Paris

The French parliamentarians voted by a majority for a ban on domestic flights on routes that can be covered by train in less than two and a half hours. Flights from Paris to Lyon or Bordeaux could thus soon be a thing of the past.

Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire had already voiced such ideas in May 2020, when state aid for AirFrance-KLM was decided. The weekend's vote picks up on these plans and aims to help reduce CO₂ emissions permanently - even if the air travel industry picks up again after the global pandemic. The ban is part of a broader climate law that aims to reduce French carbon dioxide emissions by 40 per cent by 2030 compared to 1990 levels.

French President Emmanuel Macron said on Tuesday that Paris would reopen its embassy in the Libyan capital Tripoli next Monday to show its support for the new authorities.

Speaking alongside Mohammed al-Menfi, the head of the Libyan presidency council, Macron said France and its European partners would back Libya's political efforts and called for Turkish and Russian forces to leave the country as soon as possible.

French Prime Minister Jean Castex announced a four-week lockdown for 16 regions, including Paris, the Île-de-France region, Hauts-de-France and parts of la Normandie, will start Friday at midnight. Essential stores and schools will remain open and the curfew will start at 7pm. The lockdown is imposed to prevent a third wave.

Thomas Bach is reelected as president of the International Olympic Committee. The German lawyer was unopposed and won the vote 93-1, with four members abstaining.

Bach said Tokyo was "the best prepared Olympic city ever" and reiterated that the Games would open July 23.

He also signed future Olympic hosts Paris and Los Angeles, while Brisbane, Australia, is now being fast-tracked for 2032 -- a move aimed at avoiding expensive campaigns and allegations of vote-buying.

Intensive care units in hospitals in Paris are nearing full capacity as severe Coronavirus cases increase. Paris hospitals currently treat almost 1,000 people in ICU and are being force to put of non-urgent surgeries.

French billionaire Olivier Dassault was killed on Sunday in a helicopter crash, a police source said, with President Emmanuel Macron paying tribute to the 69-year old conservative politician.

Olivier, seen as the favourite of founder Marcel, was once considered favoured to succeed Serge at the head of the family holding, but that role went to former Dassault Aviation CEO Charles Edelstenne.

"Great sadness at the news of the sudden passing of Olivier Dassault," Valerie Pecresse, a conservative politician who is president of the Paris region, said on Twitter.

Prime Minister Jean Castex said that B117 (the UK strain) now accounts for about half of people infected with Covid-19 in France". France is considering stricter measures for affected areas, including weekend lockdowns for Paris and 19 other departments.

Deputy Mayor Emmanuel Grégoire has said the city of Paris is considering a three-week-long strict lockdown, known as "Zero Covid". The measure would give the city "the prospect of reopening everything", instead of "half-measures with bad results" and "semi-prison for months". Currently Paris is under a night-curfew, all eaters and culture venues are closed.

An initial investigation into the rape accusations against Gérard Depardieu was dropped in 2019 for lack of evidence but reopened last summer, leading to criminal charges filed in December. According to a source close to the case, Depardieu is a friend of the woman’s family.

An actor accuses Depardieu of having raped and assaulted her at his Paris home in August 2018. Some reports have suggested Depardieu and the actor were rehearsing a theatre play scene, but the source said "there was nothing professional about the encounter".

Following the complaint supported by millions of French citizens, the Paris administrative court concluded that the government's actions to combat global warming were insufficient and declared the French state guilty.

The 4 NGOs that initiated this lawsuit say it is "a first historic victory for climate" and a "victory for truth" as France has never acknowledged the "insufficiency of its climate policies" (President Macron has always boasted about his commitment to climate change).

According to Anne Hidalgo, the mayor of Paris, the famous Champs-Élysées will undergo a transformation "an extraordinary garden". The plan for the 1.9 kilometers long area in central Paris had been unveiled in 2019 and has now gotten the green light. The costs are estimated to be around €250 million and include cutting space for vehicles by half, adding more space for pedestrians and planting trees and other greens.

Pierre Cardin, who during his more than seven decades in fashion brought geometric shapes to haute couture and put his name on everything from clothing to furniture to perfume to pens, died Tuesday, aged 98.

