France

CALAIS, France (AP) — President Emmanuel Macron appealed Thursday to neighboring European countries to do more to stop illegal migration into France after at least 27 people died trying to cross the English Channel.

Macron said that when migrants arrive on French shores with hopes of heading to Britain “it is already too late.”

PARIS (AP) — France’s interior minister said four suspected traffickers were arrested Wednesday on suspicion of being linked to a deadly migrant boat sinking in the English Channel that killed at least 31 people.

Two of the suspects appeared in court Wednesday, and all four are suspected of a link to the sunken boat, Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin told reporters in the French port city of Calais.

The regional prosecutor opened an investigation into aggravated manslaughter after the sinking, the deadliest to date in the channel.

PARIS/WARSAW, Nov 24 (Reuters) - France assured Poland of European Union support in its stand-off with Belarus on Wednesday, but reminded Warsaw it needed to resolve a row with the bloc over its values and the rule of law.

PARIS, Nov 23 (Reuters) - Michel Barnier, the former European Union Brexit negotiator and now a challenger for the French presidency, said France had lost control of immigration and that a sense of impunity prevailed.

Barnier, who is locked in a five-way race for the centre-right Les Republicains party's nomination, lamented France's 'big decline' and said President Emmanuel Macron's leadership style was too arrogant and single-minded to heal divides.

STRASBOURG, France, Nov 23 (Reuters) - The thousands of migrants on the European Union's eastern borders with Belarus is an attempt by the Minsk regime to destabilise the EU, rather than a migration crisis, the head of the executive European Commission Ursula von der Leyen said.

Speaking at the European Parliament, von der Leyen said the 27-nation bloc was standing in solidarity with Poland, Lithuania and Latvia which bear the brunt of the policy of Belarus leader Alexander Lukashenko to fly migrants from various world hotspots into Belarus and then push them across EU borders.

PARIS (AP) — The prime minister of France, who tested positive for COVID-19 on Monday, is being singled out on social media and beyond as an example of what not to do in the pandemic.

Multiple videos are being circulated of a maskless Prime Minister Jean Castex vigorously shaking hands with elected officials in an enclosed space at a Paris mayoral congress on Nov. 16. Many people are pointing out that goes against France’s official stance that everyone should keep taking preventative measures against the spread of COVID-19.

LE GOSIER, Guadeloupe (AP) — Schools closed across the French Caribbean island of Guadeloupe on Monday and France’s president warned of a “very explosive” situation in the territory, after protests against COVID-19 rules and vaccinations descended into days of rioting and looting.

France’s central government sent in police special forces to try to restore order to the former colony, as emergency workers said they were unable to reach neighborhoods barricaded by angry crowds.

PARIS, Nov 20 (Reuters) - France is sending police special forces to restore order in the French overseas territory of Guadeloupe hit by rioting and looting amid protests against COVID-19 protocols, French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said on Saturday.

"The first message is that the state will stand firm," Darmanin told reporters after holding a crisis meeting on the situation in the Caribbean archipelago with Overseas Territory Minister Sebastien Lecornu.

PARIS (AP) — France’s minister of the sea vowed Sunday to “continue the fight” in the country’s dispute with Britain over fishing rights.

Minister Annick Girardin met with fishermen in northern France on Sunday.

“We fight every day for these ships, for these licenses, and we will not give up,” she told reporters, criticizing the British interpretation of post-Brexit rules over fishing rights as “inadmissible.”

PARIS, Nov 20 (Reuters) - A large fire broke out in a building on boulevard des Capucines, near the Place de L'Opera square in central Paris on Saturday, sending clouds of smoke rising into the air.

"Firemen are intervening, avoid the area," the Prefecture de Police said in a statement on Twitter.

It was not immediately clear what caused the fire.