Paris
Europe’s record heat has overwhelmed Paris mortuaries and left families in distress
PARIS | Every few minutes, the mortuary owner’s phone rings. Since a record-smashing heat wave started taking lives and storage space for bodies in Paris and beyond, the funeral directors and mourning families calling him mostly have the same question: Do you have room for one more? With all 32 places in his cold room […]
In France’s historic heat wave, Paris’ dreamy rooftops become a heat-trapping nightmare
PARIS | Before the heat struck, Amelie Kenney could boast that she almost had it all: a tiny but cheap top-floor apartment in Paris, with an enviable view from its minuscule balcony of the French capital’s iconic gray roofs and even, when she leans out far enough, up to the Sacré-Cœur basilica atop Montmartre. But […]
French artist JR begins his giant ‘cave’ art inflation over Paris’ oldest bridge
PARIS | The oldest bridge in Paris has begun to vanish this week, as the artist JR — who is known as the “French Banksy” — began inflating a giant “cave” over the Pont Neuf. The monumental, rocky illusion is swallowing the 17th-century landmark, which has carried Parisians across the Seine for more than 400 […]
A new Swatch model is introduced, and a case study in overexcited ‘drop culture’ plays out
LONDON | In Paris, police deployed tear gas. In Milan, Italy, a fistfight erupted. In London, Singapore and New York, all-night queues snaked from the doors of Swatch stores — the latest examples of status-symbol “drop culture” to flash across the globe when status symbols and resale value collide. The company at the center of […]