Thousands of UFO fanatics flocked to a small town in central France in the hope of finally encountering extraterrestrial life.

The event, organized by fringe group Alliances Célestes, reportedly attracted around 2,200 people who each paid between €150 and €190 (£128 to £162) to attend the three-day conference held at the Zenith Limoges Metropole- building in Limoges, a small city with a population of about 130,000.

Organizers said they wanted to prepare people for the arrival of aliens or “new style encounters.”

The event’s website states: ‘The mission of this citizen delegation is to guide humanity in this process, to properly inform and reduce the fear and stress that these types of encounters can cause.’

Although the media was excluded from the event, video of the conference was leaked to BFMTV, where thousands of people listened intently to someone speaking on a set on stage.

The stage was decorated with white furniture, including several chairs and a high table on the right.

The background of the set consisted of ‘futuristic’ windows depicting stars speeding past the ‘alien chamber’ they were in.

The speaker can be heard telling the conference participants, “We are in contact with civilizations. When I say in contact, it is about communication and a partnership, a collaboration.

‘But they have a big problem, these civilizations, and that is that they don’t know how to communicate with the citizens of Earth.

‘For what? Because the citizens of Earth are afraid.”

Two French reporters managed to sneak in and said they saw Alliances Célestes director Jean-Michel Raoux dressed in a blue and yellow outfit, claiming he was a being from the planet ‘Niam’.

Raoux reportedly claims that he regularly encounters aliens and that he has the power to bring aliens to different parts of the Earth.

The crowd also heard from Anne Givaudan, a “galactic reporter” who claimed she was from the land of “Shambhala.” She told conference participants that she has witnessed human-hybrid animals in Antarctica.

‘That’s why it’s time to stand up and say to ourselves: What are we doing? Do we trust beings who have always deceived us in all areas? A new world must emerge,” she told a crowd.

But while many in France dismissed the event as a harmless conference, political figures warned that the events attract conspiracy theorists and extremists.

One of those invited to the conference was QAnon sympathizer Antoine “Q” Cuttitta.

The conspiracy theorist regularly posted conspiracy videos on YouTube before the platform closed his channel.

According to Conspiracy Watch, Cuttita helped found the Human Health Alliance International, a group known for its embrace of “alternative” medicine. It provided a platform that could connect patients with debilitating diseases to ‘aromatherapists’, ‘energetics’, ‘magnetizers’, ‘mass therapists’ or even ‘naturopathic practitioners’.

“I was stunned that such an event took place in Limoges,” tweeted Thierry Miguel, vice-president of the Haute-Vienne department council.

‘Who are these eccentrics who invite themselves to Limoges to put the ideas of charlatans and conspiracy theorists into people’s heads?’

Miguel said he plans to organize a public meeting on the role of science and social progress.

“We cannot stand there with our arms folded in the face of possible charlatans who come to talk to us about theories from another time,” he told BFMTV.

‘When a society is dysfunctional, it resorts to these kinds of values. But we must strive to distinguish the truth from the false by relying on science.”

Candace Owens has staked her career on the fact that the wife of French President Emmanuel Macron was born a man.

The controversial conservative commentator went to X to promote the false theory hours after he laid it out an episode of her podcast.

It appears that French First Lady Brigitte Macron, 70, was actually born Jean-Michel Trogneux before eventually switching at the age of 30.

It goes on to say that she did not give birth to any of her three children, and that her first husband, a 69-year-old retired banker who is said to have died a recluse in 2020, never existed.

The conspiracy stems from a completely false claim made by the far-right magazine Faits et Documents (Facts & Documents) after Macron, 46, was elected.

But the debate was reignited last month after Emmanuel Macron’s stepdaughter, Tiphaine Auzière, gave an interview to Paris Match in which she addressed claims that her mother Brigitte was born male.

Ms. Auzière was only 10 when she discovered that her teacher’s mother had a student 25 years younger than her.

“I worry about the level of society when I hear what is circulating on social networks about the fact that my mother is a man,” she said.

Still, Owens revived the speculation on Tuesday before addressing those who disagreed.

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“After investigating this, I would stake my entire professional reputation on the fact that Brigitte Macron is in fact a man,” Owens, 34, wrote on the platform formerly known as Twitter, linking to the episode from the night before.

