Insiders reveal the food King Charles has BANNED from French state visit banquet – and the reasons why (but mushrooms are on the menu because they remind him of Queen Elizabeth II)

• Charles provided a strict list of culinary demands for meal at Palace of Versailles

By Peter Allen In Paris

Published: 03:03 EDT, 20 September 2023 | Updated: 04:56 EDT, 20 September 2023

‘I was raped 400 times’: French tennis star Angelique Cauchy reveals hell she endured at the hands of her coach when she was 12 – and how he convinced her she had AIDS until she was 18

•  Coach Andrew Geddes was sentenced to 18 years for raping four girls aged 12-17

By Olivia Jones

Published: 04:57 EDT, 15 September 2023 | Updated: 07:00 EDT, 15 September 2023

Girl’s father threatens to kill headteacher for enforcing abaya dress ban at French school – after his daughter twice ignored the rule

• The abaya dress ban came into action on Wednesday  

By Shivalika Puri

Published: 07:00 EDT, 8 September 2023 | Updated: 07:02 EDT, 8 September 2023

There’s no doubt that Yannick Alleno is one of the world’s greatest chefs – he’s dripping in Michelin stars, with 15 across 17 restaurants around the world.

Two in France each hold three Michelin stars – Alleno Paris au Pavillon Ledoyen and Le 1947 a Cheval Blanc in France’s Courchevel 1850 ski resort.

My review of Le 1947 declared the food to be ‘out of this world’.

Now Britons have a chance to try the chef’s stellar cuisine without the faff of a trip across France – because Monsieur Alleno has launched a restaurant set within the seductively suave Four Seasons Hotel London at Park Lane.

It’s called Pavyllon, and it’s a game-changer – artistry and a soupcon of flamboyance, but food that’s filling, too. And the service? A masterclass in how it should be done. The wine is top-tier, too.

And what’s more, while a heavenly meal at Le 1947 costs 415 euros (£370), the prices are more down to earth at Pavylloyn, with a five-course set lunch menu available for just £55.

Before you even sit down, you’ll be feeling that whatever you’re about to shell out will be money well spent.

The restaurant is sumptuous and smothered in calming hues by acclaimed Parisian designer Chahan Minassian, who oversaw the interior design. The piece de resistance – the magnificent 30-seat wooden counter, where I sat.

Here guests can dine and watch the impressively well-drilled kitchen brigade prepare their food, with waiters and sommeliers weaving in and out of the chefs with mesmerising efficiency, never losing their cool even in the most frantic of moments and delivering the food and drink with effortless charm.

If this scene was a TV channel – I’d tune in.

The bonus on the night I visited was that Yannick himself was present, gently guiding laser-focussed head chef Benjamin Ferra Y Castell and the rest of the team, and gamely pausing from time to time to pose for photographs for guests.

I tried a £148 tasting menu with paired wines. That’s a hefty bill, but the quality never dips below impressive.

First up was a quirky number – a trio of warm potatoes glazed with lovage mayonnaise and served with cucumber and seaweed. This was followed by a refreshing ‘modern gazpacho’, served to me by (warmly smiling) Yannick himself, with cured ham and celery sorbet in the mouthwatering mix.

A beautifully cooked slice of red mullet garnished with chorizo butter and served with a chermoula sauce was the delicious third act, followed by a succulent lamb chop accompanied by green shiso coulis and moreish anchoiade.

The primary-school-aged version of me would have been licking the sauce off the plate.

Not the done thing here, so I wiped every last molecule up with some of the fantastic homemade bread that was in seemingly endless supply.

The final two acts? A duo of delectable desserts – raspberries with a coconut and dill sorbet (an unexpectedly flavoursome combination) and then a well-executed vanilla Napoleon (aka mille-feuille) with Earl Grey caramel (I felt uneasy about this one beforehand because I’m not partial to the pungent taste of Earl Grey, but the way it was blended in here was most pleasing).

By the time I’d finished dish number five I had room for only the thinnest of wafer-thin mints.

