WorldcrunchFrance’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.
Ahead of Notre Dame Cathedral’s reopening in December 2024, a proposal by President Macron to replace six 19th-century stained glass windows with new panels has sparked outcry. Yet stained glass is not new to controversy in France, where even Matisse, Chagall, Garouste and Soulages have managed to unite the sacred and the contemporary.
Some 61 years ago, the Cannes Film Festival was off to a feathery start, courtesy of the Master of Suspense himself.
Each year, millions of French people take to the saddle more or less regularly, making horse riding the country’s third most popular sport, and the most popular for women. The sport will get special attention at the Paris Games.
Clothing companies in France have a habit of simply ignoring larger-sized women. But led by a new generation of designers, some of them inspired by first-hand frustrations, the sector is finally showing signs of change.
From Aya Nakamura in France to Selena Gomez in the U.S., pop stars are collaborating more and more with Nigerian artists like Rema or Burna Boy. Les Echos looks into into how Afrobeats went global — and where it’s going.
While Paris aims to host the greenest Olympics this summer, the French company Rebond is working to make soccer balls, typically pumped up with petrochemicals, more environmentally friendly by using bio-sourced and recyclable materials.
Images of recent student-led, pro-Palestinian protests across the world are reminiscent of the demonstrations of solidarity in support of Vietnam, that rocked campuses some 50+ years ago. But beyond the same indignation fueling the demonstrations, the context, and potential political repercussions, vary greatly.
Driven by advances in artificial intelligence, the development of human-shaped robots is accelerating on both sides of the Pacific. China see it as a way of accelerating modernization of its industrial base, while American venture capitalists are betting on their mass adoption in warehouses and factories.
Even more so than laughter, smiling is the human trait par excellence. It’s a real language — but can we learn to understand it? Or to cultivate it? The rewards could be high, and not just to boost morale: Smiling could increase life expectancy.
May 1 marks the 20th anniversary of the last large round of European enlargement, when 10 countries, mainly from the former Soviet bloc, joined the Union. Their economic successes, the war in Ukraine and their determined leaders have given these countries new weight in Brussels — and provide useful lessons, as the EU considers a new round of enlargement.
On the road to the 2024 Olympic Games, the global leader of sport has launched a major offensive to regain ground lost in recent years in the athletic gear market, and is preparing a flurry of innovations to rekindle the flame of fuel-starved global sales.
Home to the unicorn Vinted, Lithuania’s capital is fostering its image as a Northern European tech hub and cultural capital, in an effort to attract new businesses and talents — despite its cold weather and two difficult neighbors: Russia and Belarus.
What qualifies as an occupational accident when an employee is working from home? In France, despite regulations intended to be simple in substance and form, many teleworking accidents end up in the courts’ blind spot.
Long the preserve of the elite, caviar is now attracting a wider audience, boosted by its ubiquitous presence on social networks. This new visibility fascinates as much as it questions big names in the sector and Michelin-starred chefs.
The election of the new president of Senegal, Bassirou Diomaye Faye, paves the way for a period of deep uncertainty between Paris and Dakar, amidst the spread of an “anti-French sentiment” in West Africa.
Mama Shelter, pioneer of the lifestyle wave in Europe’s hotel industry, is celebrating its 15th anniversary. For Serge Trigano, the former Club Med President who co-founded it after years of hard work, the chain’s success is a form of revenge.
The Seine, the backbone of Paris’ Olympic celebrations, is being reclaimed as a recreational and transport hub. Does it mean Napoleon’s dream of a “Greater Paris” stretching all the way to the sea will finally happen?
For the past 30 years, the number of wolves has steadily increased in France — great news for biodiversity but not for farmers, who are accusing the predator of attacking and killing their livestock. The topic, which has become explosive, is symbolic of a very contemporary divide in the country.
How can we make the city both more dense and more liveable? By opening up its rooftops! At a time of land scarcity and global warming, this vast reservoir of largely unused land is the focus of much interest.
Just because war appears more likely to spread to Europe or the Middle East than Asia, we should not forget China’s enormous weight. But does Beijing want to do with it?
