An eyewitness has described the scene that unfolded when several people, including children, were injured in a knife attack in Annecy, southeast France, on Thursday (8 June). At least four children were injured, with two in a life-threatening condition, Reuters reported citing local police. France’s interior minister Gerald Darmanin tweeted that a suspect has been arrested. “The attacker stabbed once and the grandfather fell on the ground and that’s when a police officer fired at the attacker, but he jumped on the grandfather again and stabbed him... then finally the police immobilised him,” former Liverpool player Anthony Le Tallec told BFMTV.

Spider-Man: Lotus is one of the most talked-about films of the year, but not necessarily for the right reasons. The fan film with a budget of $100,000 has proven to be hugely controversial in the months leading up to its release. The trailer generated a lot of buzz back in 2021, but it took until June 2022 for the first of the controversies to be unearthed. Back then, an anonymous twitter user shared screenshots of messages from Warden Wayne, the man cast to play Peter Parker in the movie, using racial slurs. Wayne was quick to post a lengthy apology to Twitter blaming his past behaviour on being “raised in a homeschool conservative environment in a small town in Arkansas.” Writer and director of the film Gavin J. Konop also came in for criticism after Twitter user @Berkmanboom shared screenshots of Konop using racial and homophobia slurs In a YouTube video that addressed the controversies facing the film titled “Addressing Everything”, Konop attempted to explain his past actions as well as claiming some of the screenshots were fake. “In my first couple years of high school, I’m gonna be honest I was pretty much a giant loser. I was online way too much, I was part of these group chats and communities where I very often said the most offensive things I could think of to get attention from people.” He also said that he takes “full responsibility” for his actions and admits that he knew “I was wrong, I wasn't raised knowing these things were not okay to say.” Spider-Man: Lotus (Fan-Film) www.youtube.com In the few days since it was made available to watch on YouTube it has been viewed more than 2 million times – but there are some who will have been put off by details behind the scenes clouding the film’s production. Lotus takes place in the aftermath of Gwen Stacy’s death and focuses on Peter Parker as he deals with the fallout. Many will be wondering how it stacks up - these are the biggest talking points about the film itself, aside from the controversy behind the scenes, and some of the biggest criticisms aimed at it over recent days. Overall length and long establishing shots One of the most common points made about the film is that it’s just too long. It’s close to an hour and 45 minutes in length and there is too much padding – a lot of it coming in the form of generic shots of New York. Turning Peter Parker into a completely unsympathetic character Parker deals with the death of Gwen Stacy by lashing out at others a lot of the time. That in itself wouldn’t be an issue, as many people might do the same in such a stark situation. However, some social media users have claimed that Parker in Lotus is a fundamentally unsympathetic character. Ultimately, any film would be close to unwatchable when the superhero himself is an insufferable character who continuously puts others down. This moment early on in the film which shows Mary Jane coming to check on him in a show of support, only for him to unload a character assassination her way, is one that shows exactly the point they’re making. Parker's conversation with a terminally ill child is all about himself There’s one extended sequence people have focused on in social media discourse, and that’s the moment Spider-Man “trauma dumps” on a young boy with terminal cancer. After receiving a letter explaining a super fan of his is unwell, Parker goes to see him twice. The first scene had the potential to be quite a sweet moment in the film, but instead, Peter Parker seems to reject the child’s love of Spider-Man and questions why the kid is a fan of his and not Captain America, before talking about Gwen Stacy’s death. “It’s my fault…” he says. “I can’t do anything about it, no matter how hard you try. I’m not the hero you think I am. All of this, it’s not me.” He then dismisses the young boy's feelings and tells him he doesn’t understand because he’s “just a kid”, before leaving. It feels a little strange tonally and again shows Parker's lack of self-awareness to consider the feelings of a terminally ill child before his own. He later returns and apologises, looking back at a load of his old adventures and sparking a series of flashbacks, giving him fresh determination to wear the suit, but the sequence has attracted some criticism online. Parker’s dress sense It’s a minor gripe one, for sure, but some people have pointed out that the fact Parker dresses like a trust fund kid at a yacht club dinner goes against the key principles of the character familiar to many from the comics. The CGI The opening few minutes feature some of the strongest moments of the entire film – and it’s pretty impressive to see this version of Spider-Man navigate New York. But while it’s unfair to criticise a fan film that costs relatively little to make for its CGI, it is true that some moments look great while others, less so. Even CGI in multi-million dollar films can look cheap at times, though, so it’s not surprising that fans used to the biggest productions would pick faults with some moments from Lotus. Others, however, did defend it. One viewer wrote: “No way people are complaining about the CGI in #SpiderManLotus. It’s literally a fan-made film. Hate all you want on it, but pointing out bad CGI in a fan-made film is just dumb.” A lack of action The film is very much a character piece, focusing on the personal relationships of Peter Parker, Mary Jane and Harry Osborne with lots of long, dialogue-heavy scenes, and some have pointed out that film is lacking in action sequences. The opening few minutes feature a short fight with the Shocker, and there’s a brief scuffle with the Green Goblin in a flashback sequence. However, some were left feeling that they expected more action from a Spider-Man film – even a fan-made one. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

