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One of France’s most high-profile missing person cases has taken a dramatic new turn, after a man convicted of murdering his wife despite never having her body recovered has privately confessed to the killing from behind bars.

Thirty-eight-year-old Cédric Jubillar, who was sentenced to 30 years in prison for the 2020 murder of his 33-year-old spouse Delphine Jubillar, disclosed his guilt in a confidential letter sent to his legal team. The revelation comes nearly 18 months after a mixed jury of six civilians and three judicial magistrates found sufficient circumstantial evidence to uphold a guilty murder verdict, and just two months before his scheduled appeal hearing was set to begin.

According to Jubillar’s current lead attorney Pierre Debuisson, who took over the case after the original trial, the convicted killer first revealed the truth in a private meeting several weeks ago. Debuisson told reporters at a press conference held Monday that Jubillar stated simply: “I need to tell you the truth. It was me.”

The confession confirms that Jubillar killed Delphine during a heated argument at the couple’s family home in the southern French town of Cagnac-les-Mines in December 2020, and that he drove his vehicle to move her body to an undisclosed location after the killing. The convicted man has also agreed to guide investigators to the site where he disposed of her remains, a development that will bring long-awaited closure to a case that gripped French public attention for nearly four years.

The case first emerged in the early hours of December 16, 2020, at the height of France’s national Covid-19 lockdown, when Jubillar contacted local police at 4 a.m. local time to report his wife missing. Delphine, a night nurse working at a nearby clinic, left behind two young children aged six and 18 months at the time of her disappearance.

Investigations quickly revealed that the couple’s marriage was deeply unstable. Court documents showed Cédric Jubillar struggled with daily cannabis use and irregular employment, while Delphine had started an extramarital relationship with a man she met online and had begun discussing divorce proceedings with her husband.

Over the following years, law enforcement teams and local volunteers carried out exhaustive searches across the surrounding rural countryside, including specialized cave diving teams that explored dozens of abandoned mine shafts that dot the Tarn department landscape. Despite the extensive search operation, Delphine’s remains were never located, and the case relied entirely on circumstantial evidence to secure a conviction in 2023.

Throughout the original trial, Jubillar maintained his complete innocence, a position he held until his recent confession. His legal team confirmed that the admission of guilt will almost certainly lead to a postponement of the upcoming appeal, which was scheduled to start in two months.

For Delphine Jubillar’s two children, who are represented by attorney Malika Chmani, the confession marks a long-awaited breakthrough. “We are relieved for the children. Now he needs to tell us where the body is. I think that is what is going to happen now. I hope so,” Chmani told reporters Monday.

A massive wildfire raging in southern France has forced major last-minute changes to the 2025 Tour de France, becoming the most high-profile disruption of a summer season defined by record heat and spreading wildfires across southern Europe. The world’s most prestigious cycling race, which had completed its opening two legs in Spain, crossed the border into France on Monday for the third stage, a mountain route ending in the Pyrenees town of Les Angles. The blaze sits just 37 miles from the stage finish line, having already scorched more than 4,500 acres of vegetation and land.

Tour de France organizers announced sweeping restrictions to the route for the final 25 miles of the stage, after local authorities confirmed that containing the wildfire required the full mobilization of firefighting crews, security forces and government resources. “The top priority remains the protection of people, property, and natural areas, as well as bringing the fire under control,” local authorities said in a statement.

Under the new rules, the iconic 6-mile publicity caravan of branded sponsor vehicles that precedes the main peloton has been canceled for this section of the route. Only competing riders and race-essential official vehicles are permitted along the course, and spectators were explicitly instructed to avoid gathering along the roadside or at the finish area to reduce security risks and free up resources for fire response efforts.

The ongoing wildfire crisis spans far beyond France, as climate change-fueled extreme heat pushes multiple southern European countries into a state of emergency. Across the border in Greece, 96 separate wildfires ignited across the country in the 48 hours leading up to Monday, according to government spokesman Pavlos Marinakis. While most blazes were contained quickly before spreading, one large fire in the Mandra region west of Athens required an emergency deployment of 29 water-bombing aircraft and more than 200 ground firefighters to contain before nightfall, when aerial firefighting operations are impossible. As of Monday morning, the fire had diminished in intensity but had not been fully extinguished.

Strong winds across much of Greece kept wildfire risk at high or very high levels on Monday. A separate blaze on the southern island of Crete, burning through primarily agricultural land, forced the evacuation of an entire village near Ierapetra as gusty winds pushed the fire forward.

On the Iberian Peninsula, a second major heatwave is sweeping across Spain and Portugal, with hundreds of firefighters already working to contain scattered blazes. Spain’s national weather agency AEMET warned that the heatwave, which began on Sunday, will persist through at least Thursday, bringing record-high daytime and overnight temperatures. Across most of the country, including the capital Madrid, daytime highs were forecast between 99°F and 108°F for Monday and Tuesday, with overnight temperatures remaining above 68°F. These so-called “tropical nights” prevent people’s bodies from cooling down and recovering from daytime heat exposure, increasing the risk of heat-related illness.

