Belgium Plans To Nationalize Nuclear Power Plants
Belgium plans to buy its seven aging nuclear reactors from French power giant Engie in a “full takeover” aimed at securing domestic energy supplies, extending reactor operations, and developing new nuclear capacity. “The move would also mean suspending plans to decommission nuclear operations in Belgium,” reports the BBC. From the report: The move would reverse the phase- … ⌘ Read more
French Prosecutors Link 15-Year-Old To Mega-Breach At State’s Secure Document Agency
French prosecutors say police detained a 15-year-old suspected of using the alias “breach3d” in connection with a cyberattack on France Titres (ANTS), the state agency that handles passports, ID cards, and other secure documents. The breach allegedly involved 12 million to 18 million lines of data offered for … ⌘ Read more
Trump Administration Will Pay More Energy Firms to Cancel Wind Farms
The Trump administration says it will reimburse energy companies $885 million to cancel two planned offshore wind farms, with the firms in turn agreeing to put money into oil and gas projects instead. “The deals are modeled after a similar agreement last month with the French energy giant TotalEnergies,” notes the New York Times. “Tota … ⌘ Read more
France Confirms Data Breach At Government Agency That Manages Citizens’ IDs
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: The French government agency that handles the issuing and management of citizens’ identity documents, including national IDs, passports, and immigration documents, confirmed Wednesday that it experienced a data breach. In an announcement, the Agence Nationale des Titres Secur … ⌘ Read more
France’s Government Is Ditching Windows For Linux
France says it plans to move some government computers from Windows to Linux as part of a broader push for digital sovereignty and reduced dependence on U.S. technology. TechCrunch reports: In a statement, French minister David Amiel said (translated) that the effort was to “regain control of our digital destiny” by relying less on U.S. tech companies. Amiel said that the Fre … ⌘ Read more
UFC-Que Choisir Takes Ubisoft To French Court Over the Crew Shutdown
Longtime Slashdot reader Elektroschock writes: When Ubisoft pulled the plug on The Crew’s servers without warning, players were left with a worthless game they’d already paid for. Now, consumer watchdog UFC-Que Choisir is fighting back, demanding gamers’ right to play regardless of publisher whims. Supported by the “Stop Killing Games” mov … ⌘ Read more
Trump Administration To Pay French Company $1 Billion To Stop Offshore Wind Farms
An anonymous reader quotes a report from NPR: The Trump administration will pay $1 billion to a French company to walk away from two U.S. offshore wind leases as the administration ramps up its campaign against offshore wind and other renewable energy. TotalEnergies has agreed to what’s essentially a refund of its … ⌘ Read more
Officer Leaks Location of French Aircraft Carrier With Strava Run
schwit1 shares a report from the BBC: A French officer has reportedly revealed the location of an aircraft carrier deployed towards the Middle East after publicly registering a run on sports app Strava. French news outlet Le Monde first reported the officer, referred to as Arthur, logged a 35-minute run on the app while exercising on the deck o … ⌘ Read more
The Music Industry Enters Its Less-Is-More Era
The music industry’s long romance with an ever-expanding catalog of songs appears to be souring, as streaming platforms and rights holders confront a daily deluge that now includes 60,000 wholly AI-generated tracks uploaded to Deezer alone – roughly 39% of the French service’s daily intake, a statistic the company shared during Grammys week last month.
Streaming services … ⌘ Read more
Anthropic’s Claude Got 11% User Boost from Super Bowl Ad Mocking ChatGPT’s Advertising
Anthropic saw visits to its site jump 6.5% after Sunday’s Super Bowl ad mocking ChatGPT’s advertising, reports CNBC (citing data analyzed by French financial services company BNP Paribas).
The Claude gain, which took it into the top 10 free apps on the Apple App Store, beat out chatbot and AI competitors OpenA … ⌘ Read more
The European Commission Is Testing an Open Source Alternative To Microsoft Teams
The European Commission is preparing to trial a communications platform built on Matrix, the open source messaging protocol already used by the French government, German healthcare providers and European armed forces, as a sovereign backup to Microsoft Teams.
