- London court set to rule on Julian Assange extradition
- Business and Bollywood votes in India election
- Pope calls anti-migrant attitudes at US border 'madness'
- Mexico aims to be big economic winner from US-China tensions
- Uncertain future for thousands after deadly Brazil floods
- Schauffele makes the putt of his life for first major win
- Wirtz returns to help unbeaten Leverkusen chase history
- Search for Iran's President Raisi after helicopter goes missing
- DeChambeau's powerful putting has him excited for US Open
- Taiwan to swear in new president as China pressure grows
- Atalanta can end 61-year wait for trophy in Europa League final
- Schauffele birdies final hole to capture PGA for first major win
- Guardiola casts doubt over long-term Man City future
- Hollywood icons Costner and Demi Moore make Cannes comeback
- Pacers shoot down Knicks to reach NBA Eastern Conference finals
- Schauffele birdies final hole, captures first major at PGA Championship
- McLaughlin powers to Indy 500 pole in all-Penske front row
- Monaco footballer tapes over LGBTQ badge
- Korda wins sixth LPGA title of year with win at Liberty National
- Pacers put on shooting show to down Knicks, reach NBA Eastern Conference finals
- US envoy touts 'potential' of Israel-Saudi deal in Netanyahu talks
- Dominicans vote for president in poll overshadowed by Haiti crisis
- Brest secure Champions League qualification, PSG win without Mbappe
- Mbappe absent as PSG win final Ligue 1 game
- Still exhausted after arrest, Scheffler closes with 64 at PGA
- Brest secure historic Champions League qualification
- France's Macron calls fresh emergency on New Caledonia unrest
- Taiwan swears in new president as China pressure grows
- Schauffele leads as dramatic PGA back-nine battle begins
- Biden faces silent Gaza protest at Martin Luther King Jr's college
- Ten Hag says Man Utd 'must do everything' to win FA Cup after Premier League flop
- Cannes film follows Egypt feminists on brink of adulthood
- Pep Guardiola: Man City manager addicted to winning
- Jackson wins season opener in Marrakesh with all eyes on Paris
- Things get real as imaginary friend flick 'If' tops N.America box office
- Paris seeks to boost sluggish sales for Paralympic Games
- How a French director pulled off Cannes's crazy Mexican narcos hit
- Man City make case to be ranked as England's greatest-ever team
- Hamdy gives Zamalek second CAF Confederation Cup title
- Rome champion Zverev eyes French Open but wary of Djokovic 'at his best'
- Spain recalls its ambassador to Argentina over 'insult'
- Real Sociedad reach Europa League, Cadiz relegated
- Man City's six Premier League titles in seven years 'insane': Guardiola
- Dramatic last-round showdown under way at PGA Championship
- It may take 100 points to stop Man City, says Arsenal boss Arteta
- Arteta has Arsenal primed for success despite title pain
- Klopp hails 'superpower' fans in emotional Liverpool farewell
- Intense search for Iran's President Raisi after helicopter 'accident'
- Nine dead after attacks on Mexican mayoral candidates
- Hamilton says Mercedes in 'no man's land'
Peter Doherty: 'Shooting heroin became a military operation'
Peter Doherty can look back on his junkie days with some objectivity now he's clean and happily married to the woman who spent almost a decade filming his most degraded moments.
The British singer and guitarist -- now 44 and preferring Peter to Pete -- was almost as famous for his heroin addiction as his music with The Libertines in the early 2000s.
Now the group is back, with "All Quiet on the Eastern Esplanade" out April 5 -- only their third studio album in the 22 years since their debut "Up the Bracket".
Doherty, in typically droll and self-deprecating form, told AFP how the release date had to be shifted twice to make way for releases by Ariana Grande and Elbow.
"They're more famous than us now," he said.
But he was meeting AFP to discuss the documentary "Stranger In My Own Skin" -- a brutally uncompromising look at his years of drug use -- ahead of its release in France.
Its 90 minutes were whittled down from more than 200 hours of footage shot by Katia de Vidas, who began as a film student recruited to follow Doherty by French magazine Les Inrocks, and ended up as his wife.
Doherty remains philosophical about his addiction: "If I look like I'm suffering and lost, well humanity is suffering and lost -- but sometimes you try to distil that and get drunk on it."
He can also be darkly funny about those times, as when he recalled the moment in the film where he struggles to find a vein to shoot heroin.
"After seven or eight years of shooting up, it can be very difficult. It wasn't narcotic relief anymore -- it was a military operation to find a vein! It was really sad, it was tragic, but it was also celebratory for me when I found (a vein)."
He wanted to use footage of a particular goal by his beloved Queens Park Rangers football club to illustrate the feeling.
"We had the most amazing collage of uplifting explosions of energy, but in the end we couldn't afford any of it, and after that I lost interest in editing forever," he dead-panned.
- The best and the worst -
The film does show the explosive success of The Libertines and Doherty's other band, Babyshambles. But the focus is clearly the drugs.
"It talks about creativity, a strict childhood, the weight of success, but, yes, inevitably addiction, so that more people understand," said Vidas.
"If you show the best, you have to show the worst."
Doherty eventually got clean in a rehab centre in Thailand.
"I was supposed to be promoting their centre so they were watching me carefully," he said. "There was one moment when I managed to escape to Bangkok but they said it had to stop."
The couple are now writing a fiction film -- a black comedy set in Normandy, where they live -- but Vidas said she is proud to see her documentary finally airing in her native country.
Doherty can't help another gag at his wife's expense: "I said let's just put it on YouTube, but she wanted to make some money out of it.
"She told me at the start that I would get 12,000 euros ($13,000) in a paper bag. I'm still waiting for it!"
Y.Bouchard--BTB