France

NICE, France (AP) — The last French army unit left Mali on Monday, according to a statement from the French military, nine years after Paris sent troops to the West African country to help drive Islamic extremists from power.

France’s armed forces completed their withdrawal from Mali six months after French President Emmanuel Macron announced his plan to pull out of the country following tensions with the ruling junta.

PARIS, Aug 12 (Reuters) - The European Space Agency (ESA) has begun preliminary technical discussions with Elon Musk's SpaceX that could lead to the temporary use of its launchers after the Ukraine conflict blocked Western access to Russia's Soyuz rockets.

The private American competitor to Europe's Arianespace has emerged as a key contender to plug a temporary gap alongside Japan and India, but final decisions depend on the still unresolved timetable for Europe's delayed Ariane 6 rocket.

LUX, France (AP) — Once, a river ran through it. Now, white dust and thousands of dead fish cover the wide trench that winds amid rows of trees in France’s Burgundy region in what was the Tille River in the village of Lux.

From dry and cracked reservoirs in Spain to falling water levels on major arteries like the Danube, the Rhine and the Po, an unprecedented drought is afflicting nearly half of the European continent. It is damaging farm economies, forcing water restrictions, causing wildfires and threatening aquatic species.

PARIS, Aug. 11 (Xinhua) -- Five European countries -- Germany, Greece, Poland, Romania and Austria -- are sending reinforcements to France to combat the wildfires in the southwest of the country, French President Emmanuel Macron announced on Thursday.

"Germany, Greece, Poland, and in the next few hours Romania and Austria: our partners are coming to the aid of France in the face of the fires," the French president tweeted. "Across the territory, more than 10,000 firefighters and civil security personnel are mobilized against the flames."

HOSTENS, France, Aug 10 (Reuters) - Wildfires tore through the Gironde region of southwestern France on Wednesday, destroying homes and forcing the evacuation of 10,000 residents, some of whom had clambered onto rooftops as the flames got closer.

Black-and-orange skies, darkened by the smoke billowing from forests and lit up by the flames, were seen across the area as the fires continued to burn out of control despite the efforts of firefighters backed by water-bombing aircraft.

PARIS (AP) — French environmentalists prepared Tuesday to move a beluga whale that strayed into the Seine River last week to a saltwater basin in Normandy, hoping to save the life of the dangerously thin marine mammal.

A medical team plans to transport the 4-meter-long (13-foot-long) whale to a coastal spot in the northeastern French port town of Ouistreham for “a period of care,” according to Lamya Essemlali, president of the conservation group Sea Shepherd France.

Experts think the whale is sick and in a race against time for survival, she said.

PARIS, Aug 7 (Reuters) - France on Sunday braced for a fourth heatwave this summer as its worst drought on record left parched villages without safe drinking water and farmers warned of a looming milk shortage in the winter.

Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne's office has set up a crisis team to tackle a drought that has forced scores of villages to rely on water deliveries by truck, prompted state-run utility EDF (EDF.PA) to curb nuclear power output and stressed crops.

05 August 2022; MEMO: A United Nations panel yesterday ruled that France had violated an "international human rights treaty" by preventing a Muslim woman from wearing her headscarf in school.

The UN Human Rights Committee (UNHRC) said in a statement that the French move had violated "rights guaranteed under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR)."

The Committee's decision had come after a complaint that was filed by a French Muslim woman in 2016.

PARIS (AP) — French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne warned Friday that France is facing the “most severe drought” ever recorded in the country and announced the activation of a government crisis unit.

Borne said that many areas in France are going through a “historic situation” as the country endures its third heatwave this summer.

“The exceptional drought we are currently experiencing is depriving many municipalities of water and is a tragedy for our farmers, our ecosystems and biodiversity,” she said in a statement.

PARIS, August 4. /TASS/: France has extradited Russian national Alexander Vinnik to Greece, his French lawyer Frederic Belot told TASS.

"Alexander Vinnik has just been sent to Greece," he said.

Belot believes that Greece will soon extradite the Russian to the United States based on an arrest warrant issued by a San Francisco court.

Earlier on Thursday, the Investigative Chamber of the Paris Court of Appeals ruled that Vinnik should be extradited to Greece. The French court also upheld the United States’ request to dismiss its extradition request.