France24 - France (55 minutes ago)
The false rumour that French First Lady Brigitte Macron was born a man has been going viral in France since 2021, pushed by conspiracy theorists and the far right. This rumour has now resurfaced in the US, with conservative political commentator Candace Owens peddling it. We explain the origin of this fake claim in this edition of Truth or Fake.
ReadFrance24 - France (55 minutes ago)
Those sporting Afro-styled hair, blonde or ginger hair, dreads, braids or even balding heads could gain new protections in France, where a bill outlawing discrimination based on hair texture, length, colour or style cleared a first hurdle in the French parliament on Thursday. While some argue the law is unnecessary, others say it will fill a gap in...
ReadFrance24 - France (16 hours ago)
With more than 3 million private swimming pools, France has more "piscines" than any other nation in Europe. We find out why the sector has been booming for years and how the government is using AI to crack down on illegal pools. We also look into the challenges, benefits and heritage of France's public swimming pools.
ReadFrance24 - France (20 hours ago)
IN THE PRESS – Thursday, March 28: The resignation of a high school principal in eastern Paris, after he received death threats for asking a pupil to remove her headscarf, sparks outrage among French politicians. Meanwhile, France's lower house begins debate on a new bill to outlaw hair discrimination. Finally, find out why eclipse tourism is a...
ReadFrance24 - France (A day ago)
French politicians from across the political spectrum Wednesday denounced what they called an "Islamist" attack on education after a school principal resigned following death threats over a Muslim veil. Prime Minister Gabriel Attal said the state would file a complaint against the student over falsely accusing the headmaster of mistreatment during...
ReadFrance24 - France (3 days ago)
The race for accommodation in Paris could be an Olympic sport in itself. The number of rentals available is plummeting while prices are soaring, yet real estate agents are overwhelmed with demand. From short-term rentals to efficiency upgrades, prospective tenants are paying the price for the ongoing crisis. We take a closer look.
ReadFrance24 - France (5 days ago)
One of France's most historic sporting venues, the Colombes stadium northwest of the French capital was the principal venue when Paris hosted the Olympic Games in 1924. After undergoing thorough renovations, the site will recover some of its former glory by again playing host to Olympic sport this summer.
ReadFrance24 - France (A week ago)
With "les Jeux", or the Olympic Games, just around the corner, we discuss France's love of all sorts of other games, from board games, to video games, to betting... to marbles! We also dive into how the quintessentially French game of pétanque came to be.
ReadFrance24 - France (2 weeks ago)
Whether they're called a "chocolatine" or a "pain au chocolat", a "pain au raisin" or an "escargot", French pastries are meant to taste good! In this edition we explore some of the often confusing – and even potentially embarrassing – terms for French baked goods. We also discover how madeleines were not Marcel Proust's initial choice for his...
ReadFrance24 - France (2 weeks ago)
France's government and Corsican elected officials have agreed on the wording of a proposed constitutional revision granting the île de Beauté (Island of Beauty) an autonomous status, six months after President Emmanuel Macron broke a longstanding French taboo on the subject of autonomy for the island scarred by decades of conflict with Paris.
ReadFrance24 - France (3 weeks ago)
A cascade of sexual violence allegations has rocked the French film industry in recent months, with actor Judith Godrèche leading the charge for a reckoning about gender-based abuse. Calls to safeguard actors on set are growing, as is the need for intimacy coordinators – a job that is yet to be officially recognised in France.
ReadFrance24 - France (3 weeks ago)
With July just around the corner, is Paris ready to host the Summer Games? Mostly yes, if you listen to France's president, who was on hand this Thursday for the inauguration of the Olympic village. It's one of the few venues built from scratch for an event that promised sustainability and, for the most part, to showcase existing structures. A...
ReadFrance24 - France (3 weeks ago)
Why set it in stone? France has become the first nation to enshrine abortion rights in its constitution, thanks to overwhelming approval from a rare joint session of both houses of parliament. Lawmakers launched the initiative after the US Supreme Court's overturning of a half-century-old federal guarantee. But does the rolling back of reproductive...
ReadFrance24 - France (4 weeks ago)
French senators voted to enshrine access to abortion in the country's constitution on Wednesday. If the bill is approved by a three-fifths vote of both houses, expected on Monday, France will become the first country in the world to constitutionally ensure access to the procedure.
ReadFrance24 - France (4 weeks ago)
On February 24, 2022, Russia launched a full-scale invasion of its neighbour, upending the lives of millions of Ukrainians. But the conflict also changed the lives of hundreds of thousands of Russians opposed to the war. Some left for Armenia, Georgia or Turkey, while others requested asylum in France. It was the start of a long road, far from...
