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Tag: France

  • French TV star scrutinized in book about sex abuse, #MeToo

    French TV star scrutinized in book about sex abuse, #MeToo

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    PARIS (AP) — “At a certain level of fame, no French man has ever been convicted for sexual abuse.”

    These words are from the book “Impunity,” by Hélène Devynck, who says she was raped by France’s most famous TV presenter.

    Devynck is among dozens of women who have spoken out recently to accuse Patrick Poivre d’Arvor of rape, sexual abuse or harassment from 1981 to 2018. Her book, published last month, investigates accusations against Poivre d’Arvor, denounces France’s historically lax attitude toward sexual abuse allegations and questions why the #MeToo movement in her country has had such limited impact.

    Poivre d’Arvor, who hosted France’s most popular news program for more than two decades and remains a revered personality, denies sexual wrongdoing and insists relations with his accusers were consensual.

    Now 75 and retired, Poivre d’Arvor has sued 16 of his accusers — including Devynck — and a French newspaper that reported on the allegations.

    Most accusations are now too old to prosecute, but French magistrates opened an investigation that examines alleged abuses by Poivre d’Arvor. French media report that over 20 women have filed legal complaints, although no charges have been brought.

    In the United States, several high-profile sexual assault trials are unfolding across the country: movie mogul Harvey Weinstein, actor Danny Masterson and filmmaker Paul Haggis all face accusations linked to #MeToo. All deny wrongdoing.

    France, meanwhile, has not seen any major figure prosecuted in the #MeToo era, and has had a more fraught relationship with the movement. Even as more and more people in France are standing up against sexual misconduct, debate continues about where seduction ends and sexual harassment and abuse begins, especially in a context where the myth of the “French lover” remains popular and positively perceived.

    The book by Devynck, 55, comes after multiple recent accounts of women accusing Poivre d’Arvor in French media outlets.

    Devynck said she was raped in 1993 by Poivre d’Arvor when she was working as an assistant to him at TF1, a leading European broadcaster. At the time, Poivre d’Arvor drew in up to 10 million viewers every night.

    Poivre d’Arvor’s accusers told Devynck that his fame and power made it seem futile to speak out when he abused them because they felt nobody would believe them and it would ruin their careers.

    In an interview with The Associated Press, Devynck said the point of her book “is to show how that impunity was built, forged, maintained. And since we have spoken out… impunity continues.”

    Accusations poured in after author Florence Porcel, now 39, first filed a complaint in February 2021 against Poivre d’Arvor, accusing him of raping her in 2004 and 2009.

    The AP generally does not identify those who say they have been sexually assaulted, except when they publicly identify themselves.

    Devynck said she spoke with about 60 women accusing Poivre d’Arvor of sexual misconduct while writing the book. Since its publication, she said about 30 more women have come forward with allegations against him. Not all have spoken to police, she said, because some prefer to remain anonymous and avoid a long, difficult judicial process.

    A few of the women knew each other through work, though most did not.

    Poivre d’Arvor was the star presenter of TF1′s evening newscast “20 Heures” between 1987 and 2008 and one of the most famous people in France, where he is widely known as just “PPDA.” An author, he also used to anchor a prestigious TV literary program.

    A couple of weeks after Porcel’s complaint, in his only interview about the allegations to date, Poivre d’Arvor acknowledged “small kisses in the neck, sometimes small compliments or sometimes some charm or seduction” — things that he said are not accepted anymore by younger generations.

    “Never in my life, ever, have I accepted a relation that would not be consensual,” he added, speaking on TMC, a channel that belongs to the TF1 group.

    Devynck said she noticed strong similarities between the accounts of the women she spoke to.

    “We all tell the same story, he was using the same words. He was starting with, ‘Are you in a relationship? Are you faithful?’ And then, he was doing the same gestures and he had a very well-oiled process,” she told the AP.

    Poivre d’Arvor used to offer women to watch “20 Heures” in the television studio, then invite them into his office, Devynck said. “Not all were raped. Some were abused, others harassed. But every time, all those who speak out say he tried (sexually-oriented acts),” she said.

    That, she described in her book, is exactly what happened to her.

    “I remained silent. I did not speak while I was working at TF1. If I had spoken, it was the end of my professional life and I had absolutely no chance to make my voice heard,” she told the AP.

    Devynck decided to make her story public 28 years later. She filed a complaint to police last year after seeing Poivre d’Arvor’s interview on French television, following Porcel’s complaint.

    “The image shown by that man compared to what I knew, me, about him, was so wrong that the next day, I called investigators to give my testimony,” she recalled in her interview with the AP.

    “I spoke to defend other women,” she added.

    She argued in her book that the image of Poivre d’Arvor, often described as a charmer, helped protect him. Because he was known to try to seduce lots of women, people assumed that all relations were consensual, Devynck said.

    Poivre d’Arvor’s lawyer, Jacqueline Laffont, declined to speak to the AP about the case. She referred to previous comments she made last year after Porcel’s case was initially closed following the preliminary investigation.

    Closing the case without pressing charges was “the only possible decision” after a “thorough investigation,” Laffont said at the time. She said that Poivre d’Arvor had been able to bring “evidence” for his defense showing that Porcel “was lying.”

    Porcel then filed another complaint, leading a magistrate to reopen a judicial investigation. The Nanterre prosecutors’ office said several other accusations made more recently were combined with that investigation.

    Only 12% of alleged victims of rape or attempted rape file a complaint — and only a small proportion of those cases lead to a trial, according to French government statistics.

    The French Interior ministry said, however, that there was a 33% increase in 2021 in the number of sexual abuse complaints reported to police, a trend it partly attributes to the #MeToo movement prompting women to go public with incidents from their past.

    “Before #MeToo, women were even more afraid of saying what happened to them,” said Violaine de Filippis, a lawyer and activist who specializes in women’s rights.

    “So now, to say ‘No, it’s not meant to be, it’s not normal, it’s illegal and it’s serious,’ that’s very important,” she said.

    She did not specifically refer to Poivre d’Arvor’s case.

    France’s justice minister Eric Dupont-Moretti sent a note last year to prosecutors encouraging them to investigate sexual abuse allegations even if they appear too old to prosecute. One goal, he said, is to find other potential victims; another is for magistrates to be able to hear from the people accused.

    Devynck said she would like to see Poivre d’Arvor in a courtroom.

    “I hope there will be a trial one day, but that I don’t know,” she said.

    ___

    Follow AP’s coverage of the #MeToo movement: https://apnews.com/hub/metoo

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  • Alpine views, picturesque towns, and a mountain to cycle up

    Alpine views, picturesque towns, and a mountain to cycle up

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    CLUSES, France (AP) — “Be patient, slow down,” I reminded myself as we neared the summit of the Col de la Colombiere in the French Alps, a climb that’s been ridden 23 times in the Tour de France.

    And, trust me, they don’t include it so regularly in the world’s most famous race because it’s easy. The Colombiere is a 17.6-kilometer (10.9-mile) challenge with an average gradient of 6.5 percent. (There’s a sign every kilometer that lets you know the gradient for the upcoming kilometer.)

    I’m not a professional cyclist and was struggling. Up ahead was Mike Booth, my new cycling companion. Booth, a charming and chatty Brit who lives near the base of Mont Blanc, has ridden the Colombiere more than 50 times and wasn’t even breathing hard.

    “Let him go,” I told myself. “It’s not a race.”

    Over the past week, I’d ridden several other nearby cols (mountain-pass roads) by myself and had devised a simple but hard-to-maintain strategy: patience. “Take your time,” I had to remind myself once or twice a kilometer. “Relax and enjoy these amazing Alpine views… Hey look, cows!”

    Booth was one of the reasons I was in the Haute Savoie (northern) region of the French Alps, based first in Annecy and now Cluses.

    I’ve cycled in several French regions over the years and was struggling to decide where to go for my first post-COVID adventure. Alsace Lorrain was tempting, maybe the French Riviera. Then, I discovered Booth’s breathebike.com website and the videos of him climbing the area’s most famous cols, including the Colombiere.

    The scenery was stunning, and Booth made climbing look so darn easy.

    I emailed him a few rounds of questions, he answered. “The Alps it is,” I said, and booked a flight to Paris, made hotel reservations in Annecy and Cluses, and rented an all-carbon bike from Annecy Bike Rentals. Then I made arrangements to meet Booth outside my hotel in Cluses, and off we went to the nearby base of the Colombiere.

    Booth first climbed this mountain in 2007, soon after he and his wife, Judith, moved here from England. They initially ran a bed-and-breakfast chalet in Les Houches, at the base of Mont Blanc, a romantic-sounding notion that turns out to be more work than romance.

    “I suffered the first time,” Booth, 54, said of the initial ascent. He’d done a little racing in his younger days, but hadn’t ridden in several years and had put on some weight. “I was hopelessly unfit and completely in the wrong gear,” he said.

    He’s now extremely fit and in the right gear.

    Since they sold their bed-and-breakfast in 2017, Booth has become a bike-tour organizer, including rides around Mont Blanc, and a trek from Geneva to Nice.

    Annecy, which sits picturesquely on the northern edge of Lake Annecy, is a popular tourist destination. It has scores of hotels for every price range.

    Cluses?

    Not so much. It’s a much smaller, less visited town, but with a surprising number of cafes and restaurants, and it’s surrounded by mountains. My room at the Hotel National, in the center of town, had mountain views out the window.

    Then again, every town, village and city in the Haute Savoie is surrounded by the Alps. They’re everywhere, beckoning cyclists to test their ability to climb the cols made famous in the Tour de France.

    The first half the Colombiere climb is mostly through forests, with a few views through the trees down to the towns that line the valley. Then, you emerge from the woods into the town of Le Reposoir, and the Alpine view you’ve traveled and climbed so far to see.

