French President Francois Hollande has declared that his nation is at war against jihadist terrorism. But how do those words translate into action?
country: France
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Once focused solely on gaining Middle East territory for its caliphate, the terror group is now targeting “crusader nations,” those fighting it in Syria and Iraq.
-Editorial- PARIS — France is at war. At war against a terrorism that is totalitarian, blind and horribly murderous. We’ve known it since the attacks against Charlie Hebdo and the kosher supermarket in Paris in January. And yet, despite the French population’s exceptional show of unity four days after those attacks, despite the shows of […]
-Analysis- PARIS — In terms of terrorist attacks on French territory, this was unprecedented: multiple suicide bombers blowing themselves up late Friday, after launching coordinated massacres in five locations in central Paris and near the Stade de France football stadium on the outskirts of the capital in Saint Denis. The Paris targets included Bataclan, a […]
Startups are shaking up the dry cleaning industry by offering more convenient options for customers. The industry, which has shrunk by half in the last few decades, is also coping with gradual limits placed on using a common cleaning substance.
Bathroom breaks and oxygen tanks mix with kilos of cocaine and money laundering: The “papy connection” trial of aging ex-cons unfolded in a Marseille courtroom.
A century from now, the global population will finally begin to decline. But before that, the world must deal with the waste created by an exploding overpopulation: How do we hold on until then?
Ten years after the 2005 French riots, the anxious image of the country’s banlieues has changed. The fear is no longer about hooded youths armed with Molotov cocktails, but instead the suspected radical Islamist.
PARIS — In today’s globalized automotive market, the average driver has two dreams: to purchase an SUV, and to switch from a manual to an automatic transmission. Used by just about everyone in the United States, Japan and China, this transmission mode is gaining ground in Europe and is set to takeoff in India and […]
Aspiring writers who don’t have an inside track welcome the online publisher’s latest advances, such as awarding independent authors, but defenders of traditional publishing say it’s all a scam to destroy the publishing system and
Are new technologies making the wage system obsolete, turning employees into independents? No, workers aren’t so much freelancing as moonlighting.
An 18-century gallery has been transformed into a “venue of free and creative exchange,” upending the usual relationship between art and the public.
French academic André Gunthert asserts that the selfie is not narcissistic folly at all, but rather represents a new kind of revolution that threatens elite control of society.
What if everything were free? Well, it is at Debora Fischkandl’s little Paris shop, no strings attached. And hers isn’t the only one. A look at the radical side of the sharing economy.
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Mother By Day, Poker Player By Night
Sima, a Parisian mother of three, hits the poker tables every night around 10 p.m. and plays for a solid eight hours, just like a day’s work. She earns a decent living, if not the respect of her children’s teachers.
With writing and then printing, man had already externalized a part of his memory. But those transformations pale, in both speed and breadth, with the current digital revolution.
London’s over-the-top mayor has published a book about Winston Churchill, and may aspire to a similar national destiny. But he strives for greatness by looking for a laugh.
AIX-EN-PROVENCE — Over the past two days, Hervé Pighiera has picked up 118 cigarette butts, 60 cigarette packs, 69 plastic bottles and 7.75 kilos of non-classifiable garbage, including a little dollhouse armchair made of wicker and plastic. Pighiera is on a mission to clean roadsides. On July 12, this smiling fellow in a straw hat, […]
There’s a video circulating on the Internet that stunned me stone cold. You see a group of animal rights activists literally tearing a homeless man’s puppy from his arms. You can see the poor guy trying in vain to free himself from the leader of the activist group, while the frightened little pup squeals and […]
PARIS — Pépite is still in shock. “It’s hard to deal with it,” repeats this mother, whose youngest daughter converted to Islam. Pépite comes from a Catholic family, and never expected this to happen. She didn’t worry when her daughter, Alexandra, became infatuated with a boy who had converted to Islam, or even when she […]
Climate change is already starting to affect wine growers, who scientists say will have to use other varieties of grapes and periodically move vineyards, among other interventions.
The European airplane giant has just opened its first U.S. assembly plant in Mobile, Alabama. Airbus is banking on lower labor costs and an aging American aircraft fleet.
Peyrelevade, a village of 800 people in central France, has welcomed 60 refugees since April. Its former retirement home has been renovated, the primary school has avoided a class closure, and there are new jobs for residents. But the future is no less un
Every French region has its own version of brioche, which has a solid but modest history. But now in some corners, this lightly sweet breakfast bread is taking on a high-end air.
Gadgets that make it possible to spy on spouses, children, clients and bosses are more popular than ever. Few realize it is rarely legal to do so.
Far from rigid Koranic institutes, this new private school in central France is as much about smart boards as religious values. It is also trilingual: French, Arabic and English.
It is not just the economics of the media that is putting traditional news photographers out of business. It is our troubled relationship with images themselves.
-Essay- PARIS — There are times when it is necessary to compare things that are not comparable. There’s a chance at least that it will wake up some anesthetized minds. Between 1933 and 1940, several million refugees who had escaped from Germany, Poland, the Baltic countries and elsewhere, fleeing Nazism, were met with closed borders. […]
CALAIS — Three rows of men gather side-by-side, their heads bent down. A coffin lies on the sand, in front of them. They silently pray and place the coffin down a deep pit. Moussa Houmed was 17; he was Eritrean. He dreamed of setting foot on English soil, but ended up drowned in the retention […]
After last week’s foiled Thalys train attack, citizens must get used to playing their part in the fight against the jihadist threat, a former French intelligence agent warns.
PARIS — The suspected terror attack thwarted by American and British passengers aboard a high-speed European train has brought railway security sharply into focus. The alleged gunman, believed to be a 25-year-old Moroccan named Ayob El Khazzani, boarded the Amsterdam-to-Paris train equipped with an assault rifle, automatic pistol, nine cartridge clips and a box-cutter. More […]
Paris-based big data whiz Rand Hindi wants to put his technology savvy to work to free us from our growing enslavement to the digital masters.
Prosopagnosia, or facial blindness, seriously complicates the lives of people it affects. Sufferers often feel guilty. They also learn to develop coping strategies.
Nicolas Ngwabije fled his native Congo in 1966, a political refugee. He ended up working for decades at a French migrant center, a reference point for generations of refugees. And they keep coming.
-OpEd- 

How important is intellectual property in the digital age? Not very, if the business strategies of industry luminaries like PayPal’s Elon Musk and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg are any indication. Musk, the multi-talented entrepreneur behind PayPal, and more recently Tesla cars and SpaceX, has made it clear he considers Tesla’s impressive lead in battery and […]
We can now have sexual relations without making contact with other humans. But do the 3D helmets, connected devices and animated dolls represent a real sexual revolution, or are they just sophisticated toys?
Throughout France — not just Provence — wine producers want consumers to know that rosé can be just as sophisticated as better respected reds and whites.
-OpEd- PARIS — As Europe barely recovers from an unprecedented crisis, the African continent is experiencing a vigorous period of growth. This long-awaited shift is slowly but steadily making investors more confident, even if they remain aware of the risks. According to a recent study conducted by Havas Horizon, investors are showing broad optimism concerning […]
AIX-EN-PROVENCE — For a moment, Alain Orsoni was his old legendary self, the charismatic nationalist and dashing adventurer who struggled for independence at home, roamed for years through South America, and is still muscular enough to fill out his plain white t-shirt. He was talking about himself because he was asked to, but also because […]
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How Italian Spritz Craze Conquered France
The Italian aperitif Aperol, served with sparkling wine, has now charmed France, a country with no shortage of its own spirits.