The former Renault-Nissan alliance boss Carlos Ghosn, who holds joint French, Lebanese andf Brazilian nationality and who has been detained in Japan awaiting trial since November 2018 over accusations of financial misconduct at the carmakers, under strict conditions that also barred him from leaving Japan, arrived in Lebanon by private jet from Turkey on Monday according to several media reports.
A major explosion under a building in Paris in January which killed four people, including two firefighters, and injured 66 others was caused by a broken gas pipe which was cracked by ground subsidence which had been insufficiently investigated by city hall staff and a private company, according to a commissioned experts' report revealed by the Paris prosecution services on Monday,
After weeks of union-led strikes and protests against government plans to reform France's pension system, and which have severely disrupted transport services, notably in the Greater Paris Region, French President Emmanuel Macron is expected to finally relieve his prime minister on the political frontline by announcing measures to break the deadlock during the traditional presidential New Year's Eve TV address on Tuesday.
France's constitutional court has given the go-ahead for the tax administration to check scial media users' profiles, posts and pictures for evidence of undisclosed income, but that that password-protected content was off-limits and that only public information pertaining to the person divulging it online can be targeted.
A forthcoming book by French publisher Vanessa Springora in which she gives a disturbing account of how in the 1980s she became mentally and sexually abused at the age of 14 by acclaimed author Gabriel Matzneff, then aged 50, a self-confessed paedophile who groomed young girls and boys, is shaking Paris literary circles which previously gave him support and protection.
Iran's ambassador to France was on Thursday summoned to a meeting at the French foreign ministry when he was told that Paris is demanding the release of two French academic researchers held on spying accusations in a notorious Tehran prison, where one of them is on hunger strike.
The rolling strikes of French transport workers, and notably railways staff, which began in early December as part of national union-led protests against the government's plans to reform the pension system, on Friday became the longest since the winter of 1986 – and threaten to become the longest ever as talks are not set to resume until January 7th.
Paris Opera dancers, who have a bespoke pension plan dating back to the 17th century, gave an impromptu public performance of Swan Lake on the forecourt of the Palais Garnier in central Paris, with the backing of the Paris Symphony Orchestra, in a protest at President Emmanuel Macron's plan to introduce a universal pension scheme.
France's military command has announced the first drone strike carried out by its forces, which ocurred during counter-jihadist operations in Mali at the weekend, just two days after testing had finished on the remotely-piloted Reapers for armed operations.
A tiny painting by 13th-century Florentine painter Cimabue, which was found by chance above a hotplate in the kitchen of an elderly lady in northern France and subsequently bought at an auction for 24 million euros by US-based private collectors, has been refused an export licence by the French authorities who have declared it a 'national treasure'.
