In a speech delivered at the Panthéon monument in Paris, during celebrations of the creation of the modern French republic in 1870, President Emmanuel Macron launched a strong against what he called 'separatism' by some in society, talking up the freedoms that the country allows, and notably the freedom of expression and the right to blaspheme, while warning that, 'The republic is still fragile, still precarious'.
Freelance reporter Valentin Gendrot spent two years as a junior police officer, eventually posted to a north Paris police station where, he details in a book published this week, he says he witnessed racism and gratuitous violence by a minority of officers but who were covered by their hierarchy, and which has prompted an internal police investigation into his claims.
The French government has presented a 100 billion-euro recovery plan, dubbed 'France re-launch', to help the economy weather the huge contraction caused by the novel coronavirus crisis, and which has seen it shrink by 13.8 percent between April and June, the biggest quarterly fall since the Second World War.
Jean-Paul Enthoven, 71, has publicly disowned his equally famous son Raphaël, not for previously stealing his ex-girlfriend Carla Bruni, but for writing a book he says has left him 'heartbroken', slamming it for revealing people’s private lives in public.
France's president Emmanuel Macron is on Thursday to present a national plan to reinvigorate the country's economy, which he has said is 'not simply a strategy to respond to the consequences of the [coronavirus] crisis, but one designed to ensure how our country can emerge stronger'.
The marathon trial of 14 people accused of being accomplices to the terrorist killings of 17 people in separate attacks in early January 2015 on the offices of Charlie Hebdo magazine and a Jewish food store, and the shooting of a policewoman, opened in Paris on Wednesday and is due to run into November.
Sanofi has announced that Kevzara, a drug originally developed with US pharma firm Regeneron for treating arthritis, has failed Phase 3 tests of its effectiveness in treating severe cases of Covid-19 and which involved 420 patients in several countries.
Pupils returned to schools across France on Tuesday at the start of the new academic year amid strict measures to contain transmission of the novel coronavirus, while teacher unions and medics have questioned the adequacy of the plans and recorded virus infections are showing a steep increase.
French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, whose staff were targeted in a January 2015 shooting massacre which left 12 dead, has announced its edition to be published Wednesday, when 14 people accused of being accomplices to the attack are to stand trial in Paris, will contain a reprint of the cartoons of Prophet Mohammed that were cited as the motive for the terrorists.
Interior minister Gerald Darmanin, speaking during a visit to the headquarters of French domestic intelligence agency on Monday, declared the the risk of terrorist attacks in France 'remains extremely high' and especially from 'terror of Sunni origin', just two days before the trial opens in Paris of 14 people accused of helping the January 15th 2015 terror attacks carried out in the name of the so-called Islamic State group.
