Author: afp

  • 195 killed, 4000 arrested amid police crackdown in Bangladesh

    195 killed, 4000 arrested amid police crackdown in Bangladesh

    Bangladeshi police detectives on Friday forced the discharge from the hospital of three student protest leaders blamed for deadly unrest, taking them to an unknown location, staff told AFP.

    Nahid Islam, Asif Mahmud and Abu Baker Majumder are all members of Students Against Discrimination, the group responsible for organising this month’s street rallies against civil service hiring rules.

    At least 195 people were killed in the ensuing police crackdown and clashes, according to an AFP count of victims reported by police and hospitals, in some of the worst unrest of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s tenure.

    All three were patients at a hospital in the capital, Dhaka, and at least two of them said their injuries were caused by torture in earlier police custody.

    “They took them from us,” Gonoshasthaya hospital supervisor Anwara Begum Lucky said. “The men were from the Detective Branch.”

    She added that she did not want to discharge the student leaders, but the police had pressured the hospital chief to do so.

    The trio’s student group suspended fresh protests at the start of this week, saying they wanted the reform of government job quotas but not “at the expense of so much blood.”

    The pause was due to expire earlier on Friday but the group had given no indication of its future course of action.

    Three senior police officers in Dhaka all denied that the trio had been taken from the hospital and into custody on Friday.

    Garment tycoon arrested

    Police said on Thursday that they had arrested at least 4,000 people since the unrest began last week, including 2,500 in Dhaka.

    On Friday, police said they had arrested David Hasanat, the founder and chief executive of one of Bangladesh’s biggest garment factory enterprises.

    According to its website, the Viyellatex Group employs more than 15,000 people, and the Daily Star newspaper estimated its annual turnover at $400 million last year.

    Dhaka Police inspector Abu Sayed Miah said Hasanat and several others were suspected of financing the “anarchy, arson and vandalism” of last week.

    PM Hasina continued a tour of government buildings that had been ransacked by protesters on Friday, visiting state broadcaster Bangladesh Television, which was partly set ablaze last week.

    “Find those who were involved in this,” she said, according to state news agency BSS. “Coop­erate with us to ensure their punishment. I am making this call to the nation.”

  • Lady Gaga, Celine Dion, Aya Nakamura may headline Paris Olympics opening ceremony

    Lady Gaga, Celine Dion, Aya Nakamura may headline Paris Olympics opening ceremony

    World-famous stars are in line to perform at Friday’s opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics, which will take place along the Seine River. The exact line-up is a tightly guarded secret, but here are three performers strongly rumoured to be appearing:

    Lady Gaga

    One of the world’s biggest-selling artists, pop queen Lady Gaga – real name Stefani Germanotta – brings extravagant showmanship and costumes to the stage, along with her infectious electropop beats. She won an Oscar for Shallow, a song she co-wrote for the 2018 film remake A Star is Born. In that film, she sang the classic La Vie en rose by French legend Edith Piaf – whose songs are expected to feature in the Olympics extravaganza.

    Lady Gaga was seen arriving at a hotel in the French capital days ahead of the opening bash. Her anticipated Olympic turn comes during a busy year for the Oscar-winning US songwriter, 38. Earlier this month she announced she was back in the studio at work on a new album. She also appears as love-interest Harley Quinn in the new Joker movie, screening at the Venice Film Festival that starts in late August.

    “Music is one of the most powerful things the world has to offer,” she said prior to her electrifying 2017 Super Bowl halftime show performance. “No matter what race or religion or nationality or sexual orientation or gender that you are, it has the power to unite us.”

    Celine Dion

    Canadian superstar singer Dion is set to return to the spotlight after her fight against a rare illness was laid bare in a recent documentary. She has been posing for selfies with fans around Paris since the start of the week. Sources have indicated she may sing Piaf’s stirring love anthem Hymne A l’Amour at the ceremony. If she performs it will be the 56-year-old Dion’s second time at the Games, after the 1996 Atlanta Olympics.  Last month, she vowed she would fight her way back from the debilitating rare neurological condition that has kept her off stage.

