Author: France 24

Family, friends and stars from the world of football are set to gather on Saturday for the funeral of Liverpool and Portugal forward Diogo Jota who died with his brother on Thursday in a motor accident. The ceremony will take place in Jota’s hometown of Gondomar, near Porto. 

You might picture the stereotypical French person wearing a beret, with a glass of wine in one hand and a cigarette in the other. But does France deserve its chain-smoking reputation? While many tourists say large numbers of smokers are one of the first things they notice in France, statistics show that their number is in fact dropping dramatically. So what steps has the government taken to get people to stop smoking? We take a closer look in this edition of French Connections

Pavel Durov, the enigmatic Russian-born billionaire boss of messaging app Telegram, has his third audience with a French investigating magistrate in the coming days, following his dramatic arrest 10 months ago on wide-ranging charges including complicity in terrorist content, drug trafficking and child sex abuse material.

The United Nations Human Rights Office said on Friday it had recorded at least 613 killings over the course of a month in Gaza near humanitarian convoys run by the US and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), as well as other aid points run by relief organisations, including the United Nations.

In this edition of arts24: the first of the Oasis brothers Noel and Liam Gallagher’s concerts in Cardiff kicks off a 41-date world tour; a landmark exhibition celebrates a master of Post-Impressionism – Paul Cézanne – in Aix-en-Provence, the French city where he grew up; and we shine a spotlight on Bollywood leading lady Alia Bhatt, who talks about her new female-led spy drama, “Alpha”.

Jota and his brother both died in a car accident in the Spanish province of Zamora. Fans gather at Anfield stadium to pay tribute to them. 

They burst onto the scene four years ago and are taking over the pharmaceutical world. New GLP-1-based drugs like Ozempic, Wegovy or Zepbound are said to be a weight-loss game changer and could drive big pharma’s revenue for years to come. But they come with a hefty price tag, while some 50 to 70 percent of people taking GLP-1s suffer side effects. Charles Pellegrin asks Frederic Bizard, a health economist and professor at ESCP Business School, who has the most to gain from this pharma revolution.

A walkout by French air traffic controllers is causing major disruptions to summer travel, impacting not just French airports but also the country’s airspace. The US House of Representatives has passed Donald Trump’s sweeping budget bill, stripping millions of Americans of food benefits. Plus, France’s antitrust agency is fining fast-fashion retailer Shein €40 million for deceptive business practices.

An Israeli air strike on a school sheltering Palestinians displaced by the Israel-Hamas war killed at least 15 people, taking Thursday’s overall death toll from Israeli attacks to 69, Gaza’s civil defence agency said. The strike comes amid renewed talks on a ceasefire proposal, with US President Donald Trump aiming for an initial 60-day truce.

Pro-Tibetan groups are suing the Musée Guimet in Paris, the French capital’s best known Asian art museum, over its decision to rename its Nepal-Tibet room as “Himalayan world”. Lawyers for the plaintiffs accuse the museum of “align(ing) itself with Chinese lobbying efforts”.