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      Madeleine Riffaud, ‘the Girl Who Saved Paris,’ Dies at 100

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      Madeleine Riffaud, a swashbuckling French Resistance hero who survived three weeks of torture as a teenager and went on to celebrate her 20th birthday by helping to capture 80 Nazis on an armored supply train, and who later became a crusading anticolonial war correspondent, died on Nov. 6 at her home in Paris. She was 100.Her death was announced by her publisher, Dupuis.Ms. Riffaud was propelled into the anti-Nazi guerrilla underground in November 1940 by a literal kick in the backside from a German officer. He sent her packing after he saw Nazi soldiers taunting her at a railway station as she was accompanying her ailing grandfather to visit her father near Amiens, in northern France.“That moment,” she said in a 2006 interview with The Times of London, “decided my whole life.”“I landed on my face in the gutter,” she told The Guardian in 2004. “I was humiliated. My fear turned into anger.”She decided then and there to join the French Resistance.“I remember saying to myself,” she said, “‘I don’t know who they are or where they are, but I’ll find the people who are fighting this, and I’ll join them.’ ”Madeleine with her father, Jean Émile Riffaud, in about 1925. Mr. Riffaud, who had been wounded in World War I, was a pacifist.Fonds Madeleine RiffaudShe connected with the Resistance in Grenoble, France, at a sanitarium where she was being treated for tuberculosis. She had contracted the disease while studying midwifery in Paris.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Man Hiding Tarantulas, Centipedes and Ants Is Stopped From Boarding Flight

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      Officials in Lima, Peru, said the endangered spiders had been taken from the Amazon basin. The man was flying to South Korea.Something about a man who was trying to board a plane last week in Lima, Peru, caused customs officers at the international airport outside the capital to do a double take: He had an extraordinarily swollen belly.They asked him to lift his shirt.When he did, they found he was carrying 320 tarantulas, 110 centipedes and nine bullet ants. Each of the bugs was crawling around inside its own small plastic bag, where they were obscured by filter paper, according to the National Forest and Wildlife Service of Peru. The bags were reinforced with strong adhesive tape and attached to two girdles that were wrapped around the man’s body.In all, the man was carrying 35 adult tarantulas, each about the size of an average hand, and 285 juvenile tarantulas, the wildlife service said.All of the critters found were native to the Amazon region of Peru, said Walter Silva, a wildlife specialist for the government. The tarantulas are on the country’s list of endangered species, he added.“All were extracted illegally and are part of the illegal wildlife trafficking that moves millions of dollars in the world,” Mr. Silva said in a news release from the forest and wildlife service.The Peruvian authorities arrested the man, a 28-year-old citizen of South Korea who was traveling back to his country last Friday, with a planned stopover in France, they said. The National Forest and Wildlife Service said it had opened an investigation but did not specify any charges and did not release the name of the man they had detained.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      France Struggles to Dry Out From Flash Flooding

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      Central and southern France was recovering on Friday from flooding that lashed the areas on Thursday, after heavy rainfall and swollen rivers unleashed torrents of brackish water that cut off roads, swept away cars and swamped buildings.The French authorities have not linked any deaths or injuries directly to the floods, which were slowly receding on Friday as towns mopped mud and water out of homes, hauled away overturned cars and cleared out tangles of tree branches and debris. But the sudden downpours — the worst in more than four decades in some areas — caught the country by surprise.Jean-Philippe Ksiazek/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesFirefighters wade through floodwaters on Thursday in Givors, a town in the Rhône department. More than 3,000 firefighters have been deployed to help, the government said on Friday.@CasaLova via Associated PressSome of the heaviest downpours were in the Ardèche department, which was battered by more than two feet of rain in 48 hours. Flash flooding swamped several towns, including Saint-Marcel-lès-Annonay, southwest of Lyon, where raging waters lifted a car away.BFMTV via ReutersRushing floodwaters also trapped vehicles in Labégude, another town in the Ardèche area, where Thursday’s rainfall “was the most intense ever recorded over two days since the beginning of the 20th century,” according to the national weather forecaster.Jeff Pachoud/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesIn Annonay, the largest town in the Ardèche, witnesses told local media that a “mini tsunami” surged through the town within minutes. Schools were evacuated and remained closed on Friday.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Fitch Ratings Issues Warning About France’s Finances