    Dion first disclosed in December 2022 that she had been diagnosed with Stiff Person Syndrome, an incurable autoimmune disorder. But she told US network NBC in June: “I’m going to go back onstage, even if I have to crawl. Even if I have to talk with my hands, I will. I will.” She has sold more than 250 million albums during a career spanning decades and picked up two Grammys for her rendition of My Heart Will Go On, the hit song from the 1997 epic Titanic.

    Aya Nakamura

    Franco-Malian R&B superstar Aya Nakamura, 29, is the most listened-to French-speaking singer in the world, with seven billion streams online. She is known for hits such as Djadja, which has close to a billion streams on YouTube alone, and Pookie. She faced down a wave of abuse from right-wing activists over her mooted Olympics appearance. The backlash came after media reports suggested she had discussed performing a song by Piaf at a meeting with President Emmanuel Macron. Neither party confirmed the claim but Macron publicly backed the singer for the Olympics ceremony. Far-right politicians and conservatives have accused her of “vulgarity” and disrespecting the French language in her lyrics.

    Born Aya Danioko in the Malian capital Bamako in 1995 into a family of traditional musicians, she moved with her parents to the Paris suburbs as a child. She told AFP in an interview in 2020 her music was about “feelings of love in all their aspects”.

    “I have made my own musical universe and that is what I am most proud of. I make the music I like, even if people try to pigeon-hole me.”

  • Cleric arrested after video of his barbaric assault on student goes viral

    Cleric arrested after video of his barbaric assault on student goes viral

    A video of a cleric mercilessly beating up a student in a Faisalabad seminary went viral on social media leading to Thikriwala police arresting the man.

    Qari Rizwan Liaqat of Saifabad locality of Faisalabad has also been accused of threatening the child’s father after he complained.

    Rashid Bashir stated in his first information report that Qari Rizwan had severely beaten his 14-year-old son Saqlain at Jamia Ghousia Rizwia.
    Dawn reported that Iqbal Division SP Imran Munir Saifi visited the victim’s house and assured the father of justice for his son.

  • ‘kamala IS brat’: Pop world backs Harris

    ‘kamala IS brat’: Pop world backs Harris

    The pop world has coalesced rapidly around Kamala Harris’s last-minute candidacy, as the US vice president gets a boost from an online explosion of videos mixing her speeches with hit songs.

    Janelle Monae, John Legend and Charli XCX are among the star musicians who have publicly backed Harris, along with myriad Hollywood endorsements including from George Clooney, Viola Davis, Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Robert De Niro.

    Even Beyonce — who is known to strictly guard clearance of her music — reportedly has approved the Harris campaign to use her song “Freedom” on the trail.

    The megastar’s mother, Tina Knowles, quickly backed the now-presumptive Democratic nominee Harris after President Joe Biden’s late-stage election exit.

    Fans have been posting remixes of Harris speeches and interviews — her idiosyncratic phrasings frequently catch meme fire and the past week have been aflame — with music by pop artists of the moment, including star of the summer Charli XCX, Beyonce, Taylor Swift and Chappell Roan.

    It helps that Harris is eminently memeable; plenty of videos show her dancing with physical comedy bordering on slapstick.

    The internet used to mash up those kooky moments to diss the 59-year-old VP — but since Biden’s campaign plummeted following his disastrous debate, the videos appear to be bolstering her presence, notably among chronically online young voters.

    Celebrities have also gotten on board, capturing the marketing moment in the inextricably linked worlds of music and social media while also leaning into Harris’s candidacy.

    British artist Charli XCX in particular has seen her smash album “brat” become core to the early online Harris campaign.

    The “brat summer” meme was already alive and well before Harris became associated with it.

    The trend emphasizes an aesthetic and lifestyle inspired by Charli’s club album that offers a heavy dose of party-girl energy with undertones of youthful anxiety.