    Le Reposoir means “resting place,” and this is the perfect spot to stop at a café or restaurant for a well-deserved break and some nourishment before the second, more difficult half of the climb. The valley is spread out before you, with timbered chalets edging their way up the slopes in neat rows.

    This is where the real climbing begins, starting with a series of S-turns you can see from Le Reposoir. Then, you ride along a steep ridge of the Colombiere.

    And then, the final kilometer, the steepest of the ride at 11 percent. “Uh oh,” I told myself. “Slow down, you’re almost there.”

    Any slower though and I might tip over.

    To my left was a valley with mountains covered in triangle-shaped pine trees on the other side. Up and to my right were the craggy, steep slopes of the Colombiere.

    It took a while, but I made it to the top, and just sort of stopped and stared at everything all around me. The pain of the effort was instantly gone, replaced by a sense of accomplishment, enhanced by the view.

    We weren’t alone.

    A lot of people had made their way up the Colombiere, in cars, on motorcycles and on bicycles.

    If you’re not a cyclist, there’s still a lot to do in this region. There’s hiking trails and skiing everywhere. Albertville, the host city of the 1992 Winter Olympics, is near Annecy. The area also claims to be the birthplace of paragliding, and I saw several up above.

    I took the mandatory selfie with the summit sign in the background. Then we headed back down the way we had just climbed, to Cluses.

    I’m not an especially brave descender, but it sure was fun flying down the mountain.

    “I still can’t believe I live here and get to wake up every morning with a view of Mont Blanc,” Booth said before he pedaled home. I stood there, outside my hotel, surrounded by the Alps, thinking how lucky I was just to be here.

    Three days later, my final one in Cluses, I climbed the Colombiere again. Slowly.

    —-

    For more AP Lifestyles stories, go to https://apnews.com/hub/lifestyle.

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  • Emmanuel Macron calls for ‘Buy European Act’ to protect regional carmakers

    Emmanuel Macron calls for ‘Buy European Act’ to protect regional carmakers

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    PARIS — Emmanuel Macron called for a “Buy European Act” on Wednesday to protect carmakers on the Continent in the face of competition from China and in response to the United States’ own controversial scheme to incentivize domestic production.

    Speaking on TV channel France 2, the French president criticized the European Union as being “too open” on the topic of state subsidies for electric cars as it seeks to accelerate its transition to greener energy sources.

    “We need a Buy European Act like the Americans, we need to reserve [our subsidies] for our European manufacturers,” Macron said. “You have China that is protecting its industry, the U.S. that is protecting its industry and Europe that is an open house.”

    France has been leading the charge against Washington’s recent Inflation Reduction Act, which includes tax incentives for U.S. consumers to “Buy American” when it comes to choosing an electric car. The European Union, South Korea, Japan, China and Russia have all complained at the World Trade Organization that this measure violates international trade rules by unfairly discriminating against foreign manufacturers.

    French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire also recently slammed the U.S. scheme as “jeopardizing the level playing field” and raising the risk of a “new trade war.”

    Macron said in the TV interview he had discussed an EU response to U.S. trade barriers during a lunch with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz at the Elysée Palace earlier on Wednesday. However, it was unclear whether the two leaders share the same view on exactly what steps to take.

    “[Scholz and I] have a real convergence to move forward on the topic, we had a very good conversation,” Macron said.

    Relations between the French president and his German counterpart have been fraught amid disagreements over energy, defense and the economy. But discontent over the U.S. legislation appears to be an area where they converge, given both their countries host major carmakers like Renault and Mercedes-Benz.

    According to an adviser to the French presidency, the two leaders agreed to push the European Commission to prepare a response to the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act.  

    Giorgio Leali contributed reporting.

    This article is part of POLITICO Pro

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    Clea Caulcutt

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  • The awkward lunch: Macron prepares to snub Scholz in Paris

    The awkward lunch: Macron prepares to snub Scholz in Paris

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    BERLIN/PARIS — Relations are now so icy between Emmanuel Macron and Olaf Scholz, the leaders of the EU’s two economic powerhouses, that they are even struggling to agree on whether to be seen together in front of the press.

    As the French president and German chancellor prepared for a tête-à-tête in Paris on Wednesday, Berlin announced that they would make a joint appearance in front of the cameras, which is normally the driest of routine diplomatic courtesies after bilateral meetings.

    But on Tuesday evening, a statement from the French Elysée Palace contradicted the German announcement, saying there was no press conference planned.

    If confirmed, it would be quite a snub for Scholz, who’s traveling with an entire press corps to Paris, and from there continuing to Athens for another state visit. Denying a press conference to a visiting leader is a political tactic that’s generally applied to deliver a rebuke, as was recently done by Scholz when Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán visited Berlin.

    “Presumably, there has so far been a lack of contact and exchange between the respective new government teams of Scholz and Macron,” said Sandra Weeser from Germany’s liberal Free Democratic Party, who sits on the board of the Franco-German Parliamentary Assembly. “So, we are certainly also at the beginning of new interpersonal political relations, for which trust must first be built.”

    The tussle over a media show is just the latest episode of a deepening row between the EU’s two biggest powers.

    In recent weeks, Scholz and Macron have clashed over how to tackle the energy crisis, how to overcome Europe’s impotence on defense and the best approach to dealing with China.

    Last week, those tensions spilled into public when a planned Franco-German Cabinet meeting in the French town of Fontainebleau was postponed to January amid major differences on the text of a joint declaration, as well as conflicting holiday plans of some German ministers. Disagreement between the two governments was also broadly visible at last week’s EU summit in Brussels.

    As Scholz and Macron meet in Paris on Wednesday for a “working lunch,” which has been hastily set up as a downgraded replacement for the scrapped Cabinet meeting, politicians and officials across Europe will be closely watching to see whether the bloc’s two heavyweights can find a way back to much-needed unity. The war in Ukraine and the inflation and energy crisis have strained European alliances, just when they are most needed.

    French officials complain that Berlin isn’t sufficiently treating them as a close partner. For example, the French claim they weren’t briefed in advance of Germany’s domestic €200 billion energy price relief package — and they have made sure their counterparts in Berlin are aware of their frustration.

    “In my talks with French parliamentarians, it has become clear that people in Paris want more and closer coordination with Germany,” said Chantal Kopf, a lawmaker from the Greens, one of the three parties in Germany’s ruling coalition, and a board member of the Franco-German Parliamentary Assembly.

    “So far, this cooperation has always worked well in times of crisis — think, for example, of the recovery fund during the coronavirus crisis — and now the French also rightly want the responses to the current energy crisis, or how to deal with China, to be closely coordinated,” Kopf said.

    Late last month, Paris felt snubbed by Berlin when German Chancellor Olaf Scholz found no time to speak to French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne | Jens Schlueter/AFP via Getty Images

    A similar conclusion is being drawn by Weeser from the FDP, another coalition partner in the Berlin government. “Paris is irritated by Germany’s go-it-alone on the gas price brake and the lack of support for joint European defense technology projects,” she said. At the same time, she accused the French government of having until recently dragged its feet on a new pipeline connection between the Iberian peninsula and Northern Europe.

    Unprecedented tensions

    Most recently, the French government was irritated by the news that Scholz plans to visit Beijing next week to meet Xi Jinping in what would be the first visit by a foreign leader since the Chinese president got a norm-breaking third term. Germany and China also plan their own show when it comes to planned government consultations in January.

    The thinking at the Elysée is that it would have been better if Macron and Scholz had visited China together — and preferably a bit later rather than straight after China’s Communist Party congress where Xi secured another mandate. According to one French official, a visit shortly after the congress would “legitimize” Xi’s third term and be “too politically costly.”

    Germany and France’s uncoordinated approach to China contrasts with Xi’s last visit to Europe in 2019 when he was welcomed by Macron, who had also invited former Chancellor Angela Merkel and former European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker to Paris to show European unity.

    Macron has refrained from directly criticizing a controversial Hamburg port deal with Chinese company Cosco, which Scholz is pushing ahead of his Beijing trip. But the French president last week questioned the wisdom of letting China invest in “essential infrastructure” and warned that Europe had been “naive” toward Chinese purchases in the past “because we thought Europe was an open supermarket.”

    Jean-Louis Thiériot, vice president of the defense committee in the French National Assembly, said Germany was increasingly focusing on defense in Eastern Europe at the expense of joint German-French projects. For example, Berlin inked a deal with 13 NATO members, many of them on the Northern and Eastern European flank, to jointly acquire an air and missile defense shield — much to the annoyance of France.

    “The situation is unprecedented,” Thiériot said. “Tensions are now getting worse and quickly. In the last couple of months, Germany decided to end work on the [Franco-German] Tiger helicopter, dropped joint navy patrols … And the signature of the air defense shield is a deathblow [to the defense relationship],” he said.

    Germany’s massive investment through a €100 billion military upgrade fund, as well as Scholz’s commitment to the NATO goal of putting 2 percent of GDP toward defense spending, will likely raise the annual defense budget to above €80 billion and means Berlin will be on course to outgun France’s €44 billion defense budget.

    Sick note

    Last week’s suspension of the joint Franco-German Cabinet meeting wasn’t by far the first clash between Berlin and Paris when it comes to high-level meetings.

    Back in August, the question was whether Scholz and Macron would meet in Ludwigsburg on September 9 for the 60th anniversary of a famous speech by former French President Charles de Gaulle in the palatial southwestern German town. But despite the highly symbolic nature of that ceremony, the leaders’ meeting never happened — with officials presenting conflicting accounts of why that was the case, from appointment conflicts to alleged disagreements over who should shoulder the costs.

