The attack, detected on Sunday, hit data systems used by around 40 museums across France. Paris authorities and the Grand Palais-RMN network said there has been no disruption to the Olympic events.

“To date, no data extraction has been detected,” the Grand Palais-RMN said in a statement, adding its technical teams are “fully mobilized” to fix the incident “as best as possible.”

The Grand Palais is hosting fencing and taekwondo competitions, while the Château de Versailles, also part of the RMN network, is the venue for equestrian sports and the modern pentathlon.

The Paris prosecutor’s office has assigned the investigation to a subdivision, the Brigade for Combating Cybercrime, to determine the extent and perpetrators of the attack. Efforts are ongoing to secure and restore the affected systems.

On Monday, the tennis star shared a photo of The Peninsula Hotel with a caption describing her experience.

Yikes @peninsulaparis I’ve been denied access to rooftop to eat in a empty restaurant of nicer places 🫠 but never with my kids. Always a first. 🙄#Olympic2024 pic.twitter.com/lEGJR5WoEn

— Serena Williams (@serenawilliams) August 5, 2024

“Yikes @peninsulaparis I’ve been denied access to rooftop to eat in an empty restaurant of nicer places but never with my kids,” Williams wrote. “Always a first. #Olympic2024.”

But the restaurant was quick to respond with an apology and explanation, stating that the rooftop was “indeed fully booked.”

“Dear Mrs. Williams, Please accept our deepest apologies for the disappointment you encountered tonight,” the hotel said in a reply to Williams’ post. “Unfortunately, our rooftop bar was indeed fully booked and the only unoccupied tables you saw belonged to our gourmet restaurant, L’Oiseau Blanc, which was fully reserved.”

Dear Mrs. Williams,
Please accept our deepest apologies for the disappointment you encountered tonight.
Unfortunately, our rooftop bar was indeed fully booked and the only unoccupied tables you saw belonged to our gourmet restaurant, L’Oiseau Blanc, which was fully reserved.

— The Peninsula Paris (@peninsulaparis) August 5, 2024

In a follow-up post, the hotel added, “We have always been honored to welcome you and will always be to welcome you again.”

A slew of divided comments followed the exchange. Some berated the restaurant for not accommodating the star, while others called on Williams to apologize for her entitlement.

One comment pointed out that the rooftop restaurant did not even take reservations, according to the Peninsula’s website.

The four-time Olympic gold medalist was a torch bearer at the Paris Olympics’ opening ceremony. Williams was seen cheering on athletes at various events at the Games, including Simone Biles, who led Team USA to win gold in women’s gymnastics.

This story first appeared on NBCNews.com. More from NBC News:

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And we met a man who embodies the connections Boston has with France: the Marquis de Lafayette, a key ally of the Continental Army during the American Revolution.

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Former supermodel and French first lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy was given preliminary charges Tuesday for involvement in alleged efforts to pressure a witness who accused ex-President Nicolas Sarkozy of receiving illegal campaign financing from Libya.

Bruni-Sarkozy was placed under judicial supervision on Tuesday, which included a ban on contact with all those involved in the proceedings with the exception of her husband, according to a judicial official not authorized to be publicly named when speaking about an ongoing investigation.

Preliminary charges against Bruni-Sarkozy include witness tampering and participation in a criminal association with an attempt to commit fraud in efforts to deceive magistrates investigating her husband on suspicion of receiving illegal funds during his 2007 presidential election campaign, the official said.

Bruni-Sarkozy’s lawyer did not respond to requests for comment. After she was questioned by police in May, her lawyers said she provided ‘’useful clarifications and explanations’’ but didn’t comment further.

The witness involved, Ziad Takieddine, is central to accusations that Sarkozy received millions in illegal payments from the regime of then-Libyan President Moammar Gadhafi.

Nicolas Sarkozy, president of France from 2007 to 2012, was already convicted in two other legal cases. He has vigorously denied wrongdoing in all the cases.

In February, an appeals court in Paris upheld a guilty verdict against the former president for illegal campaign financing in his failed 2012 re-election bid. Sarkozy was sentenced to a year in prison, of which six months were suspended. Sarkozy’s lawyers have appealed to the Court of Cassation, France’s highest court. With the appeal pending, Sarkozy cannot be imprisoned, in line with French law.

He was accused of having spent almost twice the maximum legal amount of 22.5 million euros ($27.5 million) on the re-election bid that he lost to Socialist Francois Hollande.

In a separate case in 2021, Sarkozy, 69, was found guilty of corruption and influence peddling.

He’s the first former French president in modern history convicted and sentenced to prison for actions during his term.

Sarkozy retired from active politics in 2017.

——

Associated Press writer Barbara Surk in Nice, France, contributed.

The attack, detected on Sunday, hit data systems used by around 40 museums across France. Paris authorities and the Grand Palais-RMN network said there has been no disruption to the Olympic events.

“To date, no data extraction has been detected,” the Grand Palais-RMN said in a statement, adding its technical teams are “fully mobilized” to fix the incident “as best as possible.”

The Grand Palais is hosting fencing and taekwondo competitions, while the Château de Versailles, also part of the RMN network, is the venue for equestrian sports and the modern pentathlon.

The Paris prosecutor’s office has assigned the investigation to a subdivision, the Brigade for Combating Cybercrime, to determine the extent and perpetrators of the attack. Efforts are ongoing to secure and restore the affected systems.

The mill’s huge sails inexplicably collapsed after a show in April at the iconic venue, an emblem of the surrounding Montmartre neighborhood.

Part of the cabaret’s illuminated sign also crashed to the ground as a result of what its director called a technical problem. No one was hurt, and the mayor of Paris’ 18th district said the structure was not in danger.

The Moulin Rouge scrambled to repair the damage before July 15, when the Olympic torch relay is expected to draw big crowds as it passes through the area.

The windmill was first illuminated on Oct. 6, 1889, at the opening of the Moulin Rouge.

The cabaret, marking its 135th anniversary this year, is a major tourist attraction and was celebrated in the 2001 Baz Luhrmann film musical starring Nicole Kidman.

Cabaret management says its performers represent 18 nationalities and it receives 600,000 spectators a year.

“We’re scared of what might happen,” Amel, 34, told CNBC ahead of the final round of voting in France’s snap election this weekend.

The vote is being closely watched by all quarters of French society to see if the nationalist, anti-immigration National Rally (RN) builds on its initial win in the first round of voting, or whether centrist and leftwing parties have been able to thwart the party’s chances of entering government.

“It’s a very, very tense time. And it’s the first time that the far right is winning at the first turn [the first round of the ballot]. So it’s a very big deal,” Amel, a therapist who said she will vote for the leftwing New Popular Front, added.

“We are very anxious and we are trying to get everyone to vote, trying to tell people who don’t vote to go and vote, and to try to convince people who vote for the extreme right that they are not a good answer [to France’s problems].”

France’s far-right RN rejects the “extremist” label, saying it stands up for French values, culture and citizens at a time when many are fed up with France’s political establishment that’s been led by President Emmanuel Macron since 2017.

But RN’s opponents and critics warn France is on the brink of a political catastrophe if an overtly anti-immigration, nationalist and euroskeptic party wins a majority in this snap election called by Macron after his party lost heavily against the hard-right in European Parliament elections in June. Prime Minister Gabriel Attal has said French voters now have a “moral duty” to halt the party’s advance.

For young, left-leaning voters like Amel, RN’s surge in voter polls, and the fact it won the most votes in the first round of the election last weekend, are worrying developments that make them fear for France’s societal cohesion.

“I am worried about the country’s future. I think it’s getting worse and worse,” Amel, who preferred to only give her first name due to the sensitive nature of the situation, said. “It’s going be like a kind of civil war. I hope it will not reach that, but people will just not mix anymore and will be scared of each other. And this is very scary.”

The snap election has thrown the country’s political polarization into sharp relief as polls ahead of the final round of voting on Sunday imply a deeply divided nation.

The first round of the election resulted in the far-right RN winning 33% of the vote, with the leftwing New Popular Front (NFP) garnering 28% and the coalition of parties supporting Macron (Ensemble, or Together) winning 20% of the vote.

Since the results of the first ballot, parties on the center-right and left have gone all-out to prevent RN’s advance in the second ballot, aiming to prevent a parliamentary majority for the party at all costs. Joining forces in a so-called “Republican Front,” centrists and leftwing parties have withdrawn candidates in many constituencies where one of their candidates was better placed to beat the RN.

By offering voters a starker choice and fewer options, the anti far-right front hopes that the electorate will vote for the non-RN candidate. Whether it will work remains to be seen and analysts point out that French voters might not take kindly to being directed how to vote, or who to vote for.

The elections are a ‘mess’

The final result on Sunday evening — the outcome of a snap election Macron did not need to call — will show just how hard it could be to find a consensus in national politics and government going forward.

How the nation will react to the result is also uncertain. France is no stranger to civil unrest given the widespread “Yellow Vest” anti-government movement of recent years, and street protests since the first round of voting on June 30.

France’s Interior Ministry appears to be preparing for more trouble after Sunday’s poll, reportedly ready to deploy around 30,000 officers across France on Sunday night amid fears of violence after polls close. Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin is reported to have said 5,000 police would be on duty in Paris and its surrounding areas to “ensure that the radical right and radical left do not take advantage of the situation to cause mayhem.”

France’s police force has, at times, been accused of being heavy-handed with demonstrators during previous periods of unrest, firing water cannon and tear gas at “yellow vest” demonstrators in 2019.

A member of the gendarmerie, France’s military force in charge of law enforcement and public order, told CNBC that the “French elections are a mess” and that the “public divide has rarely been so flagrant in France.”

“People’s opinions are becoming more and more divided and this is felt in everyday life,” the gendarme, who asked to remain anonymous due to the nature of his job, told CNBC.

The officer — a father of three who’s in his 40s, and a right-leaning voter — said the polarization in French society was “very worrying, but unfortunately normal with the ‘diversity’ of our society.”

“More and more people with different values and educations are being forced to co-exist, and this clearly doesn’t work,” the officer, who works in Bordeaux in southwestern France, said.

“I am worried about the country’s future, because we are too generous to people who aren’t willing to integrate and contribute to our society, this can not last.”

The police officer said he expected civil unrest after the vote, whichever party gained the most votes.

“There will be civil unrest whoever is elected, this is France and the people speak their mind.”

Civil unrest possible

Political experts agree that the current febrile atmosphere of French politics, and antagonism between the main bodies of voters, are the ingredients for further civil unrest.

“You’ve got here all the recipe for a super-polarized political scene and that, of course, translates into civil society as a whole,” Philippe Marlière, professor of French and European politics at University College London, told CNBC.

“If you’ve got only 33-34% of people voting for the far-right it means the rest is wary of that, or completely opposed to it, so that will translate on every level of politics — institutional politics, party politics, the National Assembly, but also in society. You will have a very polarized society in which younger people, ethnic minorities, women, and in particular feminists, would be very worried,” he said.

Marlière did not discount the possibility of violence on the streets if a far-right party was elected to government. “We’re not there yet. But if there are very unpopular, very antagonizing and very hostile policies to some groups, there will be demonstrations on a scale that you have unrest in the street,” he said.

Unknown entity

Like other hard-right parties in Europe, the National Rally has tapped into voter insecurities regarding crime, immigration, national identity and economic insecurity. RN’s 28-year-old leader Jordan Bardella has told voters he will “restore order,” curb immigration and tackle delinquency but he and party figurehead Marine Le Pen have rowed back on some of their more strident promises and rhetoric, back-pedaling over taking France out of NATO, for example, and moderating the party’s traditionally pro-Russian stance.

Bardella said he would still support the sending of arms to Ukraine but not the deployment of ground troops, as Macron suggested was a possibility.

It’s uncertain how many of National Rally’s policies would be enacted even if the party made it into government. The “Republican Front” also appears confident ahead of the second round of voting that its strategy to hurt the RN’s vote share is working.