    When fans began applying the inescapable lime-green “brat” filter to Kamala Harris images, Charli XCX voiced approval.

    “kamala IS brat,” the 31-year-old pop star posted, a sign-off the Harris campaign quickly embraced.

    In its transition from Biden to Harris, the campaign’s official X account also rebranded as brat-coded, with its cover photo mimicking the album’s neon-green — “Shrek-colored,” as the internet likes to call it — and lo-resolution JPEG vibe.

    Katy Perry, whose anthemic “Roar” was frequently played on Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign, also pushed her latest single “Woman’s World” while backing Harris.

    She posted a montage clip of Harris with a remix of her song and the now famous “coconut tree” quote that’s also made the presidential hopeful an internet star.

    “It’s a woman’s world, and you’re lucky to be living in it,” sings Perry.

    Cardi B reminded fans she had already said Harris should replace Biden, whom she supported in 2020 after initially backing the socialist-leaning Senator Bernie Sanders.

    Shortly after Biden announced his withdrawal, the Bronx rapper reposted a video she’d made prior in which she says Harris should be the Democratic flag-bearer.

    “STOP PLAYING WIT ME!!!!” she wrote in her caption accompanying the clip, emphasizing her self-proclaimed prescience.

    “Told y’all Kamala should’ve been the 2024 candidate. Y’all be trying to play the Bronx education, baby this what I do!!! Been my passion.. don’t let my accent fool y’all.”

    Cardi B had previously indicated that she wasn’t planning to vote when Biden was the nominee — she did not make clear whether her stance had changed now that Harris was the presumed candidate.

  • Plane crashes in Nepal with 18 dead, pilot sole survivor

    Plane crashes in Nepal with 18 dead, pilot sole survivor

    A passenger plane crashed on take-off in Kathmandu on Wednesday, with the pilot rescued from the flaming wreckage but all 18 others aboard killed, police in the Nepali capital told AFP.

    Nepal has a woeful track record on aviation safety and the Himalayan republic has seen a spate of deadly light plane and helicopter crashes over the decades.

    The Saurya Airlines flight was carrying two crew and 17 of the company’s staff members, Nepali police spokesman Dan Bahadur Karki told AFP.

    “The pilot has been rescued and is being treated,” he added. “Eighteen bodies have been recovered, including one foreigner. We are in the process of taking them for post-mortem.”

    The Civil Aviation Authority said the dead foreigner was a Yemeni citizen.

    A press release from the airport said the aircraft “veered off to the right and crashed on the east side of the runway” shortly after take-off.

    The survivor was in serious condition in hospital, it added.

    Ram Kumar K.C., who runs a tyre store near the accident site, told AFP the plane caught fire after hitting the ground.

    “We were about to run to the site but then there was an explosion so we ran away again,” the 48-year-old said.

    The flight was being conducted for either technical or maintenance purposes, Gyanendra Bhul of Nepal’s Civil Aviation Authority told AFP without giving further details.

    Images of the aftermath shared by Nepal’s military showed the plane’s fuselage split apart and burnt to a husk.

    Around a dozen soldiers in camouflage were standing on top of the wreckage with the surrounding earth coated in fire retardant.

    The aircraft crashed at around 11:15 am (0530 GMT), the military said in a statement, adding that the army’s quick response team had been lending assistance with rescue efforts.

    The plane was scheduled to fly on Nepal’s busiest air route between Kathmandu and Pokhara, an important tourism hub in the Himalayan republic.

    Saurya Airlines exclusively flies Bombardier CRJ 200 jets, according to its website.

    Plagued by poor safety

    Nepal’s air industry has boomed in recent years, carrying goods and people between hard-to-reach areas as well as foreign trekkers and climbers.

    But it has been plagued by poor safety due to insufficient training and maintenance — issues compounded by the mountainous republic’s treacherous geography.

    The European Union has banned all Nepali carriers from its airspace over safety concerns.

