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The US is targeting tariffs at European aircraft and aerospace parts, as well a range of industries including food, wine, tractors and luxury goods,   in the first stage of a two-way battle with the European Union over subsidies received by aircraft manufacturers Airbus and Boeing.

Whistleblower Edward Snowden, a former CIA employee who revealed details of invasive secret surveillance programmes by US intelligence agencies and who has been exiled in Russia for six years to escape arrest in the US, said in an interview with French radio on Monday that he had applied for asylum in France in 2013 and 'would love to see Macron roll out an invitation', adding 'protecting whistleblowers is not a hostile act'. 

Nolan Moittie, 10, who was left paralysed with severe nerve damage as well as diabetes after eating beef burgers infected with Escherichia coli bacteria which were sold as frozen goods in a Lidl supermarket in north-east France in 2011, died at the weekend.

Renewed 'yellow vest' movement demonstrations were held across France on Saturday, in protests againt President Emmanuel Macron's economic policies and in particular over falling living standards for low- and middle-income households, during which clashes erupted in the north-west town of Nantes. 

Patrick Balkany, a veteran figure of the French conservative movement, mayor of Paris suburb Levallois-Perret, whose more than 40-year political career has been largely tainted by corruption and political scandal, was on Friday jailed after magistrates convicted him of a multi-million-euro tax evasion scam.

The Paris transport network was severely disrupted on Friday as staff unions led a one-day strike over proposed government reforms to their pension benefits as part of a plan to merge France's 42 different pension schemes into a single points-based system.

US digital communications giant Google has agreed an almost 1 billion-euro settlement with France's tax authorities, who threatened a potentially more costly legal case against the company for under-declaring revenue in its business in the country by using the loophole that its European headquarters were based in Ireland.  

Richard Ferrand, president of the French lower house, the National Assembly and who is a close ally of President Emmanuel Macron has been placed under investigation over allegations he benefited improperly from the property deals of a health insurance fund he managed.

A Paris court has handed suspended prison sentences to Hassa bint Salman, daughter of Saudi Arabian King Salman and half-sister of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, and her bodyguard after they were found guilty of tying up and beating, on her orders, a workman who was in her luxury apartment in the French capital to repair a washbasin.

French economy and finance minister Bruno Le Maire has said France will seek to prevent Facebook's digital currency Libra from rolling out in Europe, arguing that it represents 'risks of abuse of dominant position, risks to sovereignty and risks for consumers and for companies'.