An opinion poll published by Ifop on July 3 suggested voters might tend toward a centrist pro-Macron or leftwing candidate rather than the RN candidate if that is the choice they are presented with on the ballot paper on Sunday. If the choice was between a far-left and far-right candidate, however, the picture was more nuanced, showing a split vote.

Analysts predict that RN is less likely to be able to achieve an absolute majority of 289 seats in the 577-seat National Assembly, but is still likely to gather the most votes, creating a hung parliament scenario and headache for Macron and uncertainty for France’s political and economic outlook.

“The political landscape is in turmoil and can’t really work any longer, at least not by the old rules,” Ipsos analyst Mathieu Doiret told CNBC Thursday.

“We are in a situation so far from our traditions and political habitus that it’s very difficult to adapt to this new situation for every stakeholder.”

French polling agencies indicated that Macron’s grouping of centrist parties could finish a distant third in the first-round ballot. Their projections put Macron’s camp behind both Marine Le Pen’s National Rally and a new left-wing coalition of parties that joined forces to keep her anti-immigration party with historical links to antisemitism from being able to form the first far-right government in France since World War II.

But with another torrid week of campaigning to come before the decisive final voting next Sunday, the election’s ultimate outcome remained uncertain.

Macron urged voters to rally against the far right in the second round of balloting.

Le Pen called on voters to give the National Rally an “absolute majority” at parliament. She said a National Rally majority would enable the far right to form a new government with party President Jordan Bardella as prime minister in order to work on France’s “recovery.”

Projections by polling agencies suggest the National Rally stands a good chance of winning a majority in the lower house of parliament for the first time, with an estimated one-third of the first-round vote, nearly double their 18% in the first round in 2022. The party is building on its success in European elections that prompted Macron to dissolve parliament and call the surprise vote. The second round will be decisive but leaves open huge questions on how Macron will share power with a prime minister who is hostile to most of his policies.

The two-round elections could impact European financial markets, Western support for Ukraine and the management of France’s nuclear arsenal and global military force.

Many French voters are frustrated about inflation and other economic concerns, as well as President Emmanuel Macron’s leadership, seen as arrogant and out-of-touch with their lives. Marine Le Pen’s anti-immigration National Rally party has tapped that discontent, notably via online platforms like TikTok, and led in preelection opinion polls.

A new coalition on the left, the New Popular Front, also poses a challenge to the pro-business Macron and his centrist alliance Together for the Republic. It includes the French Socialists and Communists, the greens and the hard-left France Unbowed party and vows to reverse an unpopular pension reform law that raised the retirement age to 64, among other economic reforms.

There are 49.5 million registered voters who will choose the 577 members of the National Assembly, France’s influential lower house of parliament.

Turnout stood at an unusually high 59% three hours before the polls closed. That’s 20 percentage points higher than turnout at the same time in the last first-round vote in 2022.

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Some pollsters suggested the high turnout could temper the outcome for the hard right National Rally, possibly indicating voters made an extra effort to cast ballots for fear that it could win.

The vote was taking place during the traditional first week of summer vacation in France, and absentee ballot requests were at least five times higher than in 2022.

The first polling projections emerged after final polling stations closed. Early official results were expected later Sunday.

Voters in Paris had issues from immigration to the rising cost of living on their minds as the country has grown more divided between the far right and far left blocs, with a deeply unpopular and weakened president in the political center. The campaign was marred by rising hate speech.

“People don’t like what has been happening,” said Cynthia Justine, 44. “People feel they’ve lost a lot in recent years. People are angry. I am angry.” She added that with “the rising hate speech,” it was necessary to express frustrations with those holding and seeking power.

She said it was important as a woman to vote since women haven’t always had that right. And “because I am a Black woman, it’s even more important. A lot is at stake on this day.”

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Macron called the early elections after his party was trounced in the European Parliament election earlier in June by the National Rally, which has historic ties to racism and antisemitism and is hostile toward France’s Muslim community. It also has historical ties to Russia.

Macron’s call was an audacious gamble that French voters who were complacent about the European election would be jolted into turning out for moderate forces in national elections to keep the far right out of power.

Instead, preelection polls suggested that the National Rally is gaining support and has a chance at winning a parliamentary majority. In that scenario, Macron would be expected to name 28-year-old National Rally President Jordan Bardella as prime minister in an awkward power-sharing system known as “cohabitation.”

While Macron has said he won’t step down before his presidential term expires in 2027, cohabitation would weaken him at home and on the world stage.

A 64-year-old voter, Philippe Lempereur, expressed fatigue with politicians from the left, right and center and what he called their inability to work together on issues like ensuring people have shelter and enough to eat. “We vote by default, for the least worse option,” he said. “I prefer to vote than do nothing.”

The results of the first round will give a picture of voter sentiment, but not necessarily of the overall makeup of the next National Assembly. Predictions are difficult because of the complicated voting system, and because parties will work between the rounds to make alliances in some constituencies or pull out of others.

In the past, such maneuvers helped keep far-right candidates from power. But support for Le Pen’s party has spread deep and wide.

Bardella, who has no governing experience, says he would use the powers of prime minister to stop Macron from continuing to supply long-range weapons to Ukraine for the war with Russia.

The National Rally has also questioned the right to citizenship for people born in France, and wants to curtail the rights of French citizens with dual nationality. Critics say this undermines human rights and is a threat to France’s democratic ideals.

Meanwhile, huge public spending promises by the National Rally and especially the left-wing coalition have shaken markets and ignited worries about France’s heavy debt, already criticized by EU watchdogs.

In the restive French Pacific territory of New Caledonia, polls closed earlier due to a curfew that authorities have extended until July 8. Violence there flared last month leaving nine people dead, due to attempts by Macron’s government to amend the French Constitution and change voting lists, which the Indigenous Kanaks feared would further marginalize them. They have long sought to break free from France.

Voters in France’s other overseas territories of Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon, Saint-Barthélemy, Saint-Martin, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Guyana and French Polynesia and those voting in offices opened by embassies and consular posts across the Americas cast their ballots on Saturday.

___

Surk contributed from Nice, France. Diane Jeantet contributed from Lens, France.

___

The anti-immigration National Rally party, which has tried to shed historical links to antisemitism, is leading in pre-election polling and has its first real chance of forming a government, if it comes out on top of the two-round elections that end July 7. It would be the first far-right force to lead a French government since the Nazi occupation.

Far-left figures, meanwhile, have faced accusations of antisemitism linked to their response to Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel and the ensuing war.

Concerns came to the fore after two adolescent boys in a Paris suburb were given preliminary charges this week of raping a 12-year-old girl and religion-motivated violence, according to prosecutors. Lawyer and Jewish leader Elie Korchia told French broadcaster BFM that the girl is Jewish and that the word Palestine was mentioned during the attack.

Hundreds of people gathered Thursday evening around the Bastille monument in Paris to protest against antisemitism, in the second straight night of demonstrations.

France has the largest Jewish population in Europe, but given its own World War II collaboration with the Nazis, antisemitic acts today open old scars. France also has the largest Muslim population in western Europe, and anti-Muslim acts have risen in recent years.

Politicians from all sides were quick to comment on the attack, notably after a surge in antisemitic acts in France since the start of the Israel-Hamas war.

French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal wrote on X that the girl was “raped because she’s Jewish,” while French President Emmanuel Macron called on schools to hold a “discussion hour” on racism and antisemitism.

Jordan Bardella, president of the National Rally, said that if elected he would “fight the antisemitism that has been plaguing France since Oct. 7.” In the wake of reports of the attack, Bardella announced that his party was withdrawing support for one of its candidates over an antisemitic message on social media posted in 2018.

His predecessor as party president and the National Rally’s 2022 presidential candidate, Marine Le Pen, accused the “extreme left” of “stigmatization of Jews” and of “instrumentalizing” the Israel-Hamas conflict.

Leftist leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon denounced “antisemitic racism,” though the France Unbowed party which he formerly led has itself faced accusations of antisemitism linked to the Israel-Hamas war.

Arié Alimi, lawyer and vice-president of the League of Human Rights, called for a united front against the far right.

“For some time now there is an awareness that there is antisemitism also on the left and that we need to address it,” he said at Thursday’s demonstration. ‘’Today it’s the camp of the left, of progressives that is gathered with all people who are worried by antisemitism and all kinds of racism in France, in a particular political moment with a far right that could possibly come to power.”

Although the alleged rape has heightened tensions regarding antisemitism in France before the June 30 and July 7 two-round parliamentary election, it is far from a new issue in French politics.

More than 180,000 people across France, marched in November to protest rising antisemitism in the wake of Israel’s ongoing war against Hamas in Gaza.

Along with then-Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne and representatives of several other parties, Le Pen attended the march amid fierce criticism that her once-pariah National Rally party had failed to shake off its antisemitic heritage despite growing political legitimacy.

Borne, the daughter of a Jewish Holocaust survivor, tweeted that “the presence of the National Rally is not fooling anyone.”

Party founder Jean-Marie Le Pen, Marine Le Pen’s father, was convicted repeatedly of antisemitic hate speech and played down the scope of the Holocaust. Marine Le Pen — runner-up in the last two presidential elections and likely a top contender in 2027 — has worked to scrub the party’s image, kicking her father out and changing its name from National Front to National Rally.

Attal announced in May that “366 antisemitic acts” were recorded between January and March this year, an increase of 300% compared to the first three months of 2023.

___

Morton reported from London.

The palace press office told The Associated Press there was no fire, but smoke was emanating from a “hot zone” in the wood in the roofing. The office said local firefighters quickly put out the smoke.

The palace office said there were no injuries or damage to the building or the heritage collections. Investigations were underway.

The Palace is a major tourist attraction, with 8 million annual visitors.

The smoke was spotted around 3:15 p.m. and tourists were quickly evacuated in line with protocol. Visitors were allowed back in by 4:30 p.m.

In 2019, Notre Dame cathedral in central Paris was devastated by a fire that swept across the roof and caused the spire to collapse. The restoration of the cathedral is due to be completed at the end of 2024.

Ever-dwindling numbers of World War II veterans who have pilgrimaged back to France, and Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine that has dashed hopes that lives and cities wouldn’t again be laid to waste in Europe, are making the poignant anniversary of the June 6, 1944, Allied landings even more so.

The break of dawn eight decades after Allied troops waded ashore under hails of gunfire on five code-named beaches — Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno and Sword — kicked off a day of remembrance by Allied nations now standing together again behind Ukraine — and with World War II ally Russia not invited by host France. It cited Russia’s “war of aggression against Ukraine that has intensified in recent weeks” for the snub.

With the dead and wounded on both sides in Ukraine estimated in the hundreds of thousands, commemorations for the more than 4,400 Allied dead on D-Day and many tens of thousands more, including French civilians, killed in the ensuing Battle of Normandy are tinged with concerns that World War II lessons are being lost.

“There are things worth fighting for,” said World War II veteran Walter Stitt, who fought in tanks and turns 100 in July, as he visited Omaha Beach this week. “Although I wish there was another way to do it than to try to kill each other.”

“We’ll learn one of these days, but I won’t be around for that,” he said.

As now-centenarian veterans revisit old memories and fallen comrades buried in Normandy graves, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s presence at D-Day commemorations with world leaders — including U.S. President Joe Biden who are supporting Ukraine’s fight against Russia’s invasion — will inevitably fuse together World War II’s awful past with the fraught present on Thursday.

Biden marked the 80th anniversary of D-Day on Thursday by saying “we will not walk away” from the defense of Ukraine and allow Russia to threaten more of Europe.

“To surrender to bullies, to bow down to dictators, is simply unthinkable,” he said during a ceremony at the American cemetery in Normandy. “If we were to do that, it means we’d be forgetting what happened here on these hallowed beaches.”

D-Day was the largest amphibious assault in history, and Biden called it a “powerful illustration of how alliances, real alliances make us stronger.”

He said that was “a lesson that I pray we Americans never forget.”

Earlier in the day, Biden met with veterans during a ceremony at the American Cemetery in Colleville-sur-Mer. Veterans who could stand were helped out of wheelchairs to pose for photos with the president and first lady Jill Biden. One hugged Biden, another saluted. When Biden learned it was the birthday of one of the veterans, he led the audience in singing ‘Happy Birthday.’

