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To a backdrop of high social tensions over government pension reform plans, French President Emmanuel Macron had to be evacuated from a Parisian theatre after a group of protestors arrived during a performance, while hours later a fire was started at a Montparnasse restaurant well known as the place where he celebrated his first-round victory in the 2017 presidential elections.

Several French chefs have reacted with anger and dismay at the decision by the Michelin guide to remove a star from the Auberge du Pont de Collonges restaurant in Lyon managed until his death in 2018 by Paul Bocuse, dubbed 'the pope of cuisine' by his peers, and which had kept its coveted three-star rating since 1965.

Marine Le Pen, the 51-year-old leader of France’s far-right Rassemblement National party, the former Front National, and who reached but lost the second-round playoff against Emmanuel Macron in France's 2017 presidential elections, has announced she will stand in the country’s next presidential elections due in 2022.

US streaming giant Netflix on Friday inaugurated a vast new office in Paris and announced a catalogue of new content for its market in France, where it currently claims 6.7 million subscribers, as well as further production partnerships.

The union-led opposition to the French government’s planned pension reforms, which has notably seen transport services severely disrupted since early December, saw another day of widespread strike action and demonstrations on Thursday, although accoring to official figures turnout in the nationwide street protests was down on previous marches.  

Former socialist presidential election candidate Ségolène Royal, the former partner of François Hollande and who was nominated as France's special ambassador for the Polar Regions by President Emmanuel Macron in 2017, appeared close to being dismissed on Wednesday for her outspoken critism of government policy and after public prosecutors openend a preliminary probe into her alleged misuse of staff and expenses for personal interests.

Ladj Ly, director of Les Misérables, a film about the spiral of violence between police and youngsters in a high-rise neighbourhood which he himself grew up in and which has been nominated for best foreign-language feature film at the Oscars, has said that he hoped his film would let young people 'know that you can start from nothing, from as low-down as it gets, and find yourself at the Oscars'.

France, Germany and the UK have set in train a dispute mechanism allowed in a 2015 deal over Iran's nuclear programme, following Tehran's decision to remove limits to its production of enriched uranium which can be used in the making of nuclear weapons.

French President Emmanuel Macron has held a summit in Pau, south-west France, with leaders of five West African states engaged alongside France in fighting jihadist forces in the Sahel when he announced a further 220 French troops would be sent to the region to join their 4,500 colleagues already on the ground and the creation of a joint command structure with regional states.