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FRENCH HISTORY

France to suspend demolition of ‘Marie Curie’ site in Paris

France's culture minister said on Friday that the demolition of a site linked to pioneering radioactivity researcher Marie Curie would be put on hold.

France to suspend demolition of 'Marie Curie' site in Paris
The "Institut Curie", the International research center against cancer, in 2008. (Photo by STEPHANE DE SAKUTIN / AFP)

The Curie Institute will “suspend demolition of the Pavillon des Sources to take the time to look at… any possible alternative,” Culture Minister Rima Abdul Malak wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

Critics of the demolition say two-time Nobel winner Marie Curie worked in a laboratory in the building, while its proponents dispute this.

A cancer-fighting foundation, the Curie Institute wants to build a 2,000-square metre five-storey research centre at the site in Paris’ touristy Latin Quarter.

It would be “the first centre for cancer-related chemical biology in Europe” and “an indispensable scientific project”, Curie Institute chief Thierry Philip told AFP.

He added that he had had a “calm exchange on the complex debate” with minister Abdul Malak “on a question of memory that stokes so much emotion today”.

If no “alternative solution” can be found, “we will have to calmly make a decision between memory and living science,” Philip said.

Figures including television presenter Stephane Bern and conservative former minister Rachida Dati launched the debate around the Pavillon des Sources into the public eye.

It would be a “serious mistake” to destroy the building, Bern wrote on X this week, given its status as French “heritage”.

Philip said that the Pavillon des Sources was not a laboratory used by Curie, but rather served to store radioactive waste and today stands empty.

Her actual laboratory, the Curie pavilion, is not in danger of being demolished, he said.

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FRENCH HISTORY

WWII vet to marry in French town after D-Day commemorations

Hundred-year-old World War II veteran Harold Terens will marry his 96-year-old fiancee Saturday in the French town of Carentan-les-Marais, just days after being honoured on the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings that took place a few kilometres away.

WWII vet to marry in French town after D-Day commemorations

Terens’s 11:00 am (0900 GMT) wedding to Jeanne Swerlin will be followed by a celebration “with his loved ones, in a small group”, said Sarah Pasquier, the town hall’s representative for D-Day commemorations.

“We are very honoured that Mr. Terens has chosen to get married here, in Carentan, where in June 1944 the meeting of Allied troops from the landings at Utah and Omaha beaches took place,” Mayor Jean-Pierre Lhonneur told AFP.

“We will offer him champagne, of course, but also a gift to thank him for having participated in the liberation of France.”

After the ceremony, “depending on his possible fatigue”, Terens may join in a parade of veterans in the centre of Carentan during the afternoon, according to Pasquier.

A liberation ball will be also be held in the evening as part of the D-Day commemorations, she said, with attendees “invited to dress in the 1940s theme, and solders from the nearby American base welcome”.

“But Mr. Terens and his wife may be to tired to join,” she added.

READ ALSO: VIDEO: British D-Day paratroopers face post-Brexit checks in Normandy field

Terens, who lives with Swerlin in Boca Raton, Florida, was awarded the French Legion of Honour by President Emmanuel Macron in 2019.

After the war Terens married his first wife, Thelma, with whom he spent 70 years and raised three children until her death in 2018.

In 2021, a friend introduced him to Swerlin, a charismatic woman who had also been widowed, and the two have been inseparable practically ever since.

“She lights up my life, she makes everything beautiful,” Terens told AFP in an interview last month in Florida. “She makes life worth living.”

In the same interview, Swerlin said her fiancee was “an unbelievable guy”.

“He’s handsome — and he’s a good kisser.”

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