Emmanuel Macron

French President Emmanuel Macron is closing the elite French university École Nationale d'Administration, or Ena for short, as he announced on Thursday. The elite cadre school is to be replaced by the Institute of Public Service (ISP).

The aim of the reform is to make the French civil service "more efficient, more transparent and more benevolent", according to sources close to the president. In addition, more young people from educationally disadvantaged backgrounds are to be recruited for the civil service. The "social lift" works "less well today than it did 50 years ago", Macron had complained at the beginning of this year.

President Emmanuel Macron announced on Thursday a third national, month-long lockdown for France starting Saturday. All schools, nurseries and universities will be closed until April 26th. The country will resume reopening from Mid-May on with strict rules.

Macron: "I know that there is a lot of weariness, fatigue. I know that there is also sometimes nervousness, anger. The success of this month of April and of this strategy depends on each of us, on our spirit of responsibility. This is how we can rebuild this path of hope, the one that will allow us to gradually find a life again. normal."

France bears a "grave and overwhelming share of responsibility" for the genocide, says the 1,200-page report prepared by historian Vincent Duclert and 12 collaborators for the attention of Emmanuel Macron.

It says French authorities "failed" during the four years of escalation in Rwanda: they "strengthened" the corrupt, racist dictatorship in the capital, Kigali, and themselves pursued an "ethnicist" view of the conflict. Specifically, France had trained the Rwandan army - from whose circles the Hutu killers came - and supplied it with "considerable quantities of weapons and ammunition."

However, the Duclert report also states that France did not directly equip the murder gangs. Rather, Paris "did not understand" what was going on in Rwanda. There was therefore no actual complicity in the genocide. In short, the report, for which the authors had unrestricted access to the archives, including those of the Élysée Palace, concludes that there was joint responsibility, but not joint guilt.

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.

France will move on to Phase 2 of Coronavirus vaccination. Appointments will be authorized for all people over 70 from Saturday March 27th on, Emmanuel Macron announced on Tuesday. The country now has "an acceleration of the delivery of the number of doses and therefore we can move on to a second phase of more massive vaccination," Macron said.

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.

French President Emmanuel Macron is urging the United States and European countries to allocate up to 5% of Coronavirus vaccine supplies to poor and developing countries.

Macron: “If we allow to take root the idea that hundreds of millions of vaccines are made in rich countries and that we don’t start in poor countries, that idea is unsustainable.”

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 the BCC, Britain and France will decide on a plan to resume freight traffic after British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and French President Emmanuel Macron agreed on measures to reopen the French border. The measures will apply from Wednesday, the BBC said, citing French Europe Minister Clément Beaune.

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."

After having lunch with French President Emmanuel Macron, Spain’s prime minister Pedro Sánchez announced all of his official engagements were suspended and he would self-isolate until 24 December. "The prime minister will undergo an immediate diagnostic test to determine his situation and will then decide, based on the results, how to manage his agenda over the coming days," so a statement of Sánchez’s office.

António Costa, Portuguese prime minister, met with Macron at the Élysée Palace on Wednesday and is currently awaiting his Covid-19 results in self-isolation. "The prime minister decided to cancel the trip [to Sao Tome and Principe and Guinea Bissau], as well as any public agenda that implies his physical presence. He will keep all executive activities and work schedule, which will be carried out remotely," Costa's office said.

France's President Emmanuel Macron has tested positive for the coronavirus. As the Élysée Palace announced on Thursday, he had previously shown initial symptoms. Accordingly, Macron will isolate himself for seven days in accordance with current regulations. He will continue his work from home.

France's President Emmanuel Macron has approved the construction of a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier that is set to replace the country's FS Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier.

"Charles de Gaulle, as you know, will come to the end of its life in 2038. This is why I have decided that the future aircraft carrier that will equip our country and our navy will be nuclear-powered like the Charles de Gaulle,” Macron said and adding that he has pledged 500 million euros in investment in the nuclear industry.

Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, president of France from 1974 to 1981, has died at the age of 94 of Coronavirus complications. He died surrounded by his family in his home in central France. Giscard d'Estaing was pro-Europe and liberalised laws on divorce, abortion and contraception during his tenure.

President Emmanuel Macron praised Giscard d'Estaing for transforming France and its direction: "A servant of the state, a politician of progress and freedom, his death has plunged the French nation into mourning."

A French court has sentenced a 19-year-old student to one and a half years in prison for threatening to kill a teacher.

According to the public prosecutor's office in Nice, the 19-year-old had threatened the teacher that he would have to "die like Samuel Paty". The 19-year-old had testified in court that he had only wanted to make a joke to impress a girl and had researched the teacher's address in an online network to send him the death threat after learning that the teacher had accused some of his students of cheating on an exam.

The 47-year-old teacher Samuel Paty was beheaded on 16 October near his school in the Parisian suburb of Conflans-Sainte-Honorine by an 18-year-old Russian of Chechen origin. Paty had previously shown cartoons of Mohammed in an hour's time on freedom of expression. President Emmanuel Macron then defended the showing of cartoons of Muhammad, which led to protests in Muslim countries and calls for a boycott of France.

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.

In a direct contradiction of German minister of defense, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, French president Emmanuel Macron said shortly before visiting US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, that the European Union should pursue its attempts to get strategic autonomy, especially regarding military matters.

He admitted that the EU still has no strategic sovereignty, but should continue to try to become a fully established European power, even with a new administration in the White House in the near future.

French President Emmanuel Macron criticized the Anglophone media for their suggestion that the core issue on hand is not violence from Islamists, but the racism and Islamophobia in France.

Macron states that the Anglophone media seems to him not able to understand one of the core principles of the French republic, laïcité. France will not give up its special brand of secularism and freedom of speech, which very much includes every kind of satire, Macron says.

The knife attack in Nice, which left three people dead, was an "Islamist terrorist attack," according to French head of state Emmanuel Macron.

According to initial police reports, he killed a 70-year-old woman and the parish assistant. A second woman, also injured in the neck, managed to escape to a neighboring bar, but died there shortly thereafter.

"Hospitals won’t manage if we don’t take drastic measures,” said French President Emmanuel Macron in a prime-time televised address Wednesday, when he announced new lockdown measures for France.

Macron said that under the new measures, starting on Friday, people would only be allowed to leave home for essential work or medical reasons, that EU borders would still be open. Still, travel between regions in the country is banned.

The French government had been loath to impose a new lockdown that will pummel the economy even harder, and business chiefs have warned a total shutdown will force another wave of layoffs and bankruptcies.

Governments across Europe have been under fire for lack of coordination and for failing to use a lull in cases over the summer to bolster defences, leaving hospitals unprepared and forcing people on to packed public transport to get to work.