Latest news with #LaVoixduNord
Ya Biladi
23-03-2025
- Politics
- Ya Biladi
France deports Moroccan father, leaving family in turmoil
Hassan Y., a 46-year-old Moroccan, was expelled from France after legally residing there for 24 years. A father of 13-year-old twins and partner to a French woman, he was deported to Morocco on February 21. His expulsion, justified by a criminal record with 13 convictions between 2005 and 2023, was carried out without allowing him to say goodbye to his family, La Voix du Nord reports. According to the Haute-Saône prefecture, his convictions—totaling more than six years in prison—were deemed incompatible with integration into France. However, his lawyer, Anne-Sophie Mang, argues that he had always maintained legal residency, had started a scrap metal business, and was a homeowner with his partner in Anchenoncourt-et-Chazel. His family describes the expulsion as brutal: «They tied him from the ankles to the waist, put a helmet with breathing holes on him, and kept him bent over for three hours during the flight», says Catherine Gueth, his partner. «The children didn't even get to say goodbye», she laments. Now in Morocco with no resources or connections, Hassan faces an uncertain future. His lawyer denounces a deportation based solely on his criminal record and raises concerns about a possible procedural error: a case was still pending before the administrative court of Besançon, yet the prefecture allegedly failed to inform the court of his detention. «He was neither a terrorist, nor a rapist, nor a murderer. He served his sentences and paid his fines», insists Mang, who has sent a letter to the Minister of the Interior to challenge the decision. «Today, a family's life has been destroyed».
The Guardian
12-02-2025
- Business
- The Guardian
‘Young people no longer peel much': what's behind the French frozen chip boom?
Name: Frites surgelées. I beg your pardon? Sorry, that's frozen chips to you non-French-speakers. Age: Plus de 75 ans. Stop this, and why are you speaking in French anyway? Because frozen chips are undergoing a spectacular boom in France, where farmers are so desperate to meet the demand for ice-cold potato products that they're ripping up other crops to plant even more spuds. Mon dieu! See, now you're doing it! So which uncouth country are they selling all these frozen chips to? It's going to be the UK, isn't it? Nope: it's the French themselves, who are said to have developed an insatiable appetite for the snack. But this is France! Home of bouillabaisse and boeuf bourgignon! Surely these gastronomic elites don't eat such rubbish? It seems the French are actually rather keen on la malbouffe (junk food) these days. There's been roughly a 25% rise in the French frozen chip market over recent years, according to La Voix du Nord, and they're not just munching on the stylish, slender French fry but the thick-cut British oven chip too. Scandaleux! It's apparently being driven by French youth, who can't be bothered faffing around in the kitchen. 'Young generations no longer peel much,' is how Ward Claerbout, legal and external affairs director for Belgian frozen chip giant Agristo, puts it. It's all the fault of those pesky young people again, I see. Isn't everything? But the rapid expansion is also being blamed on Dutch and Belgian farmers who, unable to buy land in their own countries, are snapping up territory in northern France. Apparently, in Chip Valley, fields worth €15,000 a hectare three years ago are now exchanging hands for almost double that. Sorry, in where? Oh yes, Chip Valley – or La Vallée de la Frite as it's become known. It's the new Silicon Valley. Only for, erm, chips. And just as lucrative? According to a report in the Times, the global market in frozen potato products is expected to grow from $7.27bn in 2023 to $89.51bn in 2029! People are going to be eating more than 12 times as many chips in six years' time?! That's not going to help the obesity crisis. Relax, the Times got their sums wrong: the actual 2023 figure is $67.27bn, so we will be eating a lot more chips, but not participating in a global edition of Man v Food. Do say: Got any McCains to go with this duck à l'orange? Don't say: Je préfère le riz.
