Nine of our favourite French words and expressions of the dayFrom 'Monsieur Dupont' to a 'Flasher', via an unsavoury metaphor involving flies and a word for meat-lovers, here's a roundup of some of our favourite French words and expressions of the day.
Inside France: Blood sausages, union divisions and 'the French'From emerging splits in the opposition movement to France's planned pension reform to debate about whether 'the French' is a demeaning label (plus an unfortunate moment with a blood sausage), our weekly newsletter Inside France looks at what we have been talking about in France this week.
Passing a law to automatically delete all post-Brexit retained EU law is like deleting random operating system files to see what happens. The Riviera Reporter Retweeted
‘Robin Hood’ energy strikers give free power to French schools, hospitals, low-income homesAmid national strikes in the energy sector, some workers in France have found a novel way to protest. On Thursday, "Robin Hood" operations – unauthorised by the government – provided free gas and electricity to schools, universities, and low-income households throughout the country.
France to probe microplastic pellet pollution on Atlantic beachesFrench prosecutors said on Friday they would investigate the appearance of vast quantities of tiny toxic plastic pellets along the Atlantic coast that endanger marine life and the human food chain.
Five things to know about renting out your French propertyMany people who buy a second home in France hope that as well as it being a pleasant bolthole, they will also generate some rental income. But it's a bit more complicated that just posting an advert and waiting for the money to roll in.
A forgotten crime: Remembering the 1943 Marseille roundupIn this edition on Holocaust Memorial Day, we discover a little-known chapter of French history. In 1943, the Germans had occupied the southern French port city of Marseille. With its working class, immigrant and Jewish neighbourhoods around the Old Port, the city had come to represent everything that Hitler and Read More
I'm hazarding a guess here. But I bet the 87-year-old woman who froze to death in Bury never once shorted sterling, dodged a £3m tax bill, crashed Britain's pension funds, fired and rehired an entire workforce or sold the NHS a shedload of dodgy PPE. The Riviera Reporter Retweeted
Three billionaires are competing to offer space tourism and pensioners are freezing to death in Bury. And I'm 'an extremist' for suggesting some wealth redistribution might be in order. The Riviera Reporter Retweeted
Podcast: Pension reform fury, employment after 55, Paris Peace AccordsA majority of French people disapprove of the government proposal to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64-years-old. Women could come off worse than men, and it will involve addressing senior employment, which France does not do particularly well. And how the Paris Peace Accords, marking a temporary end to Read More
France's foreign minister visits Odesa to show support for UkraineThe French Minister for Foreign Affairs, Catherine Colonna, visited Ukraine's Black Sea port of Odesa on Thursday to discuss how France can help Ukraine as it fights Russia's attack on its independence – though she did not say there were plans to send French-made tanks.
French docks, oil refineries, power stations hit by wave of pension protestsThe national strike to protest pension reform got back under way in France on Thursday, with the CGT trade union calling on port and power workers, as well as those in the refinery and petrol distribution sector, to down tools in opposition to government plans to abolish special pension deals Read More
France struggles to defuse claims that pension reform will penalise womenFrench Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne has been noisily heckled by the opposition benches as she attempted to assure the house that there was no question women would be penalised more than men under the government's already controversial proposals for pension reform.
Paris 2024 Olympic security bill could enable use of surveillance using artificial intelligenceThe NGO Amnesty International France and some left-wing politicians have expressed concern over the Olympic security bill being debated in the French Senate this week. The text would legalise the use of surveillance based on artificial intelligence systems for the first time, measures that could reach beyond the scope of the Games. Read More
French bank promises huge cut in funding for oil producers by 2030French bank BNP Paribas said Tuesday it plans to cut its financing of oil extraction and production by 80 percent by 2030. The announcement follows a threat by three activist groups to sue the bank for continuing to finance oil and gas projects.