France

03 March 2022; MEMO: The UN Child Rights Committee said France has violated the rights of French children by leaving them in Kurdish-held camps with inhuman conditions, a UN watchdog reports.

According to the report, the UN Child Rights Committee ruled that France has the responsibility and power to protect the French children in the Syrian camps against an imminent risk to their lives by taking action to repatriate them.

PARIS, March 3 (Reuters) - The mainstream Conservative challenger in France's presidential election said on Thursday she would push for a hefty increase in defence spending, and laid into the pro-Russia views previously expressed by rivals further right along the political spectrum.

Valerie Pecresse said she would seek to raise defence spending to well above 2% of gross domestic product if she won April's election, to an annual 65 billion euros ($72 billion) by 2030 from a planned 50 billion euros in 2025.

PARIS, March 3 (Reuters) - Ukraine still controls two key nuclear power plants in the south of the country, including Zaporizhzhia, Europe's largest, but Russian forces are closing in, the acting head of Ukraine's state-run nuclear company Energoatom said on Thursday.

Petro Kotin, speaking in an interview with Reuters, called Russia's capture last week of the defunct Chernobyl nuclear power plant "nuclear terrorism".

PARIS, March 2 (Reuters) - France and Germany have seized two superyachts owned by Russian oligarchs, French authorities and Forbes magazine said, hitting Russia's super-rich under sanctions imposed on Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine.

At least five other superyachts owned by Russian billionaires are anchored or cruising in the Maldives, an Indian Ocean island nation, ship tracking data showed. 

PARIS, February 27. /TASS/. France is set to toughen economic sanctions against Russia and increase its supplies of military equipment to Ukraine, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported, citing a statement of the presidential administration.

During a session of the country’s security and national defense council on Saturday evening, French President Emmanuel Macron "made a decision to toughen economic and financial sanctions in coordination with European countries and the United States."

25 Feb 2022; MEMO: France's Interior Minister announced that he is banning two Palestine solidarity organisations at the request of French President, Emmanuel Macron.

Gerald Darmanin tweeted yesterday that he will move to dissolve Palestine Vaincra (Palestine Will Win) and Comité Palestine Action (Palestine Action Committee).

"Under the cover of supporting the Palestinian cause, the government accuses the groups of promoting hatred of Israel," French newspaper, Europe 1, reported.

PARIS, Feb 25 (Reuters) - Former French Prime Minister Francois Fillon said on Friday he had resigned from the boards of two Russian firms in protest over Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

"This is a collective failure, but in the hierarchy of responsibilities, Vladimir Putin alone is guilty of having started a preventable conflict," Fillon wrote in an opinion piece for French weekly paper Le Journal du Dimanche.

PARIS, Feb 23 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The number of major wildfires worldwide will rise sharply in coming decades due to global warming, and governments are ill-prepared for the death and destruction such mega-blazes trail in their wake, the UN warned Wednesday.

     Even the most ambitious efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions will not prevent a dramatic surge in the frequency of extreme fire conditions, a report commissioned by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) concluded.

PARIS, Feb 23 (Reuters) - French lawyer Sarah Asmeta wears a hijab at work but that means she is banned by her local Bar Council from representing clients in the courtroom.

She has been fighting to overturn that rule.

Next Wednesday, France's highest court is due to rule on Asmeta's case in a judgment that could set a nationwide precedent and will resonate in a country where the hijab - a headscarf worn by some Muslim women - has become a flashpoint in a debate over identity and immigration.

PARIS, Feb 23 (Reuters) - Opposition contenders in France's upcoming leadership election mocked President Emmanuel Macron's diplomatic efforts in the Ukraine crisis, accusing him of putting up a show for electoral gains.

However, they also found their own past comments and dealings with Russia coming under scrutiny.

Macron has led European efforts to avert war in Ukraine, flying to Moscow earlier this month to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin and spending hours on the phone with him and other world leaders over the past weeks to mediate.