this is bbc news, the headlines. security forces in france are tackling more chaotic protests from people angry about president macron�*s retirement reforms. these are the scenes in western france where fires have taken hold destroying several vehicles. several tornadoes have killed at least 23 people in the us state of mississippi. the authorities said the twisters left a trail of damage for more than 150 kilometres. trees and power lines were torn down, and tens of thousands of power outages reported. and revelations from an mi5 spy who helped bring peace to northern ireland. he's told the bbc he met ira leaders in march 1993, despite talks being called off by the british government. gwyneth paltrow has repeatedly insisted that she was the victim in a skiing accident that's the subject of a lawsuit

in the us state of utah. giving evidence, the oscar—winning actress said she'd been hit from behind by terry sanderson, who claims he was the victim. from the suburbs of paris to the cambridge university boat race crew — it's been quite the journey for 21 year old noam mouelle on sunday, he'll become one of a very small number of non—white oarsmen to take part in the historic annual contest on the river thames. he's been speaking to our sports reporter, james burridge. je m'appelle noam mouelle, etje prepare la boat race avec cambridge. it's quite something, i would say, it's very challenging. there is a lot of pressure, obviously. i've never been that stressed, stressed out about rowing in my entire life. noam mouelle�*s mum wanted him to do an outdoor sport. little did she know how far that

sport would take him — from the suburbs of paris to the wild and lonely great ouse, for one of rowing's biggest endeavours, the boat race. when you tell people in france, so people who don't do rowing, that you're doing the oxford—cambridge boat race, it's a bit like... it's hard for them to imagine, right? because it's something that seems very old—school and very uk—based, and seems like almost a glitch in the matrix. a french guy could do this thing. while the boat race has always had an international flavour — it attracts many rowers from around the world — it doesn't have a great reputation when it comes to diversity. in fact, noam is that rare exception this year. across the board, when you look at rowing clubs in this country, just 6% of its members come from diverse backgrounds. people in the uk mostly learn to row in schools, and for your school to have enough money, let's say, to have good rowing equipment and so on,

you need to be in a private school. and it's only a certain demographic which goes into private schools, which is why maybe you have a bit less diversity here in rowing, at least. but that's really not the case in france. people are just rowing in rowing clubs. and so, for example, you will have people who row for their school, but they use the facilities... so rowing—club facilities, which makes the sport definitely noticeably more diverse. british rowing say they're increasing the number of outreach programmes in under—represented communities and want to change the make—up of gb rowing. noam doesn't want to be a trailblazer, but is hopeful he can encourage more people into the sport. if someone feels like rowing is not for them because people who row are different from them, right? and if that person sees that i'm doing the boat race, let's say, or anyone else, and they think, "0h, maybe, maybe i could try, maybe i could give it a shot

in my local club or in my school or whatever," well, yeah, definitely, i would say, in that case, i'm happy. and if you were to win, what will the reaction be like in france? it will be pretty special. so they're getting a big screen to put in the rowing club, so that people can watch. so, like, all of the kids, some of the kids and the older people are going to watch this race live on the 26th. my parents are going to be there. many friends are going to be watching online as well. so i think if i win, yes, that would be... that would be very, very special. you're watching bbc news. now it's time for witness history. hello and welcome to witness history. i'm farhana haider, at the people's history museum in manchester, with more remarkable moments from the past, as told by people who were there.

in this episode, we look back at five campaigns and protest movements led by women. coming up, we'll hear about the fight for the equal right to pray for women at the western wall injerusalem, the argentinian forensic pioneer unearthing war crimes, the anti—nuclear protest that was the biggest women—led movement in the uk since the suffragettes, and a watershed moment for canada's indigenous people. but we start in london and a story about the strikers in saris, a group of south asian women employed in the grunwick because of the poor working conditions there, they decided to take a stand for workers�* rights and their action captured the imagination of many other trade unionists, as lakshmi patel told me. for housewife mrs jayaben desai, her 220th day on the picket line was marked by a presentation. i this is a presentation on behalfl of the north west london branch

