Latest news with #Franco-Swiss
AU Financial Review
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- AU Financial Review
The watches that do more than just tell the time
Imagine you're a proud Franco-Swiss watch manufacturer, a tenth the size of market leader Rolex, but somehow you need to appeal to the same set of watch enthusiasts, most of whom already have a dozen or so timepieces. It poses quite a challenge – what would persuade collectors to seriously consider a timepiece like yours? One way is to create pieces that relegate the importance of time to a supporting act. In other words, a watch that rewards your downward glance with a different kind of satisfaction and assumes if it's timing to the second you're after, you'll reach for the phone in your pocket – or wear your Apple Ultra that day.
Maroc
12-06-2025
- Politics
- Maroc
French Expert Praises HM King Mohammed VI's Vision for Africa's Maritime Strategy
Franco-Swiss political analyst Jean Marie Heydt on Wednesday hailed the strategic vision of HM King Mohammed VI in strengthening Africa's maritime role, calling it a timely and ambitious initiative to harness the continent's oceanic potential. 'His Majesty King Mohammed VI has called for an innovative vision to develop Africa's oceanic assets,' Heydt said in comments to MAP following the Sovereign's message to the 'Africa for the Ocean' summit, held in Nice as part of the 3rd UN Ocean Conference. The message was delivered by Her Royal Highness Princess Lalla Hasnaa, representing HM the King at the event. Heydt described HM the King's approach as 'bold and strategic,' aimed at repositioning Africa within the global maritime landscape while promoting sustainable development and reinforcing African sovereignty over marine resources. Despite being home to 38 coastal states and vast maritime zones, Africa remains underrepresented in international ocean governance, Heydt noted. The Sovereign's appeal, he said, advocates for a strategic reassessment of the continent's maritime priorities, grounded in shared responsibility and enhanced regional cooperation. The Royal vision, he added, focuses on three main pillars: technological innovation, environmental sustainability, and strengthened regional collaboration. He also commended Morocco's 'exemplary' commitment to sustainability and marine protection. Heydt cited the launch of the Atlantic African States Process under the leadership of HM King Mohammed VI as a key milestone. 'The initiative aims to establish collective governance along Africa's Atlantic seaboard,' he said. Regional cooperation will be essential to advancing this agenda, Heydt added, noting Morocco's strategic geographic position at the crossroads of Africa, Europe, and the Middle East, as well as its stability and diplomatic reach, make it a key facilitator. He concluded that HM the King's call for a renewed African maritime strategy reflects a comprehensive and forward-looking vision, positioning Morocco as a credible and influential actor in shaping Africa's ocean policy. MAP: 12 June 2025
Canada Standard
05-06-2025
- Business
- Canada Standard
Top French robotics firm goes into liquidation
Aldebaran, renowned for its androids capable of recognizing human emotions, has accumulated debt exceeding 60 million Aldebaran, a French company that blazed the trail in the field of 'empathetic' humanoid robots in the late 2000s, has been put into liquidation, local media has reported. The tech pioneer was placed into bankruptcy proceedings in January, and then in receivership the following month. On Monday, the receiver, along with the auctioneer, announced the "immediate cessation of activity" and termination of their contracts to the company's remaining 106 employees, according to Othman Meslouh, deputy secretary of Aldebaran's social and economic committee (CSE). The Paris Commercial Court passed the verdict earlier in the day. The receiver is now expected to start selling off the company's profitable assets, including its patents, to settle Aldebaran's outstanding debts that have exceeded €60 million ($68 million). In recent months, two takeover contenders, Franco-Swiss businessman Jean-Marie Van Appelghem and Canadian investor Malik Bachouchi, had made bids for the company. However, the former's overture was not backed by the receiver and Aldebaran's management, while the latter was rejected by the court, as Bachouchi earlier told Le Monde. From 2012 to 2022 - considered the company's heyday - it was owned by Japan's Softbank Robotics Group. Some time after it was acquired by the German company United Robotics Group (URG), a subsidiary of the RAG-Stiftung, the situation began to deteriorate, according to Meslouh. He told AFP that the new owner "no longer wanted to invest in the company." This claim was echoed by another anonymous employee cited by Le Monde, who said URG "asked us to be profitable within two years" even though development "cycles take five to seven years." The unnamed engineer also lamented that the owner had underinvested in Aldebaran's research and development. In the late 2000s, the company rolled out Nao, its first humanoid robot, touted as a "versatile educational companion, widely used in classrooms and research labs for its ability to teach programming, foster social learning, and support research projects." The model was followed by Plato, designed to support healthcare and hospitality environments, and Pepper, capable of recognizing and responding to human emotions and specifically tailored for customer-facing roles. According to the company's website, its robots have found application in more than 70 countries over the years. However, the total number of units sold was a mere 30,000, L'Express estimated. (
Irish Independent
20-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Independent
E.1027 – Eileen Gray and the House by the Sea review: Graceful docudrama rehomes this evicted Irish design visionary
