have said the bulk of its cases of the Beta variant come from the overseas territories of La Réunion and Mayotte in the Indian Ocean, rather than mainland France, where it is not widespread.\r\nThe French ambassador to the UK, Catherine Colonna, said in a tweet on Monday that the Beta variant represented 9% of cases in France, including its overseas territories, and was in decline. It represents 3% of cases in Paris, she said.\r\nData gleaned from random samples of positive tests showed that Beta prevalence has actually fallen from about 7% in late April to 2.8% by the end of June in mainland France, according to data published on Monday.\r\nSylvia Richardson, the director of the MRC biostatistics unit at the University of Cambridge and president of the Royal Statistical Society, said she started looking into the data when the UK decision on quarantine policy for fully vaccinated travellers returning from France was announced. “I had some suspicion that there was some confusion,” she said, adding that the UK government should have conferred with the French authorities before making their decision.\r\nThe responses come as France attempts to limit the rapid spread of the more contagious Delta variant, which has led to a jump in new infections. France reported more than 12,500 new coronavirus cases on Sunday, the third day that the tally has held above 10,000. In the UK, new daily cases stood at almost 40,000 on Monday.\r\n\'From now on, it’s either generalised vaccination or a viral tsunami, there is no alternative,\' the French government spokesperson Gabriel Attal said as parliament prepared to began the process to set into law Emmanuel Macron’s new \'health pass\'.\r\n\r\nThis pass is designed to pressure people to vaccinate by making it compulsory to have proof of a vaccination or negative test to enter restaurants, shopping centres, long-distance trains or hospitals.\r\nAn Ipsos poll last week found 62% of French people were in favour of a health pass. Hundreds of thousands of people signed up for vaccinations after the president unveiled the plans last week. More than 43% of French people have had two doses.\r\nAbout 114,000 people protested on the streets across France on Saturday against the stricter vaccination rules, which include compulsory jabs for healthcare workers and retirement home staff. Some legislators have received death threats after supporting the new vaccination rules. The Bayonne public prosecutor has launched an arson investigation after a vaccination centre was set on fire in Urrugne in the Pyrénées-Atlantique in south-western France on Saturday night. Firefighters put out the blaze at a tent set up to house a vaccination centre. The prosecutor said flammable products had been found nearby.\r\nThere was outrage from the government, human rights groups and relatives of holocaust survivors in France after some protesters used the symbol of the yellow star – imposed on Jewish citizens in Nazi-occupied Europe to mark them out for segregation discrimination and deportation to death camps.\r\n\r\nJoseph Szwarc, 94, who escaped the wartime roundup of Jews at the Vel d’Hiv cycling track in Paris, used a commemoration speech in the capital to express his indignation at the \'odious\' use of the yellow star by anti-vaccination protesters. He said: \'You can’t imagine how this affected me. Tears came to my eyes. I wore the yellow star, I know what it is, it’s in my flesh.\' He called on \'all our citizens\' to not allow what he called \'the current wave of antisemitism and racism\' to continue.\r\nThe lawyer Arno Klarsfeld, a member of the association Sons and Daughters of Jewish Deportees from France, said: \'The yellow star was a passport that led you to death, whereas the vaccine allows people to save lives.\' He said it was shocking that organisers of the march had not excluded people wearing yellow stars. \'To those who are ignorant, I want to say: two-thirds of the Jews of Europe were wiped out.\'\r\nThe Licra, France’s International League against Racism and Antisemitism, said the use of the yellow star in these protests amounted to negationism.\r\nAttal said there was a \'tiny minority of people who used the yellow star against the health pass\', calling it \'absolutely scandalous\'.\r\nHe called demonstrators against the health pass and vaccines \'a capricious and defeatist fringe, which was very much in the minority\'\r\n','2021-07-19',''),(217,'French Country Adventures Provides ‘Local’ French Tours in the Pastoral Paradise of Southwestern France','Frenchly','Travel',52,'https://frenchly.us/french-country-adventures-provides-local-french-tours-in-the-pastoral-paradise-of-southwestern-france/','Catherine Rickman','After a year and a half under lockdown, we’ve all got the travel bug. But the idea of getting on a plane full of people and going to a busy city full of strangers might still fill some of us with anxiety. It’s time for nature. It’s time to take things slow. It might even be time to visit somewhere you’ve never heard of.