A French man resident in Britain and who arrived this month in the town of Tours, west-central France, has been tested positive for the new variant of the coronavirus which is suspected of being particularly contagious, although it is still unkown if it causes more severe forms of Covid-19.
An anti Covid-19 vaccine developed by US pharma firm Pfizer and Germany's BioNTech has been approved for use in France by the country's top health authority, the Haute Autorité de la santé (HAS), with vaccinations due to start on a voluntazry basis on Sunday, with a priority given for those most at risk.
In an unusally strong statement posted on Twitter, the European Union's transport commissioner, Adina Valean, commenting on the massive logjam of trucks around the English port of Dover following border restrictions introduced by France after a new contagious strain of the coronavirus was found in the UK, said 'I deplore that France went against our recommendations'.
France has reopened its borders with the Britain – which were closed at the weekend due to fears over the spread of infections by a new coronavirus strain identified in England – on condition that travellers carry proof of testing negative for the virus, but the huge backlog of trucks that have been piling up around the normally busy port of Dover is expected to take days to clear.
Immigrants in France who were this year in frontline jobs during the coronavirus epidemic, including healthcare staff, shop workers and cleaners, are being offered fast-track French citizenship.
Three gendarmes aged between 21 and 45 were shot dead and another was wounded while responding to a case of domestic violence in an isolated rural area of central France on Tuesday evening, when the former husband of a woman who had sought refuge on the roof of her house was later found dead in his car.
Claude Brasseur, whose prolific career on stage and screen playing a wide variety of roles from comedy to thrillers earned him the status of one of France's best-known and popular actors, and who was also a keen sportsman, has died at the age of 84.
France is to reopen its borders with the UK, closed earlier this week over fears about the new variant of the coronavirus detected in England, but only to blocked truck drivers, French citizens and others resident in France, and on condition they present a negative result of a test for the virus, according to French media reports.
April Benayoum, 21, who in an interview during a televised ceremony of the Miss France pageant on Saturday revealed her mixed family origins which included the Israeli citizenship of her father, became subject to a torrent of anti-Semitic abuse on social media.
France on Sunday joined a growing number of EU countries closing their borders to British travellers following the rapid spread in England of a reportedly more infectious variant of the coronavirus that causes Covid-19.