Each of the paired wines that knowledgeable head sommelier Baptiste Beaumard picked for the meal was thoughtfully matched with the food and enthusiastically presented.

He took my tastebuds from the Alsace (a white 2021 Domaine Ostertag Sylvaner Vieilles Vignes) to Austria (a knock-out Burgenland Umathum) via Normandy – a stupendous 2022 pear cider by Eric Bordelet that coupled wonderfully with the raspberry and coconut pudding.

The hospitality competition in this quarter of the UK capital has always been hot – Yannick and his able Pavyllon team have just turned up the temperature even further.

Monaco’s French international Ben Yedder is charged with raping two women aged 19 and 20 last month

• Yedder has been placed under judicial supervision and had to pay £776,000 bail, the Nice prosecutor’s office told AFP

By James Callery and Afp

Published: 11:11 EDT, 11 August 2023 | Updated: 04:27 EDT, 12 August 2023

A 17-year-old boy from Afghanistan who was rescued from a sinking dinghy alongside 38 others in a tragedy which killed at least four told authorities that French fisherman ignored their desperate cries for help.

The teenager, who cannot be named for legal reasons, said those on board the vessel in the English Channel could see the dinghy passengers were drowning but ‘did nothing’.

The boy, whose uncle in Iran had paid people-smugglers 1,500 euros for him to make the illicit crossing from Calais in the early hours of December 14 last year, told police their boat, overcrowded with 46 people, appeared to ‘explode’.

The evidence was heard during the trial of boat pilot Ibrahima Bah, 19, who denies four counts of manslaughter and one count of facilitating a breach of UK immigration law by piloting the ill-fated small boat.

The dinghy had already been taking on water and one passenger was so scared he had performed last rites, Canterbury Crown Court, Kent, heard.

But the teen said the African driver of the home-built craft reassured them they would be saved if they continued into English waters.

In a police video-recorded interview played today in court, he described how the treacherous journey turned to tragedy.

‘Water was pouring into our boat. We knew that we were going to go down and there were French fishermen circling us, looking at us, ignoring us and doing nothing,’ he said, assisted by a Dari interpreter.

‘They could see we were dying and going down and they were doing nothing. We were still in French waters.

‘The African was saying: “It’s not very serious, we can still get to the other (English) boats where they could help us because these ones are looking and letting us die but we can get there”.

‘There was water everywhere and we were screaming, shouting and saying “We are going down”.

‘We kept screaming and asking: “Help, help, help”, but they were coming and looking and saying “No” and just going away.

‘The guy who was controlling the engine was trying to reassure us, saying: “Don’t panic, stay calm, we will do something. These guys are not doing anything but we can get to the other boats and they might help us”.’

The boy said they were ‘some distance’ into the crossing and described being in ‘no-man’s land’ as one Afghani tried to bail out the water.

But he told police he and the 45 others were ‘packed in’ the boat, which then collapsed into itself under the extra weight.

The 17-year-old said how the inflatable ring ‘exploded’ because there were ‘too many’ people on board. 

A total of 39 people were eventually rescued by an English fishing boat, the Arcturus, assisted by HMS Severn, lifeboat crews and the air ambulance.

The boy did not have a life vest and said he could feel himself losing sensation in his body as he held onto a rope in the icy water before being pulled onboard.

Bah, 19, was among those rescued. He faces four charges of manslaughter in relation to the four men who drowned. One has been identified as Hajratullah Ahmadi while the others remain unknown.

The court heard he accepts he drove the boat but denies all five offences.

At the start of his trial, jurors were told Bah allegedly joked to one passenger: ‘I will either take you there or kill you all’.

He later told police he had been assaulted and threatened into taking control of the inflatable in return for free travel by the Kurdish agents in charge of the human trafficking operation.

Those on board had paid thousands to make the trip, one as much as 8,000 euros, the court heard.

But prosecutor Duncan Atkinson said despite being untrained and unlicensed to pilot a boat, by law Bah had a duty of care to his passengers and that his actions amounted to manslaughter by gross negligence.

