Tag: Paris

Bollywood star evicted from Paris flat over unpaid rent

PARIS, France (AFP) — A French court has ordered that Bollywood actress Mallika Sherawat be evicted from an apartment in a posh part of Paris for failing to keep up with the rent. In a December 14 ruling seen by AFP on Tuesday, the court told Sherawat and her French husband Cyrille Auxenfans to pay 78,787 euros ($94,000) in rent owed and expenses, giving the green light for their furniture to be seized. The couple […]

Storm Eleanor barrels through Europe

  PARIS, France (AFP) — Winter storm Eleanor swept into France, Belgium and the Netherlands on Wednesday after tearing through England and Northern Ireland, cutting power to tens of thousands of people and forcing airports and train services to halt operations. A skiier was killed by a falling tree at Morillon in the French Alps while 15 others have been injured by the storm across the country, four of them seriously, civil defense spokesman Michael […]

Top Italian chef to open community kitchen in Paris

PARIS, France (AFP) — Top Italian chef Massimo Bottura, whose Osteria Francescana was named the world’s best restaurant last year, is in talks to open a community kitchen in Paris that would serve the homeless and other people in need. “Discussions are underway to set up a canteen in the basement of the Madeleine Church,” Jean-Francois Rial, chief executive of the group Voyageurs du Monde, told AFP Thursday. “It is still just a project, nothing […]

Epson, Apple face French legal pressure over planned obsolescence

by Anne LEC’HVIEN and Adam PLOWRIGHT Agence France-Presse PARIS, France (AFP) — French prosecutors have launched a probe into Japanese printer maker Epson for alleged planned obsolescence in its products, using landmark consumer legislation that campaigners hope to turn against Apple as well. The investigation, confirmed to AFP by a legal source on Thursday, was opened in November and is being led by anti-trust and consumer protection specialists in the French economy ministry under the […]

Football: Birthday boy Mbappe stars as PSG down Caen

by Martyn Wood Agence France-Presse PARIS, France (AFP) – Kylian Mbappe celebrated his 19th birthday on Wednesday with a goal and an assist as Paris Saint-Germain cruised to a 3-1 victory over Caen in Ligue 1. The French teenager has enjoyed a stratospheric rise in 2017 and rounded out a memorable year in style by setting up Edinson Cavani to fire PSG ahead on 21 minutes, before adding a goal of his own on the hour. Spanish […]

Judgement day for brother of French Jewish school shooter

by Pierre ROCHICCIOLI and Clare BYRNE Agence France-Presse PARIS, France (AFP) – A French court will rule on Thursday whether the older brother of a jihadist who shot dead seven people, including three French soldiers and three Jewish children, in 2012 was complicit in the killings. The trial of Abdelkader Merah, brother of Mohamed Merah, is the first arising out of a wave of violence by mostly homegrown radical Islamists that has claimed the lives of more […]

E.Guinea leader’s son gets suspended jail term in Paris graft trial

by Juliette MONTESSE and Clare BYRNE Agence France-Presse PARIS, France (AFP) – A French court handed down a three-year suspended jail term on Friday to the son of Equatorial Guinea’s leader, Teodorin Obiang, after convicting him of using public money to fund a jet-set lifestyle in Paris. The 48-year-old vice president of the small west African state, who was tried in absentia, was also given a suspended fine of 30 million euros (35 million dollars) by judges […]

Police arrest 5 after homemade bomb found in Paris

PARIS, France (AFP) — French police arrested five people, including one on a terror watchlist after discovering a suspected home-made bomb in one of Paris’ most exclusive neighborhoods at the weekend, officials said. Police discovered two gas cylinders in the hallway of a building in the city’s western 16th district in the early hours of Saturday morning and two others on the pavement outside. A mobile phone attached to the cylinders is being investigated as […]

Paris experiments with ‘car-free day’ across the city

PARIS, France (AFP) — Parisians were encouraged to roller-blade, bike or stroll through the City of Light on Sunday for a “car-free” day intended to leave the streets vacant for slower, clean forms of transport. Sunday marks the third time the French capital has experimented with a car ban, but it is by far the most ambitious with the zone set aside for pedestrians or cyclists covering the entire historic heart of the city — […]

Paris post office turns its rooftop into urban farm

PARIS, France (Reuters) — A post office sorting depot in the heart of Paris has turned its rooftop into a farm for staff who can grow their own crops and breed chickens. Around 30 employees volunteer to tend the tomato plants, feed the hens and harvest the fruits of their labors on the 900 square meter roof. Post office staff from other offices come to participate in the sustainable project which organizers say helps reconnect […]

Alstom, Siemens merge to create new European rail champion

by Julie Chabanas and Adam Plowright Agence France-Presse PARIS, France (AFP) — The maker of France’s TGV trains announced Tuesday a “merger of equals” with German industrial leader Siemens in a giant and politically tricky deal to create a new European rail champion. The state-controlled Alstom, the manufacturer of French high-speed trains, which are a source of national pride, called the tie-up with its German competitor “a key moment in Alstom’s history, confirming its position […]

Surfing eco-warrior takes dip under Paris’ Eiffel Tower

PARIS, France (AFP) — Swimming in the Seine in October may seem like a fast-track to catching germs, but for TV adventurer and environmental activist Alison Teal, who has spent years paddling her surfboard in polluted waters, taking the plunge into Paris’ river was the perfect way to promote her cause – to fight pollution and clean our oceans.