Welcome to the Republic of Le Saugeais, a little-known 'nation' that lies alongside France's border with Switzerland and which has its own president, anthem, flag and language, all unrecognised by the French state, and whose 'independence' began with a joke in a restaurant.
In a televised speech to the nation on Thursday evening, French President Emmanuel Macron described the novel coronavirus outbreak as the "worst" health crisis the country has faced for 100 years and announced new measures to conatin the epidemic, notably an indefinite shutdown of all educational establishments from next Monday, while urging people aged over 70 to stay at home, but he stopped short of cancelling the nationwide municipal elections due to begin on Sunday.
French weapons sales abroad rose between 2015-2019 by 72 percent on the previous five years according to a report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, which said the latest total represented almost 8 percent of global arms exports during the same period.
Welcoming Spain’s king and queen to the Elysée Palace on Wednesday, French President Emmanuel Macron, observing official recommendations to the public to avoid shaking hands amid the coronavirus outbreak, welcomed the pair with a namaste, the gesture of pressing together the palms and bowing as is the custom in India.
Two Franco-Israeli men were given jail sentences and heavy fines by a Paris court for masterminding a multi-million-euro fraud using the identity of Jean-Yves Le Drian, who at the time was France’s defence minister and is now the foreign minister, to raise money from wealthy political, business and religious figures.
The mayor of a small town in north-west France justified holding what may be the worlds largest rally of people disguised as Smurfs, the elf-like fictional cartoon characters who livein mushroom shaped houses in the forest, attracting a crowd of more than 3,500 despite a ban on gatherings of more than 1,000 people to counter the spread of coronovirus, saying 'we must not stop living'.
Swedish-born cinema actor Max von Sydow, who began his remarkably prolific career by starring in several landmark films by Swedish director Ingmar Bergman and who took French nationality in 2002, has died at his home in southern France at the age of 90, his wife has announced.
The waters of the River Seine that winds through Paris have been swollen by recent heavy rainfall, causing the closure of some riverside sites at the weekend and plans to evacuate others if the rise continues in the centre of the capital which in 2016 experienced flooding that left four people dead and 24 others injured.
In the male-dominated world of French restaurant kitchens, women struggle to find a place amid widespread sexual harassment and assaults and a culture of bullying, according to gender equality campaigners.
