French and Riviera News Monday 6th November 2023

News

Weather  - Eight departments were still on an orange weather alert on Sunday following the arrival of storm Domingos at the weekend. Nearly 110,000 homes were without electricity, and the railway network had been severely damaged. Today Monday 6th November, vigilance will be maintained in seven departments due to the risk of flooding. While Domingos was not as severe as Storm Ciaran which hit the region just a few days earlier claiming 3 lives and injuring at least 47 people, it still managed to see winds of 152km/hr hit the coastline in northwestern France and five people were reported injured.

Antisemitic acts have exploded in France since 7 October - According to France’s interior minister, Gérald Darmanin, France has recorded more than a thousand antisemitic acts since the deadly 7th October attack by Hamas gunmen on Israel. The minister has revealed that 486 people had been arrested for such offences, including 102 foreigners. France’s Jewish population, estimated at over 500,000, is the largest in Europe and the third-biggest in the world, after Israel and the US.

Demonstrations to “save Gaza” - More than 300 people have gathered in Toulon in the Var in the name of peace and to “save Gaza”. Sunday saw associations and political movements demonstration in the city’s streets for a third time since the conflict began calling for a “general and immediate ceasefire". Some demonstrators brandished an olive branch to signify the main message