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Added on the 19/10/2020 15:12:38 - Copyright : Euronews EN
French President Emmanuel Macron visited France's largest glacier, the Mer de Glace on Thursday morning. The 7.5 kilometre (4.7 mile) glacier lies on Mont Blanc, and has become a symbol of global warming after shrinking dramatically. It is estimated that the Mer de Glace diminishes by 8-10 meters per year, with the average temperature having increased by 4° between the 1950s and the 2000s. France vows to construct a protected nature reserve around Mont Blanc by the year-end, with rules about overcrowding and damage.
Economy
Rescuers used thermal drones Monday to search for possible survivors trapped under ice after an avalanche set off by the collapse of the largest glacier in the Italian Alps killed at least six people and injured eight others.
A French court is to hand down verdicts Wednesday against 20 men accused over the November 2015 terror attacks in Paris, after a marathon 10-month trial that reopened the scars of modern France's worst peacetime atrocity. One hundred and thirty people were killed on the night of November 13, 2015, when a team of Islamic State group jihadists laid siege to the French capital, attacking the national sports stadium, bars and the Bataclan concert hall. The trial that began on September 8, 2021, has been the biggest in modern French history, the culmination of a six-year, multi-country investigation whose findings run to more than a million pages. All the attackers were killed in the aftermath of the assault except Salah Abdeslam, who was captured alive by police four months later. Abdeslam is the key suspect among the 20 accused on trial, six of whom have been tried in absentia. If convicted, he faces the toughest life sentence available under French law. Joining FRANCE 24 is Clemence Witt, Lawyer of the foreign victim's families. For her, "this trial was an extraordinary one. More than 3000 victims were represented during this trial, 400 of them being heard by courts. A special courtroom was built and there were almost 150 days of hearings. So we have all this context, absolutely extraordinary. And I think the main challenge of this trial is to show to the world that, in the end, justice has won."
Danièle Obono, MP - France Unbowed, joins FRANCE 24 (Part 1). France's new left-wing bloc is set to become the largest opposition force in parliament, but staying united will present an early test as President Emmanuel Macron's majority seeks allies on the moderate left to push through his reform agenda. Macron's Ensemble (Together) coalition emerged as the largest party in Sunday's National Assembly vote but fell short of a majority, a result portrayed as a huge win by a left that made major gains. The left-wing alliance brings together the hard-left La France Insoumise (LFI), the Socialist Party, the Greens and Communists for the first time in 20 years - under the helm of the eurosceptic far-left veteran Jean-Luc Melenchon.
U.S.-led air strikes hit 10 units of Islamic State fighters in Syria in recent days as well as militants with the al Qaeda-linked Khorasan Group. Jillian Kitchener reports.