A public appeal for donations has been made to bring an end what some see as a curse on the disputed remains of Berengaria of Navarre, wife of Richard the Lionheart who died in 1230, and to relocate her tomb to the Cistercian abbey which she founded, near the town of Le Mans, after centuries of vandalism and displacement.
French pharma giant Sanofi Aventis has been placed under investigation for suspected manslaughter in a judicial probe into the marketing of its epilepsy treatment drug Depakine, which a public watchdog has estimated caused up to 450 babies to be stillborn or contract congenital birth defects in France between 2006 and 2014.
One positive effect of the Covid-19 lockdown on public movement in the French capital was a reduction in traffic noise, and since the lifting of the measures the ressurgence of motorised bike noise, often the result of owners removing silencers, is now the object of tentative policing.
Second quarter figures released by France's statistics agency Insee on Friday show a 13.8 percent contraction in the country's economy, less than forecast but the biggest slump since such data became available 70 years ago, and reflects the effects of the lockdown measures to contain the Covid-19 virus which saw a severe decline in manufacturing, construction and consumer spending.
Figures released by French public health authority Santé Publique France on Friday showed a 54 percent increase in recorded cases of Covid-19 virus infection in mainland France, notably high among younger age groups, and a significant jump in reported clusters nationwide, while infected patients in intensive care in hospital rose by one over the past 24 hours marking the first increase in three months.
Several homes were destroyed and others evacuated during a forest fire near Anglet on the Atlantic coast in southwest France that burned through about 165 hectares made up mostly of pine trees overnight Thursday, as the country swelters under a heatwave reaching 40°C in Paris on the eve of the traditional August holiday exodus.
French interior minister Gérald Darmanin told a parliamentary committee that when he hears talk of police violence 'I choke', causing widespread outrage and notably among the family of a man who died earlier this year after police arrested him using a suffocating stranglehold.
Fears of a second wave of the novel coronavirus epidemic in France were further fuelled on Wednesday after the number of confirmed cases rose to 185,196, when the county's health authorities said that, aside from the continuous decline of people in ICU units, indicators showed 'an increase of the viral circulation'.
The hitherto unknown site of where Dutch master Vincent van Gogh found inspiration for what is believed to be his last work, The Roots, and which was perhaps completed just days before his death in 1890 in Auvers-sur-Oise, north of Paris, has been deemed by experts to be a bank of trees close the village inn where he was staying, following the discovery of an early 20th-century postcard of the scene.
Born into a modest Jewish family in Tunis, Gisèle Halimi, who has died one day after her 93rd birthday, embarked on a legal career before moving to France, where she first made her name by defending activists from the Algerian nationalist movement before earning national fame as a campaigning lawyer for women's rights, notably in a 1972 trial where she defended a minor who was on trial for having an illegal abortion after a rape.
The first five of 36 Rafale fighter jets ordered by India from French constructor Dassault have left France for the Asian sub-continent, accompanied by a French plane carrying 70 respirators, 100,000 test kits and 10 military health professionals to help Indian efforts to combat the Covid-19 pandemic.
The until-now familiar heating devices to allow more comfortable al fresco conditions for clients of French bars and cafés, notably allowing smokers a space outside tobacco-free indoor drinking and dining, are to be banned after the coming winter as part of what is officially decribed as an environmental measure to clampdown on superfluous energy consumption.
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