Worldcrunch
I’m not the only one to find the Alyscamps, near Arles in the south of France, picturesque. Both Vincent Van Gogh and Paul Gauguin immortalized the alley of sarcophagi in this great Roman necropolis.
-Essay- PARIS — Nothing ruins the cheese course more than the smell of burning tires. Yes, it seems, the hour of camembert and brimstone is at hand. Angry mobs are burning Michelins at the picket lines. Congestion at the gas pump. Travel chaos as metro and rail lines strike. Power outages and the River Seine […]
-Analysis- PARIS — Little is known about the financing of terror. Where does it come from? What part did it play in the Paris shootings and Brussels bombings? Are we able to fight it effectively? We are, on all counts, poorly equipped to deal with this challenge. In France and our neighboring countries, there is […]
SPOTLIGHT: LONE WOLVES OF ISIS The Islamic State terror group (ISIS) has claimed responsibility for two terrorist attacks in the past two days: a mass shooting at a gay nightclub early Sunday in Orlando, Florida, and a targeted stabbing of a police officer and his wife near Paris late last night. But while the attacks […]
For centuries, southeastern Grasse has been a flower growing hub for the fragrance industry. Though regular business from luxury titans has been a lifeline for local farmers, they’re finding it hard to survive in the globalized market.
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SPOTLIGHT: SOCCER & THE STATE OF FRANCE “Everything I know about morality and the obligations of men, I owe it to soccer,” French philosopher Albert Camus once said. And there’s definitely more than sports at play in the Euro 2016 soccer championship that kicks off tonight in France: There are heightened security fears around the […]
Le Parisien, June 10 “It’s time to party!” reads the front page of French daily Le Parisien Friday, which features a photograph of supporters celebrating the opening ceremony of the 2016 UEFA European soccer championship at the Eiffel Tower. The tournament kicks off on Friday with Romania facing France. The latter could do with a […]
It must be tricky for the Bigouden women to wear their traditional lace bonnets — some of them 35 centimeters in height — in windy Brittany.
French daily Le Figaro reports Wednesday that a 24-year-old woman will be prosecuted for posing as a victim of the Nov. 13 attacks in Paris in order to get a 20,000-euro compensation (about $23,000). The police started having doubts after the woman presented forged medical certificates, saying her arm had been wounded from an explosion […]
From David Lynch to Francis Ford Coppola and Wes Anderson, filmmakers are going beyond movie sets to design hotels, bars and nightclubs.
Le Parisien, June 3, 2016 “France Wades” is the front-page headline splashed across Friday’s national edition of the Paris-based daily Le Parisien, accompanied by the image of military vehicles struggling to drive on a national highway, near the city of Orléans. Last month was the wettest May since the 1880s, and the resulting floods across […]
If Ornans looks picturesque enough on my photographs, it’s nothing compared to the way 19th-century painter Gustave Courbet — arguably the most celebrated artist from my neck of the woods — depicted the village in his masterpieces.
The choir of traditional French music I was part of was often invited to folk festivals at home and abroad. One time in Villefranche-de-Rouergue, in southern France, I was picked as a judge for a bourrée competition, and ended up watching people dance for hours under a scorching July sun. Needless to say, the dancers […]
-Analysis- PARIS — There is something rotten in Europe. A kind of fetid wind, or foreboding gust, is blowing through. The far-right Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) nearly won the presidential election, the best result for a far-right party since World War II. The FPÖ candidate, Norbert Hofer, might have shown the friendly face of […]
France has long been an innovator in building materials, from the steel splendor of the Eiffel Tower to concrete to surprisingly resistant wood. Environmental factors hold sway.
PARIS — The former head of France’s anti-drug trafficking agency has been accused of playing a central role in the smuggling of tons of cannabis into France, the Paris-based Libération daily is reporting. François Thierry, who until recently headed the main agency charged with combating drug trafficking OCRTIS (Central Office for the Suppression of Illicit […]
From ancient religions to contemporary ecology, dire warnings that the end of the world is upon us are not only false — they bring a damage of their own.
SPOTLIGHT: SPRINGTIME ANGST IN PARIS It’s spring in Paris: the trees are bursting with foliage, café terraces look inviting, the French Open is about to kick off. Shall we indulge in that apéro? Mais, non! The mood in the City of Light feels anything but spring-like right now. There is the fate of EgyptAir Flight […]
SPOTLIGHT: PARIS-TO-CAIRO FLIGHT CRASHES An EgyptAir passenger jet has disappeared over the Mediterranean Sea during an overnight flight from Paris to Cairo. Greek aviation authorities believe the plane crashed off the Greek island of Karpathos in Egyptian airspace. Search and rescue operations are ongoing to try and find the wreckage and potential survivors. There are […]
Though a massive attack with a full-fledged nuclear weapon is highly unlikely, a so-called “dirty bomb” scenario is not out of the question.
PARIS — Imagine securing a loan in just minutes — without having to visit a bank, fill out complicated paperwork, sit down with a loan officer. What if it could all be done with a few clicks on a smartphone? For some consumers and small businesses in the United States, China, the Philippines, Mexico and […]
-OpEd- PARIS — A sex scandal is again shaking up politics and media in France. Denis Baupin, a a Green Party member and vice president of the National Assembly, who also happens to be husband to the current housing minister, is being investigated after accusations that he harassed many women, including colleagues and elected officials, […]
SPOTLIGHT: DEATH IN IRAQ As the attacks in Paris and Brussels have shown, ISIS is a very real threat to daily life in the West. But as unacceptable as the toll paid by innocent European victims may be, it’s always worth remembering who bears the brunt of Islamic terrorism: innocent Muslims. The latest case is […]
From the poor to the pretty rich, women are still stuck with the lion’s share of housework and child-rearing. By one estimate, if each hour of domestic work were paid at minimum wage, it would total 33% of France’s GDP.
The annual Kyotographie Festival creates a unique alchemy as world-class modern art occupies a timeless sanctuary.
A generation ago we saw the Berlin Wall come down and Nelson Mandela go from prison to the presidency. Today, we have Orban, Erdogan, Trump. What happens next?
Why do we refuse to admit that discrimination and poverty help the spread of Islamic fanaticism? Understanding is not justifying, explaining is not forgiving.
Autonomous vacuum cleaners are just the beginning. As time goes by, artificially intelligent machines will play ever greater roles in our lives. Which is why now is the time to start asking some important questions.
Whether it’s about Syrian refugees, Syria or Iraq, the truth is sometimes better left unsaid. It all depends on the country in which it is said. One thing is certain: In these troubled times, censorship and self-censorship are thriving.
MAY DAY PROTESTS TURN VIOLENT Photo: Philippe Wojazer/Reuters/ZUMA While the United States reserves Labor Day for early September, the rest of the world marks International Workers’ Day on May 1, which was actually originally established in the U.S. to mark the 1886 Haymarket affair. Take it as a sign that the world is growing both […]
LYON — In 2012, you could still catch sight of “yoyos” hanging from the jail cell windows. A yoyo, in French prison jargon, is a cord inmates throw through window bars to reach another cell and retrieve various objects. At the Saint-Paul and adjacent Saint-Joseph penitentiaries, in downtown Lyon, inmates could even get stuff from […]