He said the risks of such a ‘a home-built inflatable made from low quality materials’ being put to sea were ‘present and obvious’.

‘The inflatable carried with it an obvious and serious risk to the life and limb of each of those on board,’ Mr Atkinson told the court.

‘Whilst the defendant, like the others, was a migrant seeking a better life in the UK, he had also, like those others, voluntarily consorted with the agents of organised crime who profited from that quest.

‘More than that, he accepted, in return for a free crossing, responsibility for his fellow passengers.’

The small craft, just 25 to 28ft in length, was neither ‘typically designed nor manufactured’ to undertake a journey in what is the world’s busiest shipping lane, said the prosecutor.

There was insufficient lifejackets, no safety equipment such as flares or a radio, no deckboards and was being navigated without lights and by mobile phone.

It was also carrying more than double its maximum passenger capacity of 20.

The Afghani teenager told police he had been in a Jungle camp in Dunkirk for about six weeks when he made the crossing, the court heard.

He had left his home in Afghanistan about 18 months earlier and reached France via Austria and Switzerland.

But he said he wanted to reach the UK to study and ‘make a better life’.

The crossing in December last year was his second by boat in a month, the first having failed when they got lost after spending 13 hours at sea.

He described how three Kurdish men drove the migrants in vehicles to the beach at about 1am, inflated the boat and then ordered them to carry it to the water.

The court heard they were punched, kicked and beaten for not hurrying up.

One of those beaten was an African, said the teenager.

‘This was human trafficking so you have to follow their instructions because if you don’t follow or fall behind or are slow, they beat you up,’ he explained.

Once the boat was in the water, the migrants scrambled for a position.

‘There wasn’t any space to move. All 46 were packed, squeezed to fit into that,’ added the boy.

He said the Kurds got the engine going and the inflatable set off.

Asked who controlled the engine during the crossing, he told police ‘one of the Africans’ but he never spoke to him personally.

‘Everyone was thinking of themselves. Everyone was praying to make it with our lives,’ said the boy.

He added that the agents had decided who was to drive, something the Afghanis would ‘shy away’ from.

‘They don’t give us any safety instructions on what to do or how to do things. Any instructions would have been given to the driver,’ he said.

The teen also told police it was ‘common knowledge’ that once in British waters migrants would be rescued, regardless of whether they were drowning or not.

Asked if the driver had any assistance from others on the boat he said: ‘They (the Kurds) would have given him which direction to take. There were other Africans there but I didn’t see any working as his deputy or helping him or assisting him.’

Jurors at Canterbury Crown Court were previously told to put any ‘bias, emotion, sympathy and prejudice’ aside while deciding the case. 

World’s second richest man, Bernard Arnault, hits out at his countrymen in France for resenting his wealth, saying they like to criticise the successful

By Daily Mail City & Finance Reporter

Updated: 16:50 EDT, 23 June 2023

Some links in this article may be affiliate links. If you click on them we may earn a small commission. That helps us fund This Is Money, and keep it free to use. We do not write articles to promote products. We do not allow any commercial relationship to affect our editorial independence.

POPULAR MONEY SECTIONS
Take me to…

Find peace in Paris: Horticulture and history await in the French capital’s glorious gardens

By Camilla Bassett-smith For The Daily Mail

Updated: 02:39 EDT, 22 June 2023

A British billionaire is on board a submersible which has vanished during a mission to the site of the Titanic’s wreckage, with a renowned French explorer and the CEO of the expedition company also believed to be on board.

Hamish Harding, 58, is part of the crew on board the vessel which is believed to have embarked on its journey from Newfoundland, in Canada, at 4am on Sunday. A frantic search and rescue mission is now underway to locate and recover the craft, which can hold five people.

Harding, who also recently traveled to space in a Blue Origin craft owned by Jeff Bezos, said the crew was also expected to include veteran French explorer PH Nargeolet, a pre-eminent expert on the Titanic who has led a number of expeditions to the ship’s wreckage. 