“Any journalist or publication that tries to dismiss this plausibility can immediately be identified as the establishment,” she charged.

‘I’ve never seen anything like that in my life. The implications here are terrifying.

“I have no intention of giving up on this story and I call on other journalists to investigate this explosive story and report accordingly.”

The night before, she brought up a 2021 Daily Mail article that debunked the speculation, before delving deeper into the theory surrounding the French head of state’s husband.

Ignoring the opinions of several seasoned experts interviewed for the piece, Owens presented the so-called findings of what she claimed was a “three year” investigation from the publication.

She further argued that if Brigitte really wanted to debunk the claims, she could simply release photos from the first thirty years of her life.

Owens also analyzed a rare family photo of Brigitte Macron’s family when she was a child, claiming she was a “dead ringer” for her older brother – before claiming they were the same person.

‘[The] The theory is that first lady Brigitte Macron was actually born Jean-Michel [Trogneux] – so Brigitte is actually Jean-Michel.

‘Jean-Michel lived as a man for thirty years, had five children, okay, and moved to Brigitte at the age of thirty.

She then took a ‘before and after photo’ that was reportedly used as part of the Faits et Documents investigation – a photo that used Chinese software to draw similarities between an undated photo of Brigitte’s brother and the first lady herself.

Owens, for his part, categorized the comparison as a dead ringer, telling her roughly three million subscribers, “I think it’s crazy that you wouldn’t say that these two individuals look alike.”

She then told her followers why she thinks this theory “has legs.”

The first obvious thing,” she said, “is that the first lady is simply not able to take pictures of herself for the first thirty years of her life.

“Guys, how easy is this to debunk – when you say Candace, no, actually you’ve lived 30 years as a man, I’ve lived 30 years: I’m going to show you every picture of every year I’ve lived.”

She then took several photos of her at different stages of her life to illustrate her point.

“Here I am in college, here I am when I was pregnant with my children. Here are me and my husband on our wedding day.

“There would be so many photos that Brigitte would need at her disposal if this weren’t true,” she claims, but there won’t be any.

‘No, they just call everyone wrong, retarded and transphobic. Just take the pictures.”

“Instead, the only photos they took that are circulating in the media are the ones I just showed you,” she added, referring to the photos showing Brigitte’s brother Jean-Michel Trogneux as a child , and also a young Brigitte.

“And, like I said, in the first photo she looks more like the Jean-Michel who she claims is actually her brother, which she won’t just present to the public,” Owens continued.

“If that is indeed your brother, please take him for a walk so we can capture him.”

Owens’ comments came days after Macron visibly fed up with the rumors at an International Women’s Day event on Friday, saying: “The worst thing is the false information and made-up scenarios.”

“People end up believing them and disturbing you, even in your intimacy,” he further claimed.

He added that transgender claims about Macron were typical of misogynistic online attacks that women face every day.

Two women who claimed that the Première Dame was born as a man were punished on appeal in June last year with a reduction of ‘symbolic fines’.

In turn, both claimed they were subjected to “intimidation by the authorities” as “ultra-protected” members of the Paris establishment tried to cover up a “state secret.”

All parties in the case accepted the fines imposed on appeal as a final settlement for what had caused enormous embarrassment to the First Couple.

The transphobic rumors about Brigitte Macron were first picked up by the far right in 2022, while the president was campaigning for re-election.

Groups including the Yellow Vests (Gilets Jaunes) and those protesting Covid vaccines then used the claims to attack the French.

Meanwhile, videos made by journalists touting the comparisons – just as Owens did – have since been removed from YouTube.

Daily Mail has contacted President Macron’s office for comment.

With this victory, Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty won their seventh BWF World Tour title.

New Delhi: India’s top men’s doubles duo of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty won their second French Open and second BWF World Tour Super 750 title after another dominant victory in Paris. On Sunday they defeated Lee Jhe-Huei and Yang Po-Hsuan of Taipei 21-11, 21-17 in the final. This is the in-form Satwik-Chirag’s seventh BWF World Tour title and they won it without dropping a single match at the Olympic test event in Paris.

