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Two paintings by the impressionist artist Pierre-Auguste Renoir have been stolen from a museum in the south of France. Two thieves broke into the Renoir Museum in Cagnes-sur-Mer early on Tuesday, seizing four paintings but dropping two of the works in the museum gardens as they escaped, local Mayor Bryan Masson said. The paintings, worth €9m (£7.7m; $10.4m), are the latest high-profile pieces to have been stolen in a string of recent heists in Europe which have thrust the security of art in galleries and museums into the spotlight. One of the most high-profile was in October last year, when...

British Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband on Tuesday announced import ban on goods from illegal settlements in the the West Bank, as well as sanctions against specific individuals and businesses that provide services such as construction, instruction, financing or real estate for settlement expansion. The announcement was carried out in coordination with France and Canada.On August 19, UK Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband said he would introduce a comprehensive set of measures in “the coming weeks.” Nevertheless, the timing has been criticized, coming just days before the Jewish High Holy Days begin - which has already been flagged as a dangerous period...

The Presidential Election year budget in France to be considered in the coming months with opinion polling this week pushing the notion of public support for cutting spending. The opinion poll conducted by the government itself with 40 percent respondents speaking of France's current financial situation as "very worrying'. That is up five percent from January... South Korea's President Lee Jae Myung on a four-day visit to France starting tomorrow. President Lee and French President Emmnuel Macron discussing security and economic connections between France and South Korea... France's increasingly confrontational stance towards China reflected in the new rules imposing fees...

Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama was quick to blame the bankruptcy of Wall Street giant Lehman Brothers on Republicans’ “failed philosophy”. Obama’s September 15 comments were repeated throughout the media--yet reporters have not noted Obama’s glaring conflict of interest—the Lehman debt owed to a bank owned by the financier who loaned millions of dollars to Tony Rezko.

Russia has said its forces helped to repel Saturday's attempted coup in Niger. Explosions and gunfire rang out across capital, Niamey, early in the morning, including at a key military airbase and the presidential palace. Hours later, Niger's authorities said the rebellion had been contained. Nigerien forces had repelled the attack "with the assistance of servicemen of the African Corps of the Russian Ministry of Defence", the foreign ministry in Moscow said on Sunday. The ministry also said it would continue to support Niger in its fight against "extremists", but that the situation was now under the control of the...

New polling last weekend put Marine Le Pen in a very favorable position to win the Presidential Election next spring. The National Rally (RN) candidate well ahead in a first round of voting at 35-38 percent of the vote. Her closet rival leftist Jean-Luc Melenchon of La France Insoumise (LFI) at 16-17 percent. If the two moved into a second-round Marine Le Pen would easily defeat Mr. Melenchon 64-36 percent... New polling out this weekend done for BFM-TV confirming the strength of Marine Le Pen. She beats all potential second round opponents including the best-positioned centrist Edouard Philippe... Seven presidential...

Socialism’s sectarian logic, pseudoscientific hubris, and the inescapable path from guillotine to Gulag C. The sectarian, antidemocratic, and antirational character of egalitarianism has been exposed with grim consistency across two centuries of revolutionary experiment. From the Jacobin committees of public safety to the Politburos of Moscow, Beijing, and their satellite regimes in Africa and Asia, the pattern recurs: utopian doctrine, once armed with state power, converts political disagreement into existential crime and answers it with systematic slaughter. A political monster from birth, socialism—along with its Siamese twin, communism, the progeny of egalitarianism and collectivism—does not merely fail to deliver abundance;...

Central Intelligence Agency Director John Ratcliffe paid an unannounced visit to Moscow yesterday, spending eight hours in the Russian capital before returning to the US. Though he visited the Kremlin, Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov denied that they had met – though Ratcliffe certainly spoke to his counterpart Sergei Naryshkin, head of Russia’s SVR external intelligence service, and other top Russian security officials. The list of topics urgent enough to prompt the first personal visit of a US cabinet-level official to the Kremlin in six months is short. Ratcliffe could have been responding to reports of a planned Russian escalation...

🚨BREAKING: Marine Le Pen now has largest poll lead EVER France will be saved 🇫🇷 Le Pen (RN-PfE): 38% (+2) Mélenchon (LFI-LEFT): 17% (+1) Attal (RE-RE): 14% (-2) Retailleau (LR-EPP): 9% (+1) Hollande (PS-S&D): 8% Zemmour (REC-ESN): 4% (-1) Tondelier (LÉ-Greens/EFA): 4% (-1) Roussel (PCF-LEFT): 3% Dupont-Aignan (DLF→ECR): 2%

In less than six months the first round of France's Presidential Election will be held on April 18th with the second-round set for May 2nd if no candidate gains a majority. The leading candidate in polling right now is Marine Le Pen of the National Rally (RN). Her likely opponent in the second round would be a centrist candidate in the mold of current President Emmanuel Macron either Edouard Philippe or Gabriel Attal former Prime Ministers for Mr. Macron. Leftist candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon likely to fall short in a first round if recent polling is accurate. Marine LePen envisions a...