    French President Emmanuel Macron has refrained from directly criticizing a controversial Hamburg port deal with Chinese company Cosco | Pool photo by Aurelien Morissard/AFP via Getty Images

    Late last month, Paris felt snubbed by Berlin when Scholz found no time to speak to French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne: A meeting between both leaders in Berlin had been canceled because the chancellor had tested positive for coronavirus. But several French officials told POLITICO that a subsequently arranged videoconference was also canceled, allegedly because the Germans told Borne’s office that Scholz felt too sick.

    Paris was even more surprised — and annoyed — when Scholz then appeared the same day via video at a press conference, in which he didn’t seem to be quite so sick, but instead confidently announced his €200 billion energy relief package. The French say they weren’t even briefed beforehand. A German spokesperson could not be reached for a comment on the incident.

    Yannick Bury, a lawmaker from Germany’s center-right opposition who focuses on Franco-German relations, said Scholz must use his visit to Paris to start rebuilding ties with Macron. “It’s important that France receives a clear signal that Germany has a great interest in a close and trusting exchange,” Bury said. “Trust has been broken.”

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    Hans von der Burchard and Clea Caulcutt

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  • France enters ‘white gold’ rush as top producer aims to supply Europe with lithium

    France enters ‘white gold’ rush as top producer aims to supply Europe with lithium

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    A Lithium-ion battery photographed at a Volkswagen facility in Germany. The EU is looking to increase the number of electric vehicles on its roads in the coming years.

    Ronny Hartmann | AFP | Getty Images

    Paris-headquartered minerals giant Imerys plans to develop a lithium extraction project that it’s hoped will help meet demand and secure supply for Europe’s emerging electric vehicle market.

    In a statement Monday, Imerys said its Emili Project would be located at a site in the center of France, with the company targeting 34,000 metric tons of lithium hydroxide production each year from 2028.

    According to the business, this level of production would be enough to “equip approximately 700,000 electrical vehicles per year.”

    Alongside its use in cell phones, computers, tablets and a host of other gadgets synonymous with modern life, lithium — which some have dubbed “white gold” — is crucial to the batteries that power electric vehicles.

    The project being planned by Imerys is taking shape at a time when major economies like the EU are looking to ramp up the number of electric vehicles on their roads.

    The EU plans to stop the sale of new diesel and gasoline cars and vans from 2035. The U.K., which left the EU on Jan. 31, 2020, is pursuing similar targets.

    With demand for lithium rising, the European Union — of which France is a member — is attempting to shore up its own supplies and reduce dependency on other parts of the world.   

    In a translation of her State of the Union speech last month, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said “lithium and rare earths will soon be more important than oil and gas.”

    As well as addressing security of supply, von der Leyen, who switched between several languages during her speech, also stressed the importance of processing.

    “Today, China controls the global processing industry,” she said. “Almost 90% … of rare earth[s] and 60% of lithium are processed in China.”

    “So we will identify strategic projects all along the supply chain, from extracting to refining, from processing to recycling,” she added. “And we will build up strategic reserves where supply is at risk.”

    Read more about electric vehicles from CNBC Pro

    Back in France, Imerys said it was finalizing what it described as a “technical scoping study” in order to “explore various operational options and refine geological and industrial aspects relating to the lithium extraction and processing method.”

    The site selected for the project has, since the end of the 19th century, been used to produce a type of clay called kaolin for use in the ceramics industry.

    The construction capital expenditure of the proposed lithium project is estimated to be around 1 billion euros (roughly $980 million), Imerys added.

    “Upon successful completion, the project would contribute to the French and European Union’s energy transition ambitions,” the company said. “It would also increase Europe’s industrial sovereignty at a time when car and battery manufacturers are heavily dependent on imported lithium, which is a key element in the energy transition.”

    In recent years, a range of factors has created pressure points when it comes to the supply of the materials crucial for EVs, an issue the International Energy Agency highlighted earlier this year in its Global EV Outlook.

    “The rapid increase in EV sales during the pandemic has tested the resilience of battery supply chains, and Russia’s war in Ukraine has further exacerbated the challenge,” the IEA’s report noted, adding that prices of materials like lithium, cobalt and nickel have soared.

    “In May 2022, lithium prices were over seven times higher than at the start of 2021,” it added. “Unprecedented battery demand and a lack of structural investment in new supply capacity are key factors.”

    Read more about energy from CNBC Pro

    In a recent interview with CNBC, the CEO of Mercedes-Benz sketched out the current state of play, as he saw it when it came to the raw materials required for EVs and their batteries.

    “Raw material prices have been quite volatile in the last 12 to 18 months — some have spiked and actually some have come back down again,” Ola Kallenius said.

    “But it is true as we become electric, all-electric and more and more automakers go into the electric space, there is a need to increase mining capacities and refining capacities for lithium, nickel, and some of those raw materials that are needed to produce electric cars.”

    “We have everything that we need now, but we need to look into the mid to long-term and work with the mining industry here to increase capacities.”

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  • Fierce winds rip off roofs, cut power in northern France

    Fierce winds rip off roofs, cut power in northern France

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    PARIS (AP) — Tornado-like storms that tore through northern France sheared off part of a church roof, felled trees and power lines and left scores of people without a safe place to live, authorities said Monday.

    One person suffered light injuries in the storms Sunday and some 150 people were evacuated, according to the regional administration for the Pas-de-Calais region.

    Images shared online showed dark clouds suddenly spinning over fields as objects flew through the air. The winds ripped away sections of the roof of the village church in Bihucourt and damaged its belltower. Roof beams and shingles littered roads, along with trees and power lines.

    The firefighter service in the Pas-de-Calais region described “tornado-type” winds that targeted Bihucourt, Ervillers and Hendecourt-les-Cagnicourt.

    Bihucourt mayor Benoit-Vincent Caille said on public broadcaster France-Info that the storm “ravaged the near-totality of the village. … Some homes were razed, collapsed, there were roofs ripped off. The church is partially destroyed.”

    Some 70 kilometers (40 miles) to the south, fierce winds damaged about 60 homes and other buildings in the French towns of Conty and O-de-Selle, according to local authorities, and villagers were evacuated.

    Strong winds also buffeted Belgium and the Netherlands but no major damage was reported.

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  • Russia defense chief makes unfounded claims of Kyiv ready to use ‘dirty bomb’

    Russia defense chief makes unfounded claims of Kyiv ready to use ‘dirty bomb’

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    Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu on Sunday had telephone calls with his French, British and Turkish counterparts in which he made unfounded claims that Ukraine might be preparing to use a “dirty bomb,” according to Russian readouts of the conversations.

    The conversations took place after Russian President Vladimir Putin recently raised the prospect of using nuclear weapons in the war he launched against Ukraine. And after Shoigu faced intensifying political pressure over a series of disorderly retreats in Ukraine.

    The calls came as Russia continues a mass evacuation of civilians from occupied Kherson in southern Ukraine and defense analysts believe that the movement of people is setting the scene for Moscow to withdraw its troops from a significant part of the region. But among EU diplomats, there are fears that Moscow is only setting the scene for things to get worse.

    During the call with French Defense Minister Sébastien Lecornu, they discussed the situation in Ukraine, “which is rapidly deteriorating,” according to the Russian readout of the call. And Shoigu conveyed “his concerns about possible provocations by Ukraine with the use of a ‘dirty bomb’,” the Russian ministry said without giving any further detail.

    The same content of the readout was provided on the call with Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar.

    The Russian readout of the call with U.K. Defense Minister Ben Wallace talks only about the risk of a “dirty bomb.” However, in none of the readouts does Moscow provide any evidence for its claims.

    The U.K. said that “Shoigu alleged that Ukraine was planning actions facilitated by Western countries, including the U.K., to escalate the conflict in Ukraine,” according to a U.K. statement. “The Defense Secretary refuted these claims and cautioned that such allegations should not be used as a pretext for greater escalation,” it said.

    No statement on the call was immediately made available by the defense ministries of France and Turkey.

    On Friday, Shoigu spoke with U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin for the first time since May, and, according to a Pentagon readout, in the call “Austin emphasized the importance of maintaining lines of communication amid the ongoing war against Ukraine.”

    Shoigu spoke with Austin again on Sunday, according to the Russian defense ministry. In this case, the Russian readout says only that “they discussed situation in Ukraine.”

    A dirty bomb is a bomb that combines conventional explosives, such as dynamite, with radioactive materials. For Dara Massicot, an analyst at U.S. research company Rand Corporation, “this reads like Russian false flag groundwork.”

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    Jacopo Barigazzi

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  • Club Med Expands Globally With Upscale Resorts And Sustainability Focus

    Club Med Expands Globally With Upscale Resorts And Sustainability Focus

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    The iconic French vacation brand Club Med is celebrating its 72nd birthday, and with it comes big news as it expands to even more places around the globe. Known for its all-inclusive holidays with onsite entertainment, its signature pool activities with music and even a trapeze experience, Club Med knows a thing or two about how to please people on vacation.

    Still, all-inclusive trips have not caught on with Americans in the same way they have for European travelers. Club Med wants to change that as it seeks to attract more Americans to its international network of properties. While it recently closed its sole U.S. property in Florida, it is only temporary as Club Med has plans for more to come.

    Carolyne Doyon, president and CEO of Club Med North America and the Caribbean, shares where the brand is headed in a post-pandemic vacation world.

    What are Club Med’s plans for North America?

    In 2025, Club Med Utah will become the first new resort in the U.S. for the brand in more than 20 years and the first-ever Exclusive Collection (5-Star) mountain resort in North America. With 65 years of expertise operating mountain resorts in Europe and Asia (and today’s growing popularity in outdoor-focused vacations), this is the right opportunity to bring this concept to the market.