ReadFrance24 - France (4 weeks ago)
Léon Gautier was famous in France as the last representative of the "Kieffer Commando", the only French unit to take part in the Allied D-Day landings on Normandy beaches in June 1944. As the 80th anniversary of D-Day approaches, some are seeing opportunities for financial gain. His descendants have decided to seek legal assistance to prevent any...
ReadFrance24 - France (4 weeks ago)
It's the announcement Paris metro passengers dread: Traffic has been disrupted due to a traveller fainting in another train miles down the tracks. A commuter passing out on the French capital's underground causes their train to stop to wait for rescue services, and provokes delays of up to 45 minutes along the line.
ReadFrance24 - France (A month ago)
Russian forces threatened to shoot down a French surveillance aircraft patrolling in international airspace over the Black Sea, a signal of increasingly aggressive behavior from Moscow as its invasion of Ukraine struggles to make headway, French defense officials said Thursday.
ReadFrance24 - France (A month ago)
What do the absence of French observers at Azerbaijan's February 7 presidential election, a group denouncing "French colonialism" and an online campaign targeting the 2024 Paris Olympics have in common? They are three facets of a new offensive strategy adopted by Azerbaijani diplomacy towards France. FRANCE 24 investigated this shift with the...
ReadFrance24 - France (A month ago)
In a bid to combat the "fast-fashion” and "ultra-fast-fashion” brands that have taken France by storm, a young lawmaker from the conservative Les Républicains party has proposed slapping an extra €5 on every fast-fashion purchase in the name of the environment and the French textile industry. But criticism of the bill has been fierce,...
ReadFrance24 - France (A month ago)
NGOs and leftist members of the opposition have increased the pressure on France's government to reconsider arms sales to Israel in the wake of the war in Gaza and follow in the footsteps of other European nations that made moves to suspend military exports over concerns about the humanitarian situation on the ground.
ReadFrance24 - France (A month ago)
His life was worthy of a novel. An Armenian orphan who arrived in France as a stateless refugee and became a poet and Communist activist, Missak Manouchian was a figure of the French Resistance during World War II. Exactly 80 years to the day after his execution by the Nazis, Manouchian is taking his place in the Panthéon mausoleum alongside...
ReadFrance24 - France (A month ago)
French President Emmanuel Macron led a ceremony Wednesday honouring Missak Manouchian, a stateless poet of Armenian origin who died fighting the Nazi occupation during World War II. Manouchian's induction in the Panthéon mausoleum in Paris alongside other French national heroes is seen as a tribute to all the foreign fighters who joined the...
ReadFrance24 - France (A month ago)
Eighty years to the day since he was executed by the Nazis near Paris, Armenian Missak Manouchian, figure of the French Resistance, takes his place in Paris's Panthéon mausoleum alongside other French national heroes on Wednesday, February 21. His induction is seen as a tribute to all foreign Resistance fighters.
ReadFrance24 - France (A month ago)
Every year, thousands of people attempt the perilous 70km sea crossing from Comoros to the French overseas department of Mayotte in search of a better life there. But now, the French government has announced plans to take a radical step to deter more migrants from coming: denying citizenship to children born on Mayotte to foreign parents. For many...
ReadFrance24 - France (A month ago)
The situation for several thousand foreign doctors working in French hospitals has become more complicated since the end of the exemption scheme put into place during the Covid-19 pandemic. Nearly 1,900 of these practitioners have now lost their right to practise, a great loss for French hospitals already struggling with shortages of medical staff....
ReadFrance24 - France (A month ago)
The governments of Poland, France and Germany vowed Monday to make Europe a security and defence power with a greater ability to back Ukraine, as fears grow that former US president Donald Trump might return to the White House and allow Russia to expand its aggression on the continent.
ReadFrance24 - France (2 months ago)
In this edition we discuss the many reasons why, according to a recent poll, the French are having less sex. We also discuss the roles that abstinence, pornography, mobile phone use, the #MeToo movement, sex education and an increased openness about sex may have on French people's choices in the bedroom.
ReadFrance24 - France (2 months ago)
French President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday led a national tribute to former French justice minister Robert Badinter, who dedicated his life to the fight against capital punishment, playing a pivotal role in banning the dreaded guillotine in 1981. The French president announced that Badinter would be laid to rest in the Panthéon.
ReadFrance24 - France (2 months ago)
Removing cars from an expanse around the Eiffel Tower to create a green pathway sounds pretty good on paper, but the mayor of Paris is struggling to win over residents and above all the police force to revamp one of the city's most celebrated views.
ReadFrance24 - France (2 months ago)
French prosecutors said Wednesday they had opened an inquiry after actor Judith Godreche filed a complaint against film director Benoit Jacquot, accusing him of raping her in a relationship that began when she was 14 and he was 25 years her senior.
