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Added on the 21/04/2017 08:27:33 - Copyright : AFPTV - First images
A subdued Bastille Day ceremony sees the Champs-Elysées empty. This year, French President Emmanuel Macron presides a scaled-down gathering of just 2,000 soldiers -- half the usual number -- at the Place de la Concorde. While jets perform their traditional flyovers over the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, authorities call off the annual military parade that marks the July 14, 1789, storming of the Bastille prison that launched the French Revolution. IMAGES
On the 17th day of France's lockdown to curb the spread of coronavirus, the Champs-Elysées, a tourist hot spot which is usually teeming with vehicles, remains virtually deserted. IMAGES
Another day of demonstrations by farmers in Rennes, while the government is eagerly awaited by the profession to come up with a response to their anger. IMAGES
After meeting with the largest farmers union FNSEA, French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal met with Rural Coordination, France's 2nd largest farming union. Its president, Veronique Le Floch, said it was "catastrophic" that the Prime Minister had not yet made any emergency announcements, while farmers continued to express their anger throughout France, in a protest that was mourned by the death of a farmer in Ariège, hit by a car at a roadblock. IMAGES
In the wake of Saturday's fatal knife attack in Paris, French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin has come out in favour of "psychiatric care orders that could be granted to police prefects" for "a those involved in radical Islam and who suffer from mental illness. A German tourist was fatally stabbed cloes to the Eiffel tower on Saturday and two other people wounded in the attack. The attacker was a Frenchman in his mid-20s born to a non-religious Iranian family but who had already done prison time for planning an attack and was known to the authorities as an Islamist radical with mental issues. SOUNDBITE