Élisabeth Borne, 61, was on Monday appointed by Emmanuel Macron as his new prime minister, replacing Jean Castex under who she served for two years as labour minister and becoming France's second-ever head of government after Édith Cresson, in office between 1991 and 1992.
Following pressure on it to follow other major western companies in withdrawing business from Russia following its invasion of Ukraine, French carmaker Renault has announced the company is to cede its 68% stake in the biggest Russian vehicle manufacturer, AvtoVAZ, but with an option to buy it back within six years.
In his first trip abroad since beginning his second term in office, French President Emmanuel Macron on Sunday met with the newly elected United Arab Emirates president Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, becoming the first western leader to pay respects to the sheik following the death on Friday of his brother, Sheikh Khalifa.
The mayor of Grenoble in south-east France is to ask his city council to vote this month on his proposition to ease dress restrictions in municipal swimming pools, and notably the current ban on the wearing of burkinis, a move that the conservative president of the wider regional council described as 'submitting to Islamism' while threatening to cut grants to the city.
France has confirmed that two of its nationals, a man and a woman, have been detained in Iran and has dismissed as 'baseless' claims by the Iranian authorities that the pair were planning to cause 'chaos, social disorder and instability'.
Frédéric Dupuch, 62, inspector-general of France's national police, has been suspended from duty along with a woman chief inspector who he is suspected of giving confidential information to about an exam she sat for professional promotion.
French health minister Olivier Véran on Wednesday announced that from next Monday the wearing of face masks on public transport across the country will no longer be mandatory, but will remain recommended.
Low winter rainfall followed by continuing dry and unusually hot conditions in many parts of France, the biggest grain producer in the European Union, is threatening to significantly reduce the volume of winter cereal production.
The trial has opened in Tours, north-west France, of a man who accused of murdering by suffocation a 92-year-old woman at a care home by force-feeding her a madeleine sponge cake, allegedly to gain full ownership of a house she sold to him in 1995 in return for a life annuity.