Stockton Rush, the CEO and founder of OceanGate Expeditions, which operated the trip, is also feared to be on board, Sky News reported. And PH Nargeolet, the world’s top Titanic wreck expert is present on the submersible too, a friend told a Canadian news station. 

The developments came as it emerged another explorer, David Concannon, who was slated to join the trip was forced to cancel at the last minute. He is now helping with the rescue efforts.

Harding’s stepson, Brian Szasz, said on Facebook that he was sending ‘thoughts and prayers’ following the disappearance.

‘Pray for a successful recovery,’ he added. ‘Thoughts and prayers for my stepfather Hamish Harding as his submarine has gone missing exploring Titanic. Search and rescue mission is underway.’

Harding is a renowned explorer who holds several world records. In 2019, he led a mission which set the world record for the fastest circumnavigation of the earth over both poles.

He also holds the record for the longest amount of time spent at the bottom of the ocean after traversing the Mariana trench, the deepest point on Earth, for four hours and 15 minutes. The father-of-two also holds another record for the longest distance, three miles, covered at the bottom of the ocean.

Harding, the chairman of Action Aviation, was a passenger on the fifth commercial flight of Blue Origin, the space travel company owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. 

On Saturday, he posted his pride at joining the Titanic mission and said: ‘Due to the worst winter in Newfoundland in 40 years, this mission is likely to be the first and only manned mission to the Titanic in 2023. A weather window has just opened up and we are going to attempt a dive tomorrow.’

‘The team on the sub has a couple of legendary explorers, some of which have done over 30 dives to the RMS Titanic since the 1980s including PH Nargeolet,’ he added.

Paul Henri Nargeolet, 77, is a former Commander in the French Navy who is hailed as a world-leading expert on the Titanic wreckage. 

In 2019, he spoke frankly about the risks of leading missions to the site, which is 12,500ft – 2.5 miles – underwater around 370 miles from Newfoundland.

‘If you are 11 [miles] or 11km down, if something bad happens, the result is the same. When you’re in very deep water, you’re dead before you realize that something is happening, so it’s just not a problem.’

The submersible was transported to the location of the wreckage site by ship during an expedition made up of a larger team of explorers and enthusiasts. OceanGate Expeditions is thought to be the only company that offers tours of the Titanic wreckage.

Larry Daley, a diver based in St John’s, told CBC that Nargeolet was on board the submersible. 

‘My thoughts and prayers are with everyone… all the people in the sub and the people that are out there looking,’ he said. ‘I’m very optimistic that this will come to a very happy ending, and I’m hopeful that it will.’

It has also emerged another professional explorer who was slated to join the voyage was forced to cancel at short notice. 

David Concannon, an attorney who also runs an exploration consultancy firm, said he pulled out at the last-minute to another ‘urgent client matter’ but was now proving assistance to the rescue teams.

Concannon said in a statement shared by Titanic Book Club: ‘As I posted last week I was supposed to be on this expedition and, indeed, on this dive, but I had to cancel to attend to another urgent client matter.  

‘Last night, I was called and asked to provide whatever assistance I could to ensure the safe return of everyone in the sub. Of course, I immediately agreed. 

‘I know you are concerned for the safety of me and everyone at sea, but PLEASE STOP calling, texting, messaging, sending carrier pigeons and all other forms of communication during this critical time.

‘You are interfering with more important communications that need to be made to resolve this situation as quickly and as safely as possible. Thank you!’

Rory Golden, an explorer who is board the ship that launched the sub, added: ‘We have a situation that is now the part of a major Search and Rescue effort, being undertaken by major agencies. That is where our focus is right now.

‘The reaction and offers of help globally is truly astonishing, and only goes to show the real goodness in people at a time like this. Our online and internet options are being restricted in order to keep bandwidth available for the co-ordinated effort that is taking place, so please bear that in mind too.’

By Samuel Draper For Mailonline

Published: 08:30 EDT, 10 June 2023 | Updated: 08:42 EDT, 10 June 2023

Advertisement