Matthew Fraser

The French are accustomed to rancorous debates about the threat to women’s rights posed by religious orthodoxies – especially Islam, with its restrictive tradition of hijabs, burkas and abayas to cover the female body. Only last week, France’s far-right leader Marine Le Pen, who is far ahead in the polls, declared that she will make illegal Islamic headscarves worn in public. The far left, which panders to the Muslim vote, shot back with a promise to repeal the ban on abayas in French schools. This week, few in France were expecting a scandal over religion and women’s rights that has nothing to do with Islam.

The Pope is arriving in Paris like a rock star next month, taking centre stage at a mass rally of French youth in the Stade de France. The stadium’s 80,000 seats were quickly snapped up online for Leo XIV’s evening prayer vigil on 25 September. The following day, the Pope will celebrate an open-air mass in Place de la Concorde. More than 200,000 worshippers have already reserved places and a sea of 300,000 faithful are expected to congregate in the nearby Champs-Élysées. The stage is also set for delicate diplomatic tensions when the Pope meets with French president Emmanuel Macron at the Élysée Palace. Macron’s government just adopted a law permitting assisted suicide. The Pope has publicly expressed his opposition to legalised euthanasia.

Another mosque in France has been shut down, this one in a bleak north Paris suburb that usually makes headlines for criminal gangs and drug trafficking. The Attaqwa mosque, surrounded by council housing and warehouses in a grim section of Aulnay-sous-Bois, was closed by authorities this week for allegedly propagating radical Islamist ideology and inciting terrorism. Videos posted on social media also showed an imam at the mosque exhorting Muslims to strike their small children if they don’t pray. The mosque’s closure is the latest salvo in the French state’s decade-long campaign against extremist imams whose inflamed sermons are promoting jihad and glorifying martyrdom on French soil.

Patrick Bruel was once a heartthrob pop star whose dark brooding looks fuelled a ‘Bruelmania’ fever that swept through France in the 1990s. He sold millions of albums and was one of the country’s most bankable film stars. Today, Bruel is a different man. Age 67, he has been disgraced by multiple accusations of sexual assault and rape. Yesterday, two new women accused him of sex crimes, bringing the total number of cases to six. Bruel denies wrongdoing. The first allegations against Bruel surfaced several years ago but were dismissed by French police due to lack of evidence. Other women have since come forward claiming that he sexually harassed or assaulted them. Many cite incidents that stretch back two or three decades, beyond the statute of limitations.

When I moved into Paris’s seventh arrondissement, I was not expecting to find myself living in one of the city’s dreaded no-go zones. My neighbourhood, admittedly, is not one of the notorious districts on lists of forbidding no-go zones in the French capital’s bleak north end, plagued with crack houses and criminal gangs. I live in one of Paris’s poshest areas. The seventh arrondissement is known for its burnished boulevards and grand monuments. Every morning, I walk my two dogs on the Champ de Mars in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower. World famous for the annual fireworks display to celebrate Bastille Day, the Champ de Mars boasts a glorious past.

Marine Le Pen’s comeback has thrown France’s presidential election into disarray as rivals for the Élysée Palace scramble to revise their game plans. Before yesterday’s court ruling opened the way for Le Pen to enter the presidential race, other declared candidates on the left and right were counting on her lieutenant Jordan Bardella to be the right-wing National Rally’s candidate. Bardella has definite strengths, especially his handsome looks and appeal to young voters thanks to his massive following on social media. But his youth and inexperience, at age 30, are a handicap that opponents almost certainly were planning to exploit, especially in live television debates. Now it appears the Bardella scenario is off.

Armed with his water gun and foul language, a truculent 14-year-old Arab boy called Hamza has become the unexpected sideshow of the Paris heatwave season. Videos have gone viral showing the pudgy Algerian adolescent in swimming trunks terrorising Parisians along the crowded Canal Saint-Martin in the blistering summer heat. Shirtless and bare-foot, Hamza aims his water pistol at pedestrians and cyclists, extorting two euros (£1.70) from targets who are commanded to pay up or get sprayed. As his notoriety exploded on social media, television crews tracked down Hamza on the banks of the canal. The media attention seems to have encouraged his belligerent antics.

In the French city of Nantes, the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the city’s long-anticipated railway station was a big event. The socialist mayor, Johanna Rolland, presided over the unveiling of the eco-friendly station, which had been hailed as a marvel of architecture and engineering. The town’s councillors applauded its ‘natural ventilation’ system, which was supposed to make air conditioning unnecessary in hot summer months. Also present at the inauguration was celebrated French architect Rudy Ricciotti, the recipient of France’s highest distinctions, including the Légion d’honneur. He designed the station’s thermally self-regulating mezzanine. Its price tag was €37.5 million (£32 million). That was six years ago.