\r\nDeep in the heart of southwestern France, in a land filled with chateaux, farmers markets, wineries, Armagnac distilleries, artisan studios, antique fairs, and over 200 bastides (fortified villages), is the region of Gascony. Known as \'the Tuscany of France,\' a former English colony, land of d’Artagnan and Cyrano de Bergerac, \'It’s still rural, not much has changed since the 1950s. They have no desire to move into the modern age. But I like that about the area… You can drive on the road and not see another car all day. You see vineyards for miles and miles, and beautiful blonde Aquitaine cows,\' explains Sue Aran, founder of French Country Adventures. \'The people are very welcoming… They’re wonderfully mercurial and private but friendly and welcoming, and so it’s been a really special experience to get to know them… They’re absolutely enthused that Americans want to come to this area.\'\r\nAran has been obsessed with the region since the age of 16, when she moved to Gascony to live with a local family, where she was raised by the granddaughter of the French sculptor Antoine Bordelle in a house full of Napoleon furniture. Her grandfather was born in the Pyrenees in Val d’Aran, on the French-Spanish border, and when she went to the region to try and find more information on her grandfather, she was met with the pleasant surprise that just about everything in the region bares her last name… though it did make her genealogical research a bit more difficult.\r\nAfter renting a house in Gascony in skiing territory and joking with her husband about retiring there, they discovered a beautiful ruin for sale and decided to buy it and renovate it. A former architect and designer in Seattle, Aran decided to remodel the ruin and try to live between Seattle and France. After a six year legal battle with a faulty builder involved in the renovations, followed by a divorce, she was left wondering what to do now that she had worked so hard to stay in France. Without the proper French credentials to continue working as an architect, she decided instead to open a small tourism company in 2013. She had been building a following since 2006 through her blog about Gascony (which she writes to this day), and by contributing to magazines like Bonjour Paris and France Today, and her business began to spread quickly by word of mouth.\r\nNow, she focuses on a trend known as \'slow travel.\' \'My philosophy is, ‘do less, experience more.’ I wanted people to get a feeling for what it’s like to live here in a slower community, and what it feels like to live like a local.\' And people are into it. Visitors from the U.S., U.K., and Australia come year after year to explore small local villages with Aran. \'I think the best part of the trip for most people is meeting the local producers, the winemakers, the Armagnac makers, and because of the relationships I’ve developed with them, they are accepted into the households and the gardens and the wineries in a way that other people would not be. So it becomes a very personal experience for them.\'\r\nAfter doing only one tour during lockdown (for two Netherlands-based American diplomats looking for a one-day \'Armagnac extravaganza\'), Aran is now approaching sold-out tours through the end of the year. She feels that, post-Covid, people are looking for something a little more out of their comfort zone. \'I think people really want to experience daily living slowly in other cultures, it’s so rewarding and educational, and, I think, important, because for most people Covid has pointed out that life is short, and it makes everything else more meaningful in your life.\'\r\nFrench Country Adventures focuses on tours of Gascony; the Basque region; and Tarn, Gard, & Bouches-du-Rhône; priced at $3,895 per person (double occupancy). Each tour has a cap of six people, and all must be over the age of 21 (unless otherwise arranged). Smaller trips and custom trips are also available. Reserve your place here\r\n','2021-07-26',''),(218,'Olympics preview: France aims for 40 medals at Tokyo 2020','xinhuanet.com','Sport',52,'http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2021-07/22/c_1310076766.htm','N/A','Olympics preview: France aims for 40 medals at Tokyo 2020\r\n\r\n\r\nPARIS, July 22 (Xinhua) -- French athletes will definitely catch some eyes at the upcoming Tokyo Olympic Games, scheduled from July 23 to August 8, as the capital of the country will host the next Summer Olympics in 2024.\r\nA total of 378 athletes, 212 men and 166 women, will represent France to compete in 31 sports in Tokyo, including the four newly-added events: surfing, skateboarding, climbing and karate.\r\nClaude Onesta, the manager of high performance at the National Sports Agency (ANS), reveals that Team France aims for a similar outcome from the Rio 2016 Games.\r\n\"The lack of analysis for our athletes and the competitions makes the projections even more uncertain,\" Onesta said earlier this month. \"We will be at an equivalent level to that in Rio, around 40 medals.\"\r\nThe Blues won 42 medals five years ago in Brazil, with 399 athletes - 10 gold, 18 silver and 14 bronze, which was their best post-war record.\r\nHowever, the ambition is far beyond this.