Links

Some 59% of viewers found the sitting president to have been the most convincing in the long TV debate than his rival Marine Le Pen, according to a snap poll for BFM TV. 

The far-right's Le Pen won lots to speak first and chose to focus on cost of living, vetoing the broadcaster’s preference to address Ukraine.

Court found that the British meal delivery group had used freelance riders who should have been classified as employees.

France's Bruno Le Maire said: ‘Some European partners are still hesitant.’ 

Eyeing a Green and leftwing electorate wose candidates were eliminated in the first round of voting in France's presidential elections, Emmanuel Macron, seeking re-election in a final round against far-right candidate Marine Le Pen next weekend, on Saturday pledged that, if re-elected, he will make France 'the first major nation to abandon gas, oil and coal' and increase investment in renewable energies. 

Salah Abdeslam, 32, on trial in Paris along with 19 others over the shooting and suicide bombing attacks in and around the French capital in November 2015 by an Islamic State cell, which claimed the lives of 130 people, on Friday told the court that he wished 'to express my condolences and offer an apology to all the victims'.

French President Emmanuel Macron, campaigning in what many commentators predict will be a tight duel in presidential elections this month against far-right candidate Marine Le Pen, has said he is in favour of an EU-wide ceiling for top executives’ pay after it was revealed that Carlos Tavares, head of French carmaker PSA, was handed 19 million euros in remuneration last year after its merger with Italian-US rival Fiat Chrysler.

As restoration work continues on Notre Dame cathedral, following a fire in April 2019 which came close to destroying the whole of the Paris landmark, archaeologists have discovered ancient tombs, statues and a body-shaped sarcophagus buried under the building and dating from the Middle Ages. 

French far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen, who will face incumbent Emmanuel Macron in a final round of the elections on April 24th, has close ties to the Kremlin while her party has received significant funding from Russian banks, wants France to leave NATO, seeks to weakenn the EU, and is opposed to sanctions against Russian oil and gas exports.

Peter Ricketts, Britain's former ambassador to France and once a national security adviser, has described the defence plan unveiled this week by far-right French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen, and which includes a withdrawal from NATO,  as 'ignorant' and 'superficial', and that if it was put into effect 'no British government or indeed any Nato ally is going to touch a defence relationship with France'.