Activist André Blaise Essama, 44, has served time in prison and been fined for his longstanding campaign against colonial statues, notably that in the Cameroonian city of Douala of French wartime hero general Philippe Leclerc, which he says he has decapitated seven times and toppled on 20 occasions, calling for statues to be erected to the country's own national heoes.
Former French prime minister Édouard Philippe, who stepped down on Friday to become mayor of the town of Le Havre, former health minister Agnès Buzyn and her successor Olivier Véran, are to be investigated over their handling of the Covid-19 virus epidemic after a special court for judging members of government over wrongdoing while in office accepted nine complaints lodged against them.
After serving three years in office, beginning with the election of President Emmanuel Macron, and days after his re-election as mayor in his political fiefdom of Le Havre, France's prime minister Édouard Philippe has been replaced by Jean Castex, 55, a high-ranking civil servant and conservative, largely unknown to the public, and who will lead a reshuffled government on what the Élysée Palace announced would be a 'new path'.
A French police brigade based in the Seine-Saint-Denis département (county) that rings north-east Paris has been disolved after four of its officers were placed under investigation on Thursday for alleged extorsion, theft, and posession of drugs, and three of them for violence, while further investigations are underway into other accusations against members of the unit.
France is returning to Algeria the remains of 24 combattants killed in the 19th century during the early French colonialisation of the North African country which finally won independence in 1962 after a bitter eight-year war.
Police forces across Europe have carried out hundreds of arrests, seizing cash, drugs and weapons after listening in on an encrypted communications network used by criminal gangs which was cracked by French police in 2017.
The French parliament has approved a move to help the press sector amid the economic crisis caused by the Covid-19 virus pandemic, which will see first-time subscribers to news publications offered a tax credit.
Weeks after an incident in which France accused Turkish warships of intimidating one of its frigates, the French defence ministry has announced it is suspending its role in Nato's Mediterranean operation Sea Guardian, accusing Turkey of violating an arms embargo against Libya.
European aerospace group Airbus, citing the worldwide slump in aircraft orders caused by the Covid-19 virus pandemic, announced on Tuesday it is to axe 15,000 jobs, representing 15% of its worforce, including 5,000 posts in France where its planes are assembled.
The twin-reactor Fessenheim nuclear power plant bordering the Rhine river in eatsern France, commissioned in 1977 and which has since been the subject of numerous safety failures, was placed in total shutdown late on Monday, at the beginning of what will be an 18-year process of dismantlement.