\r\nAs Paris is going to host the Olympic Games for the third time three years later, the country is biding to improve its status in the medals standings and this is why ANS was established in 2019.\r\nThis new sports governing body was split into two sub-divisions, one of which managed the development of sports practice and the other elite performance. Onesta, the former head coach of the glorious French handball team, was appointed the head of the high level performance division.\r\nThe goal of the high level performance division is to identify the potential Olympic medalists and ensure financial support for them to prepare for the Games. There are already 404 athletes that have been included in the program, as each of them can get a minimum income of 40,000 euros per year.\r\nSo, Tokyo 2020, to some degree, is just a warm-up for the French delegation, and Onesta has revealed their target for Paris 2024 - double the medals tally to 80.\r\nIn Tokyo, handball is one of some sports that France can place the title hope on, with both the men\'s and women\'s teams are the main contenders for a medal or even the gold.\r\nNicknamed \"Les Experts,\" the men\'s team won two straight golds at Beijing 2008 and London 2012, before losing to Denmark in the final of Rio 2016. Although they only ranked fourth at the world championships earlier this year in Egypt, nobody can look down upon them when it comes to the Olympic stage. France will take on European champions Spain, as well as Argentina, Brazil, Germany and Norway in Group A.\r\nOn the women\'s side, the Rio 2016 runners-up have shown their consistency over the past five years, winning the world championship title and Euro title. With Olivier Krumbholz at the helm, everybody knows what to expect from France; a sharp defense, devastating fast breaks and low-scoring games, yet few teams have deciphered their blueprint and beaten \"Les Bleues\" in the past years.\r\nFrench athletes have won 716 medals at the Summer Olympic Games, with fencing and cycling as the top medal-producing sports. In Tokyo, the fencers and cyclists are bidding to add more titles to the honors list.\r\nThe French fencing team is the title favorites for men\'s team foil and epee, and women\'s team foil and sabre. The 29-year-old Lefort Enzo will try to clinch a medal in individual foil.\r\nIn cycling, Pauline Ferrand-Prevot and her young teammate Loana Lecomte are very likely to bring a gold in cross-country racing.\r\nJudo is another sport which French athletes are worth looking forward to as the flag bearer at the opening ceremony Clarisse Agbegnenou and two-time Olympic champion Teddy Riner are both title favorites in their category.\r\nAnd don\'t forget football, the 1984 Olympic champions are looking to grab another gold this summer in Tokyo. Even without World Cup winner Kylian Mbappe, the French team are still strong contenders with Malang Sarr and Jonathan in the side, as well as experienced Florian Thauvin. Enditem\r\n\r\n','2021-08-04',''),(219,'France Expects 50 Million Foreign Tourists This Summer','Bloomberg','Economy',52,'https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-08-01/france-sees-50-million-foreign-tourists-in-summer-minister-says','N/A','France Expects 50 Million Foreign Tourists This Summer\r\n\r\nTourism to France is rebounding versus last year, when the pandemic shut borders, though U.S. and Asian visitors remain limited, said Tourism Minister Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne.\r\n \r\nFrance expects 50 million foreign tourists this summer, up from 35 million in the comparable period last year but down from 90 million in 2019, Lemoyne said.\r\nA so-called health pass -- proof of vaccination or a recent negative Covid-19 test -- is required to enter museums and theme parks, and that will be extended to bars, restaurants and long-distance trains starting Aug. 9.\r\n“A period of teaching will be necessary for the French to get used to the health pass,” Lemoyne said in an interview with the Journal du Dimanche newspaper. “But it is essential to keep all these establishments open.”\r\nThe best way to ensure a strong tourist season is for everyone to get vaccinated, he said.\r\nEuropean tourists are back in force, except for British visitors because the U.K. government is requiring a 14-day isolation upon return from France, the minister said.\r\nWhile a few Americans are starting to travel again, Asian customers largely won’t be back until next year, he said.\r\nOpponents of the health pass, who say it infringes on their freedom, took to the streets in Paris and other cities on Saturday in a third weekend of protests against the measure.\r\nMore than 204,000 people marched, including more than 14,000 in the capital, Agence France-Presse reported, citing Interior Ministry figures.\r\nMore than half of French people don’t support the protests against the health pass, according to a poll last week by Harris Interactive for television news channel LCI. The survey found 40% back the marches, while 8% were indifferent.\r\nAlmost 65% of French adults are fully vaccinated, according to government figures.\r\n','2021-08-04','');

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