Takata airbags: Stop-drive order issued for Citroën C3 and DS3 cars produced up to 2019
Confusion has reached a peak, and so has concern. On Tuesday, June 17, at 5 pm, the Stellantis group was unable to explain why a Takata-brand airbag installed in a 2014 Citroën C3 car caused the death of its 37-year-old driver on the highway in the eastern city of Reims on Wednesday, June 11. The airbag, which was supposed to protect the driver in the event of an accident, exploded, causing "very serious injuries" that led to her death, said Reims Prosecutor François Schneider on Tuesday, confirming a report by Radio France from Monday, June 16.
The prosecution opened a manslaughter investigation, then handed the case over to the Paris prosecutor's office, which has centralized all Takata airbag-related cases in France since April. Transport Minister Philippe Tabarot subsequently ordered that all Citroën C3 and DS3 cars in Europe that are still equipped with Takata airbags be taken off the road.
The confusion stemmed from the French recall procedure. Initially, in September 2020, the recall only targeted vehicles equipped with defective airbags located in France's overseas territories, as the gas in the airbags can, due to the greater levels of heat and humidity, deteriorate over time and make them dangerous. In July 2023, a new measure was introduced, never before used: a "stop drive" order for the affected vehicles. In May 2024, this measure was extended to cover the southern half of France.
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LeMonde
12 hours ago
- LeMonde
Rape trial of France's feminist icon Gisèle Pelicot being retold on Vienna stage
A staged reading of selected fragments of the trial that made Frenchwoman Gisèle Pelicot, who survived nearly a decade of rapes by dozens of men, a worldwide feminist icon will premiere in Vienna on Wednesday, June 18. The staging is the latest project of Vienna Festival director Milo Rau, one of many who followed last year's mass rape trial in the southern French city of Avignon. Unusually for such trials, the hearings were held in open court after Pelicot insisted it be held in public, a decision that meant it received international media coverage and generated fierce debate. Rau delved into the files "in a bid to make the trial public" while detaching it from the courtroom, he told Agence France-Presse. The resulting performance is in a sense "an extension of the actions" of Gisele Pelicot, who at a key moment had refused to allow her rapists to be tried behind closed doors, he added. 'Long journey' In The Pelicot Trial, dozens of actors read out statements made in court, as well as texts and material that illustrate the debates the case has generated. Lawyers for the Pelicot family cooperated with the production by supplying documents from the case, but French playwright Servane Decle, 28, said research for the project was still a difficult task. "It was a bit of a challenge to reconstruct the words that were spoken in court," said Decle, who researched journalists' notebooks and news reports for her script. It was equally demanding to include voices from outside the courtroom – to get beyond the sometimes "superficial" framework of the French justice system, which "was not ready to try" more than 50 defendants in court, she said. Those voices included statements from experts and feminists. Wednesday's premiere will start at 9:00 pm in a church in the Austrian capital, and run for up to seven hours. Admission to the staged reading is free and spectators will be able to come and go as they please. It will be "a long journey" that seeks to "pull the threads of all the societal issues behind the trial together," said Decle. The case exposed issues ranging from marital rape to the porn industry and the role of technology, she added. The idea behind the performance is to make it possible to experience "a collective trauma of spending a night together" and wake up in another world, said Rau, emphasising the universal and symbolic nature of the case. 'Second wave of MeToo' movement In December, a French court sentenced Pelicot's former husband, Dominique, to 20 years in prison, a verdict that also made headlines in Austria. So did the sentences handed down to the other 50 co-defendants, all "ordinary men of all ages and from almost all walks of life," according to a text that will be read out as part of the performance. According to actress Safira Robens, preparing for the performance was "very difficult," citing the graphic descriptions of rape, which sometimes haunted her at night. "I'm afraid of the reactions, but the subject is so important that it's worth it," she said, hailing Pelicot for having insisted it was up to rapists – not their victims – to feel ashamed. "She opened the door and triggered a second wave of #MeToo," said Decle. A shortened version of the performance will next be staged in Avignon on 18 July. However, Gisèle Pelicot, 72, will not be there. Since the end of the trial, she has chosen to remain silent, vowing to release her memoirs next year.