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      A rating agency’s warning about the country’s ballooning debt comes as the prime minister tries to push an austerity budget through a divided Parliament.France has become one of the most financially troubled countries in Europe, with an outsize debt and deficit that are likely to keep ballooning despite efforts by a fragile new government to address the problem, the Fitch Ratings agency said on Friday.A day after France’s new prime minister, Michel Barnier, introduced a tough austerity budget aimed at mending the nation’s rapidly deteriorating finances, Fitch issued a negative outlook for France’s sovereign credit rating. The rating was left unchanged at an AA– level for now, but Fitch warned that it could be revised lower if the government’s budget plans fall apart.The outlook reflects greater financial risks that have swirled in France since President Emmanuel Macron dissolved the lower house of Parliament in June and took until last month to appoint a new government. The episode left Parliament deeply divided, split nearly evenly between warring political factions on the left, right and center, and leaving Mr. Barnier with no clear majority. That will make it harder to pass a belt-tightening budget and assuage nervous international investors at a time when France’s national debt has ballooned to more than 3 trillion euros ($3.28 trillion).In a statement late Friday after Fitch’s announcement, France’s economy minister, Antoine Armand, said the government was determined “to turn around the trajectory of public finances and control debt.”France is the second-largest economy among the 20 countries that use the euro currency, and as such, is considered too big to fail. European Union rules require members to have sound finances, including capping debt at 60 percent of economic output and not letting government spending exceed revenues by more than 3 percent.But France is now well in excess of both of those limits, drawing a formal rebuke recently from the European Union. France’s debt has spiraled to more than 110 percent of economic output, the worst in the bloc after Greece and Italy. Fitch warned that the debt could surge to more than 118 percent of gross domestic product by 2028 if nothing is done. The annual budget deficit is set to widen to 6.1 percent of gross domestic product this year, much higher than expected, and an increase of more than 10 percent from last year.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Michel Siffre, 85, Dies; Descended Into Caves to Study the Human Mind

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      He was a pioneer in chronobiology, the study of how our bodies understand the passage of time.On the morning of Sept. 14, 1962, reporters and onlookers began to gather around a hole in the ground, far up in the Maritime Alps between France and Italy. A few hours later, workers rigged a rope down into the darkness; soon they pulled out a small, sturdily built man named Michel Siffre.He had been inside the cave, 375 feet down, for 63 days, with only a four-volt lamp for illumination. He wore dark goggles to limit the glare of the sun, and he had to be carried to a waiting helicopter.This was no rescue: Mr. Siffre, a geologist, was conducting an experiment on himself, to see what would happen to his sense of time if he cut himself off from the normal day-night flow of life on the surface.It turns out that a lot could happen: Time as he experienced had “telescoped,” he said. His circadian rhythm of wakefulness and sleep stretched from 24 to about 25 hours. And what felt to him like one month was in fact two on the surface.“After one or two days, you don’t remember what you have done a day or two before,” he told Cabinet, an art and culture magazine, in 2008. “The only things that change are when you wake up and when you go to bed. Besides that, it’s entirely black. It’s like one long day.”Mr. Siffre, who died on Aug. 25 in Nice, was a leading figure in the field of chronobiology, the study of how the human body understands time. Previous scientists had speculated that, contrary to the prevailing idea at the time, our internal clocks are independent of the solar cycle, even as we usually adjust to its influence. Through decades of experiments beginning with that 1962 descent, he proved it.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      With ‘Drag Race France Live,’ France’s Drag Queens Answer Hatred With Glitter

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      Answering hatred with glitter is a time-honored drag tradition that France’s answer to “RuPaul’s Drag Race” is keeping alive in a new stage spectacle.The Paris Olympics may be over, but the event is still on the minds of many in the city — and not just sports aficionados. On Tuesday, the audience at “Drag Race France Live,” a stage version of France’s “RuPaul’s Drag Race” equivalent, erupted in cheers at the mere mention of the Games’ opening ceremony.The host of both shows, the drag queen Nicky Doll, made jokes about her own appearance in the outsize display on the Seine river, which was directed by Thomas Jolly. Then she hinted at the international backlash to the tableau she took part in, which some people read as a mockery of the biblical Last Supper — or even a display of Satanism.“If I’m a Satanist, I sold my soul for waterproof products,” Nicky Doll told the crowd, referring to the downpour of rain that marred the show in July.For French drag, the Olympics’ opening ceremony came at a pivotal moment.France was relatively late to embracing American-style drag: While the country has a long cabaret tradition, it used to favor “transformiste” drag performers, who impersonate real-life artists instead of creating a character of their own. “Drag Race France,” the TV show, didn’t premiere until 2022. (“RuPaul’s Drag Race” first aired in 2009.) Yet the French show’s winners, and Nicky Doll, quickly became mainstream figures. The inclusion of drag queens in the opening ceremony pointed to their newfound prominence within French culture.Yet what could have been a moment of cultural consecration soon turned sour. Shortly after the broadcast in July, a number of conservative figures in France and abroad took aim at the scene featuring drag queens. In it, the queens gathered around a table surrounding the DJ and activist Barbara Butch, who wore a halo-like headdress. While Jolly denied that the tableau was inspired by Leonardo da Vinci’s “The Last Supper,” describing it instead as “a grand pagan festival,” he was nonetheless accused of insulting Christianity and received death threats.Nicky Doll performing in Cannes, France, in May. The Olympics opening ceremony, which she took part in, drew ire from right-wing activists and some Christians.Jerome Dominé/Abaca/Sipa USA, via Associated PressWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      El posible segundo atentado contra Trump genera alarma en el extranjero

