United Nations

French President François Hollande on Wednesday told French parliament leaders that he will seek a third extension of state of emergency powers introduced immediately after the November 13th terrorist attacks in Paris which left 130 people dead. The announcement followed two separate and fiercely critical reports published this week, one by the government’s own official consultative committee on human rights which denounced "abuses" and the "devastating damage" of the special powers the government has granted itself, and another by a panel of United Nations rights experts who said the measure had created “excessive and disproportionate restrictions”. Jérôme Hourdeaux reports.

For many years successive French governments have opposed the decriminalisation of cannabis, unlike many other countries. However, France did recently bring in on-the-spot police fines in a bid to simplify procedures and avoid lengthy and costly court cases for cannabis users. However, this new approach will not end the disparities and lack of coherence in the existing repressive policy, under which prosecution for using cannabis depends as much on who you are and where you live as on what you smoke. Michaël Hajdenberg reports.

France says it and UN 'partners' want to freeze assets and ban travel of parties hindering peace transition in strife-torn Central African Republic.

Ahead of UN meeting on fighting IS, French foreign minister Laurent Fabius says Russia’s claims of fighting in Syria are exaggerated.

President Hollande announced move at a UN summit on development, saying it would take French aid budget to 12 billion euros a year.

A committee of the UN's International Maritime Organization is discussing ways to reduce the sulphur content in marine fuels, a pollutant said to be responsible for up to 50,000 deaths a year in Europe alone. But France's representative on the body is an employee of French oil firm Total - which produces those very same marine fuels. As Jade Lindgaard reports, there is embarrassment in Paris over this apparently flagrant conflict of interest.

Senior UN officials says situation is a 'civil emergency' but adds that with right action it is a 'manageable situation'.

Anders Kompass said to have passed confidential document to French authorities after UN’s failure to stop abuse in Central African Republic.

Mali, French and UN troops face attacks similar to those employed by Islamist militant movements Boko Haram in Nigeria and Somalia’s al-Shabaab.

Paris aims to use resolution to spur talks between Israel and the Palestinians, a step that the United States resisted last year.

The patient, who contracted Ebola while working to combat the epidemic in Sierra Leone, has been placed in isolation in a military hospital.

Fighting came to Bangui just as U.N. authorized a French and African intervention force to prevent bloodbath between Christians and Muslims.

Text would require Syria to reveal extent of its chemical weapons program and turn its arsenal over to international inspectors to be neutralized.