Author: Rodrigue Philibert Lambert

French football’s “bad boy” Karim Benzema is threatening to go to court after Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin accused him of having links with the Muslim Brotherhood. The minister was reacting to remarks made by Benzema on X, formerly Twitter, in which he offered prayers to the people of Gaza as “victims again of unjust bombardments which spare neither women nor children”. Noting his failure to express similar sympathy for the estimated 1,400 Israeli victims of Hamas, Mr Darmanin said the former French striker was “well-known for his links with the Muslim Brotherhood”. “We are fighting the hydra that is the…

Squeezed between the two channels of France’s biggest container port is a warren of narrow alleyways, blowsy 1950s bungalows and – along a windblown high road – a disheartening parade of shuttered shops. Les Neiges is Le Havre’s dockers’ district. At the end of each side street stands a 3-metre, steel-and-concrete fence topped with razor wire; beyond that, dipping and swivelling, the cranes and gantries that process more than 3m containers a year. Hidden away in those shipping containers, stashed among the bananas, frozen prawns, cane sugar and canned fruit, is an ever-increasing quantity of cocaine. Of the record 27…

In mid-September, four dozen university students marched through Kampala, the capital city of Uganda, to deliver a petition to parliament calling on the government to end fossil fuel investments and scrap the 900-mile east Africa crude oil pipeline (Eacop). The young climate activists were led by 29-year-old Abduh Twaib Magambo, an environmental science student, who carried the two-page typewritten petition that said: “As students and young people of this country, we are the direct and major victims of [the] climate crisis living in a country that is among the most affected by climate change yet one of the least prepared to respond…

Port cities around Europe are increasingly considering bans or restrictions on cruise ships as their health and environmental impacts become clearer. The 218 cruise ships operating in Europe last year emitted more than four times more sulphur oxides than all the continent’s cars combined, according to the NGO Transport & Environment (T&E). Sulphur dioxide causes respiratory and cardiovascular problems and its pollution is a key component of acid rain. On 30 July, six cruise ships stopped in Barcelona, the city T&E says is the European destination most affected by cruise ships. This means 10,000 to 30,000 passengers could be cascading along Barcelona’s Ramblas. How beneficial these visitors are…

France is home to Europe’s largest Jewish and Muslim populations. Inevitably, what is happening in the Middle East has a particular resonance here. The grotesque images that circulated after Hamas’s horrific attack on Israeli civilians on 7 October, planned and carried out in a chillingly meticulous way, sent shockwaves through France that are still reverberating. A big part of the country’s public debate has been fixated, since the massacre, on avoiding the “importation” of tensions connected with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. After a spate of antisemitic incidents, Emmanuel Macron is rightly concerned about the fear gripping “our compatriots of the Jewish…

A wax museum in Paris that was criticised for “whitewashing” a statue of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson says it will give the waxwork a do-over. The Musée Grévin, which is modelled on London’s Madame Tussauds, unveiled the wax figure of the professional wrestler turned actor last week, but it swiftly attracted widespread ridicule on social media, as well as from the Fast and Furious star himself. “They whitewashed The Rock,” a user on X, formerly Twitter, wrote, while another likened the figure to Mr Clean. Instagram account the Shade Room called the figure “melanin deficient”. California-born Johnson is the son of a Samoan mother and a Black Canadian…

France has been forced to shut seven schools over growing concerns over an infestation of bedbugs, the education minister has said. “Bedbugs were detected at various levels in … I believe 17 institutions, and currently as I speak to you, seven institutions are closed for this reason,” Gabriel Attal told France 5 television. The French government has held a series of meetings this week to examine surging numbers of reported bedbug cases at a time when France is hosting the Rugby World Cup and preparing to host the Paris 2024 Olympics. Earlier Friday, the education ministry said in statement to Agence France-Presse…

Israel has not only been the victim of a vicious and despicable terrorist attack. It is also the victim of a brazenly cynical move to disrupt the international stage and subvert tranquility in the Middle East. The Israeli-Palestinian powder keg conveniently served to add yet another full scale crisis putting even further pressure on a global order already strained to breaking point. Although no concrete evidence exists of any involvement in the attacks, Russia stands to gain the most from this extra flash point on the world map, as violence and war in the Middle East distracts from Putin’s unjustified…

Paris, Dublin, London (24/9 – 32) Undefeated in 17 games in the last 15 months, Ireland has beaten every rugby union world champion, three of them twice – just for humiliation. Historically, the Irish never got past the last eight of a Rugby World Cup. In this year’s tournament they are on fire: fans have faith that Ireland will finally seize The Webb Ellis Cup on 28 October, final day of the struggle. Low-scoring but epic: a 13-8 win over the defending champion South Africa in Pool B of the 2023 Rugby World Cup on Saturday – a brutal statement…

The French army general appointed by Emmanuel Macron to oversee the reconstruction of the fire-ravaged Notre-Dame Cathedral has died while hiking in the Pyrénées. Mountain gendarmes discovered the body of Jean-Louis Georgelin, 74, the former chief of the defence staff, after he failed to return to a mountain refuge on Friday. He is believed to have fallen on Mount Valier, near the Faustin pass in the Ariège, south-west France, at an altitude of 2,650 metres. The public prosecutor’s office in Foix confirmed on Saturday the body had been formally identified and that the death was being treated as an accident. Macron…