    Club Med wants to make winter sports more accessible and cost-effective for American travelers, whose options are currently limited to expensive and time-consuming “do-it-yourself” ski vacations. With the brand’s unique all-inclusive mountain vacation model, everything is taken care from lift passes, group ski or snowboard lessons, and guided hiking groups to all-day dining, childcare, and family activities – which are all included.

    The plan is to grow by adding 3-5 new resort openings or renovations per year, seeking destinations that are ideal for both families and upscale travelers.

    Does Club Med work with American travel advisors?

    The brand has a close relationship with travel advisors around the world through investments in education and self-service tools such as the Club Med Travel Advisor Portal and Club Med University, an e-learning and training program. It helps them discover the latest offers, learn about the resorts and book client vacations. Club Med University teaches travel advisors about different Club Med products.

    How is Club Med moving in a more upscale direction?

    Throughout the brand’s 72-year history, we’ve watched the company evolve and appeal to a more upscale and family-friendly experience. The portfolio is adapting to cater to that shift by removing properties that don’t meet that high bar.

    The Club Med Exclusive Collection portfolio boasts 19 of Club Med’s most luxurious 5-star accommodations. This will grow to 25 properties by 2025. The collection is divided into different product lines ranging from resorts and chalets to cruises. Within the Exclusive Collection portfolio, there is also the soon-to-be renovated sailing yacht, Club Med 2, setting sail again in December. Each of these properties has tapped renowned architects and designers to create beautiful properties that show the Club Med spirit and trademark French savoir-faire.

    What is Club Med doing on the sustainability front?

    Happy to Care is Club Med’s global sustainability program that addresses various environmental and social issues that affect the communities where the brand operates. Across the network, Club Med is working to eliminate single-use plastics, construct professionally-certified, sustainable resorts and implement efforts toward energy conservation. Club Med resorts in North America and the Caribbean are already Green Globe certified.

    This past summer, Club Med partnered with renowned vegan chef Chloe Coscarelli to help implement more plant-based dishes in resort restaurants. She led intensive training sessions with food and beverage teams in the Caribbean and Mexico. The goal was to help them learn how to develop and deliver their own elevated plant-based dishes for resort guests.

    Local sourcing is another primary focus. At Club Med Québec Charlevoix, 80% of food products are sourced from Canada and 30% are from farms within 62 miles of the resort. At Club Med Michès Playa Esmeralda, coffee, cacao and produce are all sourced from local farms.

    Where is Club Med growing in the coming year?

    Travelers can expect to see 10 new Club Med resorts and 13 renovations or extensions of existing resorts by 2024, including Club Med Pragelato-Sestriere in Italy and Club Med Gregolimano in Greece. This December, travelers have three new all-inclusive mountain resorts – Club Med Tignes and Club Med Val d’Isère in the French Alps and Club Med Kiroro in Japan. Next year, Club Med will open its third Japanese property in Hokkaido and a new resort on the Malaysian side of the island of Borneo.

    What is the Club Med Joyview brand?

    The Joyview brand is a hotel-style concept in China with resorts situated an hour outside major cities for guests to enjoy a weekend away from the hustle and bustle. The concept includes more flexibility like daily room rates or an option for an all-inclusive package.

    Does Club Med have a loyalty program?

    Yes, it’s called Great Members, and each time a guest books a Club Med vacation, they receive points that helps them build status (Turquoise, Silver, Gold or, the highest, Platinum). A guest can earn points with each dollar spent as well as by referring friends and family. Each status tier comes with a different set of benefits like discounts on spa treatments and excursions, priority check-in, private transfers, resort credit, and early access to sales, discounts and promotions.

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  • 10/18 CBS News Prime Time

    10/18 CBS News Prime Time

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    10/18 CBS News Prime Time – CBS News


    Watch CBS News



    John Dickerson reports on confusion over voter fraud arrests in Florida, protests in France for higher wages due to inflation, and a possible link between uterine cancer risk and hair-straightening products.

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  • France plays bad cop as transatlantic trade tensions ramp up

    France plays bad cop as transatlantic trade tensions ramp up

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    PARIS — U.S. President Joe Biden needs to watch out; France is resuming its traditional role as Europe’s troublemaker on the transatlantic trade front.

    It had seemed like the bad blood between Brussels and Washington was easing on Biden’s watch. Facing a common foe in China, the EU and the U.S. last year struck a truce on the tariffs that former President Donald Trump slapped on European steel and aluminium. Over this year, Russia’s war against Ukraine has meant that America and Europe needed to present a united front, at least politically.

    Cracks are now starting to re-emerge, however. The EU is furious that the U.S. is pouring subsidies into the homegrown electric car industry. Accusing Washington of protectionism, Europe is now threatening to draw up its own defenses.

    Unsurprisingly, French President Emmanuel Macron is leading the charge. “The Americans are buying American and pursuing a very aggressive strategy of state aid. The Chinese are closing their market. We cannot be the only area, the most virtuous in terms of climate, which considers that there is no European preference,” Macron told French daily Les Echos.

    Upping the ante, he called on Brussels to support consumers and companies that buy electric cars produced in the EU, instead of ones from outside the bloc. 

    There are good reasons why the Europeans are fretting about their trade balances.

    The war has delivered a huge terms-of-trade shock, with spiraling energy costs hauling the EU into a yawning bloc-wide trade deficit of €65 billion in August, from only €7 billion a year earlier. In one manifestation of those strains, Europe’s growing reliance on American liquefied natural gas to substitute for lost Russian supplies has re-ignited tensions.

    Macron’s comments are a reflection of EU consternation over Washington’s Inflation Reduction Act, which incentivizes U.S. consumers to “Buy American” when purchasing a greener car. The EU argues that requiring that car needs to be assembled in North America and contain a battery with a certain percentage of local content discriminate against the EU and other trade partners.

    The European Commission hopes to convince Washington to find a diplomatic compromise for European carmakers and their suppliers. If not, that leaves the EU no choice but to challenge Washington at the World Trade Organization, EU officials and diplomats told POLITICO — even if a new transatlantic trade war is the last thing both sides want to spend their time and money on.

    Macron’s comments “are clearly a response against the Inflation Reduction Act,” noted Elvire Fabry, a trade policy expert at the Institut Jacques Delors in Paris. “Macron plays the role of the bad cop, compared to the European Commission, which left Washington some political room to make adjustments,” she noted. 

    ‘American domination’

    The Commission hopes to find a diplomatic compromise with the U.S. for European carmakers and their suppliers | Ludovic Marin/AFP via Getty Images

    France has traditionally been the bloc’s most outspoken country when it came to confronting Washington on a wide range of trade files. Paris, for instance, played a key role in killing a transatlantic trade agreement between the EU and U.S. (the so-called “TTIP”). Its digital tax angered U.S. Big Tech and triggered a trade war with the Trump administration.

    More recently, during its rotating Council of the EU presidency, Paris focused on trade defense measures, which will give Brussels the power to retaliate against unilateral trade measures, including from the U.S.

    New tensions are bad news for the upcoming meeting of the Trade and Tech Council early December, which so far has had trouble to show that it’s more than a glorified talking shop. 

    France won’t be left alone in a possible trade war on electric cars. According to Fabry, these tensions will bring Paris and Berlin closer, as the German car industry is also particularly affected by the U.S. measures.

    But the “Buy American” approach is not the only bone of contention. The fact that Europe is increasingly relying on gas imports from the U.S. brought European discontent to the next level.

    Although gas import prices fell in September from their all-time highs in August, they were still more than 2.5 times higher than they were a year ago. And, taking into account increased purchase volumes, France’s bill for imports of LNG multiplied more than tenfold in August, year on year, by one estimate.

    Economy and Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire last week warned that Russia’s war against Ukraine should not result in “American economic domination and a weakening of Europe.” Le Maire criticized the U.S. for selling LNG to Europe “at four times the price at which it sells it to its own companies,” and called on Brussels to take action for a “more balanced economic relationship” between the two continents.

    That very same concern is shared by some Commission officials, POLITICO has learned, but also among French industrialists.

    It is “hardly contestable” that the U.S. had some economic benefits from the war in Ukraine and suffered less than Europe from its economic consequences, said Bernard Spitz, head of international and European affairs at France’s business lobby Medef. 

    This article is part of POLITICO Pro

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  • French government in crisis talks as fuel shortages worsen | CNN Business

    French government in crisis talks as fuel shortages worsen | CNN Business

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    Paris
    CNN Business
     — 

    French President Emmanuel Macron called a crisis meeting with senior ministers on Monday to address crippling strikes at gas refineries that has caused fuel pumps to run dry.

    Macron declared Monday his desire for a solution “as quickly as possible” to the protests, promising to “do his utmost” to find one, according to CNN affiliate BFMTV.

    The government ordered strikers at two fuel depots in Feyzin, near Lyon, to return to work for several hours on Monday or face criminal charges, according to France’s energy minister, Agnes Pannier-Runacher.

    Lyon is one of the worst hit regions of the country, with almost 40% of gas stations out of at least one fuel on Sunday. Elsewhere, nearly one third of gas stations have run out of at least one fuel, with the situation expected to worsen this week, according to French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne.

    This the second time in recent weeks that the French government has taken the unusual step of requisitioning essential staff in the face of weeks-long strikes at refineries owned by ExxonMobil and TotalEnergies, which have disrupted supply to thousands of gas stations.

    While ExxonMobil workers agreed to end their blockade of the Fos-sur-Mer refinery and depot in southern France late last week following salary negotiations, strikes continue at TotalEnergies refineries.

    One of France’s largest unions, CGT, has refused to accept the terms of a wage deal agreed upon between TotalEnergies and two other unions, CFE-CGC and CFDT. The agreement includes a 7% salary increase for 2023 and a bonus for all employees equivalent to one month’s pay. CGT has demanded a 10% pay raise.

