Meet the face of France's anger against cancer and pesticides
"With my cancer face, I was the only one who could speak up in the chamber," said Breteau. The Parisian founded the Cancer Colère group ("Cancer Anger") the day after the Duplomb Law was first passed by senators, on January 27. Her goal: "To politicize cancer by making it visible." She has succeeded. Her act contributed to the success of the citizens' petition calling for the law's repeal, which passed the million-signature mark shortly before 6 pm on Sunday, July 20. "This is what civil society is giving back to a contemptuous government and the 316 lawmakers who supported Duplomb over public health, science and the future of farmers," responded the newly minted activist. "They thought they could censor the democratic process. They wanted to destroy us, but they are bringing us together."
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
LeMonde
2 days ago
- LeMonde
Bashar al-Assad: France's highest court upholds personal immunity for sitting heads of state
On Friday, July 25, the Cour de Cassation, France's highest court of appeals, decided that the personal immunity granted to sitting heads of state allows for no exceptions. The ruling is a major disappointment for human rights defenders and international law experts fighting against impunity. And as a result, the arrest warrant issued in November 2023 by Parisian investigating judges against former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, who was accused of ordering chemical attacks in the suburbs of Damascus in 2013, has been annulled. This decision was made just days before the 12 th anniversary of the sarin gas attack on Ghouta, which killed around 1,000 to 1,500 people, including several French-Syrians. This decision effectively prevents French courts from prosecuting sitting heads of state, who, like prime ministers and foreign affairs ministers, enjoy personal immunity. The court did not uphold Prosecutor General Rémy Heitz's suggestion that the arrest warrant for al-Assad be maintained by setting aside his personal immunity, since France had not recognized him as the "legitimate sitting head of state" since 2012, given the "mass crimes committed by the Syrian regime."
AFP
2 days ago
- AFP
Story of dead surgeon linked to Brigitte Macron is fabricated
"Surgeon linked to Brigitte Macron transgender speculation found dead," says a July 3, 2025 post on X. "Solidifies suspicion that Macron is married to an XY Groomer." The video opens by showing first responders parked below a Parisian building, with a voiceover and subtitles claiming it is the site where the surgeon, François Faivre, fell to his death. The clip goes on to depict what purports to be an interview with the dead man's sister, Anne Dupont. Then it claims to show a portion of an initial interview the surgeon gave about Brigitte Macron to the magazine Closer before his death. "According to Ms. Dupont, her brother is a colleague of the famous doctor Patrick Bui," the subtitles say. "François Faivre had promised journalists he would shed light on the controversial surgical operations of Mrs. Brigitte Macron." The rumor that a surgeon died before releasing further information on Brigitte Macron spread in articles and in posts across Facebook, Instagram, Threads, TikTok and YouTube. The claims were widespread in French and also appeared in Catalan, Spanish, Italian, Dutch, Polish, Portuguese and Russian. Many posts reference the "Enquête du jour" website, where the video and an accompanying article appear to have originated. Image Screenshot of an X post taken July 25, 2025 Image Screenshot of an Instagram post taken July 25, 2025 The claims followed years of transphobic disinformation targeting the French first lady. In January, Owens released the "Becoming Brigitte" series, which claimed without substantive evidence that Brigitte Macron was not only formerly a man, but also Emmanuel Macron's blood relative. It also alleged Emmanuel Macron became France's president as part of CIA mind-control program, reigniting longstanding French conspiracy theories. On July 23, the Macrons filed a defamation suit against Owens in the US state of Delaware. More iterations of the dead-doctor narrative followed. "Of course they waited until now the file this lawsuit," says one July 24 Facebook post. "The doctor who did Brigitte's surgeries conveniently died last month." But like Owens's allegations about Brigitte Macron's gender history, the online claims that her surgeon died under suspicious circumstances are unfounded. The doctor referenced in the claims does not appear to exist, and the purported news reports cite evidence that is manipulated or entirely invented. The fabricated "François Faivre" The video claims François Faivre worked at the American Hospital of Paris alongside Patrick Bui, who supposedly spoke to him about Brigitte Macron undergoing a transgender surgery operation. While Bui does appear on the hospital's website, the medical center told AFP July 8 it had "no record of a cosmetic surgeon named François Faivre being able to practice there" (archived here). Searches of the French health insurance directory surfaced no matching results for a doctor named "François Faivre." Image Screenshot of the French state health insurance directory taken July 25, 2025 The video's depiction of the alleged doctor further suggests his identity was invented. The rail moulding on the wall disappears abruptly, and one of the hanging certificates trails off into illegible gibberish -- both common indicators of images generated be artificial intelligence. Image Screenshot of a YouTube video taken July 25, 2025 with highlights added by AFP AFP attempted to identify "François Faivre" by plugging the video's visuals into the facial-recognition tool PimEyes. The results uncovered an image of an individual on the iStock photo bank of Getty Images, published May 28, 2017 (archived here). Image Screenshots of an X post and the iStock photo library both taken July 25, 2025 The same face appears in different pieces of commercial content that are otherwise disconnected (archived here, here, here and here). AI technologies can create deceptive content based off existing photos. Further inconsistencies Other elements of the supposed report showed evidence of manipulation. For example, the images of the alleged crime scene are actually footage of Paris that AFP published October 15, 2022, nearly three