    The Himalayan country has some of the world’s trickiest runways to land on, flanked by snow-capped peaks with approaches that pose a challenge even for accomplished pilots.

    The weather can also change quickly in the mountains, creating treacherous flying conditions.

    Nepal’s last major commercial flight accident was in January 2023, when a Yeti Airlines service crashed while landing at Pokhara, killing all 72 aboard.

    That accident was Nepal’s deadliest since 1992, when all 167 people aboard a Pakistan International Airlines plane died when it crashed on approach to Kathmandu airport.

    Earlier that year a Thai Airways aircraft had crashed near the same airport, killing 113 people.

  • Five French tourist attractions transformed into Olympic grounds

    Five French tourist attractions transformed into Olympic grounds

    1. Eiffel Tower

    The most famous of the Paris landmarks, the Eiffel Tower, will welcome beach volleyball. The action will take place in a temporary venue near the foot of the “Iron Lady”. Next door, the Champs de Mars park at the foot of the tower will host judo and wrestling.

    Reviled by some Parisians when it was unveiled in 1889 for the World Fair by engineer Gustave Eiffel, the Eiffel Tower has become the capital’s symbol. Besides being one of the world’s top tourist attractions, pulling in seven million visitors a year, it is also a working telecoms tower, used for radio and TV transmissions.

    Winners at the Paris Games will all go home with a small part of the iron colossus. Each medal will contain an 18g crumb of original iron, removed during renovations, melted down and reforged.

    2. Grand Palais

    Fencing and taekwondo battles will take place in the opulent setting of the Grand Palais exhibition hall, a glass-and-steel masterpiece created for the World Fair of 1900. Its distinctive feature is its glass-domed roof, the largest of its kind in Europe, which covers a cavernous exhibition space of 13,500 square metres.

    During World War I, the Grand Palais put its art collection in storage and converted its galleries into a military hospital where soldiers were patched up before returning to the trenches. In the 21st century, the airy nave has hosted giant installations commissioned from some of the world’s leading artists. It has also been flooded to make the biggest ice rink in the world.

    3, Place de la Concorde

    The vast, paved square at the foot of the Champs-Elysees avenue, where heads rolled (literally) during the French Revolution, will serve as an urban sports hub.

    Skateboarding, 3×3 basketball, BMX freestyle and, in its first Games appearance, breakdancing, will all take place on the elegant square by the Seine. Its harmonious name conceals a bloody past. King Louis XVI and his wife Marie-Antoinette were guillotined there in 1793 during the Reign of Terror that followed the 1789 French Revolution. The largest square in Paris is defined by its huge gold obelisk, one of a pair originally erected by Ramses II outside the temple in Luxor in Egypt. It was gifted to Paris in 1830.

    4. Palace of Versailles

    Dressage, showjumping and equestrian cross country will take place in the park of Versailles Palace, some 20 kilometres from Paris. It will also feature on the marathon circuit and host pentathlon events.

    In the 17th century, “the Sun King” Louis XIV transformed Versailles into a home of French royalty, where he resided with around 10,000 staff. The vast gardens include a mile-long canal that once hosted opulent parties. It has been a world heritage site since 1979 and is a firm favourite on the Paris tourist trail.

    5. Marseille

    The Olympics are spreading beyond the capital. Sailing contests will take place in the Mediterranean city of Marseille, France’s boisterous second city, better known as the home of Olympique Marseille football team.

    Over 300 sailors from across the world will battle it out on the sapphire Mediterranean waters off the city. A marina has been built along the scenic Corniche coastal road heading southeast out of the city. It’s unlikely they’ll have the sometimes ferocious mistral wind in their sails. It usually blows in winter and spring.

    Marseille, which will also host 10 football matches, was where the Olympic torch landed in France on May 8 on its relay to Paris.

  • Colombia president enacts law banning bullfighting

    Colombia president enacts law banning bullfighting

    In front of a crowd gathered at the bullring in the capital Bogota, renamed the Santamaria Cultural Square, Petro on Monday celebrated ending the “right to kill” animals for entertainment.