The world No. 1 Indian duo had finished runners-up at the French Open in 2019 before winning the title in 2022. On Sunday, the Asian Games champions outsmarted their opponents in 37 minutes to reclaim the Super 750 tournament title and also win their first title. crown of the season after reaching the top clash for the third time in 2023.

The Indian duo had finished second in this year’s Malaysia Super 1000 and India Super 750, while last year they also placed second in the China Masters Super 750. Satwik and Chirag were lucky for the third time and their stellar showing this week only confirmed head coach Pullela Gopichand’s claim that the duo will be the favorites to win gold at the Paris Olympics.

Shortly after the victory, the Indians celebrated in their traditional style, with Satwik lifting Chirag onto his lap as he raised his hands to the sky. Satwik also started dancing with his racket. “It all started with Thomas Cup and it became a habit and it has been a long time since we danced. It’s after the fourth finals. We just wanted to go and have fun and let them earn points and the game,” Satwik said.

“We wanted to give 100 percent and enjoy ourselves. Even Mathias (Boe) kept telling us to have fun and we got our rhythm back and the momentum changed. Satwik and Chirag enjoyed a 2-0 head-to-head win against Lee and Yang, but the Taiwanese duo are in the form of their lives after entering the tournament after winning the German Open last week.

“They’ve had some good weeks, they’ve beaten some good opponents and we knew we couldn’t take them lightly. Their ranking may not be high, but they have always been a formidable match. So we are happy that we were able to win that first game and, after an initial nervousness, also the second one,” said Chirag.

As a result, voters became increasingly unpredictable. “If you had mass political parties, you could have stability in their voting, because the party was an organization that defined important parts of your life,” says Hayat, the political scientist, “and not just what you voted for every five years. .” Now that politics “has been reduced to the ballot paper you put in the ballot box, of course people can sometimes vote for the left, sometimes not,” he says. Even those who broadly identify with the left don’t join parties, Hayat says. This is largely because political identities are now formed and expressed on social media, outside party structures.

This organizational conundrum does not affect all parties equally. “If you want to create stability in voting, you need organizations,” says Hayat. That is, a structured, consistent and useful presence in communities. In France the left is no longer as present. The same goes for Italy, which once had one of the strongest communist parties in Europe and now has a far-right government. And that also applies to the United States, where New Deal politics kept white working-class voters close to the Democratic Party until the 1970s and 1980s. In the absence of such structures, Hayat continues, “you have to be the only party that appeals to a certain emotion that is very strong in the electorate, for example fear.” That is of course the power of the extreme right.

“They take exactly my words,” Roussel said of Marine Le Pen’s party. “Without paying for rights, of course.” But behind it all, Roussel said, their platform is still neoliberal. “The far right may talk about raising salaries, but they would also abolish employer contributions that help finance the social security system,” he said. “I often say to the workers I meet: be on the lookout for the National Rally. It is like a candy that is very sweet when you put it in your mouth. But when you bite into it, it is very bitter. And it can make you sick.”

The unemployment rate in St.-Amand is now, according to some calculations, 23.5 percent. When Roussel took over the PCF five years ago, the party had just won about 1 percent of the vote in the second round of the parliamentary elections. During the 2022 presidential elections, he managed to double that figure – to 2.3 percent in the first round. About 53 percent of those who voted in St.-Amand voted for Le Pen in the second round of the presidential election. But they also voted for Roussel against his far-right opponent in the parliamentary elections; Roussel won his seat by nine points. This is perhaps less a testament to the particularities of his policies than to his multigenerational roots in the region – his father was a journalist for a PCF publication – and to his personality and presence in the community. “Marine Le Pen is against Macron, and I am against Macron,” Roussel told me. “In national elections, people are tired of both left and right, it’s always the same, so they vote on the extreme right. In local elections they vote for people they know, who they like and who treat them well.”

Like the traditional one France’s party system has gone bankrupt, and as political figures bypass it to succeed, “there is a cannibalization of politics by personality,” said Martigny, a professor at the University of Nice. In this sense, the left mirrors the populist style of the far right, in which personality trumps the traditional party machine.

KJ Apa and his girlfriend Clara Berry have split after four years.

The 30-year-old French model announced her split from the 26-year-old Riverdale hunk via a TikTok video on February 25. The couple shares two-year-old son Sasha Vai Keneti Apa.