Signal currently serves as the backup tool but has proven to … ⌘ Read more
Five French Ubisoft Unions Call For Massive International Strike Over ‘Cost-Cutting’ and Ending of Remote Work
Five French unions representing Ubisoft workers “have called for a ‘massive international strike’,” reports the gaming news site Aftermath.
The move follows a “series of layoffs and cancellations” at Ubisoft, the article points out, plus what the company calls … ⌘ Read more
French Lawmakers Vote To Ban Social Media Use By Under-15s
French lawmakers have voted to ban social media access for children under 15 and prohibit mobile phones in high schools, positioning France as the second country after Australia to impose sweeping age-based digital restrictions. The Guardian reports: The lower national assembly adopted the text by a vote of 130 to 21 in a lengthy overnight session from Mon … ⌘ Read more
Ubisoft Cancels Six Games, Slashes Guidance in Restructuring
Ubisoft is canceling game projects, shutting down studios and cutting its guidance as the Assassin’s Creed maker restructures its business into five units. From a report: The French gaming firm expects earnings before interest and tax to be a loss of $1.2 billion the fiscal year 2025-2026 as a result of the restructuring, driven by a one-off writedown of … ⌘ Read more
French-UK Starlink Rival Pitches Canada On ‘Sovereign’ Satellite Service
An anonymous reader quotes a report from CBC.ca: A company largely owned by the French and U.K. governments is pitching Canada on a roughly $250-million plan to provide the military with secure satellite broadband coverage in the Arctic, CBC News has learned. Eutelsat, a rival to tech billionaire Elon Musk’s Starlink, already provid … ⌘ Read more
French Court Orders Google DNS to Block Pirate Sites, Dismisses ‘Cloudflare-First’ Defense
Paris Judicial Court ordered Google to block additional pirate sports-streaming domains at the DNS level, rejecting Google’s argument that enforcement should target upstream providers like Cloudflare first. “The blockade was requested by Canal+ and aims to stop pirate streams of Champions League game … ⌘ Read more
HarperCollins Will Use AI To Translate Harlequin Romance Novels
Book publisher HarperCollins said it will start translating romance novels under its famous Harlequin label in France using AI, reducing or eliminating the pay for the team of human contract translators who previously did this work. 404Media: Publisher’s Weekly broke the news in English after French outlets reported on the story in December. Accord … ⌘ Read more
France Pushes Back Plastic Cup Ban By Four Years
An anonymous reader shares a report: The French government on Dec 30 postponed a ban on plastic throwaway cups by four years to 2030 because of difficulties finding alternatives. The ban was meant to start on Jan 1. But the Ministry for Ecological Transition said the “technical feasibility of eliminating plastic from cups” following a review in 2025 justified pushing back the d … ⌘ Read more
Fake Video Claiming ‘Coup In France’ Goes Viral
alternative_right shares a report from Euronews: France’s President Emmanuel Macron discovered news of his own supposed overthrow, after he received a message of concern, along with a link to a Facebook video. “On Sunday (14 December) one of my African counterparts got in touch, writing ‘Dear president, what’s happening to you? I’m very worried,’” Macron told readers of French local ne … ⌘ Read more
Gaza named deadliest place for journalists in 2025
Gaza has been named the deadliest place in the world to work as a journalist by French-based press freedom advocates Reporters Without Borders. ⌘ Read more
Nigel Farage meets French far-right leader in London
National Rally president Jordan Bardella says he believes the Reform UK leader will become the next British PM. ⌘ Read more
Benin coup attempt foiled by loyalist troops, interior minister says
A presidential adviser has told the BBC that President Talon is safe and is at the French embassy. ⌘ Read more
Benin coup attempt foiled by loyalist troops, minister says on state TV
A presidential adviser has told the BBC that President Talon is safe and is at the French embassy. ⌘ Read more
