WorldcrunchStay informed on France with Worldcrunch. In-depth coverage of French politics, economic trends, societal changes, and cultural events with expert translations. Highlights include Paris, Lyon, Marseille, French cinema, gastronomy, modern literature, and cultural events.
PARIS — On the left-hand side of the blue screen, court decisions appear at the speed of light. Some words are highlighted. Simultaneously, on the right-hand side, a map of France takes shape. Graphs form. “So, you see,” Louis Garrett-Chahine starts, “if you’ve been fired for slander and if you want your dismissal to be […]
Ahead of the high stakes of next week’s French presidential election, a visit to ‘la France profonde,’ deep in the heartland where the country’s fate may be decided.
Emmanuel Macron is the youngest candidate to be France’s next president. That’s not the only feature that sets him apart from the rest of the field.
PARIS — In their quest for a sustainable urban future, city planners can learn a lot from history. And in Paris, that can mean just taking a moment to look around. Georges-Eugène Haussmann, the driving force behind a drastic overhaul of the city beginning in the mid 19th century, made an enormous and lasting mark […]
-OpEd- PARIS — A lot is being said and written about the “Molière clause,” first introduced by Vincent You, an elected representative in the western French city of Angoulême, and which mandates the use of French language on construction sites. This is, first and foremost, a case of guaranteeing safety at dangerous sites. A large […]
With its new president, the United States may now become a massive new fiscal haven for global companies. But France, with its own upcoming elections, could lead Europe in undermining Trump’s plans.
ALBI — During a walk through the heart of the cathedral city of Albi, fruits and vegetables seem to be planted everywhere. And for good reason. A year ago, the city was given the objective of attaining food self-sufficiency by 2020. In concrete terms, the goal is to allow the 52,000 residents to feed themselves […]
PARIS — Researchers are on the hunt for the perfect bee. Today, pesticides, mites, viruses and other parasites decimate tens of millions of colonies of pollinators on the planet. Researchers are now trying to select genes from bees that would build colonies resistant to external attacks. Doing so would help save natural pollination, which is […]
Rue de Ponthieu is one of the French capital’s choice spots for late-night partying. But it also has a reputation for dodgy encounters and pre-dawn street fights.
After Brexit and Trump, Europe is forced to fight back. The precious Transatlantic Alliance may be at risk.
I live in a small village in the Vosges Mountains in northeastern France with my four brothers and sisters. My father works in industrial maintenance and my mother takes care of the family. I attended kindergarten because I had asked to go there. But I left after a year. My siblings aged 18, 15, 12 […]
France has long been the only country in continental Europe to invest in its military. Though others are now reacting to new threats, it may be too little too late.
Climate change is giving meteorologists an added incentive to make accurate, ever more timely predictions. Supercomputers are helping them do it.
VERSAILLES — With the attention to detail that comes with doing something for the last time, Béatrix Saule checks on the 200 clocks that chime one after another. She unfolds a shutter to protect the drapes from the sun. She tests the floor to see if there’s any movement in stonework. Saule has been doing […]
-Essay- PARIS — Changes, disruptions, earthquakes … We no longer know what word best describes the political events unfolding before our eyes. After former French president Nicolas Sarkozy lost in the conservative primaries, and current Socialist president François Hollande chose not to run, Matteo Renzi resigned as Italian prime minister, becoming the latest European leader […]
PARIS — There was enough news (real and fake) to keep our heads spinning for all of 2016. Yet one project we are particularly proud about this past year is our new Rue Amelot ongoing series of essays. These pieces may or may not take news as a leaping-off point, but ultimately wind up somewhere […]
Several decades of reflection and study have led neurobiologist Jean-Pierre Changeux to stake out a new field that shows how art influences the brain.
PARIS — The smartphone of Eudes, a web project manager, switches automatically from 3G to WiFi as soon as he’s near his office. It also downloads relevant newspaper articles just before he steps into the metro. Perhaps most importantly, Eudes is instantly notified when the coffee machine needs water. This automated magic is thanks to […]
PARIS — Solar has become the new energy El Dorado. With the price of solar panels plummeting, solar energy has developed spectacularly in recent years. Less than 10 years ago, there were only a few gigawatts (GW) of new solar panels installed each year. This year, new capacity should represent more than 70 GW, up […]
French President Hollande, who announced he will not seek reelection, led a series of mishaps and failures, down to the indignity of his last public speech.