Steve Spielberg and Tom Hanks, the Hollywood heavyweights behind movies and television shows about World War II, were nearby.

Conscious of the inevitability that major D-Day anniversaries will soon take place without World War II veterans, huge throngs of aficionados in uniforms and riding vehicles of the time, and tourists soaking up the spectacle, have flooded Normandy for the 80th anniversary.

“It’s so historic and we just have to remember the sacrifices of everybody who gave us our freedom,” said Becky Kraubetz, a Briton now living in Florida whose grandfather served with the British Army during World War II and was captured in Malta.

“It gives you goosebumps, everything that happened here. Imagine just jumping into the water, freezing cold,” the 54-year-old said as she gazed across the English Channel, tears in her eyes. “The bravery, the courage, for people to face that is just unbelievable — very, very humbled to be here.”

She was among a crowd of thousands of people that stretched for several kilometers (miles) along Utah beach, the westernmost of the D-Day beaches.

In a quiet spot away from the official ceremonies, France’s Christophe Receveur performed his own tribute, unfurling an American flag he had bought on a trip to Pennsylvania to honor those who died on D-Day.

“To forget them is to let them die all over again,” the 57-year-old said as he and his daughter, Julie, then carefully refolded the flag into a tight triangle, adding that those now dying in Ukraine fighting the invading Russian army were also on his mind.

“All these troops came to liberate a country that they didn’t know for an ideology — democracy, freedom — that is under severe strain now,” he said.

The fair-like atmosphere fueled by World War II-era jeeps and trucks tearing down hedge-rowed lanes so deadly for Allied troops who fought dug-in German defenders, and of reenactors playing at war on sands where D-Day soldiers fell, leave open the question of what meaning anniversaries will have once the veterans are gone.

But at the 80th, they’re the VIPs of commemorations across the Normandy coast where the largest-ever land, sea and air armada punctured Hitler’s defenses in Western Europe and helped precipitate his downfall 11 months later.

“They really were the golden generation, those 17-, 18-year-old guys doing something so brave,” said James Baker, a 56-year-old from the Netherlands, reflecting as dawn broke on Utah Beach.

Farther up the coast on Gold beach, a military bagpiper played at precisely the time that British troops landed there 80 years ago.

The United Kingdom’s King Charles III and Prime Minister Rishi Sunak were among those at a ceremony later in the day to honor the troops who landed there and on Sword Beach, while Prince William and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau joined others at ceremony for the Canadian troops who landed on Juno Beach.

In his address, the king told the crowd that the world was fortunate that a generation “did not flinch” when they were called upon.

“Our obligation to remember what they stood for and what they achieved for us all can never diminish,” he said.

Speaking in French, Charles also paid tribute to the “unimaginable number” of French civilians killed in the battle for Normandy, and the bravery and sacrifice of the French Resistance.

French President Emmanuel Macron pledged that ″France will never forget″ those who fought to liberate his country.

Those who traveled to Normandy include women who were among the millions who built bombers, tanks and other weaponry and played other vital World War II roles that were long overshadowed by the combat exploits of men.

“We weren’t doing it for honors and awards. We were doing it to save our country. And we ended up helping save the world,” said 98-year-old Anna Mae Krier, who worked as a riveter building B-17 and B-29 bombers.

Feted where ever they go in wheelchairs and walking with canes, veterans are using their voices to repeat their message they hope will live eternal: Never forget.

“To know the amount of people who were killed here, just amazing,” 98-year-old Allan Chatwin, who served with the U.S. Navy in the Pacific, said as he visited Omaha, the deadliest of the Allied beaches on D-Day.

He quickly added: “I don’t know that amazing is the word.”

Multiple U.S. officials briefed on the matter said authorities were looking into whether the arrested person was trying to conduct a pro-Russian act of sabotage against a French facility that supported Ukraine’s war efforts.

A source with the French National Anti-Terrorist Prosecutor’s Office, which announced the arrest of the 26-year-old, said that its investigation found materials used to make explosive devices and that one of those devices had exploded. No other injuries were reported.

An anti-terrorism investigation opened Tuesday led to several terrorism-related charges. The person has not be formally charged.

The office said it was “too early for us to say” if the case was connected to the Russian sabotage campaign and pattern.

The U.S. officials said the device that exploded included the homemade explosive compound TATP, which has been used in some terror attacks in the last three decades.

The incident could be one of several recently documented examples of pro-Russian sabotage throughout Europe, according to U.S. officials.

The U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence declined to comment on the case.

U.S. and European officials say that Russia is conducting a sabotage campaign across Europe in an increasingly aggressive effort by President Vladimir Putin to undermine Western support for Ukraine, seeking to damage railways, military bases and other sites used to supply arms to Kyiv.

The incidents include an alleged Russian-backed arson attack on a Ukrainian-linked warehouse in the United Kingdom, a plot to bomb or set fire to military bases in Germany, attempts to hack and disrupt Europe’s railway signal network and the jamming of GPS systems for civil aviation, according to European and British authorities.

In a statement following NBC News’ reporting on the sabotage campaign, Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service said, that “such attacks are always of a purely tendentious nature, politically opportunistic and do not contain any arguments or evidence other than the notorious ‘highly likely.’”

“The Russian Federation consistently complies precisely with the norms of international law, and not ‘rules’ promoted by the collective West to fulfill its own hegemonic aspirations. As a matter of principle, we do not interfere in sovereign affairs of foreign states,” the Russian agency said.

President Joe Biden is in France this week to mark the 80th anniversary of D-Day and will be honored by his French counterpart with a state visit on Saturday, including a military parade.

Security has been increased in the country as it prepares to host the Olympics at the end of July. Russia has been banned from the Paris Games over the war in Ukraine, and has mounted a secret influence campaign that seeks to frighten people away from the Games, according to a report.

Nancy Ing reported from Paris, Jonathan Dienst and Tom Winter from New York, and Dan De Luce from Washington. 

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Few witnesses remain who remember the Allied assault. The Associated Press is speaking to veterans in France about their role in freeing Europe from the Nazis, and their messages for younger generations.

Papa Jake

“I am the luckiest man in the world,” D-Day veteran Jake Larson, a 101-year-old American best known on social media under the name “Papa Jake,” said as he arrived in Normandy this week. Papa Jake has more than 800,000 followers on TikTok.

Born in Owatonna, Minnesota, Larson enlisted in the National Guard in 1938, lying about his age as he was only 15.

In 1941, his guard unit was transferred into federal service and he officially joined the Army. In January 1942, he was sent overseas and assembled the planning books for Operation Overlord.

He landed on Omaha Beach in 1944, where he ran under machine-gun fire and made it to the cliffs without being wounded.

After the landing, Larson remembers that he slept close to a comrade who had put his rifle by their side. “In the morning, when we got up, he picked up his rifle from my litter where I was going to sleep and it fell in two. A piece of shrapnel came down and hit the rifle and broke it in two,” he said.

“I’m lucky to be alive, more than lucky. I had planned D-Day. And everybody else that was in there with me is gone,’’ said Larson, who now lives in Lafayette, California.

“Here I am 101, without an ache or a pain in my body. How is that possible? Somebody up there likes me,” he said, pointing to the sky.

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Floyd Blair

Floyd Blair, 103, served as a fighter pilot in the Army Air Corps. On June 6, 1944, he flew in two support missions across Omaha Beach as the Allied invasion began.

“I saw one of the saddest things I’ve ever seen. The color of the water changed,” he recalled Tuesday as he was paying tribute to fallen comrades at the American cemetery of Colleville-sur-Mer.

“Those poor guys on the ground deserve all the credit they can get. The paratroopers, the armored forces, the ground troops. They are the ones,” he said.

After D-Day, Blair participated in missions to support and protect Allied troops. His targets included German tanks, troop trains and other threats to the advancing troops and his radio was tied directly into the U.S. tanks on the ground.

Bob Gibson

“I’m living on borrowed time now,” Bob Gibson, 100, enthusiastically said when arriving at the Deauville airport in Normandy. “I want to see the beach again.”

Gibson was drafted into the Army in 1943 and was sent to Britain. On June 6, 1944, he and his unit landed on Utah Beach in the second wave.

“Terrible. Some of the young fellows never ever made it to the beach. It was so bad that we had to run over (them) to get on the beach. That’s how bad it was,” he said.

Gibson drove an M4 tractor with guns, engaging the enemy day and night. He continued to serve through Normandy and headed to Germany.

“You wake up at night every once in a while too. It seems somebody’s shooting at you. But we were glad to do it. That was our job, we had to do it, right?’’

Gibson, of Hampton, New Jersey, pondered the time that’s passed since then, and said this will probably be his last D-Day anniversary in Normandy.

Les Underwood

Les Underwood, 98, a Royal Navy gunner on a merchant ship that was delivering ammunition to the beaches, kept firing to protect the vessel even as he saw soldiers drown under the weight of their equipment after leaving their landing craft.

“I’ve cried many a time … sat on my own,’’ Underwood said as he visited Southwick House, on the south coast of England, the Allied headquarters in the lead-up to the Battle of Normandy. The event Monday, sponsored by Britain’s defense ministry, came before many of the veterans travel to France for international ceremonies commemorating D-Day.

“I used to get flashbacks. And in those days, there was no treatment. They just said, “Your service days are over. We don’t need you no more.’’’

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George Chandler

George Chandler, 99, served aboard a British motor torpedo boat as part of a flotilla that escorted the U.S. Army assault on Omaha and Utah beaches. The history books don’t capture the horror of the battle, he said.

“Let me assure you, what you read in those silly books that have been written about D-Day are absolute crap,” Chandler said.

“It’s a very sad memory because I watched young American Rangers get shot, slaughtered. And they were young. I was 19 at the time. These kids were younger than me.”

Bernard Morgan

About 20 British veterans gathered on the deck of the Mont St. Michel ferry bound from England for northern France, as crowds gathered on the deck and along the shoreline to wave and cheer for them on their voyage to D-Day commemorations.

“It was more pleasant coming today than it was 80 years ago,’’ chuckled Royal Air Force veteran Bernard Morgan, who worked in communications on D-Day.

Kirka reported from Portsmouth, England and aboard

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In a video posted on social media, two women with the words “FOOD RIPOSTE” written on their t-shirts could be seen passing under a security barrier to get closer to the painting and throwing soup at the glass protecting Leonardo da Vinci’s masterpiece.

“What’s the most important thing?” they shouted. “Art, or right to a healthy and sustainable food?”

“Our farming system is sick. Our farmers are dying at work,” they added.

The Louvre employees could then be seen putting black panels in front of the Mona Lisa and asking visitors to evacuate the room.

Paris police said two people were arrested following the incident.

On its website, the “Food Riposte” group said the French government is breaking its climate commitments and called for the equivalent of the country’s state-sponsored health care system to be put in place to give people better access to healthy food while providing farmers a decent income.

Angry French farmers have been using their tractors for days to set up road blockades and slow traffic across France to seek better remuneration for their produce, less red tape and protection against cheap imports. They also dumped stinky agricultural waste at the gates of government offices.

On Friday, the government announced a series of measures that farmers said do not fully address their demands. Those include “drastically simplifying” certain technical procedures and the progressive end to diesel fuel taxes for farm vehicles.

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Some farmers threatened to converge on Paris, starting Monday, to block the main roads leading to the capital.

New Prime Minister Gabriel Attal visited a farm on Sunday in the central region of Indre-et-Loire. He acknowledged farmers are in a difficult position because “on the one side we say ‘we need quality’ and on the other side ’we want ever-lower prices’.”

“What’s at stake is finding solutions in the short, middle and long term,” he said, “ because we need our farmers.”

Attal also said his government is considering “additional” measures against what he called “unfair competition” from other countries that have different production rules and are importing food to France.

He promised “other decisions” to be made in the coming weeks to address farmers’ concerns.