    But French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said the strikes were “unacceptable and illegitimate,” because wage agreements had been met with the majority of workers. “The time for negotiations has passed,” he added.

    In an interview with France Inter, a radio station, a representative of CGT, Philippe Martinez, claimed that “several thousand” workers were still striking, contradicting government ministers who have referred to striking workers as both “a handful of workers” and “several hundred people” in interviews.

    Transportation minister Clement Beaune told France Inter that the only way out of the crisis is an end to strikes.

    Meanwhile, commuters could be facing days of travel chaos if planned strikes in the Paris public transport network and parts of the national rail network go ahead. Beaune said that in the worst affected regions, only one in two trains will be running on Tuesday.

    The industrial action takes place against a backdrop of rising living costs in France, where electricity bills are surging as a result of a cut in Russian natural gas supplies that has sparked an energy crisis in Europe. On Sunday, thousands marched through central Paris to protest the crisis and “climate inaction.”

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  • Women representation on Indian boards accelerated to 18% in 2022: Report

    Women representation on Indian boards accelerated to 18% in 2022: Report

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    The representation of women on boards of companies in India during the last decade rose to 18 per cent in 2022 but the country is far behind France, Sweden, the US and the UK, according to a report. During 2013 till 2022, India made significant and rapid progress in increasing women representation on boards from 6 per cent in 2013 to 18 per cent in 2022, leading consultancy EY’s report titled ‘Diversity in the Boardroom: progress and the way forward’ said.

    France topped the chart with 44.5 per cent women representation on companies’ boards followed by Sweden (40 per cent), Norway (36.4 per cent), Canada (35.4 per cent), the UK (35.3 per cent), Australia (33.5 per cent), US (28.1 per cent), Singapore (20.1 per cent), as per the report.

    The findings for India are based on an analysis of Nifty 500 companies consisting of 4,500 directors and public source data.

    The report noted that the current 18 per cent women representation on Indian boards is essentially a result of the corporate law mandate in the country.

    Nearly 95 per cent of the Nifty 500 companies now have a woman on their boards of directors. However, less than 5 per cent of companies have women chairpersons, it noted.

    While organisations have shown serious intent towards increasing board diversity, the pace of progress is certainly not up to the mark, the report said, adding that regulatory interventions have been the cornerstone of increased women participation globally and also on the Indian boards.

    Historically, the report said that the only positions available to women on the Indian boards were leadership in the grievance and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) committees.

    However, this is starting to change, and gender diversity on boards is increasing in Indian businesses, it added.

    “Women’s participation in the boardroom is a necessary but often overlooked step in achieving gender parity. Increasing women’s representation on boards can improve company performance and also helps to promote greater inclusion and diversity within the workforce,” EY India India Region Diversity and Inclusiveness Business Sponsor Aashish Kasad said.

    As per the report, at 24 per cent, the life sciences sector leads with the highest percentage of women on boards followed by media and entertainment 23 per cent.

    However, the report found that the increase is not uniform across companies in the media and entertainment sector as the rise is mainly due to a few organisations exceeding the mandated quota and hiring more women directors.

    Closely followed by the media and entertainment sector is the consumer products and retail sector with 20 per cent women on the boards.

    The technology (IT and ITeS) industry, which has one of the highest representation of women in the workforce at 34 per cent, has 20 per cent women representation on their boards, the report said.

    It also said that presently, women account for only 6 per cent of executive positions on banking and capital markets boards.

    Women’s representation on the boards of energy and utilities sector (oil and gas and power and utilities) companies is also stagnant at 15 per cent in 2017 and 2022, it said.

    According to the report, women’s participation in the Indian energy sector is a mere 8 per cent, with only 600 women in managerial and executive roles.

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  • March against inflation turns up political heat in France

    March against inflation turns up political heat in France

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    PARIS (AP) — Thousands of protesters, including France’s newly crowned Nobel literature laureate, piled into the streets of Paris on Sunday, in a show of anger against the bite of rising prices and cranking up pressure on the government of President Emmanuel Macron.

    The march for wage increases and other demands was organized by left-wing opponents of Macron and lit the fuse on what promises to be an uncomfortable week for his centrist government.

    Transport strikes called for Tuesday threaten to dovetail with wage strikes that have already hobbled fuel refineries and depots, sparking chronic gasoline shortages that are fraying nerves among millions of workers and other motorists dependent on their vehicles, with giant lines forming at gas stations.

    Macron’s government is also on the defensive in parliament, where it lost its majority in legislative elections in June. That is making it much harder for his centrist alliance to implement his domestic agenda against strengthened opponents, and parliamentary discussion of the government’s budget plan for next year is proving particularly difficult.

    In a firebrand speech to the Paris march, far-left leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon charged that Macron is “fried” and that his leadership is plunging France into “chaos.”

    He predicted that Macron’s ministers would have to ram the budget through parliament’s lower house without giving lawmakers a vote — a controversial prospect that provoked loud boos from the crowd.

    Organizers claimed that more than 140,000 protesters marched. Paris police said they didn’t have an immediate estimate for the size of the dense flag-waving crowd that filled squares and streets. There were a few outbreaks of vandalism on the margins, with garbage bins set on fire and bank machines smashed. Riot police kept order.

    Demonstrating at Mélenchon’s side was French author Annie Ernaux, who won the Nobel Prize for literature this year. Mélenchon — twice beaten by Macron in presidential elections — declared the protest “an immense success.”

    Organizers called it a “march against the high cost of living and climate inaction.” As well as calling for massive investment against the climate crisis, they also demanded emergency measures against high prices, including freezes in the costs of energy, essential goods and rents, and for greater taxation of windfall profits.

    Lawmaker Christophe Bex of the left-wing party France Insoumise — or France Unbowed — called the march “a demonstration of strength” to show “that another world is finally possible if we are all together and all united.”

    Another marcher, retired railway worker Eric Doire, said: “What we want is for everyone to live decently with the purchasing power they had before.”

    ___

    John Leicester in Le Pecq and Masha Macpherson in Paris contributed to this report.

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  • More than 1 in 4 French gas stations out of at least one fuel | CNN Business

    More than 1 in 4 French gas stations out of at least one fuel | CNN Business

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    Paris
    CNN
     — 

    Some 28.5% – nearly one third – of gas stations in mainland France are out of stock of at least one fuel, French Energy Transition Minister Agnes Pannier-Runacher told journalists Friday.

    In the Parisian Ile de France region, this figure is at 25.5% Friday, down from 31.7% yesterday, she added.

    A source from the office of the French prime minister on Friday blamed the long lines and exhausted stocks at French gas stations this week on panic buying, rather than just supply problems.

    This is despite gas companies providing between a 30% and 50% increase in supply of gas to pumps this week, compared to a normal week, the source said.

    Sources from the prime minister’s office and energy transition ministry said that, this week, demand at the gas pump had been at least 20% higher than normal.

    The sources added that once strike action ended, it will take one or two weeks for refinery output and the logistical situation in France to be back to normal.

    Earlier this week, the French government ordered staff at an ExxonMobil refinery in Normandy to return to work, a highly unusual step.

    Despite agreements being reached with certain unions, strike action continues at four of seven refineries in France. All of these four sites are run by TotalEnergies.

    The CGT union – one of the country’s largest – refused to accept Total’s offer, with CGT Secretary of the TotalEnergies European Committee, Thierry Defresne, on Friday calling for wider industrial action on October 18. The CGT has requested a 10% pay rise for workers.

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  • France orders striking oil workers back to refineries amid

    France orders striking oil workers back to refineries amid

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    Queue at petrol station in Paris, France
    Lines formed at gas stations as some pumps have been running dry in France because of a strike by energy workers, as seen here on October 12, 2022 in Paris.

    Geoffroy Van der Hasselt/Anadolu Agency/Getty


    Paris — France’s premier ordered striking oil workers back to their refineries on Wednesday, as long lines persisted at gas stations across the country. Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne told France’s parliament that the situation had become “unbearable” in some parts of France, as drivers lined up for hours and many gas pumps ran dry.

    Her decision to order the requisition of essential workers came after a deal was negotiated Monday between oil producer Esso, the French branch of ExxonMobil, and two workers’ unions. Other unions voted to continue the strike at two Esso refineries, despite the order from the government in Paris.

    The striking workers said they would continue their action despite the government’s move. The workers are demanding a pay rise, arguing their salaries cannot keep up with inflation that has soared to almost 6% in France this year. The strike action began two weeks ago, shutting down refineries across much of the north and east of the country.

    Angered by the requisition order, another union joined the strike on Wednesday, extending the blockades.

    FRANCE-SOCIAL-PROTEST-ENERGY-STRIKE-WAGES
    A CGT Trade Union member (C) gestures as he speaks to journalists at the ExxonMobil refinery site, in Port-Jerome-sur-Seine, near Le Havre, northwest France, October 12, 2022.

    LOU BENOIST/AFP/Getty


    Government spokesman Olivier Véran warned that the requisition of essential workers could be extended to strikers at four other refineries, owned by France’s TotalEnergies.

    Officials have said that more than 30% of gas stations across France are now having trouble getting fuel supplies. Véran said, however, that once essential workers were ordered back to an Esso plant in Normandy, it should free up supplies and prompt “a real improvement” in the situation at gas stations.

    There have been some raised tempers in the long lines for gas, but most station owners have said people are trying to make the best of the situation. Riders were seen pushing scooters and motorcycles, rather than wasting precious fuel, and most drivers seemed more worried about the levels in their tanks than the high cost of the gas.

    France Fuel Shortages
    A gas station worker and a police officer set up a ribbon as they close a gas station in Paris, October 11, 2022, amid supply shortages caused largely by strikes that have hit French fuel refineries.