of usdaw, the shop workers union, |to mrs desai, who is the treasurer| of the strike committee. thank you very much for coming along. . translation: jayaben desai was a very strong woman. . she had made up her mind to bring the union into the factory... ..because our women were treated badly. we believed that if women have so many rights in this country, then why can't we have them too? grunwick relied upon the new influx of asians from east africa to supply its workforce. commonly thought passive and hard working, the tables were about to turn. in the grunwick factory,

there was a big glass room, where the manager used to sit. he would observe us all from that room. he would keep an eye on us. if you were going to the toilet and it took too long, then he would ask why, what were you up to? the unlikely leader of the grunwick strike, jayaben desai, would challenge the stereotype of the submissive asian woman. i was on the picket line from the first day. we ladies came out with mrs desai. how long will you stay here? unless, when we will finish this dispute. . a year? any time. five years? ten years. unions from across

england supported us. there were two such piles, around 70 sacks in all, and they'd been building up since the local branch of the postal union voted overwhelmingly tojoin the boycott. all: the workers united will never be defeated! | all the unions were there, with big banners. there were a lot of policemen. you could see them all over the street. and in the middle of them was jayaben. loud cheering. in spite of mass support, the strike committee found its power to act ever more circumscribed. two years after it had begun, the strike was called off. jayaben was not upset with the defeat at all.

we felt that asian women in england had fought for two years for the union. and we were proud of that fact. the reason we were fighting, we have achieved. _ the treatment with the staff has already changed. - it is a great victory. the wages was increased after that. don't you think it's a victory? i am so proud of myself that we fought for our rights. lakshmi patel remembering the grunwick strike, which inspired widespread trade union support.

our next story is about mercedes doretti, a forensic anthropologist from argentina who founded a team dedicated to searching for the remains of the missing victims of war atrocities and state violence. in their search for the truth, her team has exhumed remains in more than 30 countries, among them el salvador, the scene of a brutal civil war in the 1980s. we end up exhuming the remains of close to 140 kids that were all in this very small one—room house. we were exhuming all these little dresses and whatever they have in their pockets. those kind of details are actually the ones that kind of devastate you, they're very hard, yeah.

i started doing this forensic work on human rights cases since 1984 when democracy returned to argentina after quite brutal military government. i was a student. most of us were, just finishing, very close to graduating. it wasn't something that we were thinking, "oh, let's form an international organisation "that will do this globally," or anything like that. it was more like, if we want to be consistent with what we think and believed, we thought we couldn't say no. in december 1981, the el salvador army entered into the hamlet of el mozote, as well as another five hamlets that were nearby, separated children, women and men, execute them, burn their houses and everything. removing any possibility of civilian

support of guerrillas. at the time when we arrived, you could still see human bones in different parts of the houses. translation: these red flags indicate where we found - all the spent cartridges. this wall here was where the victims were probably lined up before being executed. we were just amazed by what we were finding. we had never worked on a case of that scale at that time. i see the work that we do in different parts of the world as a part of a reparation process. where something horrible had happened, we cannot fix, obviously, what happened, but we can provide some solace by providing information,

sometimes returning back the remains of missing people to their loved ones, which we have learned how important it is. these are crimes that often, you know, started as political crimes and part of a political situation. and so you learn to wait and push as much as you can, so that the evidence can be heard and have its day in court. but it's a work that requires a lot of patience. often, we felt a very strong feeling of frustration. it was a very small courtroom, very close to where the massacre had happened. and we were testifying, something we thought was never going to happen. we were all kind of like,

"ok, you know, "now this is what we were supposed to have done 30 years ago." these processes never end, so we never feel complete, you know, closure, or... you know, rarely. the forensic anthropologist mercedes doretti. next, we go back to the 1980s, when a group ofjewish feminists started campaigning for the right to pray as openly asjewish men at one ofjudaism's holiest sites, the western wall. witness history spoke to anat hoffman, one of the founders of the so—called women of the wall. i've been the chauffeur more times than i'd like to think of, taking women of the wall

to emergency room. and of course, endless eggs, water, thrown at the women of the wall. when israel took over eastjerusalem, they built a partition between men and women at the wall. the partition is not equal. men are encouraged to explore alljewish expressions.

what some people allow themselves to say about us and to us is quite shocking. "wrap them in their prayer shawl and bury them alive," and we're being called nazis by other jewish people. and when we went to court, it would be 1a years later when we will receive a verdict. the court felt that our issue is so complex that it rocks thejewish world as we know it.

