19 h. ago French region bans tap water sparking panic buying after supply was found to be tainted with 'forever chemicals' from airport firefighting foam

The sweeping ban affects 11 areas in the Haut-Rhin region near the commune of Saint-Louis, where water tests revealed levels of PFAS - a group of dangerous man-made substances.

Events

32 h. ago ‘Even if we stop drinking we will be exposed’: A French region has banned tap water. Is it a warning for the rest of Europe?

Forever chemicals have polluted the water supply of 60,000 people, threatening human health, wildlife and the wider ecosystem. But activists say this is just the tip of the Pfas icebergOne quiet Saturday night, Sandra Wiedemann was curled up on the sofa when a story broke on TV news: the water coming from her tap could be poisoning her. The 36-year-old, who is breastfeeding her six-month-old son Côme, lives in the quiet French commune of Buschwiller in Saint-Louis, near the Swiss city of Basel. Perched on a hill not far from the Swiss and German borders, it feels like a safe place to raise a child – spacious houses are surrounded by manicured gardens, framed by the wild Jura mountains.But as she watched the news, this safety felt threatened: Wiedemann and her family use tap water every day, for drinking, brushing her teeth, showering, cooking and washing vegetables. Now, she learned that chemicals she had never heard of were lurking in her body, on her skin, potentially harming her ...

Events

65 h. ago Body of paddleboarder, 15, is pulled from water after major search

The 15-year-old was seen falling into the water at Loch Ore on Saturday evening, sparking a major search and rescue operation. He had been paddleboarding on the loch moments earlier.

Politics

5 d. ago Drink Pastis by the metre and party till dawn! The genderfluid French superclub in the heart of cowboy country

Stars, cowboys, village kids and drag queens – they all flock to La Churascaia, the bullring-like nightspot in the Camargue marshes. As it notches up 60 years of freewheeling hedonism, we celebrate an unstoppable rollercoasterHidden in a copse of pine trees, in the southern French region of Camargue near Arles, sits the legendary nightclub La Churascaia. For 60 years, nothing has stopped this nightlife institution partying till dawn – not even a power cut. When a storm knocked out the electricity one night in the mid-1970s, the French news presenter Yves Mourousi simply drove his car into the venue, and the dancing continued to the sound of its stereo.La Chu, as it’s known, opened in June 1965, making it one of the longest surviving discotheques in the world – behind Los Angeles’s Whisky-a-Go-Go, Paris’s Chez Castel and Rome’s Piper Club. It’ll be celebrating this feat of nightclub stamina on 29 June with a huge shindig at this most unlikely of venues smack-bang in the middle of the...

Society

1 week ago Poison in the water: the town with the world’s worst case of forever chemicals contamination

When a small Swedish town discovered their drinking water contained extremely high levels of Pfas, they had no idea what it would mean for their health and their children’s futureIf Agneta Bruno closes her eyes, the soapy smell takes her back to childhood. Cycling home to the barracks where she lived with her father, an air force major, she would whiz through patches of snowy-white foam near the entrance of the base. The foam resembled the bubbles you get in the bathtub, just thicker. “I had to lift my feet up to avoid getting wet,” Bruno told me.Aqueous film-forming foam (Afff) is a miracle of firefighting: it’s highly effective in putting out flammable liquid fires, such as those caused by jet fuel spills. Chemicals in the foam create a stable blanket over liquid fuel, trapping the flammable vapours and extinguishing the fire. At the air force base in Bruno’s home town of Kallinge in Sweden, firefighters were trained to douse flames using the foam. New recruits came every few week...

Politics

3 w. ago UK's secret paradise bay sandwiched between two of the best seaside towns

Botany Bay in Kent has been named the UK's most photographed beach and it's not hard to see why, whether it's the golden sands, sparkling water or the inviting rock pools

Politics

3 w. ago Popular sparkling water brand sold at Costco recalled due to possible contamination

The bottles of sparkling water were sold from May 20 to May 29

Economics