News feed

Willy Bardon, 45, who was on Friday found guilty of taking part in the abduction and rape of a young woman found murdered in northern France in 2002, was reported to be 'emerging from a coma' this weekend after he swallowed a highly toxic pesticide when the court's verdict was announced.

François Bayrou, 68, the leader of France's centre-right MoDem party and a key political ally of President Emmanuel Macron, who he helped to be elected, has been placed under investigation for suspected involvement in the misuse of European Parliament funds to pay for party workers.

With more strikes called for Tuesday by unions opposing his planned reform of France's pension system, President Emmanuel Macron met with ministers on Sunday to discuss details of the draft legislation to be unveiled by his prime minister on Wednesday.

Demonstrations accompanying rolling strikes against pension reforms that began Thursday and the latest 'Yellow Vest' protests against social inequalities were held over the weekend across France, upping pressure on the government ahead of more walkouts and protests called for next week.

An Italian writer who has extensively researched the death in 1960 at the age of 46 of the politically engaged French author, journalist and philosopher Albert Camus claims in a recently published book that the car crash that killed him was planned by the KGB.

After a general strike on Thursday against planned pension reforms, which were accompanied by massive demonstrations across France, transport systems and education institutions were among the mostly public sectors that continued to be hit by walkouts on Friday, with more strike action called for the weekend and into next week.

Prominent figures in French theatre are vacating their posts amid tough public budget cuts that suggest the country's cultural scene is losing its once cherished status with central and local authorities.

France's trades unions claimed a nationwide turnout of 1.5 million people, estimated at 860,000 by the interior ministry, in marches and demonstrations that marked a general strike on Thursday by mostly public sector, but also private sector, workers in protest against planned reforms to the pension system, and which brought public transport to a virtual standstill.

French transport workers, joined by a large swathe of public employees from teachers to rubbish collectors, and also private-sector staff, are to hold a national strike beginning on Thursday against the govenment's planned reforms of the pension system, expected to be the largest walkout in more than two decades and which is likely to last several days or, in some branches, even weeks.