Sebastien Lecornu visited Le Porge in the Gironde region on Monday for a meeting with the mayor after it was devastated by wildfires and 183 homes burned down in late July to August. But residents jeered, whistled and yelled anti-government slogans at the French leader after feeling dissatisfied by the government's response to the disaster. The furious locals claim firefighters prioritised saving the upscale Cap-Ferret peninsula - where many affluent Parisians take holidays - over protecting the homes of locals. Lecornu's office said he had spoken with affected residents and farmers. 'We have absolutely nothing to hide regarding how fire...

Content warning: This story contains references to violence, suicide, child abuse and self-harm. A suicide attempt, depression, substance abuse, insomnia, surveillance, threats. These are just some of the experiences reported by the low-paid moderators tasked with sifting through Facebook and Instagram’s most disturbing images. The tech giant Meta, which owns both platforms, has kept the whereabouts of this operation a closely guarded secret since moving it from Kenya, where the company is facing lawsuits over working conditions and human rights. For months, it has also refused to name the company that won the lucrative contract to provide the content moderators...

On Friday France's Constitutional Council upheld the new assisted death law and ruled against the social media ban law for those under the age of 15... The Russian interference narrative synonymous with some recent US elections is front and center in France's presidential election now six months away. At a Monday campaign stop one of the leading centrist presidential candidates and one of Emmanuel Macron's prime minister Gabriel Attal driving home that message. He said the government reporting linking online criticism of himself and other candidates to Russia is proof that Russia has a favorites in the 2027 Presidential Election...

US oil giant Unocal must stand trial in California for alleged complicity in human rights abuses by Burma's military junta, including forced labour, rape and torture, a judge has ruled. "Prior to its involvement in the pipeline project, Unocal had specific knowledge that the use of forced labour was likely, and nevertheless chose to proceed," Los Angeles Superior Court judge Victoria Chaney said. In the decision, Judge Chaney rejected arguments by the California-based energy firm, which built a gas pipeline in Burma, that the case should be tried at least in part under Burma or Bermuda law. Unocal had made...

There are many disturbing, deviant and remarkable aspects to the recent Netflix series Jeffrey Epstein – Filthy Rich but one of the most troubling ones – is how little effort journalists and the various strands of law enforcement are making to find Ghislaine Maxwell. Even a cursory scratching at the surface of her persona and life leads to further questions. The end of any story-line or indeed investigation should come not when all the questions have been answered necessarily but when all the questions have been thoroughly asked. A quick example. Ghislaine Maxwell has made three US political donations in...

Japan for the first time has deployed ground troops to the Balikatan exercise, a series of multidomain drills staged across the Philippine archipelago. Participation by about 1,000 Japan Ground Self-Defense Force (JGSDF) Soldiers augments the annual training that began decades ago as a Philippines-United States exercise and now involves about 20 nations. Japan Self-Defense Forces (JSDF) personnel previously attended Balikatan as observers and in noncombat roles focused on humanitarian assistance and disaster response (HADR). They participated in a maritime drill in 2025. A reciprocal access agreement between Manila and Tokyo, which took effect in September 2025, allows JSDF and Armed...

Mainstream media in France given access to a report on the 2022 death of Jeffrey Epstein's key French associate Jean-Luc Brunel. Brunel found hanging in his prison cell early on the morning of February 19th, 2022... "strategic autonomy" The operative words this week as French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu announced that France's Directorate for Intelligence and Security (DGSI) would break its relationship with the US tech company "Palantir"... Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot saying France 'will hot tolerate any attempt at foreign interference' in next year's Presidential Election. Mainstream media reporting says that Russian interference campaigns are underway based on recent...

The French government has revealed that an estimated ninety per cent of so-called wildfires are the result of human activity, undermining the persistent media narrative that climate change is driving spontaneous fires ravaging the countryside. On Tuesday, French Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said that 184 people have been arrested in connection with wildfires since the beginning of the summer. Those arrested are a combination of arsonists, criminals, and careless individuals, he said. According to the French Forest Observatory, around one in three (30 per cent) of wildfires are believed to have been set maliciously, Le Figaro reported. In total, the...

France and Italy bolstered border controls on Saturday after about 60,000 people crossed into Spain's enclave in North Africa, sparking one of the largest migrant crises for the European Union in recent years. The migrants entered Ceuta from Morocco, the enclave's regional president Juan Jesus Vivas told reporters, but by Friday evening officials said more than 48,000 had returned. To cross into Ceuta, many swam around a small border barrier that juts out into the Mediterranean. At least 34 people died in the attempt. The sudden influx sparked an international crisis. France tightened checks on its border with Spain and...

Italy said on Friday it was suspending the ​EU's border-free Schengen arrangements with Spain for one month in response to a mass influx of ‌migrants into the Spanish enclave of Ceuta from neighbouring Morocco. Italy does not share a land border with Spain but the measure - which looks certain to anger Madrid - will impact people travelling by plane or boat between ​the two countries, meaning they will need to show a passport to gain access. Italy's interior ​ministry said in a statement it had also agreed with Paris ⁠to strengthen controls along the Franco-Italian land border to try...