Richard Assheton

‘It’s goodbye to French fishermen’: Macron under pressure as crucial UN ocean summit opens As delegates prepare for the global gathering, the president is caught between opposing sides in a row over bottom trawling in France’s marine protected areas

Why fishers and environmental campaigners are in loggerheads over the future of the seas — with President Macron in the middle

www.theguardian.com/environment/...

‘Opera lovers are going to explode’ — the baroque shock coming to Hampshire

www.thetimes.com/article/2c37...

On France's Île d'Yeu, a Timeless Escape Two new hotels are opening up an island long beloved by French actors and royalty.

“There’s something about the island that is—in French we say ‘hors du temps,’ out of time.” @richardassheton.bsky.social

Why Easter eggs cost so much: we found out on a cocoa farm

Yields have plummeted — with scientists saying climate change is wreaking havoc with the producer countries’ tropical weather, which provides the humidity and warmth cocoa needs to grow.
@richardassheton.bsky.social
buff.ly/kuSeGVT.

A New Generation of French Women is Smoking More Cigarettes Than Ever Before Pour quoi?

“Smoking is part of the culture in France, in a way it isn’t elsewhere.” @richardassheton.bsky.social

A New Generation of French Women is Smoking More Cigarettes Than Ever Before Pour quoi?

“Smoking is part of the culture in France, in a way it is not elsewhere.” @richardassheton.bsky.social

Why do the French smoke so much? Cigarette sales outstrip other countries in western Europe as the culture in the nation of Gauloises and Gitanes refuses to stub out the habit

Without breaking the monopoly on tobacco sales, and finding ways to stem the flow of cigarettes from the black market and across open EU borders, campaigners will struggle to bring France into line with other countries. Full story here:

www.thetimes.com/article/3059...

And cigarettes flood into France from neighbouring countries where tobacco is less taxed. Only 5 per cent of the tobacco sold in Luxembourg, where cigarettes cost a third of the price in France, is smoked in the Grand Duchy. Campaigners say this is a tactic by the tobacco giants.

A thriving black market also means maybe a third of cigarettes sold in France are contraband. In 2023 police discovered a massive illegal factory near Rouen.

The thing is, tabac shopkeepers are literally part of the French state: they are legally employees of French customs, under the Ministry of Finance. Anti-smoking campaigners say they have politicians in their pocket.

It isn’t just the power of the global tobacco corporations. Under a system dating to the 17th century regime of Louis XIV, tobacco is sold under a monopoly by 22,800 tobacco shops, or tabacs.

“The weak progress made by France in the fight against smoking, compared to other countries in the EU, has numerous explanations,” France’s National Committee Against Smoking said this month. The overarching one, it said, was the continuing influence of the tobacco lobby.

But people still pay: 1.5 billion cigarettes were sold in France last month, more than a 20-pack for every member of the population, including babies.

French taxes on cigarettes are the third highest in the EU, behind only Ireland and the Netherlands, at €9.28 for a pack of 20 as of July last year. At the counter a pack costs €12.50 (£10.50) on average.

The government officially discourages smoking. France banned tobacco adverts in 1991, 12 years before Britain, for example. It banned smoking indoors in 2007, the same year as Britain. It brought in plain packaging ten years later, the same as Britain.

French lunch breaks are non-negotiable. “Pauses café” is a way of life. “You take your time to sit down, you take your time to talk and you take your time to smoke,” psychologist Eric Malbos told me.

Clearly, smoking is part of French culture. The image of a sultry Serge Gainsbourg with cigarette in his hand, or his daughter Charlotte, wields power in the French soul. From 2015 to 2019 90 per cent of French films featured characters smoking, for an average of 2.6 minutes.

Why do the French smoke so much?

Almost a third are still smokers, 23 per cent of adults every day.

That’s way out of step with the developed world, or even the world.