In Portugal, inland areas saw even more extreme temperatures on Monday, while coastal capital Lisbon reached 91°F, with a cool-down forecast for later in the week.

The broad crisis aligns with long-standing climate warnings from scientists and European climate agencies. The European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service confirms that Europe is warming faster than any other continent on Earth, with average temperatures rising twice as quickly as the global average since the 1980s. 2025 is already the third-hottest year ever recorded globally, bringing repeated severe heatwaves across the European continent. Climate researchers warn that rising temperatures are worsening drought and dry conditions, increasing the frequency and intensity of wildfires across southern and southeastern Europe, while also raising public health risks for local populations and visitors alike.

As an early summer heatwave continues to parch much of Western Europe, a rapidly spreading wildfire in the French Pyrenees has forced more than 10,000 residents to evacuate over a dozen small communities near the Spanish border, triggering a cross-border emergency response and disrupting the annual Tour de France cycling race.

The blaze, centered near the village of Trévillach not far from the southern French city of Perpignan, has already scorched at least 4,600 hectares of land, local prefect Pierre Regnault de la Mothe confirmed in a post to social platform X. Firefighting efforts faced worsening conditions on the morning after the evacuation order was issued, with French Interior Minister Laurent Nunez warning that dangerous conditions were extending the battle against the flames. Authorities have repeatedly highlighted that gusty strong winds are expected to fan the fire further, pushing it closer to populated areas.

Local resident Patrice from Trévillach described the terrifying speed of the fire’s advance in an interview with AFP, noting the blaze came within 300 meters of local homes. “We were shocked by how fast it spread, it was staggering – bordering on panic,” he said.

The wildfire has also impacted one of the world’s most high-profile annual cycling events. The third stage of the 2026 Tour de France, a 195.9-kilometer route that starts in the Spanish city of Granollers and was scheduled to finish in the French Pyrenean town of Les Angles, has required drastic last-minute adjustments. Tour organizers have urged all spectators and non-essential personnel to avoid the final 40 kilometers of the stage to clear access routes for emergency response vehicles, and have cut the size of the official team motorcade to a minimum.

“An exceptional fire calls for exceptional measures for the Tour,” said race director Christian Prudhomme. “We invite the public not to come to the edge of the race or to the finish site.”

The wildfire crisis is not limited to France. Neighboring Spain has also seen multiple blazes burn across its northeastern regions. More than 2,200 hectares of the Les Gavarres natural reserve have already been destroyed by fire, though Catalan regional authorities reported Saturday evening that the blaze there had stabilized and was on track to be fully extinguished within the week. Further south in Spain’s Castellon province, 500 residents were evacuated after a separate wildfire spread into the Sierra de Espadan national park.

The European Union has mobilized additional resources to support the emergency response. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced that four water-bombing aircraft based in Cyprus and Sweden would be deployed to the region to aid French firefighting teams.

This latest round of wildfires comes as Southern Europe grapples with a second early-season heatwave, following a record-breaking heat event in June that pushed national average temperatures to all-time highs across France. Forecasters warn temperatures could again climb as high as 40°C across southwestern France this week, after already surpassing that mark in parts of Spain and Portugal. “Although this heatwave is unlikely to break records in the way June’s did, it will still be exceptional for the time of year,” said BBC Weather Lead Forecaster Matt Taylor. “With the heat expected to persist into next week and little widespread rain forecast, the risk of further wildfires will remain elevated.”

The June heatwave left a devastating human toll, with official counts recording at least 2,025 excess deaths in France, 1,222 in Belgium, and roughly 480 in the Netherlands. Climate scientists have repeatedly linked the increasing frequency and intensity of European heatwaves and wildfires to manmade climate change. Data from the Copernicus Climate Change Service confirms Europe is warming twice as fast as the global average, a trend that has led to longer, hotter summers, strained freshwater supplies, and a sharp rise in the risk of large-scale, uncontrolled wildfires across the continent.

A devastating Russian strike on Ukraine’s capital Kyiv has left a massive structural gash in a multi-story residential building, marking another violent escalation of attacks on civilian infrastructure in the country’s most populous urban center. The overnight assault prompted immediate on-site reporting from veteran BBC correspondent Sarah Rainsford, who traveled to the damaged neighborhood in the hours immediately following the explosion to document the aftermath. Local emergency services have not yet released full details on casualties or the extent of additional damage to surrounding properties, but initial visual accounts from the scene confirm the strike caused severe, irreversible damage to the targeted residential block. This attack is the latest in a series of recent strikes targeting civilian areas across Ukraine, raising renewed international concerns about the safety of urban civilian populations amid ongoing conflict. Rainsford’s presence at the blast site underscores the continued focus of global media on the human cost of the conflict, even as fighting remains concentrated heavily in Ukraine’s eastern and southern regions.