A pregnant woman was mauled to death by dogs in France as she walked through a forest where a deer hunt was taking place.
The body of 29-year-old Elisa Pilarski, who was six months pregnant, was discovered in a forest near to the town of Villers-Cotterets, some 55 miles north-east of Paris, on Saturday.
Ms Pilarsk bled to death after suffering bits from several dogs to her arms, legs and head, according to an autopsy report.
Prosecutor Frederic Trinh added that some of the bites were “post-mortem”.
Pregnant woman mauled to death by dogs while walking in forest during hunt Elisa Pilarski was mauled to death as she walked her own dog in a forest
Ms Pilarski, who had been walking her own dogs but was not part of the hunt, is said to have called her husband shortly before her death to tell him there were “threatening dogs” near her and she was afraid she would be attacked.
Focus Features has taken international rights to Robert Eggers’ “The Lighthouse,” ahead of its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival. Universal Pictures International will distribute the film internationally. The film, which stars Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson, will debut at the festival in Director’s Fortnight on May 19.
Selena Gomez, Julianne Moore and Eva Longoria were among the stars who helped kick off the Cannes Film Festival in France today
Eggers highly-anticipated sophomore feature following his 2015 breakout “The Witch,” “The Lighthouse” is described as an hypnotic and hallucinatory story of two lighthouse keepers on a remote and mysterious New England island in the 1890s. It is co-written by Eggers with his brother Max Eggers.
“The Lighthouse” is produced by Jay Van Hoy for Parts & Labor, Rodrigo Teixeira and Lourenço Sant’ Anna for RT Features, and Youree Henley. A24 and New Regency co-financed the production.
A24, which co-financed the film with New Regency, will distribute the film in North America. Focus and A24 also collaborated on Eggers’ “The Witch.”
Protesters stand next to burning motorbikes and scooters during an anti-government demonstration called by the yellow vests. Photograph: Anne-Christine Poujoulat/AFP/Getty Images
Police fire tear gas in clashes with yellow-vest protestors
Clashes broke out between dozens of demonstrators and police in Paris on the 23rd Saturday of yellow–vest protests after authorities warned that rioters could return to the French capital to spark a new wave of violence.
Dozens of hooded demonstrators threw rocks at police and some set fire to scooters and rubbish bins in the centre of the French capital, according to Reuters TV footage.
Police responded by firing tear gas and stun grenades. Some officers also marched toward demonstrators to control the crowd and funnel it to Paris’ Place de la République, where most of the demonstrators were contained in the late afternoon.
Anti-riot police hold a position during clashes in Paris, as thousands of yellow-vest protesters took to the streets in the 23rd week of anti-government marches. Photograph: Anne-Christine Poujoulat/AFP/Getty Images
As of the 1pm local time, a total of 9,600 people were demonstrating across France, including 6,700 in Paris, the interior ministry said.
This is more than last week’s protest, which drew 7,500 demonstrators, but represents only a fraction of the record 282,000 estimated on November 17th, the first day of the protests.
As of 2pm, 110 people had been arrested and placed in custody, the Paris prosecutor’s office said.
Several demonstrators alluded to the catastrophic fire at Notre-Dame Cathedral on Monday, which prompted an outpouring of national sorrow and a rush by wealthy families and corporations to pledge around €1 billion for its reconstruction.
Yellow-vest demonstrators in Paris. Photograph: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images
“Millions for Notre Dame, what about for us, the poor?” read a sign worn by a demonstrator. “Everything for Notre Dame, nothing for the misérables,” read another sign that evoked Victor Hugo’s well-known novel.
The city was on high alert after Christophe Castaner, the interior minister, said domestic intelligence services had informed him of a potential return of rioters intent on wreaking havoc in Paris, Toulouse, Montpellier and Bordeaux, in a repeat of violent protests which took place on March 16th.
Large portions of the Paris metro network were closed and about 60,000 police were deployed across France, authorities said.
Police also fired tear gas in the city of Toulouse, where thousands of people were demonstrating, including hundreds of motorcyclists holding a large banner asking for president Emmanuel Macron’s resignation.
There were about 1,500 to 2,000 people demonstrating in the streets of Bordeaux, according to a Reuters witness.
The yellow-vest protests erupted in mid-November 2018 over fuel price hikes and the high cost of living but spiralled into a broader movement against Mr Macron and his drive for economic reforms.
The French leader was due to unveil policies to quell the grassroots movement on Monday before the blaze at Notre Dame forced him to cancel the speech. He is now set to make his announcements next Thursday. – Reuters
France will hold a competition among international architects to design a new spire for the Notre Dame Cathedral after the one atop the famed church collapsed in this week’s fire, the country’s prime minister said.
Edouard Philippe said Wednesday that officials will consider whether the new spire should replicate the one that fell in Monday’s blaze or have its own original design.
