The Cannes film festival marks a first on Wednesday when it opens with Up, an animation comedy that may lift some of the recessionary gloom.
Oscar-winning French composer Maurice Jarre, who wrote the scores for Doctor Zhivago and Lawrence of Arabia, has died aged 84.
The director of Entre les Murs, the French classroom drama that won the main Cannes film prize said on Sunday he had been deeply moved by the applause that met the film when it was shown at the festival. Entre les Murs (The Class) became the first French film in 21 years to claim the coveted Palme d’Or award at the world’s biggest film festival.
France’s last surviving veteran of World War I, an Italian immigrant who fought in the trenches with the Foreign Legion, has died at the age of 110, the president’s office said on Wednesday. Lazare Ponticelli, who joined his adopted country’s army at the outbreak of the war with Germany in 1914, had attended a memorial ceremony as recently as November 2007.
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/ 22 November 2007
A nine-day transport strike that has crippled the French rail network appeared to be drawing to a close on Thursday as many local union committees voted to suspend their stoppage and give negotiations a chance. Both the nationwide railways and the Paris local transport network put more trains, metros and buses into service during the day.
French conservative Nicolas Sarkozy is clear favourite to win Sunday’s presidential election after he outshone his Socialist rival Ségolène Royal in a televised debate, an opinion poll showed on Thursday. An Opinionway poll for the daily Le Figaro indicated 53 p% of viewers judged Sarkozy more convincing in Wednesday’s debate.
Right-wing former interior minister Nicolas Sarkozy and Socialist Ségolène Royal meet face to face on Wednesday for a television debate that could decide Sunday’s French presidential election. The two-hour encounter will be screened simultaneously by France’s two biggest television channels from 9pm local time.
France’s presidential election on Sunday looks set to be a traditional contest between the main right and left parties as a bid by a centrist candidate to mount a challenge loses steam, a poll on Thursday showed. With three days to go before the first round of the election, the race appears to be between former interior minister Nicolas Sarkozy and Socialist Ségolène Royal.