Source: LES ECHOS
France’s top business daily, Les Echos covers domestic and international economic, financial and markets news. Founded in 1908, the newspaper has been the property of French luxury good conglomerate LVMH (Moet Hennessy – Louis Vuitton) since 2007.
Beyond the playboy billionaires and international tax dodgers, people work regular jobs in this slice of Mediterranean paradise.
GRENOBLE – Since 2009, a team of 30 researchers from the Clinatec biomedical platform of the French Alternative Energies And Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) has been tackling a huge challenge: allowing quadriplegics to walk and open a door thanks to a brain-controlled implant system. For this to happen, the CEA is relying on different technologies […]
TOKYO – A few months ago, Shin Sugimoto, Human Resources director at Bristol-Myers Squibb in Tokyo, revolutionized the traditional methods of recruitment in Japan. Instead of automatically promoting the most experienced man, as it is traditionally done – who had patiently been waiting for his turn for years – Sugimoto proposed to choose the next […]
PARIS – A cheeky move, one might say. To retrace the history of the undergarment – from the XXL fig leaf on Adam’s attributes taken from a 10th century manuscript to the tighty-whities of the 1980s (called kangaroo briefs in France because of their front pocket) – is a daring, er, undertaking indeed. A challenge […]
VALETTA – It is an inhospitable rock floating in the Mediterranean Sea. A piece of coralline limestone blown by the winds and burned by the sun with a layer of earth so thin that nothing much can grow on it. Welcome to Malta, a simple and unpretentious place. Yet, this archipelago comprising eight islands – […]
Friday, June 6, 2014 D-DAY COMMEMORATIONS TODAY This morning, French President François Hollande launched commemorations for the 70th anniversary of D-Day, describing the Normandy landings as a day that “began in chaos and fire, would end in blood and tears, tears and pain, tears and joy at the end of 24 hours that changed the […]
SAINT-PAUL-TROIS-CHATEAUX – Three steps in from the side of the path are enough for Cédric Denaux to identify a veritable pantry. Where we only see a field of flowers and weeds exploding in springtime chaos, this botanist-cum-cook spots the pointed flower of the buckhorn plantain, the bubble-shaped one belonging to the bladder campion, a tuft […]
BORDEAUX – There are always a handful of professional wine-tasters who will question the legitimacy of the Bordeaux “primeurs” week. Still, the event not only endures, but actually gets bigger and better-attended every year. The skeptics note that the entire process is built around rating a wine that is only just beginning to age in […]
NEW DELHI – Dreaming with BRICs, the study published in 2003 by Goldman Sachs that traced the rise of four emerging economies (Brazil, Russia, India and China) also marked the birth of a concept that has yet to disappoint. Between 2004 and 2011, average growth in China was 10.8%, in India 8.3% — to mention […]
How can the Internet run more efficiently? A growing number of experts say so-called “band-aid” fixes are insufficient — and the entire system of communication needs to be rebooted.
When there are fewer humans to fill certain jobs, businesses turn to different *creatures.*
PARIS – Retake control of your personal data and get paid for it. This is the straightforward concept behind the recently launched French startup Yes Profile. On its platform, Yes Profile allows the user to create a profile with a certain amount of information – from email to age to interests and preferences such as […]
On the 30th anniversary of her landmark discovery, French Nobel Laureate Françoise Barré-Sinoussi calls for a new approach for definitively defeating AIDS.
A proposed bill that would allow the use of English in universities has set off an uproar among intellectual champions of the French language.
PARIS – Using a three-pronged ice crusher, the bartender strikes the massive frozen block with practiced precision. In no time at all, he is able to shape the ice block into a tiny ball – small enough to fit into a whisky glass. He pours the Hibiki 12, a 12-year-old whiskey, one of the prime […]
While the movie world descends on Cannes, there are those up north who note that there is no more glamorous French face than that of the capital herself.
As the 66th edition of the world’s top film festival opens in the south of France, a rare glimpse at its tumultuous origins and ever sparkling history.
Before the release of their first record in years, a rare sit-down with the legendary techno band, from their roots in France to surprising new inspirations from Hotel California.
Yahoo! wanted to buy the video platform Dailymotion, owned by France Telecom. But with the French government opposed come reminders of what needs fixing in France’s startup world.