“This is obviously a huge challenge, a historic responsibility,” Philippe said. “Should we rebuild the spire envisaged and built by Viollet-le-Duc under the same conditions … (or) give Notre Dame a new spire adapted to the technologies and the challenges of our times?”
The destroyed 300-foot spire was not an original piece on the medieval cathedral. It was designed and built by Eugène Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc during his 19th-century restoration.
French President Emmanuel Macron said Tuesday that he wants to see the 12th-century cathedral rebuilt within five years, but experts in French Gothic architecture said it could take at least 10 years to rebuild.
‘A matter of life’: Why Notre Dame didn’t completely crumble in the blaze. And why it could take decades to repair.
Nearly $1 billion in donations have been pledged for reconstruction efforts. Engineers and historians are likely to put up a temporary roof to protect the cathedral from the elements, assess damage and salvage materials.
Structural engineers, stained-glass experts and stonemasons from across the globe are likely to head to Paris to help with restorations in the next few weeks.
How relics were saved: Paris Fire Brigade chaplain braved the blaze to rescue cathedral treasures
When Viollet-le-Duc restored the building, he “brought something to the character of Notre Dame,” said John J. Casbarian, dean emeritus at Rice University’s School of Architecture, who oversees the school’s program in Paris.
“He restored things in the spirit of the past, but he was also using more modern materials,” Casbarian said.
Stephen Murray, professor emeritus of medieval art history at Columbia University, worked on 3D scanning Notre Dame’s roof. He said he hopes the new roof is built with not only more fire-proofing but also an eye for architectural achievement.
“A great work of architecture does not just reflect the society it comes from,” Murray said. “It is a way for a group of people to project the future and who they are – their aspirations.”
Contributing: Kim Hjelmgaard in Paris; The Associated Press
STEPHANE CARDINALE – CORBIS VIA GETTY IMAGES Bernard Arnault and wife Helene Arnault arrive for a state dinner at the Elysee Presidential Palace, March 25, 2019, in Paris, France.
PARIS — Two of France’s richest men, long locked in a very public rivalry, are once again pitted against each other — this time over flashy and competing donations to rebuild Notre Dame.
Billionaire luxury tycoons — Bernard Arnault, 70, and Francois Pinault, 82 — are among France’s fiercest business competitors and patrons.
On Tuesday, their rivalry reached dramatic heights when it was announced Pinault, his son and their company Artemis would immediately donate 100 million euros ($113 million) to help finance renovations to Notre Dame after it was seriously damaged in an inferno during building works.
Hours later, Arnault shot back with an announcement that he, his family and his luxury company LVMH would pledge double that amount — 200 million euros ($226 million) — for the restoration of the church that was immortalized in Victor Hugo’s 1831 novel “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” — an eternal story of obsession and jealousy.
The famed rivalry of Arnault and Pinault, whose names rhyme, goes back decades.
“They’re like competing boys, but the stakes run into the billions,” said Long Nguyen, fashion editor at Flaunt magazine.
Arnault is France’s — and Europe’s — richest man and CEO of the world’s biggest luxury group, LVMH, the owner of iconic fashion houses Louis Vuitton and Christian Dior. Pinault founded the world’s second-biggest, Kering, formerly PPR, that acquired rival brand Saint Laurent in a face-off.
“The Notre Dame donations are the latest in a long line … They run competing for fashion houses and both like the centre stage,” he added.
Both men also possess a sizeable art collection — and a desire to show it off in competing museums.
Pinault’s son Francois-Henri married actress Salma Hayek and is often in the society pages, while Arnault’s son Antoine fathered children to supermodel Natalia Vodianova.
Friendliness turns to competition
The two were reportedly on friendly business terms until the late 1990s. Some commentators have linked the souring of pair’s relations to a bidding battle over the ownership of Italian fashion house Gucci, which eventually went to Pinault’s Kering group.
Then, the battling turned to art.
Arnault opened the Louis Vuitton Foundation, designed by architect Frank Gehry, in 2014 to showcase his vast personal art trove in Paris’ far western suburbs. Some critics have branded it a vanity project, with French media claiming that the glimmering building’s final price tag came in at close to $900 million.
Meanwhile, Pinault, who with his son is estimated to represent France’s sixth fortune, is following hot on Arnault’s heels and is set to open his multimillion-dollar contemporary art museum, the Collection Pinault-Paris, next spring.
Since 2001, Pinault has gradually been ceding control of his business interests to his eldest son Francois-Henri, 56, to concentrate on his art collecting. The museum, designed by another big-name architect, Tadao Ando, will display the octogenarian tycoon’s personal contemporary art collection.
The website highlights its prime central location “in the very heart of Paris” in the city’s former stock exchange.
The Bettencourt Meyers family, which owns cosmetics giant L’Oreal, and Total also each pledged 100 million euros to go toward the restoration over the 850-year-old cathedral.
