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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.

French interior minister Christophe Castaner announced the creation of a special hate crimes investigation unit on Wednesday when he visited a Jewish cemetery in a village in the north-east Alsace region, which includes the tombs of relatives of Karl Marx and also past French political figures, after 107 gravestones were found daubed with swastikas and anti-Semitic graffiti.

At a press conference in London ahead of a summit to mark Nato's 70th anniversary, US President Donlad Trump said comments earlier this month by his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron who said the military alliance was 'brain dead' were 'very, very nasty' and 'disrespectful', adding a jibe that France was 'not doing well economically at all'.

The French government has finally announced it will not supply the Libyan coastguard with six speedboats destined to be used against clandestine crossings to Europe after several NGOs mounted a legal challenge to the sale, arguing that France was contributing to human rights violations in Libya where captured migrants face notorious internment camps, torture and being used as slave labour.

Members of the public joined with military personnel to pay homage in Paris on Monday to 13 French soldiers killed in Mali when their helicopters collided while on a night-time mission to track down Islamist fighters early last week. 

Three rescue workers died on Sunday night when their helicopter crashed for unknown reasons as they took part in emergency assistance missions over south-east France, where torrential rainfall and flooding caused the deaths by drowning of three other people.

French hunters say tradition justifies their exemption from EU rules, but with many species endangered, there is growing pressure for a ban.

French government will summon Turkish envoy in Paris for talks after Turkey's president accused Emmanuel Macron of suffering 'brain death'.

Activists in France have staged sit-ins outside Amazon's French headquarters and logistics center to denounce the occasion imported from America.