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A man reported to be aged 34 and carrying a handgun who on Thursday took six people hostage in a bank in the northern French port town of Le Havre, where former prime minister Édouard Philippe is mayor, surrendered hours later to police and released his captives apparently unharmed.

French President Emmanuel Macron visited blast-torn Beirut on Thursday, the first foreign leader to do so, when he announced that France will organize an international fundraising conference with other international donors to provide food, medicine, housing and other urgent aid, but warned  that 'if reforms are not made, Lebanon will continue to sink'.

The French scientific committee set up to monitor and advise on the Covid-19 virus epidemic in the country has warned that the current spread of the virus could 'at any moment' spin out of control and concluded that it was 'highly likely that we will experience a second epidemic wave this autumn or winter'.

French President Emmanuel Macron will visit Lebanon on Thursday to meet with the country's political leaders, 48 hours after a huge explosion devastated parts of Beirut where France has already sent teams of rescuse workers, engineers and medical equipment.

Buildings and vehicles were destroyed and almost 3,000 people evacuated in the area surrounding the southern town of Martigues, near Marseille, where forest fires spreading at a speed estimated by firefighters as 8kph erupted on Tuesday before being finally contained on Wednesday. 

A public appeal for donations has been made to bring an end what some see as a curse on the disputed remains of Berengaria of Navarre, wife of Richard the Lionheart who died in 1230, and to relocate her tomb to the Cistercian abbey which she founded, near the town of Le Mans, after centuries of vandalism and displacement.

French pharma giant Sanofi Aventis has been placed under investigation for suspected manslaughter in a judicial probe into the marketing of its epilepsy treatment drug Depakine, which a public watchdog has estimated caused up to 450 babies to be stillborn or contract congenital birth defects in France between 2006 and 2014.

One positive effect of the Covid-19 lockdown on public movement in the French capital was a reduction in traffic noise, and since the lifting of the measures the ressurgence of motorised bike noise, often the result of owners removing silencers, is now the object of  tentative policing.

Second quarter figures released by France's statistics agency Insee on Friday show a 13.8 percent contraction in the country's economy, less than forecast but the biggest slump since such data became available 70 years ago, and reflects the effects of the lockdown measures to contain the Covid-19 virus which saw a severe decline in manufacturing, construction and consumer spending.  

Figures released by French public health authority Santé Publique France on Friday showed a 54 percent increase in recorded cases of Covid-19 virus infection in mainland France, notably high among younger age groups, and a significant jump in reported clusters nationwide, while infected patients in intensive care in hospital rose by one over the past 24 hours marking the first increase in three months.