France's Marine Le Pen charged over Islamic State group tweets
French far-right leader Marine Le Pen was charged on Thursday for posting on Twitter gruesome images of purported atrocities by Islamic State jihadists, prosecutors said. The move by a judge in Nanterre, just outside Paris, came after the National Assembly voted in November to strip the National Fro...
Attacks on French embassies in Africa since 2000
Friday’s attack on the French embassy in Burkina Faso’s capital Ouagadougou is the fifth in a series of attacks on French embassies in Africa since 2000. Mauritania, 8 August 2009: Three people, two of them French gendarmes, were slightly injured in an Islamist bomb blast on the country’s embassy in...
Guide questioned after avalanche kills 4 skiers in French Alps
Four skiers were killed and another injured in an avalanche in the French Alps on Friday and their guide was held for questioning, authorities said. The group of six people was on a ski touring expedition in an off-trail area near Entraunes, close to the Italian border in the southe Alps. The identi...
Film stars protest sexual harassment at 'French Oscars'
The French film world may be having its #MeToo moment as one after another, stars showed up at the industry's top awards show Friday wearing a white ribbon in a protest against sexual misconduct. Throughout the Cesar Awards ceremony Friday night, presenters and wi ers referenced the movement that ha...
Heavy snow in Paris? Hardly
Paris ground to a standstill this week after the heaviest snowfall in nearly 30 years, but was it really all that? Paris hit by “heavy snow”, proclaimed CNN, ABC News, UK newspapers The Telegraph and the Evening Standard, and a host of other media outlets. Not to sound like the current occupant of t...
French industrial output ends year on high, beating forecasts
French industrial output rose by 0.5 percent in December from the previous month, beating forecasts, according to data from the INSEE national statistics agency. The growth in December industrial production was led by higher production in areas such as metallurgy, software and electronics goods, and...
France fast-tracks prison reform amid unprecedented strikes
The French gove ment has proposed plans to address the conce s of prison guards, who continued striking for a 12th day on Friday over security and low pay. But penal reform advocates say the measures will do little to tackle France’s prison crisis. Prison guards backed by unions have launched strike...
Macron's moves to rebrand France as 'business friendly' pay off
President Emmanuel Macron ran for office on a promise to revitalise the economy and shed France’s reputation as a place that is hostile to business. Less than a year into his tenure, his efforts have started to pay off. “France is back,” Macron a ounced in a speech at the World Economic Forum in Dav...
Paris’s flooded Seine river expected to peak late Sunday
The swollen Seine rose even higher on Sunday, keeping Paris on alert, though forecasters said the flooding should peak by the end of the day. The river had risen 11 centimetres (4.3 inches) in 24 hours by Saturday evening, more than four metres above its normal height, causing headaches for commuter...
France speeds up prison reform amid unprecedented strikes
The gove ment has unveiled proposals to address the conce s of prison guards, who continued striking for a 12th day on Friday over security and low pay. But advocates of reform say the measures will do little to tackle France’s prison crisis. Across France, prison guards backed by unions have launch...