When a fan asked her if she was still in a relationship with the New Zealander, Clara simply replied, “No,” and later enthusiastically added, “I’m free.”

Clara spoke in her native French in the clip, telling fans: “You can see I’m happier, right?”

Despite their split, the two are on good terms and were even spotted hugging and sitting next to each other at Paris Fashion Week on March 5.

In her video, Clara added that “everything is better” after the split, saying: “I think it’s better to have parents who are divorced, who are happy and who can be the best version of themselves, than together to stay in a situation where it doesn’t work.’

Although she said “things are going well,” she admitted that sharing custody wasn’t easy.

‘I am not with my son 50 percent of the time and will therefore not know 50 percent of his life. That’s hard to accept.’

She went on to say that their son has handled the change well and is “very happy.”

Clara then stated that she “didn’t feel like talking further” about the breakup.

KJ has not yet publicly discussed the split.

The duo first confirmed their romance in August 2020. They announced they were expecting their first child together a year later.

KJ announced Clara’s pregnancy in May with a photo of the French model relaxing on a couch with her bump fully visible.

Clara shared more photos of her growing belly on her own account, where she posed near a skyline with her bare stomach visible.

In September 2021, Clara announced the arrival of their little one. ‘Sasha Vai Keneti Apa, born on September 23. He is perfect perfection. I am lucky to have two men in my life now, who fill my heart with this cosmic gigantic love.”

The pair have kept their relationship largely private, with KJ sporadic sharing tributes to Clara on social media.

In 2021, the actor referred to his baby mama as his “wife” — though the couple never announced any engagement or wedding plans — as he hilariously tried her breast milk for the first time.

Parenthood seemed to have brought them closer than ever when the artist shared a video of him pouring part of his son’s bottle into his coffee mug for a sip.

“My wife is a milking machine and I love it,” he captioned the recording, which has been viewed more than three million times and received thousands of comments from friends, fans and loved ones.

Clara replied, “I’m glad I can feed my family.”

That same year, he also wrote her a birthday tribute on an Instagram Story: “Thank you for being my best friend and your love for nature, and @nenem.la.vraie. I tolerate my cars and never fail to pose with them.’

‘Thanks for our late dairy runs, which gave me company at work… and at the hair salon. For the high upkeep and finally… for the birth of our first child,” he added.

Around the time of his son’s birth, KJ admitted that he would give up his acting career to start a family.

In an interview with Australian Men’s Healththe actor said that the fruits of his success would mean nothing if he didn’t have family to share it with.

“I’ve never been so sure of anything in my life, except the fact that I want to be a father,” he told the magazine. ‘It’s a lonely place, this industry. Human interactions are no longer the same for me. I am searching. I’m looking for real relationships with people who really care about me and who I care about, not about who I am or who they are.”

“I don’t want to be lonely for the rest of my life,” he added. ‘I look around at people who do what I do, putting everything into their careers, fame and themselves.

‘I’m guilty of the same thing, but I look around and think, “Wait, what’s the point of all this if you can’t share it with anyone but yourself and your friends?” It becomes pointless. I would be willing to quit acting and all this if I had a beautiful family. If I had to do it, I would.”

When Lenny Henry announced he would be stepping down from Comic Relief this year – after 39 years leading the telethon charity – he admitted it was partly because the comic group he started with was no longer by his side.

The comedian, 65, has headlined the Red Nose Day specials since it was founded as a charity in 1985, but confirmed this month’s show will be his last.

Sir Lenny Henry told it Radio times he “missed the gang” of fellow comics who co-hosted with him in the 1980s, including his ex-wife Dawn French, 66, Jennifer Saunders, Billy Connolly and the late Victoria Wood.

Sir Lenny was married to French for 25 years and the couple share a daughter, Billie, but went their separate ways in 2010.

Here, FEMAIL explores how the couple became a comedic powerhouse after their 1984 wedding, managing what many couples in the public eye struggle with: remaining friendly and often appearing at the same events, post-divorce…

The ex-couple first met on the comedy circuit and both rose to fame on the TV series The Comic Strip in the early 1980s.