    “Culture, and even less the justice (system), cannot say that it is culture to kill sentient beings, living creatures, for pleasure,” said Petro, in reference to a 2018 Constitutional Court ruling permitting bullfights in places with such a tradition.

    “If we have fun by killing an animal, we will have fun by killing human beings,” Petro said, addressing the crowd which included animal rights activists.

    Spectators chanted “No more ‘ole’!”, a slogan used during the legislative process by supporters of the law, which was passed by congress in late May.

    Luana Delgado, an influencer and anti-bullfighting activist, underlined the importance of the ban being enacted at Bogota’s bullring.

    “A place where you saw blood, where you saw death, now you will see culture,” she said.

    The nationwide legislation paves the way for bullrings to be transformed into cultural spaces or sports venues.

    Jesus Merchan, an animal rights campaigner, said to applause: “Today, we put an end to a long history of suffering.”

    The new law will be enforced from 2027, allowing time to convert arenas and provide alternative jobs to those who rely directly or indirectly on bullfighting.

    Colombia joins other Latin American countries that have outlawed bullfighting, including Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Guatemala and Uruguay.

    Bullfights are still held in Ecuador, Mexico, Peru and Venezuela, as well as in European nations France, Spain and Portugal.

  • At least 174 killed, more than 2,500 arrested amid Bangladesh protests

    At least 174 killed, more than 2,500 arrested amid Bangladesh protests

    The number of arrests in days of violence in Bangladesh passed the 2,500 mark in an AFP tally on Tuesday, after protests over employment quotas sparked widespread unrest.

    At least 174 people have died, including several police officers, according to a separate AFP count of victims reported by police and hospitals.

    What began as demonstrations against politicised admission quotas for sought-after government jobs snowballed last week into some of the worst unrest of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s tenure.

    A curfew was imposed and soldiers deployed across the South Asian country, and a nationwide internet blackout drastically restricted the flow of information, upending daily life for many.

    On Sunday, the Supreme Court pared back the number of reserved jobs for specific groups, including the descendants of “freedom fighters” from Bangladesh’s 1971 liberation war against Pakistan.

    The student group leading the demonstrations suspended its protests Monday for 48 hours, with its leader saying they had not wanted reform “at the expense of so much blood”.

    The restrictions remained in place Tuesday after the army chief said the situation had been brought “under control”.

    There was a heavy military presence in Dhaka, with bunkers set up at some intersections and key roads blocked with barbed wire.

    But more people were on the streets, as were hundreds of rickshaws.

    “I did not drive rickshaws the first few days of curfew, But today I didn’t have any choice,” rickshaw driver Hanif told AFP.

    “If I don’t do it, my family will go hungry.”

    The head of Students Against Discrimination, the main group organising the protests, told AFP in his hospital room Monday that he feared for his life after being abducted and beaten, and the group said Tuesday at least four of its leaders were missing, asking authorities to “return” them by the evening.

    ‘Killed at random’

    The authorities’ response to the protests has been widely criticised, with Bangladeshi Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus urging “world leaders and the United Nations to do everything within their powers to end the violence” in a statement.

    The respected 83-year-old economist is credited with lifting millions out of poverty with his pioneering microfinance bank but earned the enmity of Hasina, who has accused him of “sucking blood” from the poor.

    “Young people are being killed at random every day,” Yunus told AFP. “Hospitals do not reveal the number of wounded and dead.”

    Diplomats in Dhaka also questioned the government’s actions, with US Ambassador Peter Haas telling the foreign minister he had shown a one-sided video at a briefing to diplomats.

    Government officials have repeatedly blamed the protesters and opposition for the unrest.

    More than 1,200 people detained over the course of the violence — nearly half the 2,580 total — were held in Dhaka and its rural and industrial areas, according to police officials who spoke to AFP.

    Almost 600 were arrested in Chittagong and its rural areas, with hundreds more detentions tallied in multiple districts across the country.