Why is this? Well, probably because it assures us that even those of lofty vision and creative brilliance can be just as petty and covetous as the rest of us. More so, perhaps. How Franco-Swiss architectural giant Le Corbusier appropriated the credit for a house he didn't build is the example portrayed in this docu-drama study of Irish design legend Eileen Gray. E.1027 was the name given to the modernist Cote d'Azur villa that Gray and architect lover Jean Badovici built for themselves in 1929. Seeking solitude in order to continue working, Gray vacated two summers after the building's completion, leaving it to Badovici and taking up at a house 20 minutes further inland. Badovici's great friend Le Corbusier would often visit and stay at the seaside house after Gray's departure. He would eventually paint murals on its bare walls, an act some have likened to territorial pissing over a building he felt drew from his influence. Gray herself is said to have been appalled at this desecration of her intentionally plain walls. But it was in the aftermath of Badovici's death that Le Corbusier's obsession became clear. After failing to secure purchase of the house, he built a wooden shack in its shadow where he would die in 1965. In those final years, it is said that he would never hurry to contradict any ascription of the house to his hand. It would be three years later that E.1027, now dilapidated and unloved, would be rediscovered in an architectural journal. The name Eileen Gray (who was still alive and living in obscurity) gradually became etched on the property as its chief visionary and developer. Before long, the Enniscorthy-born trailblazer was at last getting the lavish retrospectives her genius merited. Her forgotten table and chair designs, meanwhile, would be mass produced for the homewares market. You might even be sitting on one at this very moment. This film by Zurich co-directors Beatrice Minger and Christoph Schaub manages not to daub everything under the banner of revisionism and righting of misogynistic wrongs – and yet they are inescapable. Initially a project about their fellow countryman Le Corbusier, the pair saw Gray and the erasing of her name from E.1027 were the real story. ADVERTISEMENT Essayed with profound grace (and narrated in the first person) by Natalie Radmall-Quirke, Gray is seen as a pensive, focused creative who flees aristocratic privilege in rural Wexford for the melting pots of London and Paris. Archive images of interwar decadence flash across a stage backdrop craftily adapted for various settings of the saga. Relationships with both women and men ('men always wanted to compete or get married') are never at the expense of a fierce drive to manifest in materials the lines and contours of her mind. By the time she meets the younger Badovici (Axel Moustache), her crosshairs are beginning to move from interior design to the chambers that will house it. Le Corbusier (Charles Morillon) and his dominance in the field looms, but there is too much in Gray's monologue (based on her writings) that alludes to single-mindedness. A house, she reasoned, was shelter but also a body and a refuge, a place to be oneself at a time when homosexuals were being openly assaulted. E.1027 would have no road access and sit just out of view; a clean, temporal abode to serve those inside rather than prying architectural sensibilities. 'People in a room become resonating bodies,' she says in one passage. 'I wanted to create a space for the woman who needs a room of her own.' It's safe to say design is a realm rarely associated with this storied little island of ours. A luminary in that field – and a female one, at that – such as Gray should be spotlit at any occasion, not least for the attempts to erase her from history. She'd approve of a tribute such as this, what with its stark but elliptical manoeuvres, its grace of form and composition, and the way in which it seems at once modern but somehow lived in. Four stars
Ya Biladi
07-05-2025
- Business
- Ya Biladi
Conference in Bordeaux highlights Moroccan Sahara's role in global development and cooperation
A conference was held on Friday evening in Bordeaux to discuss the book The Moroccan Sahara: Land of Light and Future, authored by Franco-Swiss academic Jean-Marie Heydt. The event, organized by the Moroccan Consulate General in partnership with the African Cultural Institute, brought together researchers, elected officials, diplomats, entrepreneurs, and members of the Moroccan community. Jean-Marie Heydt encouraged participants to gain a deeper understanding of the realities on the ground, emphasizing the Sahara's deep-rooted Moroccan identity and its African vocation. He highlighted the economic development of the southern provinces, describing them as the foundation of a «planetary and civilizational African project». He pointed to major infrastructure projects, such as the Dakhla Atlantic Port, as reflections of a royal vision to promote innovative and equitable South-South cooperation. Heydt also outlined a geostrategic vision aimed at positioning the Sahara as a hub connecting Europe, Africa, and South America, bolstered by the growing influence of Moroccan companies in finance, green energy, and infrastructure. Senegalese entrepreneur Abdou Khadre Sall called on New Aquitaine to invest in development projects linked to Morocco. He praised «the Kingdom's active diplomacy» and the Atlantic Initiative, noting that «Europe's future also depends on a reciprocal partnership with Africa». Joining via video conference from Dakhla, Ahmed Kathir from the Regional Investment Center (CRI) of Dakhla-Oued Eddahab spoke about the region's investment opportunities, especially in green energy—aligned with Europe's decarbonization goals. Alain Dupouy, president of Objective Africa Future, advocated for strengthening decentralized cooperation, which he described as faster and more flexible than intergovernmental processes. Closing the event, Nouzha Sahel, Consul General of Morocco in Bordeaux, reminded attendees that «the Moroccan Sahara is not just a region in the south of the Kingdom», but a strategic area at the heart of a royal project for sustainable development and regional cooperation.