France 24
15 hours ago
- France 24
Rape trial of France's feminist icon Pelicot retold on Vienna stage
The staging is the latest project of Vienna Festival director Milo Rau, one of many who followed last year's mass rape trial in the southern French city of Avignon. Unusually for such trials, the hearings were held in open court after Pelicot insisted it be held in public, a decision that meant it received international media coverage and generated fierce debate. Rau delved into the files "in a bid to make the trial public" while detaching it from the courtroom, he told AFP. The resulting performance is in a sense "an extension of the actions" of Gisele Pelicot, who at a key moment had refused to allow her rapists to be tried behind closed doors, he added. 'Long journey' In "The Pelicot Trial", dozens of actors read out statements made in court, but also texts and material that illustrate the debates the case has generated. Lawyers for the Pelicot family cooperated with the production by supplying documents from the case, but French playwright Servane Decle, 28, said research for the project was still a difficult task. "It was a bit of a challenge to reconstruct the words that were spoken in court," said Decle, who researched journalists' notebooks and news reports for her script. It was equally demanding to include voices from outside the courtroom -- to get beyond the sometimes "superficial" framework of the French justice system which "was not ready to try" more than 50 defendants in court, she said. Those voices included statements from experts and feminists. Wednesday's premiere will start at 9:00 pm in a church in the Austrian capital, and run for up to seven hours. Admission to the staged reading is free and spectators will be able to come and go as they please. It will be "a long journey" that seeks to "pull the threads of all the societal issues behind the trial together," said Decle. The case exposed issues ranging from marital rape to the porn industry and the role of technology, she added. The idea behind the performance is to make it possible to experience "a collective trauma of spending a night together" and wake up in another world, said Rau, emphasising the universal and symbolic nature of the case. 'Second wave of MeToo' movement In December, a French court sentenced Pelicot's former husband Dominique to 20 years in prison, a verdict that also made headlines in Austria. So did the sentences handed down to 50 co-defendants, all "ordinary men of all ages and from almost all walks of life", according to a text that will be read out as part of the performance. According to actress Safira Robens, preparing for the performance was "very difficult", citing the graphic descriptions of rape, which sometimes haunted her at night. "I'm afraid of the reactions, but the subject is so important that it's worth it," she said, hailing Pelicot for having insisted it was up to rapists -- not their victims -- to feel ashamed. "She opened the door and triggered a second wave of #MeToo," said Decle. A shortened version of the performance will next be staged in Avignon on 18 July. However, Gisele Pelicot, 72, will not be there.
France 24
15 hours ago
- France 24
'Simply apocalyptic' and 'too risky': Papers react to Gaza aid distribution deaths
With the press focused on news of the ongoing war between Israel and Iran, the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip is deteriorating. The New York Times reports that seeking aid has gotten "just too risky" for some Gazans. "I'll never try again" reads the headline, quoting a Palestinian man who says he saw many dead and injured people while trying to get aid. He tried to get supplies twice and didn't manage to get anything both times, the paper reports. According to The New York Times, more than 70 Palestinians were killed on Monday and Tuesday while trying to reach aid distribution points. Left-wing French daily Le Monde headlines with "In Gaza, humiliation and death to get food". The paper says that dozens of people die every day while trying to reach aid. The paper then talks about a video filmed on June 11 of starving Gazans on their feet for hours, waiting for the start of the aid distribution. When it finally begins, Le Monde describes an image of a "wild, desperate stampede". An Israeli activist interviewed by the paper describes the video as "simply apocalyptic", saying that "this is the hell we've created in Gaza". Finally, the British daily The Guardian has an editorial on what it calls "Gaza's engineered famine". "Stop arming the slaughter – or lose the rule of law", writes the paper. It says that while Palestinians starve, Western governments "defend Israel and dismantle the very rules they claim to uphold". We turn next to Kosovo, where it's been 26 years after the massacre carried out by Serbs in Pristina during the 1998-1999 war. Balkan Insight reports in collaboration with the BIRN (Balkan Investigative Reporting Network) that the trial over the Pristina massacre finally started on Monday. The analysis says it's still unclear whether justice is being served. Many of the defendants didn't show up in court and are being tried in absentia because they are out of reach to the Kosovo authorities. The paper says there is almost no judicial cooperation with the Serbian legal authorities. Pristina Insight reports that one Serb has since been found guilty of wartime rape of an ethnic Albanian woman. He has been sentenced to 15 years in jail. The trial was held behind closed doors to protect the victim's identity. The paper says that few wartime rape survivors in Kosovo have spoken out about what they went through because of the social stigma around sexual abuse that remains hard to break. In Brazil, actions threatening the Amazon contradict President Lula's environmental promises. The Conversation writes about Brazil's "bill of devastation" that's pushing the Amazon towards a tipping point in terms of temperature and longer dry seasons. The bill has Lula's implicit approval, despite his climate ambitions. The bill is said to relieve "low-impact projects" of unnecessary bureaucracy. But the paper says it will allow the state to attract investment by loosening environmental restrictions. Another project is putting the river in danger. French left-wing L'Humanité reports that Brazil is auctioning off oil and gas concessions "to the delight of the oil and gas industry". The concessions will be around the mouth of the Amazon River. Environmentalists believe that Brazil's credibility on climate issues has been seriously damaged and thatLula is betting on oil and gas expansion to stimulate economic growth. Finally, Brad Pitt has been working on a new film with a straightforward title: F1: The Movie. The Telegraph calls it Pitt's new 'spectacular racing drama' that's like "Barbie for Dads". Pitt's pre-premiere fashion is also dividing the papers The Times calls it "Brad's midlife crisis wardrobe" and according to Harper's Bazaar, he has unleashed his "inner fashion guy" with his latest outfits – velvet blue vest, an all-yellow fit and a tie-dye ensemble.
