High-level meeting brought together representatives of the four countries under the so-called Normandy Format, which has been used repeatedly since Russia's 2014 annexation of the Ukrainian province of Crimea.
France says Lebanese-born sociology professor Hassan Diab was a member of a Palestinian militant group and planted a bomb that killed four and wounded 40 in Paris in 1980.
French fashion designer Thierry Mugler, who launched his eponymous label in 1974 and became one of the most celebrated designers worldwide over following decades, a fame enhanced by his best-selling perfume 'Angel', has died at 73 from what his agent said were 'natural causes'.
Brigadier Alexandre Martin, 24, was killed and nine other French soldiers were wounded following a mortar attack on Saturday against their military camp near the town of Gao, central Mali, believed to have been launched by al-Qaeda-linked Islamist insurgents.
Jean-Jacques Savin, 75, a former French paratrooper who in 2019 successfully crossed the Atlantic in a capsule driven only by sea currents, has been found dead off the Azores just three weeks into his new attempt to cross the ocean in a rowing boat.
Already detained in jail over a previous conviction for misuse of public funds, Claude Guéant, a former interior minister and longstanding chief-of-staff for ex-French president Nicolas Sarkozy, was on Friday handed a one-year prison sentence, with four months suspended, for his part in an Élysée Palace opinion survey fraud worth a combined 7.5 million euros, for which three others were also convicted.
French Prime Minister Jean Castex and health minister Olivier Véran on Thursday presented the planned gradual lifting of current public restrictions to contain the spread of Covid-19, with mass gatherings allowed from early February, when staff home-working where practical will no longer be required, and the reopening of night clubs after the middle of the month.
A French appeals court has upheld a ruling last July that social media platform Twitter must reveal how its French arm moderates hate speech, in a case brought against it by four NGOs which accuse it of not doing enough to crack down on abusive content.
Despite lockdowns that closed restaurants, bars and receptions last year, France's Champagne producers report that 2021 saw record sales worth around 5.5 billion euros, led by a leap in exports and a return to normal on the home market.