ReadFrance24 - France (2 months ago)
In this edition we take a look inside "le portefeuille", or wallet, of French people. From the national healthcare card, "la carte vitale", to ID cards, to France's coins and bank notes, we trace the history of these typically French possessions. We also find out about France's oldest institution: la Monnaie de Paris, where coins are still made.
ReadFrance24 - France (2 months ago)
French police on Wednesday detained scores of people who broke into the Paris region's main wholesale market complex during nationwide protests by farmers, the Créteil public prosecutor's office told AFP. The arrests came as convoys of tractors edged closer to Paris, Lyon and other key locations, with many ignoring police warnings over the scope...
ReadFrance24 - France (2 months ago)
France will provide an opportunity to remember French citizens killed in the Israeli bombardments of Gaza as the country prepares this week to pay tribute to citizens killed in the attack on Israel by Hamas on October 7, a presidential official said on Monday.
ReadFrance24 - France (2 months ago)
The French call the first general policy speech of a prime minister before parliament the great oral exam. That expression takes on a whole new layer of meaning when the prime minister is just 34. We ask how Gabriel Attal, the youngest head of government in two centuries, weathered the traditional jeers and whistles from the opposition benches, in...
ReadFrance24 - France (2 months ago)
French farmers have been putting pressure on the government to respond to their demands for better remuneration to fight rising costs and what they say are stifling EU regulations. As tractors blockaded major highways around Paris for a second day on Tuesday, Damien Brunelle, a farmer from the Rural Coordination union, spoke to FRANCE 24 about the...
ReadFrance24 - France (2 months ago)
French farmers are blockading key motorways around Paris for a second consecutive day this Tuesday. They are determined to show that they can hold out for several days if new measures due to be announced by the French government continue to disappoint. So what are the underlying reasons for their anger? FRANCE 24's Gaëlle Fonseca and Clovis Casali...
ReadFrance24 - France (2 months ago)
In 2023, only 678,000 babies were born in France. In this edition of French Connections, we delve into the complex web of reasons for this dip in France's birth rate. We discuss pushback against President Emmanuel Macron's plan to fix a "infertility scourge" and demographically "rearm" the nation with babies. We also find out how France remains a...
ReadFrance24 - France (2 months ago)
French farming unions are taking aim at the European Union's free-trade agreements, which they say open the door to unfair competition from products arriving from overseas. At a time when the EU is urging farmers to adopt more sustainable – and sometimes more costly – agricultural practices, unions say these trade deals are making it hard for...
ReadFrance24 - France (2 months ago)
French police arrested some protesting farmers on Wednesday as convoys of tractors edged closer to Paris, Lyon and other strategic locations in France, with many ignoring warnings of police intervention if they cross red lines laid down by ministers.
ReadFrance24 - France (2 months ago)
Protesting farmers encircled Paris with traffic-snarling barricades for a second day on Tuesday, using hundreds of lumbering tractors and hay bales to block highways leading to France's capital to pressure the government over fuel taxes, regulations and falling incomes.
ReadFrance24 - France (2 months ago)
French farmers choked off major motorways around Paris on Monday after threatening to blockade the capital in an intensifying stand-off with the government over working conditions, taxes and regulation. Key farmers' unions met with Prime Minister Gabriel Attal for an hours-long meeting later in the day.
ReadFrance24 - France (2 months ago)
France's government said Sunday it was making plans to avoid any blockage of routes around the French capital as agricultural unions prepared to mount a "siege" of Paris, part of efforts to pressure the government to meet their demands on pay, taxes and regulations.
ReadFrance24 - France (2 months ago)
French farmers have engaged in a standoff with the government to express anger over a perceived lack of respect, rising costs and suffocating EU regulation. Prime Minister Gabriel Attal seeks to calm the protesters while the far-right National Rally hopes to take advantage of their anger, just five months before the European elections.
ReadFrance24 - France (2 months ago)
Tens of thousands of people marched in the streets of cities across France on Sunday to call on President Emmanuel Macron not to sign into law tough new legislation on immigration that they say bears the footprint of the far right and betrays French values.
ReadFrance24 - France (2 months ago)
French President Emmanuel Macron vowed this week to tackle the country's growing infertility problem as part of efforts to revive the country's sluggish birth rate, describing the subject of infertility as "the taboo of the century". More than three million people in France are said to suffer from the condition, making it a major public health...
ReadFrance24 - France (2 months ago)
France's highest court on Tuesday rejected a request by French cement maker Lafarge to dismiss charges of complicity in crimes against humanity as part of an investigation over how it kept its factory running in Syria after war broke out in 2011.
ReadFrance24 - France (3 months ago)
Into the woods we go on this week's French Connections. Over 30 percent of mainland France is covered by forests. It's the fourth most forested country in Europe. We explore this heritage, why France's trees are suffering, and how, for some, hugging a tree can do a body good.
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