The attack, detected on Sunday, hit data systems used by around 40 museums across France. Paris authorities and the Grand Palais-RMN network said there has been no disruption to the Olympic events.

“To date, no data extraction has been detected,” the Grand Palais-RMN said in a statement, adding its technical teams are “fully mobilized” to fix the incident “as best as possible.”

The Grand Palais is hosting fencing and taekwondo competitions, while the Château de Versailles, also part of the RMN network, is the venue for equestrian sports and the modern pentathlon.

The Paris prosecutor’s office has assigned the investigation to a subdivision, the Brigade for Combating Cybercrime, to determine the extent and perpetrators of the attack. Efforts are ongoing to secure and restore the affected systems.

Those aboard included children and families. The youngest passenger is a toddler of 21 months, and among the children are several unaccompanied minors, according to the local civil protection agency.

Two of the passengers have been detained as part of a special investigation into suspected human trafficking by an organized criminal group, according the Paris prosecutor’s office. Prosecutors wouldn’t comment on what kind of trafficking was alleged, or whether the ultimate destination was the U.S., which has seen a surge in Indians crossing the Mexico-U.S. border this year.

French authorities hung white tarps across the soaring bay windows of the small Vatry Airport in Champagne country to ensure privacy for the passengers held inside. The unmarked A340 plane, grounded since Thursday, can be seen parked near the terminal. Other flights were canceled or rerouted as the airport was transformed into the hub of a vast trafficking investigation.

The 15 crew members of the Legend Airlines charter flight — en route from Fujairah airport in the United Arab Emirates to Managua, Nicaragua — were questioned and released, according to a lawyer for the Romania-based airline.

A surreal holiday weekend scene has been unfolding in the Vatry Airport since Thursday. The flight stopped for refueling, and was grounded by French police based on an anonymous tip that it could be carrying victims of human trafficking, the prosecutor’s office said.

The unusual and sudden probe disrupted air travel as police cordoned off the airport and flights were disrupted, according to the administration for the Marne region. The airfield is used primarily for charter and cargo flights.

Police sequestered the passengers in the airport, where they spent two nights on camp beds while the investigation continues, according to an official with the Marne administration. The official said the passengers initially remained in the plane, surrounded by police on the tarmac, but were then transferred into the main hall of the airport to sleep.

Emergency workers, a doctor and local volunteers are on the scene and the passengers are being given regular meals, medical care and access to toilets and showers, said Patrick Jaloux, head of the regional civil protection service. A special section of the terminal has been equipped for families.

As the ordeal drags on, ‘’we are trying to find ways to help them pass the time’’ and reduce their distress, Jaloux told the Associated Press.

Indian consular representatives are stationed at the airport and working with the French government ‘’for the welfare of the Indians” and for an ‘’early resolution of the situation,” the Indian Embassy in France posted Saturday on X.

Legend Airlines lawyer Liliana Bakayoko said the company is cooperating with French authorities, denies any role in possible human trafficking and ‘’has not committed any infraction.”

A “partner” company that chartered the plane was responsible for verifying the identity documents of each passenger, and communicated their passport information to the airline 48 hours before the flight, Bakayoko told The Associated Press.

The customer had chartered multiple flights on Legend Airlines from Dubai to Nicaragua, and a few other flights have already made the journey without incident, she said. She would not identify the customer, saying only that it is not a European company.

The crew members, who are of multiple nationalities, “are rather traumatized,” she said. “They wrote me messages that they want to see their families for Christmas.”

The U.S. government has designated Nicaragua as one of several countries deemed as failing to meet minimum standards for eliminating human trafficking.

Nicaragua has also been used as a migratory springboard for people fleeing poverty or conflict in the Caribbean as well as far-flung countries in Africa or Asia, because of relaxed or visa-free entry requirements for some countries. Sometimes charter flights are used for the journey. From there, the migrants travel north by bus with the help of smugglers.

The influx of Indian migrants through Mexico has increased from fewer than 3,000 in 2022 to more than 11,000 from January to November this year, according to the Mexican Immigration Agency. Indian citizens were arrested 41,770 times entering the U.S. illegally from Mexico in the U.S. government’s budget year that ended Sept. 30, more than double from 18,308 the previous year.

___

Charlton reported from Paris. Maria Verza in Mexico City, Elliot Spagat in San Diego, Vineeta Deepak in New Delhi and Jeffrey Schaeffer in Paris contributed.

The attack, detected on Sunday, hit data systems used by around 40 museums across France. Paris authorities and the Grand Palais-RMN network said there has been no disruption to the Olympic events.

“To date, no data extraction has been detected,” the Grand Palais-RMN said in a statement, adding its technical teams are “fully mobilized” to fix the incident “as best as possible.”

The Grand Palais is hosting fencing and taekwondo competitions, while the Château de Versailles, also part of the RMN network, is the venue for equestrian sports and the modern pentathlon.

The Paris prosecutor’s office has assigned the investigation to a subdivision, the Brigade for Combating Cybercrime, to determine the extent and perpetrators of the attack. Efforts are ongoing to secure and restore the affected systems.

Beauty queen Eve Gilles just had the most graceful response to the haters.

After the 20-year-old won the Miss France 2024 competition on Dec. 16, it was believed she made history for winning the pageant with a pixie haircut. But the celebration was short-lived after people started criticizing the beauty queen’s look.

“We’re used to seeing beautiful Misses with long hair, but I chose an androgynous look with short hair,” Gilles said, per U.K. newspaper The Independent in an article published Dec. 18. “No one should dictate who you are.”

As she put it, “Every woman is different, we’re all unique.”

The Miss Universe organization showcased their support for Gilles, while also shining a light on how they want contestants to stay true to themselves.

“There is no one way to be Miss Universe or Miss France, and we embrace every look that comes across our stage,” a spokesperson for Miss Universe said in a statement to People. “We represent the times, and being your confident unique self is the one thing we see being reflected in all of our winners.”

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In fact, the organization noted that the Miss Universe pageant in November featured contestants with diverse hairstyles.

“We saw personal styles and hair of all types,” the spokesperson continued, “and we love it! Short, long, curly.”

In addition, Gilles also received support from other public figures.

“So, in France, in 2023, we measure the progress of respect for women by the length of their hair?” French politician Sandrine Rousseau wrote on X, formerly Twitter, while politician Karima Delli called Gilles “intelligent for embracing her diversity” with her pixie cut.

The attack, detected on Sunday, hit data systems used by around 40 museums across France. Paris authorities and the Grand Palais-RMN network said there has been no disruption to the Olympic events.

“To date, no data extraction has been detected,” the Grand Palais-RMN said in a statement, adding its technical teams are “fully mobilized” to fix the incident “as best as possible.”

The Grand Palais is hosting fencing and taekwondo competitions, while the Château de Versailles, also part of the RMN network, is the venue for equestrian sports and the modern pentathlon.

The Paris prosecutor’s office has assigned the investigation to a subdivision, the Brigade for Combating Cybercrime, to determine the extent and perpetrators of the attack. Efforts are ongoing to secure and restore the affected systems.

The attack, detected on Sunday, hit data systems used by around 40 museums across France. Paris authorities and the Grand Palais-RMN network said there has been no disruption to the Olympic events.

“To date, no data extraction has been detected,” the Grand Palais-RMN said in a statement, adding its technical teams are “fully mobilized” to fix the incident “as best as possible.”

The Grand Palais is hosting fencing and taekwondo competitions, while the Château de Versailles, also part of the RMN network, is the venue for equestrian sports and the modern pentathlon.

The Paris prosecutor’s office has assigned the investigation to a subdivision, the Brigade for Combating Cybercrime, to determine the extent and perpetrators of the attack. Efforts are ongoing to secure and restore the affected systems.

Veteran striker Olivier Giroud came off the bench to score twice as Les Bleus broke the 13-0 record set by Germany against San Marino in 2006 for Euro 2008 qualifying.

Teenage midfielder Warren Zaïre-Emery became France’s youngest goal scorer on his international debut and then went off injured against a Gibraltar side that played most of the match with 10 players following an early sending off.

France’s biggest previous win was 10-0 against Azerbaijan in a European qualifying game in 1995.

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The Louvre communication service said no one has been hurt and no incident has been reported. Paris police said verifications in the museum are underway.

Alarms rang out through the vast museum in central Paris overlooking the Seine River when the evacuation was announced, and in the underground shopping center beneath its signature pyramid.

Police cordoned off the monument from all sides, and the underground access, as tourists and other visitors streamed out. Videos posted online showed people leaving, some hurriedly and some stopping to take photos, others apparently confused about what was happening.

The French government raised the threat alert level and is deploying 7,000 troops to increase security after Friday’s school attack. French authorities say a former student suspected of Islamic radicalization killed a teacher and wounded three other people before being captured.

The government is also concerned about fallout in France from the war between Israel and Hamas.

The Louvre, home to masterpieces such as the Mona Lisa, welcomes between 30,000 and 40,000 visitors per day.

The government has been forced to step in to calm an increasingly anxious nation that will host the Olympic Games — a prime venue for infestations of the crowd-loving insects — in just over nine months.

Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne called a meeting of ministers for Friday to tackle the bedbug crisis. The country’s transport minister, Clement Beaune, met this week with transportation companies to draw up a plan for monitoring and disinfecting — and to try to ease what some have called a national psychosis inflamed by the media.

“There is no resurgence of cases,” Beaune said, telling reporters that 37 cases reported in the bus and Metro system and a dozen others on trains proved unfounded — as did viral videos on social media of tiny creatures supposedly burrowing in the seat of a fast train.

Still, bedbugs have plagued France and other countries for decades. The insects the size of an apple seed that neither jump nor fly get around as easily as people travel from city to city and nation to nation, and they have become increasingly resistant to insecticides. If that’s not enough to make you itchy: Bedbugs can stay alive for a year without a meal.

Without any blood, “they can slow their metabolism and just wait for us,” said Jean-Michel Berenger, an entomologist who raises bedbugs in his lab in the infectious diseases section of the Mediterranee University Hospital in Marseille. The carbon dioxide that all humans give off “will reactivate them … and they’ll come back to bite you.”

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For now, Berenger said, this much is certain: “Bedbugs have infested the media.”

Yet bad dreams are most often fed by a touch of reality.

More than one household in 10 in France was infested with bedbugs between 2017 and 2022, according to a report by the National Agency for Health and Food Safety. The agency relied on a poll by Ipsos to query people on a topic that many prefer to avoid discussing because they fear going public with a bedbug problem will stigmatize them.

But silence is a mistake, experts say. No social category is immune to finding bedbugs in their clothing, blankets or mattresses.

“It’s not at all a hygiene problem. The only thing that interests (bedbugs) is your blood,” said Berenger, the entomologist. “Whether you live in a dump or a palace, it’s the same thing to them.”

Business is booming for companies that eradicate the little brown insects, a process that often starts with detection by dogs trained to sniff out the special odor that bedbugs give off. If an infestation is confirmed, technicians move in to zap the area with super hot steam. Heat and cold are enemies of bedbugs. One French government recommendation for victims is to put well-wrapped clothes in the freezer.

Kevin Le Mestre, director of Lutte Antinuisible, said his company is getting “dozens and dozens” of calls. In the past, he said, people often didn’t react, even to bites.

“Now, as soon as they spot a bite, they don’t ask themselves whether it really comes from bedbugs or not. They call us straight away,” said a pest control technician for the company, Lucas Pradalier, as he disinfected a Paris apartment. A sniffer dog detected bedbugs in a baseboard and between floorboards.

The French public began moving into panic mode about a month ago after reports of bedbugs at a Paris movie theater. Videos began popping up on social networks, showing little insects on trains and buses.

Now, both Socialists and centrists of President Emmanuel Macron’s party want to propose bills to fight bedbugs. Far-left lawmaker Mathilde Panot recently brought a vial of bedbugs to the Parliament to chastise the government for, in her view, letting the creatures run rampant.

Bedbugs, an age-old curse on humans, seemingly disappeared with treatment by harsh, now-banned insecticides. They made a reappearance in the 1950s, especially in densely populated cities like New York. And they travel the world thanks to commerce and tourism.