    Christophe Ena/AP


    In Vincennes, just outside Paris, drivers waited in line patiently, hoping their turn would come before the pumps ran dry.

    Najat Hakem, 36, said she had already tried several gas stations that day. “Every time, it says they have diesel, and when it’s my turn they run out, because people jump the queue,” she said. “People on scooters, cars like Ubers, they all say they have a valid reason to jump the queue. But I work, too.” 

    She said the minimum wait was around an hour. “This is my third attempt; I’ve been up since 6.30 a.m.,” she said.

    Odette Libert, 81, said she was in favor of requisitioning the refinery workers and was against the strike.

    “This is not acceptable in France, just because a few people want to annoy everyone. It’s their problem, not the problem of all the French people,” she said. “They have jobs, there are many people who can’t get work. If they don’t want to work there, they should leave and go elsewhere. So, requisition.”


    Gas prices in the U.S. expected to rise

    02:26

    Six of France’s seven refineries have been hit by the strikes. Only the Lavera refinery near Marseille was still operating normally on Wednesday. It is one of the largest refining sites in southern Europe, with the capacity to process 210,000 barrels per day.

    The war in Ukraine has hit energy supplies in Europe hard, and prices have soared since it began. That, in turn, has pushed inflation higher and raised the general cost of living. Inflation in France is currently at 5.6%.

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  • French writer Annie Ernaux awarded Nobel Prize in literature

    French writer Annie Ernaux awarded Nobel Prize in literature

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    PARIS (AP) — French author Annie Ernaux won this year’s Nobel Prize in literature Thursday for blending fiction and autobiography in books that fearlessly mine her experiences as a working-class woman to explore life in France since the 1940s.

    In more than 20 books published over five decades, Ernaux has probed deeply personal experiences and feelings – love, sex, abortion, shame – within a society split by gender and class divisions.

    After a half-century of defending feminist ideals, Ernaux said “it doesn’t seem to me that women have become equal in freedom, in power,” and she strongly defended women’s rights to abortion and contraception.

    “I will fight to my last breath so that women can choose to be a mother, or not to be. It’s a fundamental right,” she said at a news conference in Paris. Ernaux’s first book, “Cleaned Out,” was about her own illegal abortion before it was legalized in France.

    The prize-giving Swedish Academy said Ernaux, 82, was recognized for “the courage and clinical acuity” of books rooted in her small-town background in the Normandy region of northwest France.

    Anders Olsson, chairman of the Nobel literature committee, said Ernaux is “not afraid to confront the hard truths.”

    “She writes about things that no one else writes about, for instance her abortion, her jealousy, her experiences as an abandoned lover and so forth. I mean, really hard experiences,” he told The Associated Press after the award announcement in Stockholm. “And she gives words for these experiences that are very simple and striking. They are short books, but they are really moving.”

    French President Emmanuel Macron tweeted: “Annie Ernaux has been writing for 50 years the novel of the collective and intimate memory of our country. Her voice is that of women’s freedom, and the century’s forgotten ones.”

    While Macron praised Ernaux for her Nobel, she has been unsparing with him. A supporter of left-wing causes for social justice, she has poured scorn on Macron’s background in banking and said his first term as president failed to advance the cause of French women.

    Ernaux’s books present uncompromising portraits of life’s most intimate moments, including sexual encounters, illness and the deaths of her parents. Olsson said Ernaux’s work was often “written in plain language, scraped clean.” He said she had used the term “an ethnologist of herself” rather than a writer of fiction.

    Dan Simon, Ernaux’s longtime American publisher at Seven Stories Press, said that in the early years, “she insisted that we not categorize her books at all. She did not allow us to refer to them as fiction and she did not allow us to refer to them as nonfiction.”

    Ultimately, he said, Ernaux has created “a genre of fiction in which nothing is made up.”

    “She’s a great storyteller of her own life,” Simon said.

    Ernaux worked as a teacher before becoming a full-time writer. Her first book was “Les armoires vides” in 1974 (published in English as “Cleaned Out”). Two more autobiographical novels followed – “Ce qu’ils disent ou rien” (“What They Say Goes”) and “La femme gelée” (“The Frozen Woman”) – before she moved to more overtly autobiographical books.

    In the book that made her name, “La place” (“A Man’s Place”), published in 1983 and about her relationship with her father, she wrote: “No lyrical reminiscences, no triumphant displays of irony. This neutral writing style comes to me naturally.”

    “La honte” (“Shame”), published in 1997, explored a childhood trauma, while “L’événement” (“Happening”), from 2000, dealt like “Cleaned Out” with an illegal abortion.

    Her most critically acclaimed book is “Les années” (“The Years”), published in 2008. Described by Olsson as “the first collective autobiography,” it depicted Ernaux herself and wider French society from the end of World War II to the 21st century. Its English translation was a finalist for the International Booker Prize in 2019.

    Ernaux’s “Mémoire de fille” (“A Girl’s Story”), from 2016, follows a young woman’s coming of age in the 1950s, while “Passion Simple” (“Simple Passion”) and “Se perdre” (“Getting Lost”) chart Ernaux’s intense affair with a Russian diplomat.

    Ernaux has described facing scorn from France’s literary establishment because she is a woman from a working-class background.

    “My work is political,” she said at the news conference. She described growing up in a milieu outside the elite, a world of “people above you” and the seeming impossibility of becoming a famous writer.

    The literature prize has long faced criticism that it is too focused on European and North American writers, as well as too male-dominated. Last year’s prize winner, Tanzanian-born, U.K.-based writer Abdulrazak Gurnah, was only the sixth Nobel literature laureate born in Africa.

    More than a dozen French writers have captured the literature prize, though Ernaux is the first French woman to win, and just the 17th woman among the 119 Nobel literature laureates.

    Olsson said the academy was working to diversify its range, drawing on experts in literature from different regions and languages.

    “We try to broaden the concept of literature but it is the quality that counts, ultimately,” he said.

    Ernaux said she wasn’t sure what she would do with the Nobel’s cash award of 10 million Swedish kronor (nearly $900,000).

    “I have a problem with money,” she told reporters. “Money is not a goal for me. … I don’t know how to spend it well.”

    A week of Nobel Prize announcements kicked off Monday with Swedish scientist Svante Paabo receiving the award in medicine for unlocking secrets of Neanderthal DNA that provided key insights into our immune system.

    Frenchman Alain Aspect, American John F. Clauser and Austrian Anton Zeilinger won the physics prize on Tuesday for work showing that tiny particles can retain a connection with each other even when separated, a phenomenon known as quantum entanglement.

    The Nobel Prize in chemistry was awarded Wednesday to Americans Carolyn R. Bertozzi and K. Barry Sharpless, and Danish scientist Morten Meldal for developing a way of “snapping molecules together” that can be used to explore cells, map DNA and design drugs to target cancer and other diseases.

    The 2022 Nobel Peace Prize will be announced on Friday and the economics award on Monday.

    The prizes will be handed out on Dec. 10. The prize money comes from a bequest left by the prize’s creator, Swedish inventor Alfred Nobel, in 1895.

    ___

    Keyton reported from Stockholm and Lawless from London. Masha Macpherson in Clergy, France; John Leicester in Le Pecq, France; Frank Jordans in Berlin; Naomi Koppel in London; Jan M. Olsen in Copenhagen and Angela Charlton in Paris contributed.

    ___

    Follow all AP stories about the Nobel Prizes at https://apnews.com/hub/nobel-prizes

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  • Wembanyama’s 2-game Las Vegas exhibition stay ends with win

    Wembanyama’s 2-game Las Vegas exhibition stay ends with win

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    HENDERSON, Nev. — Victor Wembanyama blocked a shot Thursday afternoon, ran to the other end of the court, went airborne from just inside the foul line, corralled an alley-oop pass with one hand and slammed home a dunk.

    The entire sequence lasted eight seconds.

    It may have been the signature moment — and there were a lot of candidates — from Wembanyama’s two-game trip to the U.S., which ended Thursday with the French phenom’s Metropolitans 92 team rallying from 16 points down to top the G League Ignite 112-106. He led the way, of course, with 36 points and 11 rebounds.

    “As a first impression of the American game, that was really great,” Wembanyama said.

    So was he.

    His final numbers from two exhibitions: 73 points on 22-for-44 shooting, nine 3-pointers, 15 rebounds and nine blocked shots. He flies back to France on Saturday, and the next time he plays in the U.S. there likely will be an NBA logo on his jersey, presumably after he becomes the No. 1 pick in the 2023 NBA Draft.

    “It’s very, very special for France,” Metropolitans 92 coach Vincent Collet said. “Not only for France. He has huge potential. He’s a huge talent.”

    The reviews are in from this two-game Vegas residency for Wembanyama, who stands 7-foot-3 in bare feet, and they were of the raving variety. The best of the bunch may have come from Los Angeles Lakers forward LeBron James, who suggested that calling Wembanyama a unicorn might not fully indicate how unique he is.

    Instead, James went with an out-of-this-world comparison.

    “Everybody’s been a unicorn over the last few years, but he’s more like an alien,” James said. “No one has ever seen anyone as tall as he is but as fluid and as graceful as he is out on the floor … He’s, for sure, a generational talent.”

    Sure enough, when Wembanyama’s around, a viral moment can happen at any time. It might be a dunk. It might be a block. It might be a fadeaway 3-pointer from the corner while his momentum has him drifting toward the baseline. It might be a 28-foot 3-pointer from the wing. It might be him kicking a ball into a monitor and narrowly missing fellow French center Rudy Gobert.

    Yes, all those things happened.

    The scene: Gobert and fellow Minnesota Timberwolves standout D’Angelo Russell, in town to play the Lakers in a preseason game later Thursday, decided to postpone their afternoon nap — a staple of the NBA gameday routine — and make the 20-minute ride from Las Vegas to watch the game, arriving at halftime.

