France at a Glance: New Bordeaux transport tickets and a dam in the Jura that could burst

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France at a Glance: New Bordeaux transport tickets and a dam in the Jura that could burst
Photo: Deposit photos
The Local
[email protected]
@thelocalfrance

Here's a round up of some of the main news stories from around France on Thursday.

Nice

Nice airport will soon only be a short ride away from the city centre. 

Tests for the new tram line linking Nice to the city's Nice-Côte d’Azur airport were successfully carried out on Thursday. 

The new line 2 is scheduled to open on December 14. It should carry passengers from the city centre to the airport in 26 minutes, and transport an average of 15 000 passengers a day. City mayor Christian Estrosi inaugurated the event as well as the building of a new business district in the city. 

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Nantes 

Paris and Calais have had longstanding issues with sprawling migrant camps and recently authorities in the western city of Nantes have had the same conundrum.

This week a migrant camp where 600 people were living in the centre of the city was evacuated. 200 hundred police officers were present. The migrants were moved to five gymnasiums throughout the city, where they will be given two meals a day.

The judge who ordered the evacuation said that the situation was only temporary and that the state had to find a longer-term solution. 

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Burgundy/Côte d'Or

It's not only speeding drivers who get fined in France.

A man who was driving on a motorway between Dijon and Chalon-sur-saône in the department of Côte d'Or was given a driving ticket for driving too slowly. The driver slowed down after a car coming in the opposite direction flashed its headlights at him. Police caught him driving under 20km/h and he was fined 22 euros. 

The driver vowed to fight his fine in the courts.

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The Pyrenees 
 
All is not well in the Pyrenees and bears are to blame.
 
Dozens of farmers and lawmakers stormed out of a meeting Thursday with France's new environment minister after he confirmed that two more bears would soon be released into the Pyrenees mountains.
 
Some 40 brown bears currently roam the range between France and Spain after France began importing them from Slovenia in 1996 after the native population had been hunted to near-extinction.

 
The latest move to increase their numbers infuriated farmers who have long complained about the predators killing sheep and other livestock.
 
The addition of two more females was announced by former environment minister Nicolas Hulot last March as part of a 10-year “Bear Plan” to increase their numbers to some 50 sexually mature bears.
 
Northern France
 
Some rough weather is its way to northern France.

High winds and storms are expected across Northern France on Sunday from West to East, as storm Ali makes its way across from the British Isles, where it has wreaked havoc over the past week.
 
Météo France said winds of up to 110kms per hour could hit the coastal areas. Regions likely to be most affected are the departments of the Manche and the Nord Pas de Calais. 
 
 
Paris 
 
People were left shocked in the French capital on Thursday after the news of a vicious attack circulated online and in the media. 
 
Police in Paris are investigating a homophobic attack which took place in the 20th arrondissement of the French capital after a man hugged his male partner in public. 
 
The victim Arnaud Gagnoud published photos of his swollen face after the attack on Twitter to show the damage caused by the violence with a message saying that he knew “someday it would happen to me”. 
 

 
Gagnoud told the French press that the group of youths responsible for the attack levelled “homophobic insults” at the two men before hitting him around the head repeatedly. 
 
 
Jura 
 
There was some worrying news from Jura on Thursday after an expert revealed that the Vouglans dam could be suffering under the (water) pressure.
 
The Vouglans dam located at the Lac de Vouglans in eastern France could burst at any moment and flood the Ain and Rhône rivers, an expert has told the French press. 
 
The expert, who has spent his entire career at EDF, the French electric utility company which manages the dam, revealed that the construction has “stability” problems. 
 

 
If the dam were to burst a wave 12 metres-high would hit more than 50 villages and flood the Ain valley and affect the nuclear power plant 90km south of Vouglans, according to predictions.
 
 
Bordeaux
 
There was some good news for the people of Bordeaux on Thursday after they finally got a date for the launch of the city's new transport ticketing system. 

 
Bordeaux is set to introduce its new transport ticketing system in March 2019… 20 months later than planned. 
 
The new system will see only contactless tickets available, which will allow passengers to top-up travel cards with their smartphones. 
 

 
“We have not progressed as we would have liked,” said the vice president of Bordeaux Métropole, the organisation in charge of the city's transport network. “This is partly due to the fact that it is an extremely high-tech system.”
 
The organisation is also planning to make other improvements to the network, such as increasing the number of buses and trams, trialing 'on demand bus stops' and continuing to target harassment on the city's public transport. 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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