That adds up to a bedbug challenge for the Paris Olympics starting in July.

“All human population movements are profitable for bedbugs because they go with us, to hotels, in transport,” said Berenger.

Beaune, the transport minister, is hopeful that steps can be taken to ease the public’s fear. But, he conceded, “It’s hell, these bedbugs.”

Charles and Queen Camilla’s three-day trip to Paris and Bordeaux, starting Wednesday, includes a grand dinner at Versailles in the presence of over 150 guests in the Hall of Mirrors.

The palace has recently opened a gallery retracing its history, from its creation as a modest hunting lodge in 1623 to last century’s key diplomatic events — including the visits of Charles’ predecessors.

French President Emmanuel Macron’s office said Wednesday’s dinner echoes the state visit of Queen Elizabeth II in 1972, when she was greeted at the Palace by President Georges Pompidou. King Charles liked the idea of following in his mother’s footsteps, according to Macron’s office.

Elizabeth II also visited the palace in 1958 and 10 years earlier, four years before her coronation in 1952.

Catherine Pégard, president of the Palace of Versailles, praised the “never-ending story” of the palace that “includes visits from French children who come to Versailles with their classes, as well as visits from His Majesty the King of England or tourists who arrive from Asia and are less familiar with the history.”

“And we have a story to tell each one of them,” she told The Associated Press.

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Usually filled with a chaotic crowd of photo-snapping tourists from across the world, the Hall of Mirrors will be closed to visitors Wednesday to prepare for the royal banquet.

On the menu : blue lobster and crab followed by Bresse poultry and a gratin of cep mushrooms prepared, respectively, by French chefs Anne-Sophie Pic and Yannick Alléno, both awarded three Michelin stars. The cheese course will feature France’s Comté and Britain’s Stichelton blue cheese. For dessert, world-famous pastry chef Pierre Hermé will prepare his rose macaroon cookie, composed of rose petal cream, raspberries and lychees.

Charles’ visit will make one more date in the Palace’s long history starting from King Louis XIII, to the French revolution and all the way to modern times that is being presented on its ground floor into the newly opened Gallery of the History of the Palace.

The gallery has 11 rooms, each thematic and largely chronological, presenting over 120 works aimed at providing visitors from across the world with an immediate understanding of the complex history of the palace.

It brings together recently acquired works alongside paintings and artworks that for many years had gone unseen as they’d been in storage, along with others that are now repositioned and better enhanced.

Laurent Salomé, director of the National Museum of the Palace of Versailles and Trianon, said the exhibit features a number of masterpieces.

“Our intention was to create a first great moment of pleasure for visitors. First of all, because they’ve traveled a long way. For a long time, they’ve dreamed of Versailles. We didn’t want to give them a boring lesson to start their visit,” he said.

Some artworks come from the original version of the palace and its gardens under its great builder Louis XIV, who decided to expand his father’s hunting lodge.

It’s “a history made by not just one monarch, it’s also an enormous team of artists — and the greatest artists. A good thing about absolute monarchy is to be able to gather all the best people at the same place,” Salomé stressed.

Today the Palace contains 2,300 rooms spread over 63,154 square meters (679,784 square feet).

The historical gallery also offers the opportunity to discover anecdotes about the Palace’s life — like some panels in the “Chinese chamber” of Queen Marie Leszczynska, Louis XV’s wife, that she in part painted herself.

In the last rooms, visitors can see the famous desk where the 1919 Treaty of Versailles was signed that formally ended World War I, as well as photos and archival video of heads of states and royalty honored at the palace during the 20th century.

“The idea is also to show that there is a gradual transformation of the Château de Versailles, which has always remained alive through the centuries, from its creation to the present day,” Salomé said.

The San Antonio Spurs rookie reaffirmed his commitment to France’s national squad at the Summer Games next year in his home country. He spoke in the wake of France’s poor showing at the World Cup last month, where he did not play.

“Performing well at the Olympics would be a great story,” Wembanyama told French media. “I’ll be present at the Olympics, and there’s no other goal than gold.”

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“The World Cup was very disappointing,” he was quoted as saying on Tuesday. “But I have no judgment to make as I wasn’t there.”

The No. 1 draft pick had decided not to play at the World Cup in order to prepare for his rookie season.

France came to the World Cup as the reigning Olympic silver medalists but failed to qualify for the second round.

On Aug. 4, TikToker Amanda Rollins (@americanfille) posted a video to her TikTok that ignited what she has since deemed “Buttergate.” In the video, which has garnered hundred and thousands of views on TikTok and millions on X (formerly known as Twitter), the influencer describes something the French do with their sandwiches that apparently Americans do not.

“I’m making sandwiches for my boyfriend because we’re going on a hike tomorrow, and as I’m doing this, it occurred to me that French people do something very weird with sandwiches that I think you guys would find strange,” Rollins says in the video.

Taking a sliced baguette, Rollins slathers a bit of French butter onto each side.

“What they do, it’s like a classic sandwich: It’s ham, cheese and butter. Literally, just swab it on — no mayonnaise, no mustard, just butter,” she continues. “And listen, I know you might be thinking that sounds gross. It’s actually so good.”

Placing Emmental cheese and ham onto her simple sandwich, she stresses that this is the way everyone across the pond makes their sandwiches.

“It’s good dude … Don’t knock it till you try it. Go get yourself a baguette — a real baguette — grab some butter, butter that baby up.”

While it’s true that Americans don’t typically butter their sandwiches, opting more commonly for mayonnaise, as she notes, Europeans on the internet could not believe what they were hearing.

“I think that’s a normal sandwich everywhere 😂,” one user wrote on TikTok.

“The USA is another world I stg,” wrote another TikToker in one of the most-liked comments.

“America is a failed state,” one X user tweeted with the video.

“there is NO WAY americans dont butter their bread for sandwiches. what? what???? ……what????????? they use butter religiously for everything else, no??? but the one thing- ???????????” wrote another.

“Snicker if you want but ‘putting butter on bread’ described as a ‘food hack’ has made my week,” tweeted yet another, referring to PureWow’s Stitch of Rollin’s video which calls the method a “hack.”

In one viral Stitch, TikToker @jackknightley says, “Oh my god guys, brand new food hack using butter for, like, the whole reason it exists. Hey guys, guess what I’ve discovered, what you can use shoes for: you can put them on your feet … How has the concept of putting butter on bread not spread to the other side of the Atlantic yet?”

The attention got to be so much that Rollins filmed a follow-up video — titled “Buttergate 2.0” — to address peoples’ concerns.

“Everyone is like, Amanda thinks that bread and butter don’t go together. B—-. Yes, they do. I know they do, just not always on sandwiches,” Rollins says in the TikTok. ‘That is the beauty of moving abroad, my friends. I’m trying to spread the word, OK? So cut me some slack.”

In the comments section of that video, many people seemed to understand what she was saying.

“Listen I’m Italian and we don’t use butter in sandwiches either 🤷🏻‍♀️we might have it on a slice of bread with jam sometimes but…idk what’s the (problem),” one user commented.

Rollins, who got on the phone from Paris to talk to TODAY.com about her viral ordeal, reveals that she has been experiencing waves of attention for her short video.

“Sometimes I’ll come across myself on my own For You page of someone Stitching me and I’m like, ‘Oh my god, we’re still talking about butter,’” Rollins says.

“It’s really a lot,” she continues. “Sometimes I’ll check, but sometimes I won’t check though, because sometimes people are Stitching and they’re just mean and I tell myself, ‘I choose peace today.’”

In the past, others have pointed out this butter-on-sandwiches continental conundrum. This includes both Reddit (in 2018) and Bon Appetit, who in 2019 published “Here’s Why Butter Belongs on Every Sandwich” about this very thing.

“When I first got here in 2017, I think one of the first times I went into a boulangerie and got a sandwich and I was like, ‘Wait, it’s just ham and butter, ’” Rollins says, pointing out that butter is usually of higher quality outside of the States. “It felt very gratuitous in a way because you’re just like slapping butter on. I think in the U.S., diet culture is life and our food is very processed.”

Rollins moved to Paris more than six years ago and became an au pair. Now, at 33, she’s a full time content creator sharing her experiences as a real-life “Emily in Paris” — with at least one apparent faux pas now under her belt.

But Rollins says she’s taking “Buttergate” in stride, and reflecting on the way social media fuels both gentle — and harsh — criticism.

“I don’t think people view the internet as a real thing. It’s like a toy. It’s like a game. It’s a place where people are dehumanized, that’s what I’ve noticed, maybe because I’m a creator,” she says. “But, when I see something like this, I immediately put myself in the shoes of that person, but like, it’s crazy to me how few people do that.”

This article first appeared on TODAY.com. More from TODAY:

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The attack, detected on Sunday, hit data systems used by around 40 museums across France. Paris authorities and the Grand Palais-RMN network said there has been no disruption to the Olympic events.

“To date, no data extraction has been detected,” the Grand Palais-RMN said in a statement, adding its technical teams are “fully mobilized” to fix the incident “as best as possible.”

The Grand Palais is hosting fencing and taekwondo competitions, while the Château de Versailles, also part of the RMN network, is the venue for equestrian sports and the modern pentathlon.

The Paris prosecutor’s office has assigned the investigation to a subdivision, the Brigade for Combating Cybercrime, to determine the extent and perpetrators of the attack. Efforts are ongoing to secure and restore the affected systems.

In Orange’s two-minute ad, it appears the stars are showing off their soccer talent around the field with impressive headers and curling free kicks until the magic takes a twist.

Suddenly, a message reads: “Only Les Bleus can give us these emotions. But that’s not them you’ve just seen.”

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The Telecom company reveals its editing process to prove that the skillful plays were actually from France’s women’s team, including defenders Sakina Karchaoui and Selma Bacha.

France returns to the Women’s World Cup on Sunday as they face Jamaica.

Police made 719 arrests nationwide by early Sunday following a mass security deployment aimed at quelling France’s worst social upheaval in years.

The crisis posed a new challenge to President Emmanuel Macron’s leadership and exposed deep-seated discontent in low-income neighborhoods over discrimination and lack of opportunity.

The 17-year-old whose death Tuesday spawned the anger was laid to rest Saturday in a Muslim ceremony in Nanterre, a Paris suburb where emotions over his loss remain raw. He has been identified publicly only by his first name, Nahel.

As night fell Saturday, a small crowd gathered on the Champs-Elysees to protest his death and police violence but met hundreds of officers with batons and shields guarding the avenue and its boutiques. In a less chic Paris neighborhood, protesters set off firecrackers and lit barricades on fire as police shot back with tear gas and stun grenades.

A burning car hit the home of the mayor of the Paris suburb of l’Hay-les-Roses. Several schools, police stations, town halls and stores have been targeted by fires or vandalism in recent days but such a personal attack on a mayor’s home is unusual.

Mayor Vincent Jeanbrun said his wife and one of his children were injured in the 1:30 a.m. attack while they were sleeping and he was in the town hall monitoring the violence.

Jeanbrun, of the conservative opposition Republicans party, said the attack represented a new stage of “horror and ignominy” in the unrest, and urged the government to impose a state of emergency.

Regional prosecutor Stephane Hardouin opened an investigation into attempted murder in the attack, telling French television that a preliminary investigation suggests the car was meant to ram the house and set it ablaze. He said a flame accelerant was found in a bottle in the car.

Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne went to l’Hay-les-Roses to meet Jeanbrun along with Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin and other officials, and promised that “we’re going to do everything to bring order back as soon as possible.”

Macron planned to hold a special security meeting Sunday evening with Borne, Darmanin and the justice minister.

Skirmishes erupted in the Mediterranean city of Marseille but appeared less intense than the night before, according to the Interior Ministry. A bolstered police contingent arrested 55 people there.

Nationwide arrests were lower than the night before. Darmanin attributed that to “the resolute action of security forces.”

