The Local France

Frenchwoman who escaped Nazi massacre dies aged 100

Fri, 03 Oct 2025 10:40:16 +0200

Camille Senon, a feminist and union activist who narrowly escaped the Nazi massacre in her French village of Oradour-sur-Glane died on Thursday aged 100, the mayor’s office said.

Normandy to update bid for World Heritage status for France's D-Day beaches

Wed, 30 Oct 2024 17:35:26 +0100

French officials have ‘relaunched’ a bid to have the D-Day landing beaches protected by UNESCO World Heritage listing.

Macron and ex-PM Philippe honour bloody liberation of French port

Fri, 13 Sep 2024 11:23:37 +0200

Emmanuel Macron and former prime minister Edouard Philippe, who hopes to succeed the French president in 2027, marked the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the port of Le Havre from Nazi occupation.

Suspects in Paris Holocaust memorial defacement fled abroad: prosecutors

Wed, 22 May 2024 18:32:05 +0200

French police have tracked three suspects in last week's defacement of the Paris Holocaust memorial across the border into Belgium, prosecutors said.

Fortress Europe? The Nazi 'wall' that failed to prevent D-Day

Wed, 22 May 2024 18:16:46 +0200

As the 80th anniversary of D-Day approaches, what became of the German-built Atlantic Wall defences intended to keep the Allies at bay?

Paris Holocaust memorial defaced with red hand graffiti

Wed, 15 May 2024 11:19:21 +0200

Paris memorial was vandalised with anti-Semitic image on the anniversary of the first major round-up of French Jews under the Nazis in 1941.

Rising sea levels threaten Normandy's historic D-Day beaches

Tue, 07 May 2024 16:47:05 +0200

As France prepares to mark the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings, erosion and rising sea levels are threatening to strip away what remains of the physical history of the Allied invasion of Europe

Macron recognises 'errors' of French WWII collaborators in Resistance tribute

Wed, 17 Apr 2024 10:43:04 +0200

President Emmanuel Macron hailed the heroism of members of the World War Two Resistance based on a remote Alpine plateau, but also remembered the 'errors' of French collaborationist forces who sided with the Germans against them.

Memorial Day weekend tribute to OSS commandos in south west France

Wed, 20 Apr 2022 10:52:04 +0200

A US Second World War military operation in southwest France is to be remembered the weekend before Memorial Day to mark the 80th anniversary of the founding of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), a precursor to the CIA.

In Pictures: France pays tribute to 'the other D-Day' soldiers

Thu, 15 Aug 2019 17:04:47 +0200

Seventy-five years ago, French forces and fighters from its African colonies helped liberate France from Nazi Germany. Here's how France commemorated the anniversary.

Nolan's Dunkirk film accused of 'rudely' ignoring France's crucial role in saving British

Wed, 19 Jul 2017 15:24:45 +0200

The blockbuster film Dunkirk hits cinema screens on Wednesday but in France some are miffed that the movie passes over the crucial role the French troops played in saving their British allies. And perhaps rightly so.

3,000 evacuated after 'British' WWII bomb found near Paris

Fri, 09 Dec 2016 11:42:48 +0100

Thousands were forced to leave their home in a town near Paris after construction workers uncovered a 500-kilogramme bomb.

Paris trains run again after WWII bomb defused

Wed, 18 Feb 2015 09:04:00 +0100

UPDATED: Train services in and out of Gare de L'Est in Paris were due to be back up and running on Wednesday morning after a bomb disposal team destroyed a 250kg shell from World War Two, found in a building site near the tracks.

WWII massacre: Case dropped against German

Tue, 09 Dec 2014 11:05:00 +0100

The case against an 89-year-old man from Germany who was charged in connection with the notorious World War II massacre of hundreds of French villagers, was thrown out on Tuesday.

'WW2 bomb' kills camper on French island

Mon, 08 Sep 2014 17:33:00 +0200

A 26-year-old man was killed and a friend seriously injured when a suspected World War Two bomb exploded on an island off the north-west coast of France at the weekend.

D-Day beaches move closer to UNESCO listing

Mon, 13 Jan 2014 13:32:00 +0100

The famous Normandy landing beaches, where thousands were killed on D-Day 1944, have had their chances of becoming UNESCO World Heritage sites boosted. The effort to protect and promote them intensifies as the 70th anniversary of the landings approaches.

Roosevelt son's plane on auction in France

Sat, 15 Jun 2013 11:50:00 +0200

Parts of the plane in which former US president Theodore Roosevelt's pilot son Quentin was shot down in July 1918 will be auctioned off on June 29th in this northwest French town, organisers said Friday.

Uproar over French wind park plan for D-Day sites

Fri, 14 Jun 2013 10:56:00 +0200

A controversy is brewing over plans to construct 75 windmills in Normandy, next to the site of the D-Day landings in WWII. Opponents of the French project say the windpark would be an act of desecration.

France to return stolen artwork to Jewish owners

Thu, 14 Feb 2013 14:05:00 +0100

France will return seven paintings from the 17th and 18th centuries to the heirs of two Jewish families whose artworks were stolen during World War II, the culture ministry told AFP on Thursday.

French Resistance hero dies at 97

Wed, 11 Apr 2012 14:03:00 +0200

Raymond Aubrac, one of the last surviving senior leaders of the French Resistance, has died aged 97 in Paris, his family said on Wednesday.