France

PARIS (Reuters) - French President Emmanuel Macron urged citizens to avoid visiting their relatives in retirement homes as far as possible to prevent exposing them to possible coronavirus infection.

“We must avoid visiting our elderly relatives as much as possible,” Macron said on Friday during a visit to a retirement home in Paris.

PARIS, March 3 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Say no to a handshake, refuse kisses on the cheeks and definitely avoid hugging. Instead, a direct gaze or maybe a gesture with the hands.

All around the world people are changing their daily habits at work, at home and in worship to reduce the risk of contracting the coronavirus and prevent it from spreading any further.

Lets take a look at how habits are changing around the world due to the coronavirus, which has killed 3,060 worldwide.

PARIS (AP) — A global agency says the spreading new virus could make the world economy shrink this quarter for the first time since the international financial crisis more than a decade ago.

In a special report on the impact of the virus, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said Monday that the world economy is still expected to grow overall this year and rebound next year.

PARIS (AP) — Coronavirus cases surged in Italy, and France closed the world-famous Louvre Museum as the epidemic that began in China sent fear rising across Western Europe, threatening its tourism industry.

The virus has spread to more than 60 countries, and more than 3,000 people have died from the COVID-19 illness it causes.

PARIS (Reuters) - A police employee who fatally stabbed four colleagues in the force’s Paris headquarters ran an online search for “how to kill infidels” an hour before he rampaged through the building, a judicial source said on Wednesday.

Data on the cell phone of Mickael Harpon, a 45-year-old IT worker who converted to Islam a decade before last October’s attack, supported suspicions his motive was terrorism-related, the judicial source and a police source told Reuters.

LYON (France), Feb 25 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Passengers who arrived by bus in Lyon in southeast France from Milan in Italy were kept onboard after the driver was hospitalised with symptoms similar to those caused by the new coronavirus, security sources said.

Police erected a security cordon around the bus at Lyon’s Perrache station and ordered the passengers to remain on board, a spokeswoman for the Lyon area’s public security department said.

No information was given as to how many people were on the bus.

23 February 2020; AFP: French President Emmanuel Macron on Saturday said he was "not sure" it would be possible for the European Union and Britain to reach a trade deal by the end of the year.

Britain and the EU are about to embark on negotiations aiming to hammer out a trade agreement by the time the post-Brexit transition period shuts at the end of December.

But France has made clear it thinks the negotiations will be particularly difficult, especially in such a tight timeframe.

PARIS (Reuters) - Former French prime minister Francois Fillon and his wife Penelope go on trial on Monday over a fake jobs scandal that wrecked his 2017 run for president and opened the Elysee Palace door for Emmanuel Macron.

Fillon’s bid for the presidency unraveled after allegations he paid his wife hundreds of thousands of euros for doing little, if any, work as his parliamentary assistant.

PARIS, Feb 23 (NNN-AGENCIES) — French President Emmanuel Macron said he was “not sure” it would be possible for the European Union and Britain to reach a trade deal by the end of the year.

Britain and the EU are about to embark on negotiations aiming to hammer out a trade agreement by the time the post-Brexit transition period shuts at the end of December.

But France has made clear it thinks the negotiations will be particularly difficult, especially in such a tight timeframe.

FESSENHEIM (France), Feb 23 (NNN-AGENCIES) — French state-owned energy giant EDF on Saturday began shutting down the country’s oldest nuclear power plant after 43 years in operation.

EDF said it had disconnected one of two reactors at Fessenheim, along the Rhine near France’s eastern border with Germany and Switzerland, at 2am in the first stage of the complete closure of the plant.

The second reactor is to be taken off line on June 30 but it will be several months before the two have cooled enough and the used fuel can start to be removed.