Prosecutor investigating migrant death near Calais yesterday has told us that an identity doc found on his body suggests he was 28 years old -- not 16 as his companion had suggested.. His companion is being treated as a minor and in care of French social services, says local MP.
Macron projected to have won election with around 58% of vote. Deafening cheers from crowd beneath the Eiffel Tower, followed by chants of “Macron, President” and a spontaneous Marseillaise.
French PM Castex will send letter to Boris Johnson today with proposals to tackle Channel crossings. French Interior Min told journalists last night: “we won’t be publishing it on Twitter”... Note that it’s Castex, not Macron engaging with British PM now..
First image from the Ukranian side of the border with Moldova — the tip of a 15km queue of women and children, pressed up against the barrier. Waiting time to cross the border is 27 hours snd getting longer all the time.
In this specially built courtroom today, France will begin trying Salah Abdeslam, the "10th man" involved in the 2015 Paris attacks - and the only suspected attacker to survive the night. We'll be there to cover the testimony, the evidence and the verdicts over the next 8 months
At least five migrants believed to have died, and several others found unconscious in the Channel, after their boat sank. Reports that French Interior Minister is heading to Calais.
AFP: Macron says discussions with UK over fishing licences will continue on Tuesday and that retaliatory measures will not be imposed from tonight's midnight deadline: "we're not going to impose sanctions while we're negotiating".
Yana queued for 27 hours to cross the border from Ukraine to Moldova. People here are crossing by car, on foot — most of them with little sense of where they’re going next.
France's new and controversial presidential candidate, Eric Zemmour, has been fined €10,000 by a Paris court for comments he made in 2020 describing young unaccompanied migrants as "thieves.. killers.. rapists".
Valentina drove into Moldova, and out the other side into Romania, to escape Russia’s attack on Kyiv. “I felt how people in 1941 felt,” she told me. She’s still driving.
French PM to Johnson: “You are the only ones who can dissuade migrants...by making returns more efficient. You are the only ones who can weaken illegal networks by opening legal paths..You are the only ones who can change job market to discourage those who want to work illegally”
Interesting thread here from a football lawyer, who was at the stade de France on Sat — says some valid tickets were rejected bc a) 4g saturation in the area caused problems for ticket-holders, and b) some of the turnstile IT-systems broke down. (in French)
Pourquoi l'annonce par Gérald Darmanin de 30.000 à 40.000 supporters anglais sans billet ou avec des faux billets autour du Stade de France est très contestable ?
On a cafe terrace today, in the first hours of reopening after lockdown, this from 88 year old Mathilde: "We said, why not? Let’s put ourselves in the shade for a while and breathe. To be surrounded by people, not to be alone anymore."
Nadia (in the pink jacket) arrived at Moldova’s Palanca border crossing in the early hours of Monday morning with her 2 year old son — leaving her husband behind in Odessa to fight. She found shelter with Natalia, in a village near the border.
A man has attacked the headquarters of the Paris Police Force, armed with a knife. Several people reportedly injured incl one seriously. Attacker has been shot dead at the scene. A police source has suggested to French TV that he was a member of police administrative staff.
Marina arrived in Moldova on Sat night and has been living in a shelter. She fled the Donbas region of Ukraine when fighting broke out in 2014. When Russian bombs fell on Odesa last week, she fled again. “We’re tired of running from the war. Eight years we’ve been running.”
Join General Frantz Tavart in a game of cat-and-mouse with people-smugglers along France’s northern coast. The Battle For The Channel: the patrols, the people & the politics - on Our World, Fri 15 Oct, on BBC World News.
French gov is talking to unions today about maybe making masks compulsory in workplaces. A fifth of clusters over last few months were in workplaces - in Paris, the figure was a quarter.
Bars in Paris to close from Tuesday due to rise in Covid infections, but restaurants allowed to stay open with extra precautions. Paris and surrounding area now registering over 250 cases per 100,000, with more than 30% ICU beds occupied by Covid patients.
Smell of buttery croissants in the metro, a woman behind the National Assembly addressing her tiny mop-faced dog as “vous”, cigarette smoke in every second breath I take: today Paris has decided to come dressed only in stereotypes.
It always cheers me up to read, in the French papers, how British waters are “especially fishy”. A Shakespearean start to the day. Let’s hope it’s not a tragedy.
Editorial in French paper Le Monde scathing about the idea of Boris as PM: "a small-time Trump dedicated to sabotage.... His entry into No.10 would be a disaster for his country and for Europe."
French PM: "I can’t help but notice that those who campaigned most intensely for Brexit have profited from it while leaving others to face the political price. And sthg tells me the economic or social costs will be lighter on them than on the Welsh labourer or N. Irish farmer.”
Why does an empty Paris look so wrong? Why are nurses here struggling with the return of non-Covid patients? Find out in our piece about the French capital’s new normal:
Scenes from Josephine Baker’s extraordinary life were projected onto the Pantheon in Paris tonight, as she became the first black woman to take her place there.
After seeing a Russian soldier shoot his father dead, Yurii says they shot him too, in the arm. Yurii lay face down on the ground. The soldier shot again, he says, aiming at Yurii’s head. "[But] the bullet went through my hood." Yurii is 14.
We spent weeks with those helping the people-smugglers, and those trying to stop them — come and meet them tonight at 21:30bst on BBC News Channel and BBC iplayer
@BBCOurWorld
@paulprad90
@Romyliad
We’ve been driving around Paris for an hour, looking for campaign posters of Macron and Le Pen that haven’t been ripped, graffitied or damaged beyond recognition. Still looking.