we won three out of our four strategic goals. women can wear a prayer shawl now at the wall. i won't say it's a pleasure, but you can do it. i am waiting for the day where a young girl's going to be reading the torah, wearing her tallit, her prayer shawl, praying out loud and she'll say to me, "hey, old lady, "it's always been this way." anat hoffman, one of the founding members of the women of the wall. coming up after the break, how an anti—war march turned

she organised a women's march from the welsh capital carbon. women from all over europe joined the protest. the first american cruise missiles are now in britain. it was earlier this morning at greenham common raf base in berkshire that a united states starlifter landed with its cargo of missiles. the women's peace camp at greenham also represents the disquieting - voice of rebellious women, a sisterhood of dissent. - ann pettitt was one of the women who'd started the whole thing. - we decided to call it a peace camp and decided to stay, asking for a public debate between everybody in this country about the siting of cruise missiles. decisions about nuclear weapons and about military things in general, they're all taken by men, just seems right that it should be women. at that point in 1981, we had two children. we moved here to west wales

because we wanted to run a smallholding, grow vegetables. the possibility that the cold war would escalate into a nuclear war began to seem more and more likely. the government was sending out leaflets called protect and survive and issued a film about what we should do. a cupboard under the stairs, that is another good place for a refuge. put boxes of earth or sand on the stairs, start collecting them now. we were meant to make a makeshift little den in our house, or hide in the cupboard under the stairs with a few tins of food, and you thought, "what?! "are they insane? !" so many protests have taken the form of walking. think of the salt marches in india, the marches in selma in america, led by martin luther king. itjust is a natural form of political protest.

i began to have visions of women walking down the road with our banners and our placards. i'd managed to get a little mention of the march in conventional women's magazines, like cosmopolitan, i seem to remember, and there were women who had seen these and jumped at it and thought, "yes, this is for me." most of them, women who had never done anything like this before. so we walked from cardiff, the capital of wales, to greenham common. the press were not interested. trying to get on the front pages of newspapers was, well, you know, i was told to get lost i don't know how many times. we had to do something more dramatic and we decided to chain ourselves up to the gates of greenham. when we got there, we had to stay a night and another night, a week, two weeks. gradually, the support did come in. thousands of women surround the american air base at greenham common in a peaceful protest against the siting of american cruise missiles in britain.

it was the biggest women's demonstration ever, i think, in this country. i think it's a brilliant title, actually, embrace the base. embrace the base! sort of... give love into the base! we decorated the fence as well. i remember seeing a woman had hung her wedding dress on the fence. i suppose relations with the police had begun on quite a courteous basis, but they got quite violent, really. security at greenham common has been substantially increased... at one time, a group of about 15 women struggled with soldiers i before being arrested. the greenham protest forced mrs thatcher to abandon her plan to let ronald reagan station nuclear missiles on british soil. sense, it did change things.

i'm very proud of what i did, really. ann pettitt and the formidable greenham common women. for ourfinalfilm, we go to canada in the 1990s, where indigenous canadians objected to plans to develop a golf course on the sight of a burial ground in quebec. the dispute led to a summer—long siege between mohawk demonstrators and canadian security forces. witness history spoke to mohawk activist ellen katsi'tsa kwas gabriel. to see the tanks coming in, we even had the fighterjets fly over us. the mood was very tense. this is all for a golf course. this is all for some group of rich people, the elite, and their playground.

like many other indigenous peoples, we call the earth our mother. the place where our ancestors rest is extremely important. they wanted to extend their nine—hole golf course into an 18—hole golf course, but at the same time, they also wanted to dig up our burial ground to extend their parking lot. we set up a blockade on a secondary dirt road. at that time, the majority of the people who were at the barricades were women. our matrilineal, our clans come from our mothers, and we are the ones who are supposed to protect the land and it's the duty of the men to protect the people. the women said we would go to the front, when the police arrived. the men said they would watch and protect us if anything happened. so on the morning ofjuly11th, we were interrupted at 5:15 in the morning by a swat team and so we went towards the front of the barricade, towards the highway,

