France

PARIS (Reuters) - European planemaker Airbus will do its best to cut costs without resorting to compulsory redundancies, but it cannot guarantee they won’t happen, CEO Guillaume Faury told French radio station RTL on Tuesday.

With air travel at a fraction of its normal level due to restrictions and travellers’ fears related to the COVID-19 pandemic, airlines have slowed deliveries of new aircraft.

Airbus has said it needs to shed 15,000 posts worldwide.

22 Sep 2020; MEMO: A group of 61 French members of parliament said the ‘peace deals’ signed between Gulf states the UAE and Bahrain and Israel “undermine potential comprehensive peace” between the occupation state and the Palestinians, Arab48 reported yesterday.

PARIS (AP) — With precision and boundless energy, a team of carpenters used medieval techniques to raise up — by hand — a three-ton oak truss Saturday in front of Notre Dame Cathedral, a replica of the wooden structures that were consumed in the landmark’s devastating April 2019 fire that also toppled its spire.

The demonstration to mark European Heritage Days gave the hundreds of people a first-hand look at the rustic methods used 800 years ago to build the triangular frames in the nave of Notre Dame de Paris.

19 Sep 2020; AA: French President Emmanuel Macron on Saturday called on Turkey to reopen a "responsible dialogue" on the Eastern Mediterranean.

"In Ajaccio, we sent a clear message to Turkey: let's reopen a responsible dialogue, in good faith, without naivety. This call is now also that of the European Parliament. It seems to have been heard. Let's move on," Macron said in a tweet in Turkish.

19 Sep 2020; MEMO: France’s foreign ministry on Friday said there was no evidence to suggest the armed wing of Lebanon’s Hezbollah was storing chemicals to make explosives in France after a senior US official said the group had set up caches in Europe since 2012.

17 Sep 2020; MEMO: Four ex-directors of a Shia Muslim centre in France have been arrested over concerns they continued to run the organisation despite it being disbanded by authorities in March last year, Agence France Presse (AFP) reports.

PARIS (Reuters) - French financial firms need to finalise preparations for the end of Britain’s Brexit transition arrangements and in particular find solutions for securities clearing, France’s financial stability council said on Thursday.

Britain left the European Union in January and transition arrangements that still allow it unfettered access to the bloc end on Dec. 31.

PARIS, Sept 13 (NNN-AGENCIES) – More than 150 people were arrested yesterday, after hundreds of “Yellow Vest” protesters took to streets, in the centre of Paris, to oppose President Emmanuel Macron’s fiscal, economic and social policies.

Paris police department said, 154 individuals had been detained by 13:00 p.m. local time (1100 GMT), in the capital, for holding screwdrivers, ice axes, cutting pliers and knives.

PARIS (Reuters) - A summit of seven European Union member states on the Mediterranean due to take place on Thursday will push for a common EU position regarding Turkey, said French President Emmanuel Macron, host of the gathering.

Relations between the EU and Turkey are badly strained on a number of issues, including exploration for hydrocarbons in the eastern Mediterranean, where Ankara is at loggerheads with EU member states Cyprus and Greece.

PARIS, Sept 9 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Disruptions to health services due to the pandemic are putting millions of additional lives at risk worldwide, the United Nations said Wednesday, warning that Covid-19 could reverse decades of progress in reducing child mortality.

The past 30 years have seen remarkable strides forward in preventing or treating causes of infant deaths including premature births and pneumonia.