French Prime Minister François Bayrou, whose minority government already faced almost certain defeat of its draft budget legislation in October, which includes vast public spending cuts, has called for a confidence vote in the country's hung parliament on September 8th which is mathematically impossible for him to win, and which would force his departure.
A state of famine in the Gaza Strip was officially declared on Friday by a UN-affiliated body of experts, the IPC, that evaluate food insecurity around the world. The famine is declared in the Gaza Governorate, which includes Gaza City with a population of one million and which now faces a large-scale Israeli military offensive. Mediapart’s Gwenaëlle Lenoir interviewed Jérôme Grimaud, the emergency aid coordinator in Gaza for the French NGO Médecins sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders), who told her of the horrific consequences of the famine, notably on hospital patients.
The French foreign affairs ministry has summoned the US ambassador to France, Charles Kushner, the Jewish father-in-law of US President Donald Trump's daughter Ivanka, to complain about his open letter to French President Emmanuel Macron published in The Wall Street Journal alleging a 'lack of sufficient action by your government' to confront anti-Semitism.
The Italian ambassador to France was on Friday summoned to a meeting at the French foreign affairs ministry to be told that Paris considered a comment by Italy's Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini, in which he mockingly dismissed Emmanuel Macron's suggestion that European troops cound be sent to Ukraine in the case of a peace agreement with Russia, to be 'unacceptable'.
There has been outcry in France after Raphaël Graven, aka “Jean Pormanove”, or simply “JP”, died on Monday in front of the cameras of an online streaming channel whose viewers paid to watch him being subjected for 12 days to cruel physical and psychological abuse. After an autopsy found no external or internal injury to explain his death, toxicological tests have been ordered. Questions remain over the precise circumstances of his death, and others over the antics of his fellow streamers, the failure of relevant authorities to intervene beforehand, the laisser-faire attitude of the Australian platform Kick which hosted the channel, and why viewers watch the disturbing content.
A police investigation has been launched after several cars belonging to Orthodox Jewish tourists - including a group from London - staying in the French Alpine resort of Chatel, close to the Swiss border, were spray-painted with the slogan 'Free Palestine'.
Emmanuel Macron has responded angrily to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's recent charge that the French president's intention to formally recognise the existence of a Palestinian state at next month’s UN general assembly has fuelled a rise in anti-Semitism in France.
Police in Paris are questioning a man held on suspicion of murder after the discovery of the corpses of four men floating in the River Seine, three of which were in an advanced state of decomposition, at a spot just outside the French capital.
Prosecutors in Nice are investigating the death of a 46-year-old man, Raphaël Graven, during a live video published on the Kick platform, part of a long-running online show in which he was humiliated and abused, the existence of which was first revealed by Mediapart in December last year.
The heatwave that hung over much of France since early August, with temperatures exceeding 40°C in parts of the country, finally lifted this week. In parallel, and less talked about, a marine heatwave was in progress in the Mediterranean Sea, with water temperatures off the French coast reaching close to 30°C. It was the last of many recorded over recent years in the waters of the Mediterranean which, over the first half of 2025, reached their warmest-ever on record. The acceleration of the sea’s heatwaves is alarming scientists, and leave behind decimated ecosystems. Mickaël Correia reports.
An online petition launched by French art historian Didier Rykner has drawn more than 40,000 signatures in protest at the decision to loan to Britain for an exibition the famous 70-metre-long Bayeux Tapestry that tells the story of the 1066 Norman conquest of England, citing its fragile condition.
The regularity of heatwaves in Paris over recent years, including two this summer, city officlas believe temperatures could reach 50° Celsius in future events, with modelling suggesting a catastrohic domino effect that would bring vital services to a halt, and have begun planning for the worst.
France’s south-east region of Provence is famed for its production of lavender and hybrid lavender, called lavandin, a symbol of the summer when the blue and mauve flowers of the plants explode in colour and heady fragrance. But many of the century-old plantations are facing an increasing double threat to their existence, from over-production and climate change. Pierre Isnard-Dupuy reports on the crisis from France’s Valensole plateau, traditionally a major centre of the country's lavender trade, where some are turning to alternative, and notably organic, methods for growing the coveted aromatic plant.
French President Emmanuel Macron will travel to Washington on Monday, joining a delegation of European leaders, the European Commission president and Nato Secretary-General to give support to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on the occasion of his meeting with US President Donald Trump.
France has demanded the 'immediate release' of a member of its embassy staff in Mali, who was arrested on accusations that he was helping intelligence services to 'destabilise' the West African country, which has distanced itself from France over recent years in favour of close relations with Russia.