with our hands in the air to make sure that they saw we had no weapons. but they still met us with a lot of aggression and a lot of force. what i said to them was that this is our land and we have every right to be here. they were not too happy with that. that's why they wanted to talk to a man, because the women were, i guess, being very unreasonable to them. originally, people said there would be no weapons, but there were individuals who carried their weapons. we couldn't do anything about it. we said, "it's a peaceful barricade." around 8:30, the police started firing tear gas and concussion grenades at us. concussion grenades, for those who don't know, sound like gunshots. they're quite a loud noise. i had to tell some of the people i was with to run, you know, let's run for cover. it was scary because we didn't know if anyone was killed. you know, on both sides.

the police force continued to block the roads, people coming in or out. they prevented food, medicine. they were quite aggressive and always provoking. it was a siege. a 78—day siege. well, we did decide to end it. we just had enough and we said, "we're going back to our homes." september 26 is when it was supposedly finished. a big melee happened. some of the soldiers had their bayonets on, because they were afraid. they were totally, totally afraid of the people who were coming out. there were a lot of arrests on that day. and this ain't a surrender either! we were still not surrendering, because the land dispute is still in full force. it's not been settled. i mean, the golf course sparked a discussion about the real issues that indigenous people have been

fighting for for centuries, which is land dispossession, protection of our languages and culture, our way of life. so it woke up people, i would say. it woke up people. the mohawk activist ellen katsi'tsakwas. well, that's all for this edition of witness history here at the people's history museum in manchester. from me and the rest of the witness history team, goodbye. hello. another fairly changeable day ahead, but certainly our soggy march weather is continuing towards the end of the month. so we're going to see a mix of some sunshine, but also more of those showers. they won't be quite as heavy or as frequent

as they were yesterday. and the blustery winds that we've seen of late, especially in the south, are going to be gradually easing through the day. low pressure is going to just drift its way out towards the north sea, towards the east and a smaller ridge of high pressure for a time — it was going to be building in from the south—west. so if you're stuck underneath that weather front today across parts of southern scotland, northern england, for a time for northern ireland as well, it's going to be quite grey with outbreaks of rain. into the afternoon, there is some sunshine across the bulk of england and wales. still a scattering of showers, you could be seeing one or two heavy ones, perhaps the odd isolated rumble of thunder towards east anglia, lincolnshire, could be a bit of hail, but generally, they are not going to be as frequent or as heavy as we have seen. and brightening up too for northern ireland, north wales. here, we could see some sunshine, just one or two showers through the afternoon. but still staying damp and cloudy for much of northern england, central and southern scotland. a little bit of wintriness over the highest ground, as that cold air cuts its way in from the north. now, overnight tonight, the next area of fairly heavy rain sweeps its way eastwards across the southern half of england and wales too.

so a really soggy start to sunday morning in the south, but mild, five to seven degrees. colder conditions further north, particularly for the far north of england and scotland, where we're likely to see a bit of frost to start your sunday. so that colder air moving in from the north on sunday. further south, as low pressure drifts towards the east, we'll still see that mild air just holding on for parts of southern england, perhaps south wales, but colder conditions working in for many of us through the day. some wintry showers, some snowfall for parts of northern and eastern scotland, perhaps the odd snow flurry across the pennines. further south, cloud and rain through sunday morning gradually easing away towards the south and the east through into sunday afternoon, hopefully drying up for the cambridge—oxford boat race in the afternoon. temperatures in single figures for many of us, i think, on sunday, a coolerfeeling day, but we'll just about hold on to double figures in the far south—west. and don't forget, saturday night into the early hours of sunday, the clocks are going to spring forward by one hour. so it's the arrival of british summertime from sunday onwards. the weather not looking particularly summery over the next few days, but monday brings us a bit of a drier, quieter interlude. turns unsettled

from tuesday onwards, but things are warming up during the middle of the week. bye for now.

this is bbc news broadcasting to viewers in the uk and around the world. i'm frankie mccamley. the headlines... growing tension in france — riots today in the west — after unrest in the capital. these are the dramatic scenes just a few mintues ago at least 23 people have died as violent storms triggered by a tornado rip through the southern us state of mississippi. security forces in france remain on high alert, after legislation to raise the state pension age caused massive protests.