When French astronaut Thomas Pesquet took off last week for a six-month mission on the International Space Station, he brought a tantalizing taste of home with him. Breton lobster. Beef bourguignon. Chicken breast in a white wine mushroom sauce pressed with gingerbread. These are some of the meals that Pesquet, the first Frenchman in space […]
-Essay- I recently turned 30, so the math tells me I’ve already lived through one third of my life. That also means I still have at least 20,000 days to make all of my dreams come true. Speaking of dreams, it’s strange how they change as we grow older. When I was 25, I had […]
PARIS — Find the distribution of random paths on a directed graph. Of course, when you say it like that, such a problem will hardly excite the masses. But if you had managed to find this mysterious distribution, you would have obtained the PageRank algorithm. And if you have PageRank, you have Google, now the […]
PARIS — How much is the life of a victim of terrorism worth? How do you quantify the loss of children taken from their parents? Of husbands or wives torn from their spouse by the bullets of a madman? These are harrowing questions that require reflection but also a dose of cold economic reasoning. The […]
With the American billionaire heading to the White House, the European establishment is quaking in its boots.
Since the inauguration of the Orthodox cathedral and the Russian cultural center in the French capital on Oct. 19, questions about the use of the site for more sinister purposes have been raised.
Near the French capital’s Gare du Nord train station, migrants have expanded yet another shantytown just days after the controversial Calais “Jungle” was dismantled by the state. Locals are not pleased.
NANTES — In contemporary art, digital data is as much a medium as paint these days. One of the best works showcased during Scopitone, a festival centered on all things digital in the French city of Nantes, used scientific data to reflect how stars are born. An audio, tactile and visual work, called Unfold, is […]
PARIS — How can we surf the web without using Google, Amazon or Facebook? French group Framasoft, which promotes the use of open-source software, offers a way. Under the “De-google-ify internet” initiative, the group uses decentralized software solutions to design tools that allow consumers to retake control of their data. Members of Framasoft are strong […]
Europe, the United States and other parts of the so-called West may not be booming, but they’re not about to be superseded either. Quite the contrary, in fact.
PARIS — Can we one day live in a world where there’s zero trash? A German chemist named Michael Braungart believes it is possible. He encourages companies to put a complete end to waste in The Upcycle: Beyond Sustainability — Designing for Abundance, a book he co-wrote with U.S. architect and designer William McDonough. “The […]
In France, more than 23,000 people live in a room of smaller than nine square meters, many in the capital. But to rent out such small spaces is illegal.
-Essay- PARIS — Will reality become a rare commodity? The digital revolution has given humans the greatest power — that of creating and manipulating reality. We make machines and algorithms that can imitate our world so well that they manage to deceive our brains. For example, Applied VR, a U.S. startup, offers a therapy based […]
British rocker Pete Doherty is signed up for a November gig, though other artists have opted out of playing in the venue where terrorists killed 90 people last year.
PARIS — Technology is changing the way people secure legal services, turning clients into “consumers” by allowing them to bypass traditional law firms. Need help drafting that shareholders agreement? There’s an app for that — at just a fraction of the normal cost! The past few years have seen a boom, in France, of “legal […]
In the scenic Loire Valley southwest of Paris, a town was designated to accommodate the first center of “deradicalization” of Islamic extremists in France. Since then, the community in Indre-et-Loire has been consumed by anger and fear.
-OpEd- PARIS — In the northern German state of Mecklenburg-West Pomerania, the far-right party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) defeated Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union in local elections. In the United States, the Republicans chose Donald Trump as their candidate for the White House. The British voted for Brexit. Italians elected as mayors of Rome and […]
The past few months have left a feeling of an ever less stable future. But a clean defeat of the Republican in November is the quickest way to bring back some order to the world.
Terrorism and social networks contribute to the exacerbation of a general feeling of fear, as recent incidents in New York and the South of France have shown.
In big and small companies alike, security risks have entered a whole new era.