I spent this week trying to work out what’s going on. Here’s what I found. 🧵

Dad’s under house arrest in Gabon. We’re left playing Xbox in our Mayfair mansion After a coup ousted president Ali Bongo in 2023, his sons are in limbo in London and fear for their family in their home country

Coups are back in vogue.

But we never hear what happens next. What awaits you when you’re toppled?

For today’s @thetimes‬⁩ I exclusively reported the baroque gruesome fate of Gabon’s legendary Bongo dynasty, as told by the Bongos themselves.

www.thetimes.com/article/90d1...

Get on the app! Search through its trove of features, columns and investigations. You will find some of the most illuminating, deftly written stuff out there, from top colleagues on 🔥.

Strange history of Rome’s Spanish Steps … which are really French A report into France’s €200m property portfolio in the Italian capital shows the tourist spot was built with French money in the 1720s — provoking a diplomatic row

Ok, top 6. Sitting on his terrace in Rome, a legend known as “the man in white” mentioned that the Spanish Steps were really French.

What followed revealed a surprising truth about the contested eternal city. For dodgy priests, and fans of Conclave.

www.thetimes.com/article/b883...

His nation is mostly empty. He just became a global power player President Ghazouani brought calm to Mauritania after decades of turbulence. Now it’s found natural gas — and he’s extracting his price

And it’s not often you sit down with a strongman commanding a queue of Western leaders.

Especially in a country as secretive as Mauritania.

I went face to face with the strange politics of the Sahara, and the even stranger man at their centre.

www.thetimes.com/article/036b...

Slava Polunin: ‘I am the god of chaos — who creates harmony’ In his fairytale home in Paris, the 74-year-old clown, returning to the UK with Slava’s Snowshow, explains why the world has never needed his kind more

Outside Paris I spent a completely mental day with the world’s greatest clown, Slava Polunin, in the giant yellow mill he shares with his Russian family.

I arrived knowing little, and left a superfan.

@neilfisher81.bsky.social’s favourite piece that Saturday…

www.thetimes.com/article/4213...

Welcome to Nigeria, Harry and Meghan — a chaotic global powerhouse Africa’s most populous country is electrifying and baffling by equal measure— bursting with talent but also crippling poverty, our former Lagos correspondent writes

With Michael Palin sadly unavailable, I stepped in to pen a big portrait of Nigeria, my former home and a global powerhouse in waiting.

There was mention of Harry and Meghan, but it was brief.

www.thetimes.com/article/3f67...

Dubai has more Brits than Oxford. Is it all it’s cracked up to be? More people are upping sticks for the UAE in search of schools, sun and safer streets — and more of them are staying

Dubai now has more Brits than Oxford, I discovered when I spent a dizzying few days among the skyscrapers with them.

What’s going on? Is life there all it’s cracked up to be?

Tens of thousands read and shared this. ICYMI.

www.thetimes.com/article/04d3...

I didn’t know I was about to give birth on a migrant dinghy Awa Keita, an 18-year-old from Mali, reveals the details of her extraordinary journey to the Canary Islands — and her hopes for her daughter Aisha’s future

The Sunday Times asked me to fly to Lanzarote to track down an anonymous African migrant pictured giving birth on a dinghy.

I was about to give up. Then there she was. This was top of the app, the epic story of Awa Keita, 18, and little baby Aisha. With my photos.

www.thetimes.com/article/414b...

The Times and Sunday Times is free to read this weekend.

They’re one of the few still investing in proper go-get-it journalism.

Because freelancing is a hustle, I’m recapping my top five from a wild 12 months.🧵

@thetimes.com

‘It’s packed with dealers. Look around you’: life amid the cocaine cartels of the French Riviera Nice may be at the heart of France’s upmarket Mediterranean coast, but violent drug gangs making €1.5m a month are colonising part of it

This week I got chased out of one of France’s most notorious estates by a man with a gun. Which told me, obviously among other things, how lucky I was to get a chance to visit.

Focus for the Observer today on life among the cocaine cartels of the Riviera.

www.theguardian.com/world/2025/m...