    ‘Sheikh Hasina never flees’

    With around 18 million young people in Bangladesh out of work, according to government figures, the June reintroduction of the quota scheme — halted since 2018 — deeply upset graduates facing an acute jobs crisis.

    With protests mounting across the country, the Supreme Court on Sunday curtailed the number of reserved jobs from 56 percent of all positions to seven percent, mostly for the children and grandchildren of “freedom fighters” from the 1971 war.

    While 93 percent of jobs will be awarded on merit, the decision fell short of protesters’ demands to scrap the “freedom fighter” category altogether.

    Late Monday, Hasina’s spokesman told AFP the prime minister had approved a government order putting the Supreme Court’s judgement into effect.

    Critics say the quota is used to stack public jobs with loyalists to Hasina’s ruling Awami League.

    Hasina, 76, has ruled the country since 2009 and won her fourth consecutive election in January after a vote without genuine opposition.

    Her government is also accused by rights groups of misusing state institutions to entrench its hold on power and stamp out dissent, including by the extrajudicial killing of opposition activists.

    bur-sa/slb/

    © Agence France-Presse

  • Hamas announces ‘national unity’ deal with Palestinian rivals

    Hamas announces ‘national unity’ deal with Palestinian rivals

    Hamas announced Tuesday it had signed an agreement in Beijing with other Palestinian organizations, including rivals Fatah, to work together for “national unity”, with China describing it as a deal to rule Gaza together once the war ends.

    Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, who hosted senior Hamas official Musa Abu Marzuk, Fatah envoy Mahmud al-Aloul and emissaries from 12 other Palestinian groups, said they had agreed to set up an “interim national reconciliation government” to govern post-war Gaza. “Today we sign an agreement for national unity and we say that the path to completing this journey is national unity. We are committed to national unity and we call for it,”

    Abu Marzuk said after meeting Wang and the other envoys. The announcement comes more than nine months into the genocide.

    Israel’s retaliatory military campaign in Gaza has killed more than 39,000 people, also mostly civilians, according to data from the health ministry in Gaza.

    The relentless fighting has plunged Gaza into a severe humanitarian crisis. China has sought to play a mediator role in the conflict, which has been rendered even more complex due to the intense rivalry between Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, and Fatah, which partially governs the occupied West Bank.

    Israel has vowed to keep fighting until it destroys Hamas, and world powers, including key Israeli backer the United States, have scrambled to imagine scenarios for the governance of Gaza once the war ends. As Tuesday’s meeting wrapped up in Beijing, Wang said the groups had committed to “reconciliation”.

    “The most prominent highlight is the agreement to form an interim national reconciliation government around the governance of post-war Gaza,” Wang said following the signing of the “Beijing Declaration” by the factions in the Chinese capital.

    “Reconciliation is an internal matter for the Palestinian factions, but at the same time, it cannot be achieved without the support of the international community,” Wang said. China, he added, was keen to “play a constructive role in safeguarding peace and stability in the Middle East”. Beijing, Wang said, called for a “comprehensive, lasting and sustainable ceasefire”, as well as efforts to promote Palestinian self-governance and full recognition of a Palestinian state at the UN.

    Hamas and Fatah have been bitter rivals since Hamas fighters ejected Fatah from the Gaza Strip after deadly clashes that followed Hamas’s resounding victory in a 2006 election.

    Fatah controls the Palestinian Authority, which has partial administrative control in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Several reconciliation bids have failed, but calls have grown since October 7, with violence also soaring in the West Bank, where Fatah is based.

    China hosted Fatah and Hamas in April, but a meeting scheduled for June was postponed. China has historically been sympathetic to the Palestinian cause and supportive of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

  • What we know about the Paris Olympics opening ceremony

    What we know about the Paris Olympics opening ceremony

    Organisers of Friday’s opening ceremony for the Paris Olympics — the first time it will be held outside a stadium — have provided teasers for their spectacular plans but refused to give specifics.