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A second-hand deader in France is facing a lawsuit for allegedly deceiving a couple by selling an African mask at almost a 2,800,000 per cent markup. An unnamed pensioner couple, who live in Eure-et-Loir, south-west of Paris, sold the rare mask to the dealer at €150 (£130) who further sold it at €4.2m (£3.7m). As the case brought by the French couple opened on Tuesday, the dealer appeared in court. But the Gabon government and campaigners have said that the rare artefact should instead be returned to its country of origin. The rare 19th-Century "Ngi" mask which was made by the Fang people of Gabon was lying in dust in the attic of the couple’s holiday home in Gard, southern France. The couple had called the dealer as they had decided to sell their home. The wooden mask was found in a cupboard in the house that belonged to the man’s grandfather, René-Victor Fournier, who had been a colonial administrator in Africa in the early 20th Century. The dealer bought several items from the couple, including the wooden mask. It was six months later that the couple while reading a newspaper found out that the mask had been in action in Montpellier and that it was an artefact even rarer than Leonardo da Vinci’s painting. The couple said they had “almost fallen off their chairs” when they recognised the photo and the auction catalogue said it was collected around 1917, in unknown circumstances by the French colonial governor René-Victor Edward Maurice Fournier (1873-1931), probably during a tour in Gabon”. The discovery prompted excitement among art dealers and media, with one expert telling a French TV that only 10 such items were made by Fang masters. “This type of mask is even rarer than a Leonardo da Vinci painting – we know of 22 paintings by the great master, but we only know of 10 to 12 masks created by the different Fang masters in Gabon,” the expert said. At an auction in March 2022, the mask was bought for £3.7m by an unnamed person bidding by phone after being initially valued at £2,60,860. The couple later filed a civil suit against the dealer for giving them an unfair price and demanded the sale be annulled. During the hearing in an Ales court, the lawyers for the couple contended that the couple should receive the profits from action fairly after they unknowingly sold it at £130. “One has to be in good faith and honest; my clients would never have given up this mask at that price if they knew it was an extremely rare object,” their lawyer, Frédéric Mansat Jaffré, said this month to French outlets. Representatives of the Gabon government however said that the mask was stolen in the first place and should be returned. Solange Bizeau of the Collectif Gabon Occitanie said: “That mask was stolen at the time of colonisation … All these works of art – and so many that we see in museums – were taken, and the people who made them were told they were the devil’s work and they should instead believe in the Bible. And from that point on, these artefacts have appeared in Europe, enriching people who have made money from them for decades.” “This mask has a soul, it was used to establish justice in our villages. The discussion in court has been about morality, but what about the morality of the spoliation of works of art and our dignity? Where is the morality in that?” A decision by the court is expected in December. Read More US removes four African countries from trade deal for ‘gross human rights violation’ UN Security Council fails again to address Israel-Hamas war, rejecting US and Russian resolutions Kyiv preparing for ‘new wave’ of attacks on Avdiivka’ - latest Kyiv preparing for ‘new wave’ of attacks on Avdiivka’ - latest Nato chief says Russia must not be allowed ‘to take pieces of Ukraine’ Family of nine shot dead as they slept in Russian-occupied Ukrainian town

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TORONTO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jun 20, 2023--