Talks on the introduction of a ceasefire in Ukraine, hosted in Paris by President Emmanuel Macron and which brought together senior US, European and Ukrainian negotiators, were described as 'excellent' by a French official, ahead of a meeting of all the parties again in London next week.
A 27-year-old British man, who has not been named, died of cardiac arrest after being dug out of the snow of an avalanche which swept him off the side of a road and 15 yards downhill in the French ski resort of Val Thorens, according to a local prosecutor.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and US envoy Steve Witkoff arrived in France for talks in Paris with European officials on ending Russia's war on Ukraine.
Following three nights of nationwide shooting and arson attacks against French prisons and the homes and cars of prison guards, French President Emmanuel Macron has vowed that the as yet unknown perpetrators will be found and punished.
Paris city hall has ordered daily inspections of changing rooms in the French capital's 40 swimming pools after a series of complaints by women who have discovered men secretly filming them in the cabins.
Following the expulsion earlier this week of 12 French officials from Algeria after an Algerian consulate official in France was placed under investigation for kidnapping, France has expelled 12 Algerian officials in retaliation.
Seven prisons across France were the target of shooting and arson attacks during the night of Monday to Tuesday, in what justice minister Gérald Darmanin said were intimidation attempts linked to the government crackdown on drugs trafficking.
Retired French surgeon Joël Le Scouarnec, 74, is standing trial on charges of raping and sexually assaulting 299 people, many of them child patients under his care. The trial, which began in February and is due to last until June, has heard the testimony of two of Le Scouarnec’s former surgeon colleagues, when the court focused on how the defendant, despite a conviction in 2005 for possession of child pornography, was able to continue operating on children. Both witnesses explained their failure to raise the alarm within their medical establishments was because it was “not our problem”. Hugo Lemonier reports from the court in Vannes, north-west France.
French culture minister Rachida Dati, 59, who is eyeing the post of mayor of Paris and who is targeted by an investigation into alleged corruption and influence peddling when hired as a 'consultant' for carmaker Renault, hid jewellery and watches worth more than 400,000 euros from a wealth register all ministers must complete before taking office, according to a press report.
Amid general distaste and even anger in France at Donald Trump's policies and provocative style - an opinion poll in March found 73 percent of thos polled no longer believe Washington to be an ally - US tourists in Paris tell the BBC how they're dressing down to avoid encountering animosity.
French far-right figurehead Marine Le Pen, who has appealed her conviction for diverting European Parliament funds for the benefit of her party, when she was handed a five-year ban from holding public office, which would prevent her running in presidential elections in 2027, has shed her previously adopted toned-down language and embraced a Trump-like fury against 'the system', now used as a byword for so-called plotting of the deep state and political judges.
French Prime Minister François Bayrou was this week further engulfed in controversy over whether he knew but kept quiet about complaints of sexual assault, including rape, and physical cruelty at a Catholic school in his political fiefdom, and where his wife was a teacher and several of his children were pupils. Bayrou has denied knowing of the allegations. A parliamentary committee of inquiry into the scandal at the Notre-Dame de Bétharram institution on Thursday heard the testimony, under oath, of a gendarmerie detective and magistrate involved in investigating early rape allegations, and who contradicted Bayrou’s claims of being unaware of the events. “For me, François Bayrou has lied,” commented a rapporteur for the committee. Antton Rouget reports.
A French court has ordered the online property rentals platform Airbnb to pay the local municipal authorities of Oléron, a small island off the Atlantic coast popular with holidaymakers, more than 8 million euros in unpaid tourist taxes.
President Emmanuel Macron said France plans to recognise a Palestinian state within months and could make the move at a United Nations conference in New York in June, when it would become the first permanent member of the UN Security Council to do so.
An association representing private forest owners in France, many of who are smallholders, has warned of gangs of thieves who are secretly felling trees, mostly oaks, in isolated sites and then export them, principally to China.