    Here is what we know about the concept, the artists and music based on public statements over the last few months and press leaks:

    – What’s the concept? –

    Instead of using the main athletics stadium for the opening parade, as is customary, organisers have moved the event outside and into the heart of the capital — in keeping with their motto “Games Wide Open”.

    Around 6,000-7,000 athletes are set to sail down a six-kilometre (four-mile) stretch of the river Seine from the Austerlitz bridge in the east to the Eiffel Tower, on 85 barges and boats.

    Up to 500,000 people are set to watch in person from specially built stands, where tickets have sold for up to 2,700 euros ($2,900), on the river banks for free and from the overlooking balconies and apartments.

    “Organising a ceremony on the Seine is not easier than doing it in a stadium… but it has more punch,” chief organiser Tony Estanguet told AFP earlier this month.

    Because of the size and complexity of the parade, it has never been rehearsed in full.

    – What about the entertainment? –

    The show has been designed by prodigious theatre director Thomas Jolly, a 42-year-old known for hit rock-opera musical “Starmania”.

    He brought on board a creative team that includes the writer of French TV series “Call My Agent”, Fanny Herrero, as well as best-selling author Leila Slimani and renowned historian Patrick Boucheron.

    The show has been split into 12 different sections, with around 3,000 dancers, singers and entertainers positioned on both banks of the river, the bridges and nearby monuments.

    A tribute to Notre-Dame cathedral, in the process of being renovated after a devastating fire in 2019, is guaranteed, possibly with dancers on its scaffolding.

    Starting at 07:30pm (1730 GMT), two thirds of the ceremony will take place in daylight, then dusk — Jolly is hoping for one of Paris’s stunning summer sunsets — and will end with a light show.

    The music will be a mix of classical, traditional ‘chanson francaise’, as well as rap and electro.

    Franco-Malian R&B star Aya Nakamura is widely tipped to perform despite criticism from far-right politicians, including Marine Le Pen who suggested an appearance by her would “humiliate” France.

    French electro superstars Daft Punk said they had turned down an invitation to play, while globe-trotting French DJ David Guetta has been overlooked — much to his irritation.

    – What’s the message? –

    Asked to sum up his message last week, Jolly said it was “love.”

    Despite the risk of irking conservatives, he said his work would be a celebration of cultural, linguistic, religious and sexual diversity in France and around the world.

    “I think the people who want to live together in this diversity, this otherness, are much more numerous, but we make less noise,” he told AFP.

    It is fair to assume it will be nothing like the widely panned retro-styled opening ceremony of last year’s rugby World Cup, which featured a succession of French cliches from baguettes to berets and the Eiffel Tower.

    Jolly’s team is also wary of over-emphasising France’s historic contribution to the development of democracy and the concept of universal human rights thanks to its Enlightenment philosophers and 1789 Revolution.

    “We wanted to avoid our natural tendency to lecture people,” Herrero told Le Monde newspaper recently.

    And don’t expect a three-hour tribute to French greatness to rival the nationalistic pageantry seen at the Beijing Games in 2008.

    “The opening ceremony in Beijing in 2008 was exactly what we did not want to do,” Boucheron told Le Monde.

    – What will be the big moments? –

    With so much still under wraps, it’s hard to predict.

    A performance by Aya Nakamura, after so much controversy about her role, would be a major moment so soon after parliamentary elections that saw the anti-immigration far-right gain a historic 143 seats in the national parliament.

    Jolly has strongly hinted that a submersible or submarine could emerge from the waters of the Seine at some point.

    “You have the sky, you have bridges, you have water, you have banks, you have so much space to make poetry,” Jolly told reporters last week. “So why not under the river also?”

    The biggest moment of all might simply be the end if everyone gets home safely.

    The ceremony has given French police cold sweats ever since it was unveiled in 2021 because of the difficulty of securing so many people over such a vast urban area.

    Around 45,000 members of the security forces will be on duty.