In a landslide result, hardline French interior minister Bruno Retailleau was on Sunday elected as the new leader of the conservative party Les Républicains (LR), once a party of government but which has over recent years entered into a spiral of decline. Retailleau, 64, a senator largely unknown to the wider public before entering government last September, now has the task of rebuilding the party, with his eye on the presidential elections due in 2027. In this analysis of Retailleau’s prospects, Ilyes Ramdani considers the many scenarios for the LR’s future, including as kingmaker for the centre- or far-right in France’s increasingly fractured political landscape.
An elderly couple died in the seaside town of Le Lavandou and one other person in the town of Vidauban, with one official describing it as like "war scenes".
Leaders of the three nations threatened to take “concrete actions”, including targeted sanctions, if Israel did not stop its renewed military offensive and continued to block aid from entering Gaza.
The five-year Ligue 1 campaign, which aims to promote inclusion and raise awareness about homophobia, was flouted by several players who now face sanctions demanded by sports minister Marie Barsacq.
French justice minister Gérald Darmanin has announced that the 500-capacity jail, to be opened in 2028 in the Amazon jungle in the overseas territory of French Guiana, will house drug traffickers and radical Islamists in an 'extremely strict carceral regime'.
Media reports say the rapper, a major star in France and whose real name was Jeremy Bana Owana, died of a heart attack on Saturday, when he was due to appear at a concert in Lyon.
Following Mediapart’s publication on February 26th 2025 of an article entitled “The unlikely tale of a French 'spy' butler, a Russian oligarch and a UK intelligence company”, Jim Perrichon sent us this right of reply.
Unnamed British diplomatic officials cited by The Guardian newspaper have said they believe France will postpone official recogntion of a Palestinian state next month at the UN, as initially planned by President Emmanuel Macron.
“It is shameful,” said Emmanuel Macron last week, commenting on Israel’s actions against the civilian population in Gaza, where children are increasingly affected by malnutrition, where famine looms and hospitals have collapsed, and where diseases are spreading. But, writes Mediapart co-founder and former publishing editor Edwy Plenel in this op-ed article, it is also shameful to do nothing concrete to bring an end to this ongoing genocide, and which the French president refuses to recognise as such. Meanwhile, the Hamas-controlled health ministry reported on Saturday that more than 300 people had died in Israeli strikes on Gaza since Wednesday.
French Prime Minister François Bayrou gave a laborious, muddled, misleading and aggressive presentation when he appeared before a parliamentary commission hearing on Wednesday into his role in the scandal of repeated sexual assaults and physical cruelty against pupils at a Catholic school in his political fiefdom in south-west France. He launched into attacks against the commission itself, against a whistle-blowing teacher, the media in general and Mediapart, which began revealing the depth of the scandal earlier this year, in particular. Mathilde Goanec, David Perrotin and Antton Rouget report.
French President Emmanuel Macron appeared for three hours on national television on Tuesday evening to debate policy issues with political opponents in an effort to return to the domestic front he has largely abandoned since his dissolution of parliament last year, but no clear initiatives emerged.
One of cinema's glitzy highspots of the year, the Cannes film festival opened on Tuesday to concerns over President Donald Trump's recent threat to impose 100 percent tarrifs on foreign-made films presented in the US, when the industry is already grappling with the competition from streaming platforms.
The German government and the French presidency have dismissed claims by Russia's foreign ministry spokeswoman and Russian social media platforms that Emmanuel Macron, Chancellor Friedrich Merz and British prime minister Keir Starmer snorted cocaine together on the train that took them to Kiev last weekend.
French President Emmanuel Macron is to make a state visit to Britain from July 8th-10th, when King Charles and Queen Camilla will host the president and his wife Brigitte Macron at Windsor Castle.
