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Climate protests planned in around 400 towns and cities in France this month
More than 31,000 people have signed an open letter calling for stronger government action
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Why are we seeing so many food recalls in France?
We review whether recall notices are really increasing
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Many French homeowners overpaying on property tax, say lawyers
Out of 1,351 client cases they reviewed 87% were paying €260 a year on average too much
Veterans given citizenship
African troops who fought for France in the Second World War, Indochina and Algeria have been given citizenship as a recognition of their efforts.
Around a thousand of the sharpshooters from the former colonies of Sénégal, Congo, Côte d’Ivoire and Centrafrique are still alive but many have not managed to gain nationality since losing theirs when their home countries gained independence.
President Hollande said any of the “dogues noirs de l’Empire” [black dogs of the Empire] still living in France and who wanted citizenship could have it – and presented certificates to 28 of them at a ceremony at the Elysée.
The move came after a petition from Aïssata Seck, a councillor in Bondy, Seine-Saint-Denis, where a group of 19 of the troops live in a retirement home. Some had been refused citizenship due to problems over birth and marriage papers and her petition said “when these sharpshooters were called into action, no one asked them to endure this infernal red tape”.
