The usually hushed words of international diplomats is a reflection of our real-time communication age, but also of rising tensions on an unsettled geopolitical chessboard.
Tag: france
A pandemic and a maritime accident teach us the same lessons: humility, fragility and ultimately human ingenuity. Risk is impossible to predict, except that we know it always exists.
Up against a microscopic virus, the world’s leaders have failed myriad different ways to do what was necessary to beat the pandemic. Was another fate possible?
The enduring pandemic has forced the world to develop new ways of working. What once were casual chats at water coolers are now endless WhatsApp group message chains, while cubicles and corner offices have been replaced by everyone’s home kitchen table… not to mention your children doing (or not doing!) their schoolwork beside you. The […]
Close brushes with bulls are part of the culture of Arles, which maintains a strong tradition of bullfighting in local Roman ampitheaters and annual festivals with well-organized courses of the bulls through the streets of the southern French city. But on Tuesday, it was the bulls who chose the time and place to brush with […]
Ten years after the popular Syrian uprising against the Assad regime, we see the wider impact of both the moral and a strategic error committed by Western democracies to not intervene.
In one of the world’s poorest countries, cheese is still a niche market. And yet, little by little, even the working class are starting to getting a taste.
Since its founding in 1949, the iconic French weekly Paris Match has published countless photos of the rich and powerful — and every now and then, a paparazzi shot might cost them. This time, instead, it was a homeless man demanding the magazine pay serious VIP money for running a photograph of him without his […]
The official announcement came Thursday evening from European Union health officials, but it simply confirmed what we already knew: the AstraZeneca vaccine is safe. And most European countries will recommence distributing the jab, as the vaccination campaigns continue to be far slower than promised. For Guy Vallancien, a member of the French Academy of Medicine, […]
Can nature save capitalism? Biomimicry is thought-provoking because it provides many sources of inspiration to calibrate production models to nature, and thus continue to grow while respecting our environment.
You’re hungry and restaurants aren’t serving because of COVID lockdowns, but at least there are always vending machines. Hmmm? What looks tempting from behind that plexiglass?A Snickers bar or a bag of chips? Or maybe a pair of plastic-wrapped triangle sandwiches and a can of Coke? Otherwise, if you’re in the Franche-Comté region of eastern […]
Could the 2020s be an era of prosperity? The pandemic has paved the way for digital, biological, and ecological revolutions.
Three survivors of terrorism in France are now being targeted online for the compassion they have shown towards the children of Islamic militants. They are taking the power in their own hands and taking the social media giant to court.
Delays in vaccination, bureaucracy and a lack of solidarity between member states are putting new strains on the already fragile Union.
In France, at least, all those days and nights in lockdown didn’t result in an upswing of bouncing babies.
A growing number of women are speaking out against the pervasive harassment they experience in hospitality schools and apprenticeship situations.
Like the rest of us, street hustlers are adjusting to pandemic conditions. In Laval, a small city in western France, a young man who might have otherwise been taking passersby for a ride with Three-Card Monte or Find The Lady tricks, concocted a COVID-inspired scam for easy money. The Ouest France daily reports that the […]
Plastic pollution has contaminated our oceans to the point where a new ecological niche of anthropic origin has been coined: the ‘plastisphere’. The bacteria that proliferate there could lead to the next health crisis.
For decades, France did well in accommodating the religious needs of Muslims — on the condition they went back to their country of origin. Now, demands to express one’s faith are often labeled: separatism.
Drugs, weapons and… spring rolls? Add the Asian fried staple to the list of contraband items that have been seized in the illegal international smuggling market. Police discovered 61.5 kilograms (136 lbs) of chicken spring rolls stashed in a car trunk during a control at a France-Switzerland border crossing on Feb. 16. The driver, a […]
Murky definitions of national identity were igniting worldwide debates long before COVID, but travel lockdowns have shifted the cards. And what if I wanted to become French?
The world’s linguistic heritage is facing a crisis just as serious as that of biodiversity. A French project is trying to save what exists in the Pangloss collection, powered by new tools of Artificial Intelligence.
Talk about the use of documents proving immunity evokes a measure invented more than a century ago by French authorities.
Are the lives of the youth impacted by coronavirus restrictions worth less than the extended lives of the elderly? This is the debate we must have when faced with the prospect of another lockdown.
The pandemic is too big a crisis and too unpredictable to respect the normal trade rules governing pharmaceutical developments.
Parenting can be a tricky thing. Who can safely say they’ve never, in the heat of the moment, brandished over-the-top threats to try to get unruly offspring to comply? And who ever follows through? Well the scene earlier this week inside a family home in Limoges, France, was looking familiar, as reported by local radio […]
Yes, they are both French. Yes, those are their real names. No, they weren’t driving a Ford Gran Torino.
The almost aptly-named village of Barr, considered one of the wine capitals of eastern France, has been targeted by vandals who may have been making a political statement about pandemic lockdown measures. Last Saturday night, someone stole the final “R” from the main town sign, proudly standing on a roundabout near the famous Route des […]
A near fatal act of sabotage at a French opera house wound up in a courtroom last week, after a feud between stage hands offered an unsuspecting audience a moment of true drama six years ago. Let’s rewind back to January 28, 2015, at the Théâtre du Capitole, in the southern French city of Toulouse, […]
A New Year’s Eve ‘free party’ in Lieuron, France, became a state affair. While politicians are quick to condemn and punish the fête’s organizers and attendees, they offer no real solution.
The virtues that laid the groundwork for Western civilization’s many advances are being eclipsed, it would seem, by an internet-driven rush of irrationality.
A pillar of French culture, the Paris Opera is struggling to survive both the pandemic and criticism of its lack of diversity. Will such an important institution be able to withstand the changes of time?
Democrats who reach the White House do not necessarily play into the hands of Europeans. It is up to them to unify their voice to pass their agendas.
The customs border between the UK and the EU is back, with new rules and regulations, an influx of hastily trained agents, and a technology overhaul.
Before it even began, the pandemic was already on the radar of big risks — and yet we were unprepared. Will it be the same for cyber security and environmental threats?
By closing Donald Trump’s social media accounts, the Big Tech platforms have recognized for the first time their fundamental responsibility for the content they broadcast. But for this and other reasons that now also means the regulators must step up.
The Schengen Area is not a “sieve” that lets migrants in but, as recent events have shown, it is not a fortress either. The fundamental rights of individuals will always prevail over security requirements.
From The Freedom Of Vanlife To A Pandemic Quarantine — And Back Again? RUE AMELOT Pathogens In The Permafrost: A New Climate Change Health Risk LES ECHOS No Work, No Way Home: Russia’s Migrant Workers Trapped By COVID-19 KOMMERSANT Brazil’s Stranger-Than-Fiction Descent Under Bolsonaro CLARIN Quiet Killer: When Coronavirus Got Inside A Capuchin Convent LE […]
Worldcrunch’s editor reflects on how we lived through – and covered – a year that we might have known was coming.
COVID Death Toll At 1.5 Million: A World United By Those We Lost WORLDCRUNCH Abidjan Postcard: Black Lives Matter, But They’re Different Here JEUNE AFRIQUE Pandemic Postcard: Nearly Alone As A Paris Museum Reopens RUE AMELOT “Joan Of Arc” In Exile: Can Tikhanovskaya Lead Belarus From Abroad? KOMMERSANT COVID-19, Address To The Nations: Faces Of […]