French president Macron says ‘Turkey is no longer a partner’ in the Mediterranean region, and that the Med7 summit today must clarify their red lines and approach. ‘Our will is to avoid an escalation, but that doesn’t mean we should be passive or accept.“
We've spent the past few weeks getting to know lots of gilets jaunes around France. This is our in-depth look at a unique movement here - meet the spectrum of people who are challenging the French president for a bigger share of democratic power.
This morning, I received a message from one of those rescued from the Channel this week. It’s the third time the boat he’s in has failed while crossing, and the second time he’s waited in the water, in the dark, to be rescued — and still he keeps trying.
MPs here describing huge irritation at Boris Johnson's public proposal to return migrants to France: UK seen as twisting information & out for itself: "It's about the worst thing you can do with Macron," one MP told me. "He's the kind of leader who likes to fight face-to-face."
The trees to rebuild Notre Dame’s roof and spire have been chosen and felled — and the ever-enthusiastic Renaud manages 59 of them. This one is going to help reconstruct the spire. More later today on BBC tv, radio, digital.
Today we met an amazing man. Harry Read jumped out of a plane over Normandy today at 95 years old, just as he did during the
#DDay
invasion when he was 20. We were there to meet him:
EN DIRECT - Covid-19: sept Français sur dix approuvent les mesures annoncées par Emmanuel Macron, mais près de la moitié envisagent de transgresser les nouvelles règles
France brings forward national curfew to 6pm. Also says all visitors from outside EU will need a negative Covid test + 7 days’ quarantine on arrival + a second Covid test after that.
Everything is closed, no one is going out, and yet the sounds of spring in Paris haven’t changed: two different construction sites begin work each day beside my apartment...
The Chinese Embassy in Paris have told the BBC they are trying to locate a woman from the Wuhan area who said on social media that she had taken medicine to suppress signs of coronavirus in order to enter France. NO CONFIRMATION OF WHETHER SHE HAS THE VIRUS OR IS STILL IN FRANCE.
France goes back into lockdown from Friday. Schools will remain open, workers will continue to turn up yo run factories and public services. But otherwise a short strict list of reasons for leaving house, as in spring, and documents to be filled each time you go outside.
'Who will call me Dad?' Tears of Gaza father who lost 103 relatives. Why Ahmad Al-Ghuferi no longer wants to go home - our report with
@Stuartinkabul
,
@Naomi_sb
& Gaza colleagues
"He was still a child. He kissed me goodbye in the morning and said, “I love you mum”. An hour later, I was told that someone shot my son. What shall I do? He was my life. He was everything to me": the mother of a 17 yr old shot by French police during traffic check yesterday.
The headline in Copenhagen today: “They gave everything, but there was no more left to give” — and despite their disappointment, Danish fans here applauded last night when England won the match.
La France n’acceptera aucune pratique contraire au droit de la mer, ni aucun chantage financier. L’engagement de la Grande Bretagne doit être tenu. Je l’ai dit clairement à mon homologue
@pritipatel
(1/2)
Libé reporting that UK closure of bars & restaurants was due to French president’s threat to Boris Johnson on Friday, to close the border if nothing was done.
Asked if retaliatory measures would be applied from tonight, Elysee told us "there are still ongoing technical discussions" in fishing licences dispute.
I met Taras at Lviv’s garrison church today — a former soldier with four serving family members, he told me: “in war there is no ‘my children’ and ‘your children’ – they are all everyone’s children. You can’t ask other people’s children to put their hands in the fire for you.”
French President Macron to ParisMatch: 'targeted' lockdowns could be part of the strategy to combat a rise in coronavirus. Bt said France cld not bring the country to a halt, bc "the collateral damage of a [national] confinement is considerable." France had 3,776 new cases yday
Things I’ll miss once the Brexit negotiations are over: regularly reading in French papers the darkly Shakespearean phrase “UK waters are especially fishy”.....
For those asking: the waiting time for those crossing the Ukraine/Moldova border on foot is currently 10-15 hours at Palanca border crossing, according to officials here.
Central Paris feels like a sleepy Mediterranean town - a hot stillness in the air, balcony windows open, the sounds of a radio, children, kitchen clatter all drifting down into empty boulvards.
France is being urged to show solidarity in the face of Coronavirus, but how united is the land of égalité anyway? The second of our docs on France today: BBC Radio 4 - Le Divide - Égalité
Striking testimony from the frontline in Sudan by BBC colleagues
@FerasKilaniBBC
&
@MercyJuma_
Famine looms in Sudan as civil war survivors tell of killings and rapes
Colours so bright, it could have been painted this morning... a picture by Vincent Van Gogh seen in public today for the first time. Our report to come later on
@BBCNews
Elisabeth Borne appointed as France's new prime minister -- only the second woman in French history to hold the role (after Edith Cresson in early 1990s)
Two sheep farmers in the occupied West Bank: one backed by a superpower, the other by the Israeli state. Our report on the settler under US/UK sanctions & the Palestinian shepherd accusing him.
@Stuartinkabul
@edavebull
@Naomi_sb
Big jump in new cases in France yesterday: 2524 (has been an average of 1600 a day for past week). Watching to see whether UK includes France in list of countries subject to quarantine.