It was Dawn who convinced Lenny to switch to alternative comedy, where he quickly made his mark as a stand-up artist.

After endless hours of joking and comedy, the pair ignited an intoxicating love that could lead to jealousy in most relationships.

As an IT couple from the early ’80s, the couple decided it was time to make it official and tie the knot in London’s Covent Garden in 1984.

As fans from across the country watched in awe at their beautiful celebration, Lenny called the event a “chic chi-chi hall.”

After the glamorous wedding, the couple decided in the early ’90s that their duo act would be upgraded to a family trio. After years of trying to conceive, they adopted their daughter Billie, 33, when she was just two weeks old.

Dawn told the Sunday Telegraph: ‘I was sad for a while. I did have a miscarriage, so I was sad about that too.

“But from the moment Billie arrived, I was done. She fulfills everything I needed to be a mother.”

The Vicar Dibley star said it was the ‘greatest achievement’ of her life.

However, after more than twenty years together, their marriage was over. In 2010, Dawn and Lenny divorced due to his “unreasonable behavior.”

There were rumors that Lenny cheated on Dawn in 1999, a claim he denied. The move shocked the nation and the couple hasn’t provided much insight into why their seemingly happy life ended in divorce.

A statement released on behalf of the couple at the time said: ‘The separation is completely amicable and they fully intend to maintain their close friendship. Their priority is to commit themselves to the future joint education of their daughter.’

For six years, the subject of their breakup was taboo… until 2016, when Lenny hinted that the couple thought about divorce for a while before it happened.

In an interview with the Emphatiche said: ‘There is generally a situation where one partner wants the marriage to end more than the other.

“I think maybe one of us did that, then the other, and then the other for a period of time, and then we finally thought, ‘Oh, maybe we’ll both do that.’ We knew it was not possible to continue,” he added.

Dawn did not comment publicly on the divorce at the time, but her unofficial biographer, Alison Boyer, said the comedy duo “outgrew” their marriage before their divorce.

There was heavy speculation about the demise of their love in the later years of their marriage and subtle signs seemed to indicate that the couple were beginning to fall out of love.

In 2009, Lenny took the stage in London to accept a prestigious theater award for his critically acclaimed performance in Shakespeare’s Othello.

As usual, the couple put on a bravura performance of togetherness as Henry towered over his tiny wife and beamed down at her.

The clue to the reality behind the facade they tried so hard to maintain was that Dawn’s usual megawatt smile was muted as she posed for photos with her hand rather awkwardly on her husband’s shoulder.

At that point, they had been secretly separated for six months. In fact, even as their silver wedding anniversary came and went, they were busy working out the details of their divorce.

Many speculated that the couple could simply never get over Henry’s alleged argument with a young blonde woman in a hotel room 11 years earlier, which he has always denied.

The couple waited until Billie turned 18 to announce their separation and the pair continued to live together under the same roof in their then £2.4 million waterfront home on the Cornish coast.

After the divorce, the couple has always been able to maintain a friendly relationship in front of the cameras.

Dawn told The Mirror after their split: ‘Remarkably, we seem to have moved from a 25-year marriage to an enduring friendship with relative ease. I’m amazed at us – there’s no war, we’ve turned out to be the best of friends. There were many good years, but last year was difficult.’

In 2012, Lenny started dating theater mogul Lisa Makin. Despite a long-term relationship, the couple has resisted walking down the aisle.

And this year, their displays of warmth towards each other have continued following Lenny’s decision to leave Comic Relief.

The comedian, who founded the charity with Richard Curtis in 1985, told the Radio Times: ‘We were like a little gang. But for a few years now I’ve had the feeling: ‘Where is the new gang?’.

‘[Comic Relief] is a baton that needs to be passed to a new group of people who will take on Comic Relief.

Lenny then tipped his replacement after praising David Tennant, who presented the show in 2019 due to theater commitments.

Saying, ‘I thought, well, actually, [David was] brilliant. And I think there are other people, newer people, coming up, like Romesh Ranganathan, Alesha Dixon, AJ Odudu.

‘New people are now joining us who can absolutely take matters into their own hands.’

However, Sir Lenny did admit that although he would not appear on screen on the big night, he would continue to work behind the scenes for the charity as Life President.