The Italian-born French designer died in a hospital in Neuilly in the west of Paris.

Emmanuel Macron published a video to Twitter where he talked about the state of his health.

"After experiencing first symptoms, I did the test and after being positive I immediately isolated myself as the health rules ask us to do," he explained and added that he had seen "seen many politicians, members of the government and international leaders also members of my close security or relatives and family members."

He continued: "I wanted to reassure you. I'm fine. I have the same symptoms as yesterday, that is to say fatigue, headaches, dry cough, like hundreds of thousands of you who have had to experience this virus or who are experiencing it today [...] There is normally no reason for it to progress badly but I am subject to medical surveillance and I will report it to you in a completely transparent manner."

Further saying: "Yesterday I was tested positive, which shows that the virus can really affect everyone, because I am very protected, I am very careful, I respect the barrier gestures, the distances I put on the mask, I put on hydroalcoholic gel and despite everything, I caught the virus."

Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo has stated that she is "happy to announce we have been fined" following a €90,000 against the city by the French Ministry of Public Service. She added that "This fine is obviously absurd, unfair, irresponsible and dangerous" and joked "The management of the city hall has, all of a sudden, become far too feminist".

Paris had been fined because eleven women and five men had been promoted in 2018, breaching a national equality rule.

A Parisian court has found fourteen accomplices of the French Islamist militants guilty of the attacks in January 2015. Seventeen people were killed in the attacks on the Charlie Hebdo magazine, a Jewish supermarket and a policewoman. Eleven of the defendants appeared in court, while three were tried in absentia. All accomplices were found guilty, their charges range from belonging to a criminal network to direct complicity in the January 2015 attacks.

Hayat Boumeddiene, the former partner of Amedy Coulibaly, did not appear in court but was found guilty of financing terrorism and belonging to a criminal terrorist network. Boumeddiene is thought to be alive but on the run.

The French Ministry of Public Service has finded the city of Paris for €90,000 over discrimination - because it employs too many women in management positions.

Two years ago, Paris had advertised 16 new management posts - of which "eleven went to women and only five to men," according to Mayor Anne Hidalgo. The quota of women was 69 percent of the positions - too high, so the Ministry of Public Service.

It refers to a regulation according to which at least 40 percent of such posts must be filled by members of one sex. With only 31 percent, men were disadvantaged in the Paris tender, it said.

Tens of thousands of demonstrators marched in Paris and other French cities to protest against the "Global Security" law.

Syrian photographer Ameer al-Halbi, a war correspondent known for his coverage of the fall of Aleppo and winner of a World Press Photo award in 2017, was wounded during a police charge while covering the march on Saturday afternoon, AFP reported.

The "Global Security" law would punish punishes the so-called "malicious" dissemination of the image of police officers, particularly during demonstrations.

Controversy over the law was heightened by the heavy-handed evacuation of a migrant camp in Paris on Monday and the revelation on Thursday of the beating of music producer Michel Zecler by four police officers.

Police fired tear gas in the French capital after thousands of critics of a proposed security law that would restrict sharing images of police officers in France joined a demonstration in Paris.

The crowd included journalists, journalism students, left-wing activists, migrants rights groups and citizens of varied political stripes expressing anger over what they perceive as a hardening police tactics in recent years, especially since France's Yellow Vest protests against economic hardship in 2018.

French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday said images of police beating a Black music producer in Paris put "shame" on the country, with top politicians and sportsmen expressing outrage over the incident.

Berlin's Cold War-era Tegel airport finally closed its doors Sunday after the Air France flight AF1235 to Paris took off. Originally built to handle 2.5 million passengers a year, Tegel passed 24 million in 2019.

The shutdown happened one week after Berlin's new BER airport opened southeast of the capital.

After a three-year delay, the US has become the first nation in the world to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement formally. In the wake of the President Donald Trump announcement back in 2017, several states and businesses have pledged to continue cutting carbon and to try and make up for the Federal government's decision to walk away from the US commitment under Paris.

"The EU green deal and carbon neutrality commitments from China, Japan and South Korea point to the inevitability of our collective transition off fossil fuels," said Laurence Tubiana, one of the architects of the Paris agreement and now chief executive of the European Climate Foundation.