NEW DELHI – It is not hard to imagine how the French government (or their counterparts in Athens or Washington) would dream of such a thing: escaping the monthly stress of publishing unemployment figures. In India, the national jobless rate simply doesn’t get calculated, and the topic is virtually absent from media and political debate. […]
PARIS – Will the young women of 2033 laugh when they learn that their mothers chose their foundation and makeup by themselves? Without a microscope or a telephone? This is what Givenchy is betting on. The French luxury cosmetics company just launched its first Spectrocolorimeter in three of its Paris stores. Developed by X-Rite, the […]
RANGOON – Down Pyay Road, in the middle of a huge traffic-jam, children walk between old Japanese cars in the stifling heat and humidity. Like in other cities of emerging Asian countries, the children walk through the busy streets to sell soda cans and jasmine flower bouquets that are supposed to help cool down the […]
TOULOUSE – In France alone, there are 500,000 deaf people, and that doesn’t even include those who are partially deaf or have hearing problems. About half of deaf people in France are unemployed. Launched in 2001, French start-up Websourd is a cooperative that publishes videos in sign language on the Internet, which can also help […]
There are signs of historical insecurity in Russia’s move away from Europe and the U.S. But at the end of the day, China looms as the real threat for Moscow’s future.
COLMAR – The world’s love affair with French macarons is here to stay. In order to meet global demands, the pastry chef who made macarons famous, Pierre Hermé, is about to step up production in the factory where most of his macarons are created – always by hand. “The goal is to triple production from […]
PARIS – This year’s results just came in and all your executives are gathered together in one of those soulless convention centers. Everyone is listening to the top honchos giving a speech about how next year will be full of opportunities – but only if each employee rolls up their sleeves. After two weeks of […]
Rhetorical outrage and new codes of ethics have followed revelations that France’s Budget Minister had a secret Swiss bank account. But there may be other, more subtle lessons to learn.
The onus is on Washington and Beijing to forge a new, much deeper diplomatic bond to stop the Korean Peninsula and Japan-China conflicts from sliding into open war.
PARIS – The combination of the Arab Spring and the economic crisis in southern Europe has led to a quiet panic spreading in hospitals across the Mediterranean Basin. “With the disorganization of medical services, the number of infections resisting most known antibiotics has literally exploded,” says professor Patrice Nordmann, chief of the bacteriology-virology-parasitology department at […]
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Turning A Refugee Camp Into A Golf Resort
CALAIS – Jacques Gounon is very happy. The CEO of the Eurotunnel Group has just announced the launch of a huge real-estate project in Sangatte, on France’s northern coast. If the name rings a bell to newspaper readers, it is because Sangatte is where up until 2002, there was a massive refugee center, housing asylum […]
This classic Paris address, which inspired the movie Ratatouille, is even more fancy — and delicious — in real life.
The most memorable graffiti and wall murals are often demolished by the force of urban real estate development projects.
Mediapart uses old-school reporting to get major scoops, including a probe that just forced France’s Budget Minister to resign. But you have to pay to read. A news model for the future?
In the private sector as in politics, a small group of influential dynasties still rule the country. Being on the outside, makes a play on power virtually impossible.
President Obama’s arrival in Israel with no new peace proposal to offer is reassuring to many Israelis. They should be worried instead.
-OpEd- PARIS – A lot of people in Europe, especially the French, cheered heedlessly when the Arab Spring took off in 2011. But then came the 70,000 dead from the Syrian war; the proliferation of terrorism in Libya and Mali; the assassination of the main Tunisian opposition leader Chokri Belaid in a country where there […]
PARIS – The horsemeat lasagna scandal has reignited the debate on “junk” food. However, it can be very difficult to sort out the good and the bad… Some key recommendations from Dr. Laurent Chevalier, a prominent French nutritionist: 1 – Favor organic products. They are less contaminated by chemicals – especially pesticides and hormones – […]
-OpEd- PARIS – Game over for the last of the European Marxists. Europe is getting ready to cap the size of bonuses for bankers. New rules would prevent bankers in European Union countries from receiving bonuses higher than their annual salary. This world first would put an end to the practice that allows these “workers” […]