France

PARIS, July 29 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Pharma giants Sanofi and GSK have agreed to supply Britain with up to 60 million doses of a potential COVID-19 vaccine, the firms announced Wednesday.

The agreement covers a vaccine candidate developed by France’s Sanofi in partnership with the UK’s GSK and is subject to a “final contract”.

Amid a global race to find a vaccine to halt the pandemic, Sanofi announced “Ongoing discussions with the European Commission, with France and Italy on the negotiation team, and other governments to ensure global access to a novel coronavirus vaccine.”

NANTES (France), July 28 (NNN-AGENCIES) — A Rwandan refugee who volunteered as a warden at France’s 15th-century Nantes cathedral has confessed to setting the blaze that gutted its interior a week ago, his lawyer said.

The suspect, whose name has not been made public, was taken into custody on Saturday following his confession. He had been arrested and released earlier in the investigation.

PARIS (AP) — French authorities detained and charged a repentant church volunteer Sunday after he told investigators that he was responsible for an arson attack that badly damaged a 15th-century Gothic cathedral.

The man had previously been questioned and then released after the July 18 blaze that destroyed the organ, shattered stained-glass windows, and blackened the insides of the Cathedral of St. Peter and St. Paul of the western French city of Nantes.

24 July 2020; MEMO: French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday called for sanctions to be placed on Turkey as a result of what he said were its violations of Greece and Cyprus’ maritime sovereignty in the Eastern Mediterranean.

“It is not acceptable for the maritime space of a Union member state to be violated or threatened. Those responsible must be sanctioned,” Macron said ahead of a meeting held in Paris with his Cypriot counterpart Nicos Anastasiades.

PARIS (Reuters) - Europe’s Airbus said on Friday it was amending French and Spanish government loans in a “final” bid to reverse U.S. tariffs and jog the United States into settling a 16-year-old dispute over billions of dollars of aircraft subsidies.

The planemaker said it had agreed to pay higher interest rates on two loans that it received to help develop its A350 jet, which entered service in 2015.

PARIS (Reuters) - France’s president on Thursday said it would be a serious error by the European Union to not respond to provocations in the Eastern Mediterranean and said he wanted more sanctions on those who violated Greek and Cypriot maritime space.

Emmanuel Macron’s comments come after Turkey’s navy on Tuesday issued an advisory for seismic surveys in an area of sea between Cyprus and Crete, a move Greece said was an attempt by Ankara to encroach on its continental shelf.

PARIS (Reuters) - Ivory Coast’s ruling party said on Monday it had asked President Alassane Ouattara to stand for a third term after the death of his chosen successor.

Ouattara, 78, had said he would step down and named his close ally, Prime Minister Amadou Gon Coulibaly, as the RHDP party’s candidate for the Oct. 31 ballot.

But Gon Coulibaly died on July 8, leaving the party without a candidate in the run-up to an election that is expected to test political stability in the world’s top cocoa producing nation.

19 July 2020; MEMO: French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian announced on Friday that his country will provide aid and medical supplies to the Kurdistan Region of Iraq to combat the coronavirus pandemic.

NANTES, France (AP) — French officials launched an arson inquiry Saturday after a fire broke out in the Gothic cathedral of the western French city of Nantes, shattering stained glass windows and sending black smoke spewing from between its towers.

Residents and tourists watched aghast, and emergency workers cordoned off the area around the St. Peter and St. Paul Cathedral, in the historical center of this city on the Loire River.

17 July 2020; MEMO: Three French police officers have been charged with manslaughter of a delivery driver after a coroner ruled he died of asphyxia and a broken larynx.

Police stopped 42-year-old father of five, Cedric Chouviat, of Algerian origin, who was riding on his scooter near the Eiffel Tower in Paris, in January.

Footage reviewed by investigators shows him shouting “I’m suffocating” seven times whilst officers held him down, still wearing his helmet.