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The French agriculture ministry has warned that this year's wine production in France may fall by as much as 8 million hectolitres compared to 2016, to what it said would be a 'historically low' total of 37.6 million hectolitres, because of severe frosts in the spring.

The far-right party, shaken by its collapse in support at the final post of May's presidential election, is holding a two-day closed-door meeting to debate what its leader Marine Le Pen called a 're-founding of the Front National', including a re-think of its policies that France should leave the eurozone and European Union, while also pondering a change of its name.

French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday visited a major airbase in southern France when he addressed a crowd of servicemen and spoke of his 'deep respect' for the military, just 24 hours after armed forces' chief-of-staff General Pierre de villiers resigned amid a bitter spat over  defence budget cuts. 

A leaked internal report says the national cultural differences between the airline group's Dutch and French staff is so acute that it is uncertain 'whether the alliance can survive given the long-standing mutual incomprehension'. 

Barbara Weldens, 35, who released her first album earlier this year, was performing in a church in south-west France when she collapsed and was pronounced dead after a suspected electrocution.

Proposed legislation by France's new government to enshrine into regular law certain far-reaching powers allowed under the current state of emergency has passed its first parliamentary test after the Senate approved the bill by a two-thirds majority, meaning it will now go before the lower house, the National Assembly, where the government has a large majority, in October.

General Pierre de Villiers, head of France's armed forces, has resigned after a row with President Emmanuel Macron over a government-ordered cut in the military budget in 2017 of 850 million euros, which degenerated into a public reprimand for the general who was told by Macron, 'I am your boss'.

As part of a French government drive to reduce public spending by 64.5 billion euros over the next five years, President Emmanuel Macron has announced that local authorities must slash their budgets by a total of 13 billion euros, which is 3 billion euros more than he pledged impose in his election manifesto.

The Soft Power 30 annual index, compiled by the PR firm Portland Communications and the University of Southern California School of Public Diplomacy, which ranks countries according to non-military influence on the world stage and percieved attractivity, has this year placed France at the top of the rankings, ahead of Britain, the US, Germany and Canada.

French President Emmanuel Macron and army chief-of-staff General Pierre de Villiers are embroiled in an escalating public row over the announcement of a reduction of 850 million euros from the 2017 defence budget, with Macron ordering the general to toe the line and politicians of the Right and Left siezing one of their first opportunities to attack the new president's early measures.