    Gobert made a quick appearance on the game’s televised broadcast. Wembanyama, standing nearby, stuck one of his massive feet into the path of a pass by Ignite center Eric Mika. The ball ricocheted into the monitor near Gobert’s seat, knocking it over.

    Gobert laughed. Wembanyama raised his hand to apologize.

    “Hey, he played soccer too,” Gobert said.

    Gobert raves about Wembanyama, who almost certainly will be the first top-five draft pick from France. And he doesn’t think there’s any real comparison: Gobert said Wembanyama’s defensive instincts remind him of himself, while his ballhandling and shooting remind him of Kevin Durant.

    “What strikes me the most about him is his maturity,” Gobert said. “Obviously, he’s a very unique talent and he has a very unique physique. But his maturity and his confidence … he’s very unique.”

    Thursday’s game had a bit of a scare, and the other top NBA draft headliner in this showcase got the worst of that moment.

    Scoot Henderson, the guard whose 28 points led the Ignite to a 122-115 victory on Tuesday night in the exhibition opener, left Thursday’s game after less than five minutes. The reason: He banged knees with Wembanyama.

    Henderson switched onto Wembanyama, who was dribbling on the wing. Wembanyama made a move, collided into Henderson and tumbled to the court, looking initially like he got the worst of that exchange. But Henderson, who was called for a foul on the play, wound up limping off for evaluation and the Ignite quickly said he wouldn’t be returning.

    “Scoot’s fine,” G League coach Jason Hart said. “It was precautionary.”

    There are 31 games left on Metropolitans’ 34-game schedule in the French league, and the plan — as of now — is for Wembanyama to finish his season, which is slated to go through mid-May. The NBA Draft is June 22.

    Bouna Ndiaye, one of Wembanyama’s agents, said some NBA teams might not understand why he’s playing. The reason, he says, is because nobody can get Wembanyama out of the gym.

    “He wants to live on the court,” Ndiaye said.

    What these two games showed, in many ways, was just that the tapes of Wembanyama that have been coming out of Europe over the last few years weren’t lying. He needs to get stronger. There’s much he can still polish. He is, by all accounts, exceptional already.

    “Just before we came in last Saturday, we had a meeting with our doctor and we are going to prepare to plan the next two months to increase what he is doing, besides the court, to strengthen the body,” Collet said. “We’re always careful also with how much time he is practicing, not to go too far. … We plan so that we limit the risk.”

    When Thursday was over, when the comeback was complete, Wembanyama briefly lifted his arms skyward in celebration, then shook a lot of hands, partook in a lot of hugs and posed for a lot of pictures.

    With that, the draft hype continued on.

    “I’m still excited and so happy about it,” Wembanyama said. “I know I’m so lucky to have this chance.”

    ———

    More AP NBA: https://apnews.com/hub/NBA and https://twitter.com/AP—Sports

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  • Who is Ibrahim Traore, the soldier behind Burkina Faso’s latest coup? | CNN

    Who is Ibrahim Traore, the soldier behind Burkina Faso’s latest coup? | CNN

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    Reuters
     — 

    As a heavily armed convoy drove through a cheering crowd in Burkina Faso’s capital on Sunday morning, the boyish face of the country’s latest military ruler, Captain Ibrahim Traore, emerged from the turret of an armored personnel carrier.

    Sporting fatigues and a red beret, the 34-year-old smiled and raised his thumb as onlookers welcomed him, some by waving Russian flags.

    Traore, a relatively low-ranking officer who days earlier was running an artillery regiment in a small northern town, has been catapulted onto the world stage since he and a group of soldiers overthrew President Paul-Henri Damiba in a Sept. 30 coup.

    Little is known about Traore and his colleagues, who since Friday have delivered statements on national television brandishing guns, ammunition belts, and masks.

    They face gigantic challenges to alleviate hardship in one of the world’s poorest countries where drought, food shortages, and creaking health and education systems provide daily challenges for millions. Yet the initial focus has been conflict and politics.

    In an interview with Radio France International on Monday, Traore, a career soldier who has fought on the front lines against Islamist militants in the north, insisted he would not be in charge for long.

    A national conference will appoint a new interim ruler by the end of the year. That leader, who could be civilian or military, will honor an agreement with West Africa’s regional bloc and oversee a return to civilian rule by 2024, he said.

    “We did not come to continue, we did not come for a particular purpose,” he said. “All that matters when the level of security returns is the fight, it’s development.”

    Still, an early picture has emerged of what Traore’s junta intends to do with its time in power.

    Their moves, which may include army reform and ties to new international partners such as Russia, could alter politics in West Africa and change how Burkina Faso fights an Islamist insurgency that has killed thousands and forced millions to flee.

    Army officers initially supported Damiba when he took power in his own coup in January, promising to defeat the Islamists. But they quickly lost patience. Damiba refused to reform the army, Traore’s junta said. Attacks worsened. Just last week, at least 11 soldiers were killed in an attack in the north.

    Meanwhile, Russia has expressed support for the coup just as regional neighbors and western powers condemned it.

    “I salute and support Captain Ibrahim Traore,” read a statement from Russian businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin, founder of private military company Wagner Group, which has operations across Africa, including in Burkina Faso’s neighbor Mali.

    Ties with Russia would put a further strain on relations with former colonial power France, which has provided military support in recent years but has become the target of pro-Russian protests. Its embassy in Ouagadougou was attacked in the aftermath of Friday’s coup.

    Wagner’s entry into Mali last year spelled the end to France’s decade-long mission to contain Islamists linked to al Qaeda and Islamic State who have since spread into Burkina Faso.

    Wagner and the Malian army have since been accused by rights groups and witnesses of widespread abuses, including the killing of hundreds of civilians in the town of Moura in March.

    Burkina Faso’s new leaders on Saturday stoked anti-French rioting when they said in a statement on television that France had sheltered Damiba at a military base and that he was planning a counter-offensive.

    The French foreign ministry denied the base had hosted Damiba.

    Traore is on a crash course in diplomacy. He downplayed the link between Damiba and France and called an end to the protests. About ties with Russia, he was vague.

    “There are many partners. France is a partner. There is no particular target,” he told RFI.

    Meanwhile, he must juggle everyday problems. On Sunday, he arrived in military fatigues for a meeting with ministerial officials which was streamed online.

    Can the junta guarantee the safety of schools that reopen this week, they asked their new leader. What is being done about a tender for a railway link to Ghana?

    Traore, who had to consult with advisers, did not have all the answers.

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  • London, Paris, Frankfurt and beyond: CNBC names Europe’s best hotels for business travel

    London, Paris, Frankfurt and beyond: CNBC names Europe’s best hotels for business travel

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    International travel may still have its challenges.

    But finding a solid hotel for a business trip isn’t one of them.     

    CNBC Travel and the market data firm Statista today release a ranking of the “Best Hotels for Business Travelers” in Europe.

    This is the first ranking of its kind between CNBC and Statista, who are also releasing hotel rankings in the Middle East today. Asia-Pacific rankings were published in September.

    In total, we analyzed more than 10,000 four- and five-star hotels in 117 locations to produce lists corporate travelers can trust. We did this using a three-step process:

    • Asking business travelers and hotel industry professionals to answer a CNBC reader survey which ran from May 3 to June 7, 2022.
    • Reviewing more than 1 million hotel data points, which included objective information (location, business facilities, food, leisure activities and room characteristics) and subjective reviews (gathered from Google, TripAdvisor, Expedia and similar websites).
    • Weighting the data to prioritize the hotel characteristics deemed most important in the reader survey.

    For full details about our research methodology, click here.

    From Amsterdam to Zurich, here is the full list of the European winners in PDF format — complete with final scores — some of which are highlighted below.

    Alternatively, you can search by city or country using the table here:

    Amsterdam

    1. Waldorf Astoria Amsterdam
    2. Canal House Suites at Sofitel Legend The Grand Amsterdam
    3. Hotel Okura Amsterdam
    4. Sofitel Legend The Grand Amsterdam
    5. Conservatorium Hotel

    Waldorf Astoria Amsterdam

    Source: Waldorf Astoria Amsterdam

    The Waldorf Astoria Amsterdam tied for the highest scores for customer reviews among Europe’s largest financial centers, a distinction it shared with Rome’s Villa Spalletti Trivelli. Travelers rave about the canal-side location, but they say it’s the smaller points — the turndown service, fresh tulips in the room, the luxurious bedding — that make it one of Amsterdam’s finest hotels.

    Berlin

    1. Louisa’s Place
    2. InterContinental Berlin
    3. SO/Berlin Das Stue
    4. Hotel Adlon Kempinski Berlin
    5. KPM Hotel & Residences

    In a city with ample competition from major hotel brands, the owner-run Louisa’s Place — named after Queen Louise of Prussia — topped our list. Built around 1900, the boutique hotel in West Berlin has 47 spacious rooms, each with high ceilings and separate bedrooms.

    Brussels

    1. Steigenberger Wiltcher’s
    2. Sofitel Brussels Europe
    3. Hotel Manos Premier
    4. Le Louise Hotel Brussels – MGallery
    5. Stanhope Hotel Brussels

    Steigenberger Wiltcher’s location on the prestigious Avenue Louise — and its style, aptly described as “luxurious simplicity” — make it a favorite with business travelers in Belgium. Travelers can take an online tour of the hotel before visiting, virtually walking the hallways to peer into its restaurants and ballrooms.

    Copenhagen

    1. Charlottehaven
    2. Hotel Kong Arthur
    3. Villa Copenhagen
    4. Hotel Skt Petri
    5. Zoku Copenhagen

    Charlottehaven

    Source: Charlottehaven

    Charlottehaven has hotel apartments in two areas — the larger units in the “Garden” and the newer apartments in the “Tower” which have 180-degree views of the city. The hotel combines kitchens, laundry areas and other comforts of a house with the amenities of a hotel. Nearby metro and train stations make it easy to commute around the city too.

