Green candidate aiming to become Paris' next mayor pledges major environmental and social programs
Despite other pressing news, just under a dozen members met with the candidate, David Belliard, who in a Hotel de Ville annex today came across as determined to transform the city by blocking sprawling urban-commercial complexes, backed by Mayor Anne Hildago seeking re-election in the nation's March 15-22 municipal elections. His broader goal, he said repeatedly, is to transform such projects…
Dissident Paris Mayor candidate Villani claims loyalty to Macron
Cédric Villani, mathematician and independent candidate for Paris Mayor in the March elections, began his day on February 11 by meeting with about 25 AAPA members at Bloomberg’s offices next to Opéra. Villani outlined his programme to “open up politics” to the outside world with more direct democracy, to free Paris of pollution and incivility, and to resolve the city's housing shortage. He…
Benjamin Griveaux unveils his project for Paris
In just a decade from now, the Gare du Nord and the Gare de l’Est will no longer be able to cope with traffic from Strasbourg, Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands, Benjamin Griveaux, candidate of La République en Marche for mayor of Paris, told the Anglo-American Press Association on January 30th. If he is elected, Griveaux wants to build a new metropolitan train station at the northeastern…
AXA CEO Tells AAPA: Climate Change, healthcare Costs are Top Priorities
AXA CEO Thomas Buberl invited the AAPA to lunch at the company's headquarters around the corner from the Elysee Palace on January 10 for a broad on-the-record discussion dominated by the themes of instability and climate change. Buberl, who was appointed as the third CEO of the French-headquartered international financial services company, said he believes the US-China trade war and climate…
Air France-KLM boss Ben Smith talks planes, unions and greenhouse gas with the AAPA
Long lunches, long holidays, and myriad trades unions were all part of the steep learning curve facing Canadian Ben Smith when he took the helm of Air France-KLM in 2018, the affable 48-year-old told the Anglo-American Press Association. And he had to work hard on his French, he said during a wide-ranging discussion held in the offices of Bloomberg near the Paris Opera on Friday 17 January, as a…
Macron's diplomatic advisor outlines presidential foreign policy
NATO, Trump, Brexit, Russia, trade, EU reform, European strategic sovereignty: Emmanuel Macron's diplomatic advisor provided AAPA members with insights on the French president's foreign policy thinking. The meeting on December 17 was an off-the-record briefing provided by Emmanuel Bonne on how the centrist president is seeking to position France as he enters the second half of his five-year…
Fashion's Commitment to Sustainability: Kering CSO Speaks to the AAPA
Kering's Chief Sustainability Officer and Head of International Institutional Affairs, Marie-Claire Daveu, hosted the AAPA at a morning coffee on December 3 at Kering's headquarters on the rue de Sèvres in a historic building that -- until 2000 -- housed the Laennec hospital. Kering was appointed by French president Emmanuel Macron to head the country's effort to make fashion more sustainable. It…
Muslim and Jewish «best friends » bring women together to fight anti-Semitism and racism
On November 12th The Anglo American Press Association had a meeting and conversation with Samia Essabaa and Suzanne Nakache, the Muslim and Jewish founders of Langage de Femmes, a multi-confessional, intergenerational group of women fighting racism and anti-Semitism in France. France has Europe’s largest Muslim and Jewish populations and hate crimes have grown in recent years. But Essabaa and…
Sibeth Ndiaye, the spokesperson for the French government, met with the Anglo-American Press Association on November 14th, 2019.
In a 90 minute group interview, Ndiaye discussed her attachment to France, her relationship with President Emmanuel Macron, how the crisis of the Gilets Jaunes has changed his policies, Franco-American relations, sectarianism in France, the reasons behind the strike scheduled for December 5th, pension reform, the accusation of rape against film director Roman Polanski, racism against herself,…
Shaking it up at the Châtelet
A rare chance to watch the final rehearsals for a musical at the Théâtre du Châtelet was the cherry on the cake for AAPA members who met with the theatre's new Artistic Director on November 26. Ruth Mackenzie is the first woman in the job, and first non-French national - she is British. She made it clear to our group that she is not at all daunted by the challenges either one of those factors…