Organisors of a march 'for freedoms and against the far-right' held in cities across France on Saturday claimed a total of 150,000 people turned out, answering a call from 110 orgnaisations, from leftwing parties to NGOs, to join a 'historic' rally.
Established as 'Médecins Sans Frontières' (MSF), and as 'Doctors Without Borders' as it grew into a major humanitarian organisation providing medical care worldwide, and often in areas of conflict, MSF this year marks its 50th anniversary.
French President Emmanuel Macron has announced that France will reduce the size of its military mission in the West Africa region of the Sahel where it has been engaged since 2013 in operations against jihadist groups.
Damien Tarel, 28, has been given a four-month prison sentence for slapping Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday as the French president shook hands with a crowd in the south-east town of Tain L'Hermitage.
Two men have been arrested after one shouted a royalist slogan and slapped French President Emmanuel Macron while he shook hands with a crowd of local residents in the town of Tain-l’Hermitage, south-east France, during a second leg of a six-week 'pulse of the nation' tour of the country.
Biologist Frédéric Dardel, former head of the Paris-Descartes University, has been placed under investigation in a judicial probe into how the establishment's centre housing bodies intended for medical research became so dilapidated that corpses were found rotting and dismembered amid an infestation of rats, flies and worms.
Speaking in a radio interview, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, leader of the radical-left La France insoumise (France unbowed) party warned that a 'serious incident or a murder' would occur at the height of next year's presidential election campaign, citing tragic events during previous campaigns and seemingly suggesting they are part of a recurrent plot to change the outcome of the vote.
The 77th anniversary of the allied D-Day landings in Normandy was, because of the Covid-19 pandemic, without the usual strong contingent of remaining veterans, but a highlight was the unveiling of an imposing seafront memorial to the more than 22,000 troops under British command who died during the three-month campaign to liberate northern France from German occupation.
France is to launch a 'National Agency for the Fight Against Manipulation of Information' in September, in an effort to prevent foreign powers such as Russia and China from using covert means to influence French voters in presidential and parliamentary elections due in 2022.
Russian tennis woman Yana Sizikova, 26, was taken into custody as she took part in the French Open in Paris by police investigating suspected match-fixing at the tournament last year.