years before the surgeon was claimed to have died (archived here). Image Screenshot of a Facebook post taken July 25, 2025 Image Screenshot of an AFP YouTube video taken July 25, 2025 The deepfake detector in the Verification Plugin, also known as InVID-WeVerify, assessed that the voices in the video were "very likely generated by AI." Image Screenshot of the results accessed via the Verification Plugin tool on July 25, 2025 The shot of the doctor's supposed sister also shows signs of manipulation. The size of her eyes changes frequently, while her blinking appears irregular, again pointing towards the use of . Image Screenshot of a video on the Enquête du jour website taken July 7, 2025 Invented reports, impersonated journalists Closer, the magazine alleged to have interviewed the surgeon, confirmed to AFP July 11, 2025 that none of its journalists had ever spoken to the supposed doctor. The "Enquête du jour" website that laundered the claims, meanwhile, was created June 25 -- just one week before the article appeared -- according to domain registration data (archived here). The site was registered in Delaware under the name "Ano Nymous." As of July 25, the site is no longer available. Image Screenshot of search results for the site taken July 7, 2025 The site's articles also appropriated the identities of at least six French journalists. Audrey Parmentier, whose byline accompanied the report about the surgeon's death, confirmed to French media she did not author the stories on the website. Freelance journalist Aurélien Defer told AFP July 3 he was "completely taken aback" to discover he had been impersonated. "From what I understand, almost all of the published articles serve to give this site the appearance of a reliable and general information source in order to be able to spread false information about Brigitte Macron," he said. Image Screenshot of Enquête du jour taken July 3, 2025 Defer said the method of impersonating journalists resembled Russian disinformation campaigns, a connection also made by the misinformation monitoring service NewsGuard. NewsGuard wrote the "François Faivre" claim used similar tactics to the Russian influence operation Storm-1516 (archived here). Brigitte Macron is among a group of influential women -- including former US first lady Michelle Obama and Canada's Diana Fox Carney -- about whom AFP has debunked gendered disinformation.
Euronews
3 days ago
- Euronews
The French rebel against a pesticide authorised for use in the EU
It's a debate that is shaking up French society this summer. With 1.8 million signatures collected within just a fortnight, the petition against the Duplomb Law is sending shockwaves through the political world. One point in particular is crystallising tensions: the reintroduction of a pesticide. The legislation authorises farmers to use acetamiprid, possible because the substance is authorised for use in the EU until 2033. It was a 23-year-old student who lit the fuse. She submitted her petition two days after the final adoption of the law on 8 July. For the ecologist MEPs, this text is a dangerous message sent by Paris to its European partners. "The problem is that France could very well have gone to its counterparts in the other Member States and said, let's harmonise our legislation, let's harmonise our bans, let's do it in the general interest and let's work towards that. This is not what France has decided to do," laments Majdouline Sbaï from the Greens/EFA European Parliament bloc. "By taking a step backwards, France is bound to set Europe back", she added. France wants to use this substance, which has been banned since 2018, to protect its beet, hazelnut, cherry and apple crops. Supporters of the law and France's leading farmers' union believe that national producers are at a disadvantage compared to their European counterparts and are talking about unfair competition. Right-wing MEP Céline Imart points out that insect pests "destroy between 30 and 50% of hazelnut crops." "And so what happens in this case is that we import products from our neighbours, from Germany or Italy, but also Turkish hazelnuts in the end, to supply the factories and production in France." A controversial pesticide "Neocotinoids, which include acetamiprid, are considered to be bee killers. A bee is used to pollinate. This type of substance is a real danger for bees and therefore for future pollination," warns Majdouline Sbaï. "But beyond that, it is also implicated and considered as a carcinogen, as a danger to the health of humans." However, the public health debate is more complex. The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) is cautious on this point. Last year, it stated that "there are major uncertainties in the body of evidence concerning the developmental neurotoxicity (DNT) properties of acetamiprid and that additional data are therefore necessary to (...) allow an appropriate assessment of the hazards and risks." The pesticide could have effects on foetal brain development. The EFSA has therefore proposed reducing the daily dose. "I understand that there is this debate. What is extremely damaging today is that the debate is biased. And when we try to bring science, rationality and scientific studies to the table", we "end up coming up against this emotion generated by the buzz of fear," replies Céline Imart. A blow for climate policy The Duplomb Act is part of a trend towards calling into question the climate policy adopted in recent years. The text includes other provisions that facilitate intensive livestock farming and construction of water storage facilities, otherwise known as megabasins. "Yes, this is yet another attack on the commitments made in the previous mandate," says Majdouline Sbaï. On the other hand, Céline Imart (EPP) welcomes the fact that this law calls into question the European Green Pact. "I'm very proud to be helping to unravel this Green Pact, because I think it's the wrong way to go about things. The punitive logic, the logic that will further burden farmers, their productivity, their profitability," insists the MEP. For the time being, the petition in France has met the criteria for a new debate in the National Assembly. The President of the National Assembly said she was in favour of a further exchange of views between MEPs. However, this debate can only deal with the petition, and will not be followed by a vote that could immediately repeal the law that has already been passed.