Soldiers in Benin say they have seized power from President Talon
A message from the French embassy in Benin said gunfire had been reported near the residence of the president. ⌘ Read more
Soldiers in Benin say they have seized power from President Talon
A message from the French embassy in Benin said gunfire had been reported near the residence of the president. ⌘ Read more
Soldiers in Benin say they have seized power from President Talon
A message from the French embassy in Benin said gunfire had been reported near the residence of the president. ⌘ Read more
Soldiers in Benin say they have seized power from President Talon
A message from the French embassy in Benin said gunfire had been reported near the residence of the president. ⌘ Read more
Zelenskyy eyes talks with Trump on ‘key issues’ as Witkoff heads to Moscow
The Ukrainian president meets French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris as he sounds out European allies on Washington’s blueprint to end Russia’s war. ⌘ Read more
French prisoners escape jail using saw and bedsheets
The fugitives broke out of the prison in the eastern city of Dijon in the early hours of Thrusday, local time, and 100 police officers are on their trail. ⌘ Read more
France to reintroduce voluntary military service amid growing threat of war with Russia
French President Emmanuel Macron is reintroducing voluntary military service almost three decades after it was scrapped. ⌘ Read more
Scientists Confirmed What Is Inside Our Moon
alternative_right shares a report from ScienceAlert: A thorough investigation published in May 2023 found that the inner core of the Moon is, in fact, a solid ball with a density similar to that of iron. To figure it out once and for all, [astronomer Arthur Briaud of the French National Centre for Scientific Research in France] and his colleagues collected data from space mission … ⌘ Read more
France Fully Lifts Travel Ban on Telegram Founder Durov
An anonymous reader shares a report: France has lifted its travel ban on Telegram founder Pavel Durov, who is under investigation over illegal content on his messaging app, judicial sources close to the case said Thursday. The entrepreneur, 41, was detained in Paris in 2024 and is under formal investigation by French authorities over the platform’s alleged complic … ⌘ Read more
US strikes against boats in Caribbean ‘disregard international law’, French minister says ⌘ Read more
Algeria Pardons Writer Boualem Sansal at Germany’s Request
Boualem Sansal, an Algerian-French writer, was arrested on accusations of undermining national security during a visit to his homeland a year ago and sentenced to five years in prison. ⌘ Read more
French foreign minister says US military operations in Caribbean violate international law ⌘ Read more
French lawmakers vote to tax American retirees who freely benefit from social security ⌘ Read more
The First New Subsea Habitat In 40 Years Is About To Launch
An anonymous reader quotes a report from MIT Technology Review: Vanguard feels and smells like a new RV. It has long, gray banquettes that convert into bunks, a microwave cleverly hidden under a counter, a functional steel sink with a French press and crockery above. A weird little toilet hides behind a curtain. But some clues hint that you can’t just f … ⌘ Read more
French Army Chief General Says France is Ready to Send 7,000 Troops to Ukraine ⌘ Read more
Two arrested over theft of jewels at Louvre, French media report ⌘ Read more
Former French President Sarkozy begins serving a five-year prison term ⌘ Read more
This is my family’s orange girl, Frytka. My mom found her next to the highway — her name means “French fry” in English. ⌘ Read more
French government collapses in 14 hours, deepening political crisis ⌘ Read more
French PM Sebastien Lecornu has resigned ⌘ Read more
French prosecutors launch war-crimes probe into photojournalist’s death in Ukraine ⌘ Read more
Cat saved by French firemen from a building fire ⌘ Read more
Huckabee suggests Paris give Palestinians state in French Riviera ⌘ Read more
French surgeon sentenced to 20 years in prison for raping and abusing hundreds of patients ⌘ Read more
French paedophile surgeon who abused hundreds sentenced to 20 years in jail ⌘ Read more