    Dublin

    1. The Merrion
    2. InterContinental Dublin
    3. The Marker
    4. Camden Court Hotel
    5. The Shelbourne, Autograph Collection

    The Merrion

    Source: The Merrion

    Scoring 3.78 (out of a possible 4 points), the five-star Merrion hotel in the center of Dublin tied for the second highest overall score in Europe. Its 142 rooms and suites are inside four restored Georgian townhouses dating to the 1760s. There’s also a two-star Michelin restaurant — Ireland’s first — plus two bars, a spa and six meeting spaces.

    Frankfurt

    1. Sofitel Frankfurt Opera
    2. JW Marriott Hotel Frankfurt
    3. Best Western Premier IB Hotel Friedberger Warte
    4. Le Meridien Frankfurt
    5. Steigenberger Airport Hotel Frankfurt

    Sofitel Frankfurt Opera

    Source: Sofitel Frankfurt Opera

    The Sofitel Frankfurt Opera is on Opera Square, or the Opernplatz, near the city’s famed opera house. In addition to its central location, the hotel wins over business travelers for the small touches that make for seamless stays: complimentary car valets and minibar beverages, 24-hour room service and stylish rooms outfitted with Illy espresso machines and Bose sound systems. 

    Geneva

    1. Four Seasons Hotel des Bergues Geneva
    2. Fairmont Grand Hotel Geneva
    3. Hilton Geneva Hotel and Conference Centre
    4. The Woodward Geneve
    5. La Reserve Geneve Hotel & Spa

    Four Seasons Hotel des Bergues

    Source: Four Seasons Hotel des Bergues Geneva

    Marble bathrooms, down pillows and balconettes with unobstructed views of Lake Geneva — these are some of the reasons the Four Seasons Hotel des Bergues Geneva consistently ranks among the city’s most luxurious places to stay. Business travelers can take meetings to the next level with private tours of the nearby Patek Philippe Museum or helicopter tours over Mont Blanc — with all details organized by the hotel.

    London

    1. The Langham London
    2. The Savoy
    3. Bulgari Hotel London
    4. One Aldwych
    5. The Lanesborough

    The Langham London

    Source: The Langham London

    The Langham London is a U.K. institution. It’s got a West End location, restaurants helmed by the two-Michelin starred chef Michel Roux Jr., and a bar, Artesian, that was named the world’s best four times in a row. Travelers who book executive rooms or higher get access to The Langham Club, which comes with perks like private check-ins, pressing services, all-day dining options and private meeting spaces.

    Madrid

    1. Gran Hotel Ingles
    2. Barcelo Torre de Madrid
    3. Rosewood Villa Magna
    4. VP Plaza Espana Design
    5. Wellington Hotel & Spa Madrid

    Gran Hotel Ingles

    Source: Gran Hotel Ingles

    It’s rare for a small property to outrank major hospitality companies, but Gran Hotel Ingles has done exactly that. “Pure luxury” is how the 48-room hotel is described by travelers, from its sleek interior to its cocktail weekend events accompanied by live music. Opened in 1886, the hotel is said to be Madrid’s oldest.

    Milan

    1. Hotel Viu Milan
    2. Excelsior Hotel Gallia
    3. Best Western Plus Hotel Galles
    4. Milano Verticale | UNA Esperienze
    5. Armani Hotel Milano

    Hotel Viu Milan

    Source: Marriott International

    The website for Hotel Viu Milan leads off — not with its rooms or restaurants — but with one word: bleisure. That’s because this hotel is serious about blending business stays with relaxation: morning yoga on the terrace, aperitives after work and dinner at the on-site restaurant Morelli, helmed by the Italian Michelin-starred chef Giancarlo Morelli.

    Oslo

    1. The Thief
    2. Hotel Continental
    3. Radisson Blu Scandinavia Hotel, Oslo
    4. Clarion Hotel The Hub
    5. Scandic Holmenkollen Park

    The Thief

    Source: The Thief

    The Thief Hotel on Tjuvholmen, or “Thief Islet,” takes its name from its seedy past as a hotbed of criminals. Now it’s an upmarket neighborhood known for art and architecture. Art features prominently in the hotel too, as do designer furniture and upmarket Nordic cuisine.

    Rome

    1. Hotel de la Ville
    2. Villa Spalletti Trivelli
    3. Hotel Villa Pamphili Roma
    4. Hotel Artemide
    5. Anantara Palazzo Naiadi

    The historic Hotel de la Ville, next to the Spanish Steps, is a Rocco Forte Hotel — a company bearing the name of one of Italy’s most famous hotelier families. Business travelers love its rooftop bar and central courtyard, but it’s the concierge — known to help with insider tips and hard-to-book restaurant reservations — that gives the hotel the edge in Italy’s capital city.

    Paris  

    1. Le Bristol Paris
    2. Les Jardins du Faubourg
    3. Kimpton – St Honore Paris
    4. Pullman Paris Center-Bercy
    5. Le Meurice

    Le Bristol Paris

    Source: Le Bristol Paris | Claire Cocano

    Guests of Le Bristol Paris can count President Emmanuel Macron as a neighbor — Elysee Palace, the official residence of France’s president — is just steps away. From white-gloved service to its three-Michelin-starred restaurant Epicure, the hotel is the height of Parisian elegance and culinary excellence.

    Stockholm

    1. Grand Hotel Stockholm
    2. Radisson Blu Waterfront Hotel Stockholm
    3. Hotel At Six
    4. Bank Hotel
    5. Lydmar Hotel

    Grand Hotel Stockholm

    Source: Grand Hotel Stockholm

    Tying for No. 2 in overall points with Dublin’s The Merrion, the stylish Grand Hotel Stockholm secured the top score for its amenities and facilities, not only in Sweden, but in all of Europe. Its waterfront location is bolstered by four restaurants, a champagne bar, spa and gym, the latter with personal trainers. Room service is available round the clock for those with late-night work to complete.

    Vienna

    1. Palais Coburg Hotel Residenz
    2. Hotel Sans Souci Wien
    3. The Ritz-Carlton, Vienna
    4. The Harmonie Vienna
    5. Grand Hotel Wien

    This grand hotel built in 1845 is the former home of Austrian royalty. The all-suite boutique hotel has a restaurant with two Michelin stars and a wine cellar that is said to house some 60,000 bottles of wine.

    Zurich

    1. The Dolder Grand
    2. Widder Hotel
    3. Baur au Lac
    4. Park Hyatt Zurich
    5. Acasa Suites Zurich

    The Dolder Grand

    Source: The Dolder Grand

    The Dolder Grand may have opened in 1899, but this hotel outside of Zurich’s city center has an almost futuristic feel. The interior features works by Salvador Dali and Jean Tinguely, and it has a two-Michelin starred restaurant and a 4,000-square-foot spa. From royalty to rock legends, former guests include King Charles and The Rolling Stones.

     — Natalie Tham contributed to this report.

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  • West African mediators head to Burkina Faso following coup

    West African mediators head to Burkina Faso following coup

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    OUAGADOUGOU, Burkina Faso — Regional mediators were headed to Burkina Faso on Monday in the wake of the West African country’s second coup this year amid concern the latest power grab could further postpone elections and deepen the region’s Islamic extremist violence.

    News that the delegation from the regional bloc known as ECOWAS is traveling to the capital, Ouagadougou, came after diplomats confirmed that Lt. Col. Paul Henri Sandaogo Damiba had left for the neighboring nation of Togo following talks mediated by religious leaders.

    Burkina Faso’s new leader, Capt. Ibrahim Traore, 34, is officially head of state pending future elections, the junta announced Sunday. While ECOWAS, a 15-nation West African bloc, had reached an agreement to hold a new vote by July 2024, it remained unclear whether that date would still hold.

    Burkina Faso’s last democratically elected president was overthrown by Damiba in January amid frustration that his government had not been able to stop extremist attacks. But the jihadi violence, which has killed thousands and forced 2 million to flee their homes, continued and has now brought an end to Damiba’s tenure, too.

    The new leader told journalists in interviews over the weekend that conditions remained poor for soldiers in the field. Damiba had not done enough to improve that situation, Traore said.

    “I go on patrol with my men and we don’t have the basic logistics,” he told Voice of America. “In some villages, the trees don’t have leaves because people eat the leaves. They eat weeds. We’ve proposed solutions that will enable us to protect these people, but we are not listened to. We made so many proposals.”

    In recent days, Traore’s followers have waved Russian flags and called for military support to help fight the jihadis, as neighboring Mali has done with Russia’s Wagner Group. However, those Russian mercenary forces have been accused of human rights abuses and some fear their involvement in Burkina Faso would only make things worse.

    It remains to be seen whether Traore and his forces can turn around the crisis as international condemnation of the new coup mounts. The political chaos erupted into unrest over the weekend as protesters attacked the French Embassy in the capital and several other buildings associated with France around the country.

    The anti-French sentiment swelled further after a junta representative said on state television that Damiba had sought refuge at a French military base in Burkina Faso. France vehemently denied the allegation and any involvement in the unfolding events.

    The 4,000 French citizens registered in Burkina Faso are urged to stay at their homes, French Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Anne-Claire Legendre said.

    “The situation is very volatile in Burkina Faso,” she told The Associated Press on Sunday in Paris. “There have been serious violations of the security of our diplomatic presence. Unacceptable violations that we condemn.”

    ———

    Mednick reported from Barcelona. Associated Press journalists Krista Larson in Dakar, Senegal and Jeffrey Schaeffer in Paris contributed.

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