Lunchtime News Friday 2nd October 2020

Local 

Storm Alex - The Alpes Maritimes has been place on a red weather alert due to Storm Alex with heavy rainfall and strong winds forecast. The warning remains in place until 3am Saturday morning.

Schools have been closed in the region as a precaution and the prefect has asked people to “stay home”.

Most of France is expected to experience bad weather due to Storm Alex which hit Brittany first on Thursday evening with over 80 interventions from emergency services and 80,000 homes being left without electricity.

Fight against pollution - Founder of “one piece of rubbish, a waste per day” Edmund Platt has set himself a challenge to walk 700 km from Marseille to Paris to fight against the pollution from single-use masks.

The Englishman’s challenge for the last five years has been to pick up "one piece of rubbish a day", throw it in a bin and post it on social networks hoping to create "a snowball effect".

In addition to this new challenge, Edmund organizes numerous waste collections in Marseille to clean the beaches and different neighborhoods throughout the year.

Electric scooters - Police in Toulon have been carrying out checks on electric scooters. They are reminding the public of the numerous requirements applying to the operation of trottinettes electriques including having lights at the front and back, the prohibition on the wearing of headphones, riding on pavements and speeds of over 25km per hour and also the requirement to wear reflective clothing at night and in conditions of reduced visibility.

National

French President - French President Emmanuel Macron will today unveil his action plan to better protect the Republic against "separatism", mainly that of radical Islamism.

The Head of State plans to finalise the bill by mid-October so that it can be presented to the Council of Ministers in early December.

Covid-19 - Paris and several other cities, including Lille and Toulouse, have until Monday before possibly being classified as a maximum alert zone due to the circulation of Covid-19.

France’s health minister said that “it all depended on the progress of the coronavirus over the weekend” which could see  tougher measures introduced from Monday 5th October.

And Finally

A British football fanatic will retire from the game today, playing his last competitive match at the age of 80.

Peter Webster, who lives in Wollongong, Australia, said he had known for a while that he did not contribute to matches as much as he once did.

Mr Webster was born in Preston, England, but moved to Wales in 1948. He only started playing the game competitively at 15, having gone to a school where rugby dominated.