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      Existe la preocupación generalizada de que las elecciones de noviembre no acaben bien y de que la democracia estadounidense haya llegado a un punto crítico.[Estamos en WhatsApp. Empieza a seguirnos ahora]En los nueve años transcurridos desde que Donald Trump entró en la política estadounidense, la percepción global de Estados Unidos se ha visto sacudida por la imagen de una nación fracturada e impredecible. Primero un atentado contra la vida del expresidente, y ahora un segundo posible atentado, han acentuado la preocupación internacional, suscitando temores de una agitación violenta que podría desembocar en una guerra civil.Keir Starmer, el primer ministro británico, ha dicho que está “muy preocupado” y “profundamente perturbado” por lo que, según el FBI, fue un intento de asesinar a Trump en su campo de golf de Florida, a menos de 50 días de las elecciones presidenciales y dos meses después de que una bala ensangrentó la oreja de Trump durante un mitin de campaña en Pensilvania.“La violencia no tiene cabida alguna en un proceso político”, afirmó Starmer.Sin embargo, la violencia ha tenido un lugar preponderante en esta tormentosa y tambaleante campaña política estadounidense, y no solo en los dos posibles intentos de asesinato. Ahora existe una preocupación generalizada en todo el mundo de que las elecciones de noviembre no acaben bien y de que la democracia estadounidense, que solía ser un modelo para el mundo, haya llegado a un punto crítico.En México, donde este año se celebraron las elecciones más violentas de la historia reciente del país, con 41 candidatos y aspirantes a cargos públicos asesinados, el presidente Andrés Manuel López Obrador dijo en una publicación en la plataforma social X: “Aun cuando todavía no se conoce bien lo sucedido, lamentamos la violencia producida en contra del expresidente Donald Trump. El camino es la democracia y la paz”.En un momento de guerras en Europa y el Medio Oriente y de inseguridad global generalizada mientras China y Rusia afirman la superioridad de sus modelos autócratas, la precariedad estadounidense pesa bastante.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Paris Throws a Final Olympics Bash

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      Tens of thousands cheered, clapped, danced and sang to celebrate French athletes and to relive, one last time, the Games that uplifted a nation.Paris threw its last Olympics party on Saturday, a buoyant, nostalgia-tinged celebration of the 2024 Games that drew tens of thousands of cheering spectators to the streets of the French capital for a parade of athletes and an outdoor concert around the Arc de Triomphe.The festivities started with smoky blue, white and red fireworks, echoing the start of the opening ceremony on the Seine. Flag-waving crowds then roared and sang France’s national anthem as more than 300 French Olympic and Paralympic contestants paraded up the Champs-Élysées on a giant white runway.“Thank you all,” Teddy Riner, the French judo legend, told ecstatic spectators as they sounded air horns and chanted athletes’ names. “It was incredible!”Medal-winning athletes were later decorated with state honors, some of them by retired French sports legends, and a handful were honored by President Emmanuel Macron himself. France won 64 medals, putting it in the top five of the Olympics medals count. And it earned 75 medals at the Paralympics.Athletes paraded up the Champs-Élysées on a giant white runway.Gonzalo Fuentes/ReutersAfter night fell, the Olympic cauldron floated into the air one last time and a highlight reel of the Games was projected onto the Arc de Triomphe. Performers from the opening and closing ceremonies also returned for an encore on a ring-shaped stage around the famous monument (including Philippe Katerine, a.k.a blue Smurf guy). French fencers, rugby players and others led the concertgoers through giant karaoke sessions.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More