Tag: Paris

Two dead as suspected IS gunman takes hostages in France

by Remi Zaka with Pauline Talagrand in Paris Agence France-Presse Trèbes, France (AFP) — At least two people were killed after a gunman claiming allegiance to the Islamic State group opened fire and took hostages at a supermarket in southwest France on Friday. A security source said the two were killed in the attack at a Super U store in the town of Trebes. Armed police were also responding to the earlier shooting of a policeman in […]

Record tourist arrivals in Paris in 2017

PARIS, France (AFP) — After two years during which Paris was scarred by terror attacks, tourists returned to the French capital in record numbers in 2017, hotel booking figures showed Thursday. Hotels in the Paris area received 2.9 million more foreign and French visitors compared to 2016, an increase of 9.5 percent that added 1.6 billion euros ($2 billion) to the sector’s coffers, the tourism committee for the Paris region said. “Tourism rebounded in spectacular […]

Macron sticks by plan for compulsory national service

PARIS, France (AFP) – Two decades after it scrapped its compulsory military service France will introduce a mandatory “national service” for all young people, the government said Tuesday, confirming a campaign pledge by President Emmanuel Macron. Macron took the country by surprise a year ago when he announced that, if elected, he would make all young people spend a month getting “a direct experience of military life with its know-how and demands.” He billed it as a […]

Fekir sees Lyon into French Cup quarters

by Jed Court Agence France-Presse PARIS, France (AFP) – Nabil Fekir’s penalty helped Lyon beat Montpelier 2-1 on Wednesday to reach the French Cup quarter-finals for the first time since 2012. Maxwel Cornet caught home goalkeeper Benjamin Lecomte by surprise to give the visitors an early lead, only for Jonathan Ikone to quickly lash in an equalizer. But Fekir grabbed his 20th goal of the season with a 27th-minute spot-kick which proved to be the winner, leaving […]

France hikes defense spending to hit NATO target

by Daphné Benoit Agence France-Presse PARIS, France (AFP) – France on Wednesday announced plans to boost defense spending by more than 40 percent, bringing it into line with NATO targets after complaints from US President Donald Trump that Europe is not pulling its weight. European NATO members have come under pressure from Trump to relieve the burden on the US, which currently accounts for about 70 percent of combined NATO defense spending. The French government unveiled a bill […]

Preserved in time: WWII bunker hidden under Paris train station

by Jean Liou © Agence France-Presse PARIS, France (AFPI) — t lies hidden deep beneath Paris’s bustling Gare de l’Est railway station, its sprawling subterranean rooms and sparse furniture pristinely preserved if a little dusty. Originally built a few years before World War II for luggage storage, the underground bunker was repurposed after war broke out. French railway historian Clive Lamming said its 1939 overhaul was to provide “a place to retreat in case of an […]

Europe claims 100 million users for Galileo satnav system

PARIS, France (AFP) — The Galileo satellite navigation system, Europe’s rival to the United States’ GPS, has nearly 100 million users after its first year of operation, the French space agency CNES said Thursday. The system, seen as strategically important to Europe, went live in December 2016, having taken 17 years at more than triple the original budget to get there. Initial services offered only a weak signal, and some of the atomic timekeepers on […]

Abdeslam: from pot-smoking delinquent to key terror suspect

by Mehdi Cherifia and Clare Byrne Agence France-Presse PARIS, France (AFP) – In the Brussels neighborhood where he lived until his capture, Salah Abdeslam was known as a pot-smoking petty criminal whose former lawyer described him as having “the intelligence of an empty ashtray.” But the sole survivor of the jihadist team that wrought carnage in Paris in November 2015 — who goes on trial in Belgium on Monday over the shootout — remains something of an […]