High school teacher Karen Montet-Toutain was the victim of one of the worst recent cases of school-related violence when she was stabbed by a student in her classroom. She has written a book about her struggles, and hopes for rehabilitation of her attacker.

Arlette Grosskost, UMP (Union for a Popular Movement) representative and member of the Parliamentary task force on the burqa in France, advocates a law aiming to ban the wearing of the full-body veil in public. What’s your take on this controversial issue? Is it a question of women’s rights? Of religious freedom? Are arguments against the burqa perhaps another type of veil—to cover up underlying racism?

These brief interviews on the streets of Lille were conducted in order to test the waters of the tricky dispute over the banning of burqa-wearing in public.

Residents of the seaside town Sables d’Olonne have a sizable problem on their hands: a beached ship that they can’t seem to get unstuck. Looks like they’ll have to try again tomorrow.

The beached ship in Sables d’Olonne is still stuck in the sand. In fact, it’s becoming quite the local attraction!

Héla Fattoumi, originally from Tunis, has taken her feelings on the full-body veil to the stage, in her dance performance piece “Manta.”

A blade fell off a wind turbine, causing a bit of alarm amongst nearby residents. Perhaps it’s time for an upgrade?

The French lumber market sees a long-awaited recovery, after “the storm of the century.” Time to heat up that new log cabin with a crackling fire in the fireplace.

Talk about service: a hospital in Nantes has devoted an entire department to making sure deaf patients receive the same medical attention as everyone else. Of course, all of its medical workers are fully proficient in French Sign Language. Did you know that most languages of the world also have their own sign language?

The town of Nîmes goes all out for Christmas, with thousands of lights and giant candy canes all along the streets. It might just be the most festive city in France!

In the wake of a deadly terrorist attack on a Coptic church in Alexandria, Egypt on New Year’s Day, many Coptic Christians are worried about celebrating Christmas (observed on January 6) as openly as they would like. Here is how a gorgeous Coptic church in Marseille is handling the situation.

You might already know that the euro looks slightly different from country to country. But France has also released a series of limited edition euro coins for each of its twenty-six regions. Remember when collecting state quarters was all the rage? Now you can move on to regional French euros!

Sakado (a play on sac à dos, “backpack”) is an organization that helps the homeless of France by collecting backpacks filled with all of life’s essentials, from hygienic products to books. As this article reports, homelessness is one of France’s biggest domestic problems.

Say you’re writing a poem in French, and you need to know how to compare your love to a beautiful sunny summer day. Unsure of the vocabulary? Listen to this weather report from local station Alsace 20 (covering the Alsace region of France) to pick up some useful weather lingo.

The largest Arabic TV network, Al Jazeera has been making its own headlines since 2001, for the depth and breadth of its coverage. This report from 2006 details the network’s evolution. Since then, Al Jazeera’s voice in international broadcasting has only become stronger.