More than 3,000 people have been detained overall since Nahel’s death. The mass police deployment has been welcomed by some frightened residents of targeted neighborhoods and shop owners whose stores have been ransacked — but it has further frustrated those who see police behavior as the core of France’s current crisis.

The unrest took a toll on Macron’s diplomatic standing. On Saturday, a day before he was scheduled to depart, he postponed what would have been the first state visit to Germany by a French president in 23 years.

Hundreds of police and firefighters have been injured in the violence, although authorities haven’t said how many protesters have been hurt. In French Guiana, an overseas territory, a 54-year-old diedafter being hit by a stray bullet.

On Saturday, Justice Minister Eric Dupond-Moretti warned that young people who share calls for violence on Snapchat or other apps could face prosecution. Macron has blamed social media for fueling violence.

While concerts at the national stadium and smaller events around the country were canceled because of the violence and some neighborhoods suffered serious damage, life in other parts of France went on as usual.

Fans tuned into the start of the Tour de France cycling race in neighboring Spain; Marseille hosted a championship in pétanque — a game involving rolling metal balls as close as possible to a small wooden or plastic one; and families who could afford it headed for summer vacation.

In the capital, tourists thronged to the Eiffel Tower, where workers set up a nearby clock counting down to next year’s Paris Olympics. A short walk from Nanterre, a shopping mall bustled Sunday with customers from all walks of life.

Hundreds of mourners stood on a road Saturday leading to a hilltop cemetery in Nanterre to pay tribute to Nahel as his white casket was carried from a mosque to his grave. His mother, dressed in white, walked inside the cemetery amid applause. Many of the men were young and Arab or Black, coming to mourn a boy who could have been them.

Nahel’s mother told France 5 television that she was angry at the officer who shot her son at a traffic stop, but not at the police in general.

“He saw a little Arab-looking kid. He wanted to take his life,” she said. Nahel’s family has roots in Algeria.

Video of the killing showed two officers at the window of the car, one with his gun pointed at the driver. As the teenager pulled forward, the officer fired once through the windshield. The officer accused of killing Nahel was given a preliminary charge of voluntary homicide.

Thirteen people who didn’t comply with traffic stops were fatally shot by French police last year, and three this year, prompting demands for more accountability. France also saw protests of police violence and racial injustice after George Floyd’s killing by police in Minnesota.

The reaction to the killing was a potent reminder of the persistent poverty, discrimination and limited job prospects in neighborhoods around France where many trace their roots to former French colonies.

In 2005, France was shaken by weeks of riots prompted by the death of two teenagers who were electrocuted in a power substation in the Paris suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois while fleeing police. Several buildings there were set on fire this week — including the town hall, a high school, library and a supermarket.

“I feel hate toward the police officer who killed Nahel. He wanted to kill him,” said 15-year-old Abdel Moucer, a Clichy resident. “In 2005 when Zyed and Bouna were killed, we had no video and no social media. Today we have all seen what happened.’’

But Moucer lamented the recent violence and the damage it has wrought on disadvantaged towns like his.

“I feel sad, I don’t know why they set the town hall on fire,” he said.

At the foot of a bridge near the Eiffel Tower where generations of couples have attached padlocks to symbolize lasting love, a Senegalese man selling cheap locks and keys shook his head when asked if Nahel’s killing and the ensuing violence would change anything.

“I doubt it,” he said, giving only his first name, Demba, for fear of retaliation. “The discrimination is too profound.”

___

Anna reported from Nanterre. Jade le Deley in Clichy-sous-Bois, France; Sylvie Corbet in Paris; Jocelyn Noveck in New York; and Helena Alves in Paris contributed.

The government suggested the violence was beginning to lessen thanks to tougher security measures, but damages remained widespread, from Paris to Marseille and Lyon and French territories overseas, where a 54-year-old died after being hit by a stray bullet in French Guiana. The interior ministry announced 994 arrests around France by early Saturday.

France’s national soccer team — including international star Kylian Mbappe, an idol to many young people in the disadvantaged neighborhoods where the anger is rooted — pleaded for an end to the violence.

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“Many of us are from working-class neighborhoods, we too share this feeling of pain and sadness” over the killing of 17-year-old Nahel, the players said in a statement. “Violence resolves nothing. … There are other peaceful and constructive ways to express yourself.”

They said it’s time for “mourning, dialogue and reconstruction” instead.

The fatal shooting of Nahel, whose last name has not been made public, stirred up long-simmering tensions between police and young people in housing projects who struggle with poverty, unemployment and racial discrimination. The subsequent rioting is the worst France has seen in years and puts new pressure on President Emmanuel Macron, who appealed to parents to keep children off the streets and blamed social media for fueling violence.

Family and friends were holding a funeral gathering Saturday for Nahel in his hometown of Nanterre. Anger erupted in the Paris suburb after his death there Tuesday and quickly spread nationwide.

Early Saturday, firefighters in Nanterre extinguished blazes set by protesters that left scorched remains of cars strewn across the streets. In the neighboring suburb Colombes, protesters overturned garbage bins and used them for makeshift barricades.

Looters during the evening broke into a gun shop and made off with weapons in the Mediterranean port city of Marseille, police said. Officers in Marseille arrested nearly 90 people as groups of protesters lit cars on fire and broke store windows to take what was inside.

Buildings and businesses were also vandalized in the eastern city of Lyon, where a third of the roughly 30 arrests made were for theft, police said. Authorities reported fires in the streets after an unauthorized protest drew more than 1,000 people earlier Friday evening.

The Interior Ministry said 994 arrests were made during the night, with more than 2,500 fires. The night before, 917 people were arrested nationwide, 500 buildings targeted, 2,000 vehicles burned and dozens of stores ransacked.

While the number of overnight arrests was the highest yet, there were fewer fires, cars burned and police stations attacked around France than the previous night, according to the Interior Ministry. Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin claimed the violence was of “much less intensity.”

Hundreds of police and firefighters have been injured, including 79 overnight, but authorities have not released injury tallies for protesters.

Nanterre Mayor Patrick Jarry said France needs to “push for changes” in disadvantaged neighborhoods.

Despite repeated government appeals for calm and stiffer policing, Friday saw brazen daylight violence, too. An Apple store was looted in the eastern city of Strasbourg, where police fired tear gas, and the windows of a fast-food outlet were smashed in a Paris-area shopping mall, where officers repelled people trying to break into a shuttered store, authorities said.

In the face of the escalating crisis that hundreds of arrests and massive police deployments have failed to quell, Macron held off on declaring a state of emergency, an option that was used in similar circumstances in 2005.

Instead, his government ratcheted up its law enforcement response, with 45,000 police deployed overnight. Some were called back from vacation.

Darmanin ordered a nationwide nighttime shutdown Friday of all public buses and trams, which have been among rioters’ targets. He also said he warned social networks not to allow themselves to be used as channels for calls to violence.

“They were very cooperative,” Darmanin said, adding that French authorities were providing the platforms with information in hopes of cooperation identifying people inciting violence.

“We will pursue every person who uses these social networks to commit violent acts,” he said.

Macron, too, zeroed in on social media platforms that have relayed dramatic images of vandalism and cars and buildings being torched. Singling out Snapchat and TikTok, he said they were being used to organize unrest and served as conduits for copycat violence.

The violence comes just over a year before Paris and other French cities are due to host 10,500 Olympians and millions of visitors for the summer Olympic Games. Organizers said they are closely monitoring the situation as preparations for the Olympics continue.

The police officer accused of killing Nahel was handed a preliminary charge of voluntary homicide. Preliminary charges mean investigating magistrates strongly suspect wrongdoing but need to investigate more before sending a case to trial. Nanterre prosecutor Pascal Prache said his initial investigation led him to conclude that the officer’s use of his weapon wasn’t legally justified.

Nahel’s mother, identified as Mounia M., told France 5 television that she was angry at the officer but not at the police in general. “He saw a little Arab-looking kid, he wanted to take his life,” she said.

“A police officer cannot take his gun and fire at our children, take our children’s lives,” she said. The family has roots in Algeria.

Race was a taboo topic for decades in France, which is officially committed to a doctrine of colorblind universalism. In the wake of Nahel’s killing, French anti-racism activists renewed complaints about police behavior.

Thirteen people who didn’t comply with traffic stops were fatally shot by French police last year. This year, another three people, including Nahel, died under similar circumstances. The deaths have prompted demands for more accountability in France, which also saw racial justice protests after George Floyd’s killing by police in Minnesota.

This week’s protests echoed the three weeks of rioting in 2005 that followed the deaths of 15-year-old Bouna Traoré and 17-year-old Zyed Benna, who were electrocuted while hiding from police in a power substation in Clichy-sous-Bois.

The killing of 17-year-old Nael during a traffic check Tuesday, captured on video, shocked the country and stirred up long-simmering tensions between young people and police in housing projects and other disadvantaged neighborhoods around France. Nael’s surname has not been released by authorities or by his family.

Clashes first erupted Tuesday night in and around the Paris suburb of Nanterre, where Nael was killed, and the government deployed 2,000 police to maintain order Wednesday. But violence resumed after dusk.

Police and firefighters struggled to contain protesters and extinguish numerous blazes through the night that damaged schools, police stations and town halls or other public buildings, according to a spokesperson for the national police. The national police on Thursday reported fires or skirmishes in multiple cities overnight, from Toulouse in the south to Lille in the north, though the nexus of tensions was Nanterre and other Paris suburbs.

Police arrested 150 people around the country, more than half of them in the Paris region, the spokesperson said. She was not authorized to be publicly named according to police rules.

The number of injured was not immediately released.

French President Emmanuel Macron held an emergency security meeting Thursday about the violence.

Multiple vehicles were set ablaze in Nanterre and protesters shot fireworks and threw stones at police, who fired repeated volleys of tear gas. Flames shot out of three stories of a building, and a blaze was reported at an electrical plant. Fire damaged the town hall of the Paris suburb of L’Ile-Saint-Denis, not far from France’s national stadium and the headquarters of the Paris 2024 Olympics.

The police officer accused of the killing is in custody on suspicion of manslaughter and could face preliminary charges as soon as Thursday, according to the Nanterre prosecutor’s office.

Nael’s mother called for a silent march Thursday in his honor on the square where he was killed.

French activists renewed calls to tackle what they see as systemic police abuse, particularly in neighborhoods like the one where Nael lived, where many residents struggle with poverty and racial or class discrimination. Government officials condemned the killing and sought to distance themselves from the police officer’s actions.

Macron called the killing “inexplicable and inexcusable” and called for calm. “Nothing justifies the death of a young person,” he told reporters in Marseille on Wednesday.

Videos of the shooting shared online show two police officers leaning into the driver-side window of a yellow car before the vehicle pulls away as one officer fires into the window. The videos show the car later crashed into a post nearby.

The driver died at the scene, the prosecutor’s office said.

Bouquets of orange and yellow roses now mark the site of the shooting, on Nanterre’s Nelson Mandela Square.

Speaking to Parliament, Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne said, “the shocking images broadcast yesterday show an intervention that appears clearly not to comply with the rules of engagement of our police forces.”

Deadly use of firearms is less common in France than in the United States, though several people have died or sustained injuries at the hands of French police in recent years, prompting demands for more accountability. France also saw protests against racial profiling and other injustice in the wake of George Floyd’s killing by police in Minnesota.

Asked about police abuses, Macron said justice should be allowed to run its course.

A lawyer for Nael’s family, Yassine Bouzrou, told The Associated Press they want the police officer prosecuted for murder instead of manslaughter.

French soccer star Kylian Mbappe, who grew up in the Paris suburb of Bondy, was among many shocked by what happened.

“I hurt for my France,” he tweeted.

___

Charlton reported from Paris. Oleg Cetinic in Nanterre and Sylvie Corbet in Paris contributed.

President Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte traveled together to a hospital treating three of the four children who suffered life-threatening knife wounds in Thursday’s still unexplained attack in and around a play park in the Alpine city of Annecy.

Macron’s prime minister, Elisabeth Borne, said all four children — aged between 22 months and 3 years — underwent surgery and “are under constant medical surveillance.”

“Their situation is stable,” she said.