The industrial revolution, which was also agricultural, allowed humanity to escape the “nutritional trap.” Now, agriculture is facing new challenges: income and ecological traps.
Anonymous customers, confidential prices, private fittings. Even today, haute couture remains a secret world where each fashion house has its own way of operating and communicating.
While Germany’s Scholz has chosen to walk a tightrope, France’s Macron has made a major U-turn on. While differences between Berlin and Paris are not new, the intensifying war in Ukraine has changed the situation.
The reforms introduced by Bola Tinubu, the new president of Africa’s most populous country, will take time to have an effect on the daily lives of Nigerians. In the meantime, the population is suffering from inflation, corruption and insecurity. The disillusioned youth are impatient and dream of elsewhere.
Located between Marrakech and Casablanca, the Mohammed VI Polytechnic University is trying to replicate the recipes that have made the United States’ Silicon Valley successful, fusing research and business — with special attention given to green energies and food sovereignty.
Pope Francis appears incapable of grasping that for Ukraine to “raise the white flag” would be to concede defeat, and accept the victory of evil over good. Is he a poor theologian or a poor global strategist, or both?
The new batch of Michelin-starred restaurants was announced on March 18, with 52 new establishments honored, more than ever before. While the little red guide calls the shots among restaurateurs, it’s also the stuff of dreams for aficionados, for whom the bible of gastronomy has become a true collector’s item.
Long hidden and even seen as shameful, menopause is finally making its way into the public sphere in France, and elsewhere. Celebrities, journalists and sociologists are now talking about it openly, and brands are offering solutions to help reimagine what this physical and psychological change means to some women.
Their creations have been worn by international celebrities, such as Beyoncé and Zendaya. Their techniques have been used by major fashion houses, including Dior, Chanel and Balenciaga. With Indian designers Gaurav Gupta and Rahul Mishra making their mark on red carpets and runways around the world, Les Echos reports on the country’s rising luxury fashion industry.
In a quarter of a century under the regime of the former KGB agent, members of the Russian security forces have imposed their growing stronghold on politics and the economy. But the Russian presidential election is also an admission of their weakness with their president failing to build a state strong enough to carry on without them.
From Brad Pitt to Céline Dion and Michelin-starred chefs, the high-end cooking ranges manufactured by La Cornue have seduced celebrities around the world. Despite despite its extra high prices, the French company’s sales have jumped 125% in the past five years.
In the run-up to India’s general elections this spring, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been showcasing his adventures in social media posts, his preferred method of communication, saturating the digital landscape of a highly connected country — and avoiding hard questions from the press.
The “pearl of the Black Sea” was the scene of the single Ukrainian military victory in 2023, when the country broke the maritime blockade imposed by Moscow. But, as a third year under the bombs begins, the first cracks appear among the port city’s residents, who are torn between weariness, anger toward Ukraine’s leaders and an insatiable passion to live a full life.
Discreet about its strategy, the Chinese company Temu is proving a fierce competitor to incumbent e-commerce brands, notably Amazon, by operating at a major loss. Some are worried whether its aim is to collect something more valuable: data on the habits of Westerners.
A new study published by LinkedIn Actualités in France, shows a notable gender difference in how companies decide who gets to work from hom. What factors explain this gap? They may (or may not) surprise you.
Breakdancing will make its debut as an Olympic sport at this summer’s Paris Games. Les Echos meets with French dancers of various styles and from different generations, all passionate about this hip-hop dance form.
The number of pirogues leaving the African coast to reach the Canary Islands more than doubled in 2023. Among them are many Senegalese fishermen forced to leave because of the scarcity of fish resources that trawlers, some of them foreign, come to fish in their waters.
France is now officially part of the global “no sex” trend, notes French philosopher Gaspard Koenig, who sees a troubling connection between a rising neo-Puritanism and fears of World War III.
The climate crisis could provide an opportunity to invent a new way of discovering the world that is more local and sustainable.
Donald Trump is not creating the U.S. malaise any more than Putin is creating the Russian malaise or Netanyahu the Israeli identity crisis. But all three illustrate the inescapable risk if a “me-first” attitude is taken to an extreme degree by individuals who’ve accumulated power.