The mayor of Perpignan, Louis Aliot, has reopened four municipal museums in the southern French city, in defiance of national Covid-19 restrictions. The mayor, who is the deputy leader of the far-right National Rally party, issued a decree to reopen the museums on Monday 9 February; the local police prefecture promptly filed a motion to block the order. A summary hearing will be held in the administrative court of Montpellier on 15 February.
For decades, the story of the Arab world has often been told through the eyes of outsiders. At the Bassam Freiha Art Foundation on Saadiyat Island, a new exhibition is shifting that perspective entirely.