Government spokesman Olivier Veran, a medical doctor by training, said two of the children remain in critical condition.

Most of the children were rushed after the attack to a hospital in the French Alpine city of Grenoble — the first stop for Macron and his wife on Friday morning. They did not speak to reporters as they went inside.

The fourth injured child was being treated in Geneva, in neighboring Switzerland.

Two of the four children are French and the other two were tourists — one British, the other Dutch.

Two adults also suffered knife wounds — life-threatening for one them, authorities said. One of the adults was injured both with a knife and by a shot fired by police as they were detaining the suspected attacker.

The suspect, a 31-year-old Syrian with refugee status in Sweden, remains in custody. Psychiatrists are evaluating him, Veran said.

The helplessness of the young victims and the savagery of the attack sickened France, and drew international condemnation.

French authorities said the suspect had recently been refused asylum in France because Sweden had already granted him permanent residency and refugee status a decade ago.

Lead prosecutor Line Bonnet-Mathis said the man’s motives were unknown but did not appear to be terrorism-related. He was armed with a folding knife, she said.

“The only guy who didn’t cover his ears,” laughed seven-time NASCAR champion Jimmie Johnson.

France has been waiting since 1962 — the year his father, NASCAR founder Bill France Sr., brought him to his first 24 Hours of Le Mans — to hear the roar of a stock car at the most prestigious endurance race in the world.

A path finally opened when NASCAR developed its Next Gen car, which debuted last year. France worked out a deal to enter a car in a specialized “Innovative Car” class designed to showcase technology and development. The effort would be part of NASCAR’s 75th celebration and it comes as Le Mans marks its 100th.

Once he had the approval, France persuaded Hendrick Motorsports, Chevrolet and Goodyear — NASCAR’s winningest team, manufacturer and tire supplier — to build a car capable of running the twice-around-the-clock race.

The race doesn’t start until Saturday, but NASCAR’s arrival has already been wildly embraced and France could not be more thrilled.

“Dad’s vision, to be able to follow it, it took awhile to follow it up, and my goal was to outdo what he accomplished,” France told The Associated Press. “I just hope we don’t fall on our ass.”

The car is in a class of its own and not racing anyone else in the 62-car field. But the lineup of 2010 Le Mans winner Mike Rockenfeller, 2009 Formula One champion Jenson Button and Johnson has been fast enough; Rockenfeller put down a qualifying lap that was faster than every car in the GTE AM class by a full three seconds.

The Hendrick Motorsports crew won its class in the pit stop competition and finished fifth overall as the only team using a manual jack against teams exclusively using air jacks. Rick Hendrick said he could not be prouder of the showing his organization has made even before race day.

“When we said we’re gonna do it, I said, ‘Look, we can’t do this half-assed. I want to be as sharp as anybody out there,” Hendrick told AP. “I don’t want to be any less than any other team here. And just to see the reaction from the crowd, people are so excited about this car. My granddaughter has been sending me all these TikTok things that fans are making about NASCAR being at Le Mans.”

This isn’t NASCAR’s first attempt to run Le Mans. The late France Sr. brokered a deal in 1976, as America celebrated its bicentennial, to bring two cars to compete in the Grand International class and NASCAR selected the teams. Herschel McGriff and his son, Doug, drove a Wedge-powered, Olympia Beer-sponsored Dodge Charger, and Junie Donlavey piloted a Ford Torino shared by Richard Brooks and Dick Hutcherson.

Neither car came close to finishing the race. McGriff, now 95 and inducted into NASCAR’s Hall of Fame in January, is in Le Mans as France’s guest, clad head-to-toe in the noticeable Garage 56 uniforms.

“I threw a lot of hints that I would like to come. And I’ve been treated as royalty,” McGriff said. “This is unbelievable to me. I recognize nothing but I’m anxious to see everything. I’ve been watching and seeing pictures and I can certainly see the fans love their NASCAR.”

The goal is to finish the full race Sunday and, just maybe, beat cars from other classes. Should they pull off the feat, the driver trio wants its own podium celebration.

“I think people will talk about this car for a long, long time,” said Rockenfeller, who along with sports car driver Jordan Taylor did much of the development alongside crew chief Chad Knaus and Greg Ives, a former crew chief who stepped into a projects role at Hendrick this year.

“When we started with the Cup car, we felt already there was so much potential,” Rockenfeller said. “And then we tweaked it. And we go faster, and faster, at Le Mans on the SIM. But you never know until you hit the real track, and to be actually faster than the SIM. Everybody in the paddock, all the drivers, they come up and they are, ‘Wow, this is so cool,’ and they were impressed by the pit stops. We’ve overachieved, almost, and now of course the goal is to run for 24 hours.”

The car completed a full 24-hour test at Sebring, Florida, earlier this year, Knaus said, and is capable of finishing the race. Button believes NASCAR will leave a lasting impression no matter what happens.

“If you haven’t seen this car live yet, it’s an absolute beast,” Button said. “When you see and hear it go by, it just puts a massive smile on your face.”

For Hendrick, the effort is the first in his newfound embrace of racing outside NASCAR, the stock car series founded long ago in the American South. Aside from the Le Mans project, he will own the Indy car that Kyle Larson drives for Arrow McLaren in next year’s Indianapolis 500 and it will be sponsored by his automotive company.

“If you’d have told me I’d be racing at Le Mans and Indianapolis within the same year, I’d never have believed you,” Hendrick told AP. “But we’re doing both and we’re going to do it right.”

General Motors is celebrating the achievement with a 2024 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 Garage 56 Edition and only 56 will be available to collectors later this year.

“Even though Chevrolet has been racing since its inception in 1911, we’ve never done anything quite like Garage 56,” said GM President Mark Reuss. “A NASCAR stock car running at Le Mans is something fans doubted they would see again.”

The race hasn’t even started yet, but Hendrick has enjoyed it so much that he doesn’t want the project to end.

“It’s like a shame to go through all this and do all this, and then Sunday it’s done,” Hendrick said. “It’s just really special to be here.”

The helplessness of the young victims and the savagery of the attack sickened France.

A suspect, identified by police as a 31-year-old Syrian, was detained in connection with the morning attack in the Alpine and lakeside town of Annecy. French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne said he had refugee status in Sweden.

Witnesses reported scenes of terror as the man roamed the park, ambushing victims with his blade.

“I said to the police, ‘Shoot him, kill him! He’s stabbing everyone,’” Anthony Le Tallec, a former professional soccer player who was jogging when he came across the attacker, said.

Lead prosecutor Line Bonnet-Mathis said the man’s motives were unknown but did not appear to be terrorism-related. He was armed with a folding knife, she said.

She said all four children suffered life-threatening knife wounds. The youngest is 22 months old, two are age 2 and the oldest is 3, she said. Two of them are French, the other two were tourists — one British, the other Dutch, she said.

Two adults also suffered knife wounds — life-threatening for one them, the prosecutor said. One of the adults was hurt both with the attacker’s knife and later by a shot fired by police as they were making the arrest, Bonnet-Mathis said.

Video appearing to show the attack in and around a children’s play park was posted on social media. The footage showed a man in dark glasses and with a blue scarf covering his head brandishing a knife, as people screamed for help.

The man appeared to shout “on name of Jesus Christ” as he waved his knife in the air, while people nearby could be heard screaming: “Police! Police!”

He slashed at a man carrying rucksacks who tried to approach him. Inside the enclosed play park, a panicked woman frantically pushed a stroller as the attacker approached, yelling “Help! Help!” and ramming the stroller into the barriers around the site in her terror.

She tried to fend off the attacker but couldn’t keep him from leaning over the stroller and stabbing downward repeatedly. Afterward, the man strolled almost casually out of the park, letting himself out through a gate, with the man carrying two rucksacks still chasing after him.

French President Emmanuel Macron described the assault as an “attack of absolute cowardice.” Of the victims, he said “children and an adult are between life and death.”

“The nation is in shock,” Macron tweeted.

Le Tallec, the ex-soccer player who witnessed the attack while on a lakeside jog, said in an Instagram video that he first came across “a mother who said to me, ‘Run! Run! There’s someone stabbing everyone.”

“I saw him sprinting straight for some grandpas and grandmas. And there, he attacked, he attacked the grandpa, he stabbed him once. The police behind couldn’t catch him.”

The police then opened fire and the attacker fell to the ground, having stabbed the older man a second time, Le Tallec said.

The prosecutor said the suspect had been living in the Annecy area since last fall and had no fixed address. An ice cream seller who works in the waterside park said he’d seen the attacker there several days earlier, looking out at the lake ringed by mountains.

The suspect was a political refugee in Sweden, the prosecutor said. The Swedish Migration Agency said he was granted permanent residency in 2013. The agency did not identify the suspect but said he subsequently sought Swedish citizenship in 2017 and 2018, both denied, and applied again in August 2022.

Eleanor Vincent, an American author vacationing in Annecy, told The Associated Press of her shock at seeing an emergency helicopter descending to the picturesque park.

“As soon as I heard the sirens and saw police running, I knew something horrible was happening. I am in shock. It’s a park where they take children out to walk,” Vincent said.

Crowds stood in “absolute silence,” dumbfounded as the tragedy unfolded, she said.

“As a parent who has lost a child, I know what these parents are experiencing. It’s a horror beyond belief,” Vincent added.

In Paris, lawmakers interrupted a debate to hold a moment of silence for the victims.

The assembly president, Yaël Braun-Pivet, said: “There are some very young children who are in critical condition, and I invite you to respect a minute of silence for them, for their families, and so that, we hope, the consequences of this very grave attack do not lead to the nation grieving.”

___

Thomas Adamson in Paris, Jill Lawless in London, Jan M. Olsen in Copenhagen, and Nicolas Vaux-Montagny in Lyon, France, contributed.

“Power Our Planet: Live in Paris” is set for June 22 to coincide with the Summit for a New Global Financial Pact, a gathering of the world’s political and business leaders to help developing nations finance sustainability projects.

Global Citizen CEO Hugh Evans says the summit is an opportunity for governments and global banks to collaborate to jump start climate projects stalled by the COVID-19 pandemic. He hopes “Power Our Planet” will encourage leaders to take advantage of that opportunity and provide the $16.7 billion in outstanding climate financing promised in 2009 to lower-income countries. He is also seeking to advance reforms at the World Bank to make up to $1 trillion in additional financing available.

“Global leaders and democratically elected governments really only respond to the momentum of their people and summits like this can come and go,” Evans told The Associated Press. “If it doesn’t achieve its goal, we’re going to miss the window this year to make the climate negotiations the success, which is even more important after last year’s complete failure in Egypt.”

The Eiffel Tower event is part of the Global Citizen initiative, announced last month at the Global Citizen NOW conference in New York, supporting Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley’s call to rewrite the rules of global development banks and relieve the debts of lower-income countries to increase funding for climate adaptation projects.

Global Citizen has shown for years, especially with its A-list concerts in New York’s Central Park, that it can generate action by having cultural leaders mobilize their supporters. And artists like Kravitz plan to motivate fans to “act today to save tomorrow.”

“The next generation are inheriting a planet that’s being devastated by climate change,” Kravitz said in a statement. “We have the power to change things with our voices and our actions.”

French President Emmanuel Macron supports the Global Citizen event, citing the need for “a world with more solidarity.”

“Crises are multiplying and the number of those who place their hope in peace and multilateralism will only grow if we, as a global community, demonstrate that we are there to help the most vulnerable,” Macron said in a statement. “Because there will be no climate transition worldwide if we don’t fight for more justice and equity.”

Major philanthropic organizations — including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, Rotary International, and Open Society Foundations – as well as the public-private partnership Gavi, The Vaccine Alliance, will also support the effort.

“Power Our Planet: Live in Paris,” which will also include performances from Finneas, Jon Batiste, and Ben Harper, will be livestreamed on Global Citizen’s social media platforms, while Amazon Music will host the livestream on its Twitch channel.

Zephalto, a French company, is giving passengers the opportunity to travel to the stratosphere in a balloon. The starting cost is $132,000 per person, with the first flights tentatively planned for 2025.

