Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy could face a second prison sentence as trial over ‘illegally financed’ campaign begins Sarkozy allegedly spent nearly twice the legal limit of £20m on presidential race The 66-year-old lost the 2012 re-election bid to Socialist Francois Hollande Sarkozy didn’t appear in court in Paris on Thursday for the preliminary hearing … Read more
‘The violence must stop’: France pushes for the UN Security Council to adopt a resolution on Israeli-Palestinian violence France has pushed for the UN Security Council to adopt a resolution ‘The shooting must stop, the time has come for a ceasefire,’ it said in a statement The 15-member Council on Tuesday held its third … Read more
Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier has called on France to halt migration from outside the EU for up to five years, saying terrorists have infiltrated migration routes. The 70-year-old, who is being tipped to run against President Macron in next year’s election, said the pause is necessary so France can ‘verify, evaluate and if necessary change’ … Read more
A group of serving French soldiers have published a new open letter warning Emmanuel Macron that the ‘survival’ of France is at stake after the President made ‘concessions’ to Islamism. The letter published in the right-wing magazine Valeurs Actuelles (Today’s Values) late on Sunday echoes the tone of a similar letter printed in the same magazine … Read more
HMS Tamar sailed back to Portsmouth on Thursday after seeing off French fishermen together with HMS Severn off the Jersey coast. The Royal Navy River-class offshore patrol vessel has welcomed home after the French threatened to blockade Calais. The vessel even showed off its shiny new paint job with different hues of grey as it … Read more
Boris Johnson and Emmanuel Macron are set to hold emergency ‘peace talks’ to end the ‘Battle of Jersey’ after French fishermen threatened to blockade Calais. The world leaders, who control Europe’s two largest armies, will try to restore their ‘brotherly’ relationship amid the post-Brexit chaos. The row over Channel fishing rights escalated last night after … Read more
Well, it wasn’t quite the ‘new Battle of Trafalgar’, as one over-excited combatant claimed, was it? With French fishing boats ramming British ones, and crews screaming obscenities at each other that they could not understand, the escalating dispute over the fishing rights between Britain and France yesterday more closely resembled a pantomime. And the anti-British … Read more
A member of the Jersey Militia re-enactment group has fired a musket towards the ongoing stand-off between the Royal Navy and 100 French fishing vessels over post-Brexit fishing rules. The fishing vessels are blocking access to the port at Saint Helier, prompting Boris Johnson to deploy Navy vessels HMS Severn and HMS Tamar. The ships – which … Read more
Leading the sabre-rattling that added fire to today’s ‘fishing war’ in Jersey is Emmanuel Macron‘s hard-left maritime minister, a fisherman’s daughter and Brexit hater who has made inflammatory threats to ‘cut off’ the island’s electricity. Maritime minister Annick Girardin, a member of the Radical Party of the Left, is a straight-talking political street fighter who in a … Read more
Emmanuel Macron and wife Brigitte attend Lily of Valley ceremony at Elysee Palace as France prepares to ease its third lockdown on Monday The couple wore masks during the traditional May 1 event at the Elysee Palace It comes ahead of the latest unwinding of the country’s third lockdown The number of new daily infections … Read more