Zephalto founder and aerospace engineer Vincent Farret d’Astiès told Bloomberg that he’s planning 60 flights a year with six passengers aboard each flight.

The entire voyage will be a six-hour round trip. Balloons filled with helium or hydrogen will depart from France with two pilots on board, rising 15.5 miles into the stratosphere for an hour and a half. Once at the peak altitude — which is three times higher than a commercial airliner — the balloon stays in position for three hours. The descent back to Earth takes another hour and a half.

“We choose 25 kilometers high because it’s the altitude where you are in the darkness of space, with 98% of the atmosphere below you, so you can enjoy the curvature of the Earth in the blue line. You’re in the darkness of space, but without the zero gravity experience,” Farret d’Astiès said.

While suspended in the stratosphere, Zephalto will aim to provide passengers with the best bits of French hospitality — including fine food, wine and design. The on-board experience will be tailored for individual customer preferences, but Zephalto plans to offer Michelin-star quality cuisine and Wi-Fi for all trips.

There’s another interesting perk for guests once they pay for the trip, too. All customers will have the option to speak with a psychologist before the flight. Farret d’Astiès explained that this step could be critical for certain people, as seeing Earth from above can be a jarring experience.

“You need psychological preparation. We know from the 600 people who have went above this altitude that seeing Earth in the darkness is an experience that can be emotional,” he said, citing the overview effect. The phenomenon of seeing Earth from space can have a powerful impact.

Zephalto has already conducted three test flights with pilots on board, though none have reached the full altitude. That’s expected to be achieved in a test flight later this year.

Macron’s signature and publication in the Official Journal of the French Republic allowed the law to enter into force.

On Friday, the Constitutional Council rejected some parts of the government’s pension legislation but approved the higher minimum retirement age, which was central to Macron’s plan and the focus of opponents’ protests.

The nine-member council’s decision capped months of tumultuous debates in parliament and fervor in the streets. Spontaneous demonstrations took place in Paris and across the country after the ruling.

France’s main labor unions, which organized 12 nationwide protests since January in hopes of defeating the plan, have vowed to continue fighting until it is withdrawn. They called for another mass protest on May 1, which is International Workers’ Day.

The government argued that requiring people to work two years more before qualifying for a pension was needed to keep the pension system afloat as the population ages; opponents proposed raising taxes on the wealthy or employers instead, and said the change threatened a hard-won social safety net.

Raising the retirement age was intended to be the showcase measure of Macron’s second term. He was reelected a year ago, but opinion polls show the president’s popularity has plunged to its lowest level in four years..

Macron was first elected in 2017 on a promise to make France’s economy more competitive, including by making people work longer.

Since then, his government has made it easier to hire and fire workers, cut business taxes and made it more difficult for the unemployed to claim benefits.

Two other bodies had previously been found overnight. The judicial authority will proceed to identify the victims, firefighters said in a statement.

Minister for Cities and Housing Olivier Klein told reporters that at least four people have died, after he met with rescuers on site. 

“The hope to find survivors is still there,” Minister for Cities and Housing Olivier Klein told reporters. “It is very meticulous work done by firefighters,” he added, noting the risk for adjacent buildings to collapse. More than 100 firefighters were mobilized for the searches.

Marseille mayor Benoit Payan tweeted Monday that “the pain and sorrow are great.” He expressed his thoughts for the families of the victims and “those who are suffering.” 

France Apr 9, 2023

8 People Missing in Fiery Collapse of Marseille Building

“Rescue and search operations are continuing, without respite,” he said.

An investigation has been opened for involuntary injury, at least initially sidestepping possible criminal intentions. A gas explosion was among the avenues of investigation, prosecutor Dominique Laurens said Sunday evening.

The collapse occurred shortly before 1 a.m. on Sunday, in an old quarter in the center of Marseille, France’s second-largest city, less than a kilometer (a half-mile) from its iconic old port. About 200 people have been evacuated from their homes in the area.

In 2018, two buildings in the center of Marseille collapsed, killing eight people. Those buildings were poorly maintained — not the case with the building that collapsed Sunday, the interior minister said.

More than 100 firefighters worked against a ticking clock to extinguish flames deep within the rubble of the five-story building, but more than 17 hours later “the situation is not yet stabilized,” Marseille Prosecutor Dominique Laurens said at an evening news conference.

Earlier in the day, officials had thought that between four and 10 people may have been trapped. Laurens said police have yet to confirm the apparent disappearance of a ninth person who lived in a next-door building. Five people suffered minor injuries from the collapse, which occurred shortly before 1 a.m.

Marseille Mayor Benoit Payan said two buildings that share walls with the one that collapsed were partially brought down before one later caved in, another complication in the search and rescue operation. The buildings were among evacuated structures.

Drones and probes have been used to examine the scene for signs of life. The burning debris was too hot for dogs in the firefighters’ canine team to work until Sunday afternoon, though smoke still bothered them, the prosecutor said.

“We cannot intervene in a very classic way,” Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said during a morning visit to the site. He said the fire was burning a few meters under the mounds of debris and that both water and foam represent a danger to victims’ survival.

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An investigation has been opened for involuntary injury, at least initially sidestepping possible criminal intentions. A gas explosion was among the tracks to check, said Laurens, the prosecutor. But the start of the probe also was limited by the heat of the blaze.

“The flames weren’t pink. They were blue,” Payan said.

Firefighters, with the help of urban rescue experts, worked through the night and all day Sunday in a slow race against time. The delicate operation aimed to keep firefighters safe, prevent further harm to people potentially trapped in the rubble and not compromise vulnerable buildings nearby, already partially collapsed. Some 30 buildings in the area were evacuated, Darmanin said.

Lauren, the prosecutor, said that firefighters “are really in a complicated situation, dangerous for them.” Work is progressing but with safety precautions, she said.

“We heard an explosion … a very strong explosion which made us jump, and that’s it,” said Marie Ciret, who was among those evacuated. “We looked outside the window at what was happening. We saw smoke, stones, and people running.”

The building that collapsed is located on a narrow street less than a half-mile from Marseille’s iconic old port, adding to an array of difficulties for firefighters and rescue workers. The prosecutor said the building and those next door “are not at all substandard buildings.”

Robots were reportedly being deployed. A crane was brought in to clear rubble and firefighters were at one point seen in TV video hosing parts of the debris from a window in a nearby apartment as plumes of smoke rose skyward.

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“We’re trying to drown the fire while preserving the lives of eventual victims under the rubble,” Lionel Mathieu, commander of the Marseille fire brigade, said during a televised briefing.

“Firefighters are gauging minute by minute the best way to put out the fire,” Payan, the mayor, said.

“We must prepare ourselves to have victims,” he said grimly.

The collapsed building is located in an old quarter in the center of France’s second-largest city. The noise from the explosion resounded in other neighborhoods. Nearby streets were blocked off.

French President Emmanuel Macron and Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne both tweeted their thoughts for people affected and thanks to the firefighters.

In 2018, two buildings in the center of Marseille collapsed, killing eight people. Those buildings were poorly maintained — not the case with the building that collapsed Sunday after an explosion, the interior minister said.

___

Elaine Ganley reported from Paris.

France’s highest council on constitutional affairs is examining the bill to see if it’s constitutional. It will issue a ruling next week — and Macron’s opponents hope the council will severely limit his proposal.

In many countries, raising the retirement age by two years wouldn’t throw the nation into such disarray. But the French public is overwhelmingly against pension reform, and unrelenting demonstrations against it have morphed into wider anger against Macron’s perceived top-down style of leadership.

HOW ANGRY ARE PEOPLE IN FRANCE?

Mounds of up to 10,000 tons of trash piled up on the streets of Paris during a weekslong strike by sanitation workers over a plan that would push their retirement age from 57 to 59 — lower than the national age because their jobs are physically harder.

“People are angry,” said Jerome Villier, a 43-year-old doctoral researcher in Paris. “It’s obvious.”

Many governments in the developed world are in similar situations. Population growth is down, people are living longer, medicine is better and benefits cost more. Democracies’ attempts to balance budgets by cutting benefits, particularly in countries with generous plans like France’s, put administrations at risk. Many agree that Macron that has made some fundamental missteps.

WHAT OPTIONS DOES THE GOVERNMENT HAVE?

Fearing he might not get enough votes in parliament to pass the bill, Macron resorted to the “ nuclear option ” by using a special article of the French constitution allowing the government to force the bill through without a vote. That prompted outrage across France that further fueled discontent, diminished his popularity, and galvanized his critics’ image of him as a monarchical leader.

Macron lost his majority in parliament last year and his government survived two no-confidence votes last month — one by only a razor-thin nine votes — after he angered the nation by ramming the reform through parliament.

Experts say the protests show that Macron was re-elected because of antipathy for far-right contender Marine Le Pen more than enthusiasm for him. And even if the protests die down, the French president will still have sustained a political bloody nose and a permanent stain on his authority.

“I’m worried for France. Because people really hate Macron — we hate him — and we’re only at the beginning, we have four more years,” said insurance salesman Mohamed Belmoud, 28. “He continued being top-down. The French need to see more compromise.”

WHAT HAPPENS NOW?

The pensions law needs a green light from the Constitutional Council on April 14. The Paris trash collectors’ union has called for fresh strikes April 13, with other unions pledging to keep resisting until the controversial law is canceled. Some predict the French public’s enthusiasm — and resources — for protests and strikes is dwindling.

“Going on strike is an expensive affair so you can’t do it forever,” said Jean-Daniel Levy, deputy director of Harris Interactive polling. And diminished spending power is a real issue, leaving many unable to afford to strike more, he said.

Others say violence seen in the nationwide protests, with dozens of demonstrators and police hurt, has turned off regular people.

“The demonstrations have become more violent as they’ve gone on. That means many in France are now staying away,” Luc Rouban, research director of the CNRS at Sciences Po.

HOW IMPORTANT ARE THESE PROTESTS?

France’s highest constitutional court is made up of judges called “the wise ones” and presided over by former Socialist Prime Minister Laurent Fabius. If it decides that part or all of the law is out of step with the constitution, or the scope of the law’s intentions, the council can strike it down. The “wise ones” will also rule on whether the law’s critics can move ahead with their attempts to force a nationwide referendum on the pension change.

While the council is meant to rule on purely constitutional grounds, experts say it tends to take public opinion into account.

“Polls still show that an overwhelming majority of the French are against the pension reforms, so one likely scenario is that the council could scrap parts of the bill,” said Dominique Andolfatto, professor of political sciences at the University of Burgundy.

“There’s a certain hatred in the air that we’ve rarely seen against a French leader,” he said. “This is uncharted water.”

The attack, detected on Sunday, hit data systems used by around 40 museums across France. Paris authorities and the Grand Palais-RMN network said there has been no disruption to the Olympic events.

“To date, no data extraction has been detected,” the Grand Palais-RMN said in a statement, adding its technical teams are “fully mobilized” to fix the incident “as best as possible.”

The Grand Palais is hosting fencing and taekwondo competitions, while the Château de Versailles, also part of the RMN network, is the venue for equestrian sports and the modern pentathlon.

The Paris prosecutor’s office has assigned the investigation to a subdivision, the Brigade for Combating Cybercrime, to determine the extent and perpetrators of the attack. Efforts are ongoing to secure and restore the affected systems.

The attack, detected on Sunday, hit data systems used by around 40 museums across France. Paris authorities and the Grand Palais-RMN network said there has been no disruption to the Olympic events.

“To date, no data extraction has been detected,” the Grand Palais-RMN said in a statement, adding its technical teams are “fully mobilized” to fix the incident “as best as possible.”

The Grand Palais is hosting fencing and taekwondo competitions, while the Château de Versailles, also part of the RMN network, is the venue for equestrian sports and the modern pentathlon.

The Paris prosecutor’s office has assigned the investigation to a subdivision, the Brigade for Combating Cybercrime, to determine the extent and perpetrators of the attack. Efforts are ongoing to secure and restore the affected systems.