French magistrates investigating alleged bribery behind a cover-up of doping of athletes have issued warrants for the arrests of Valentin Balakhnichev, the former head of Russian athletics who was also treasurer of the International Association of Athletics Federations, and Alexei Melnikov, a former Russian national team coach.
French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe, reacting to sharp criticism of policing during Saturday's 'yellow vest' anti-government demonstrations in Paris which saw buildings, stores, restaurants and newsstands torched in the capital's centre, announced on Monday that the Paris police chief has been sacked, that future rallies in established trouble spots around the country may be banned, while he also approved wider use by police of the controversial LBD rubber bullet weapons which have left more than two hundred injured, many of them seriously, during the three months of rolling protests.
An 18th weekend of action in so-called 'yellow vest' protests against falling standards of living for low- and middle-income earners left about 60 people, including police officers, injured in Paris where stores, restaurants, banks and vehicles were set ablaze and more than 190 arrests were made.
Four French NGOs, including Greenpeace France and Oxfam France, have filed a lawsuit against the French government accusing it of failing to act upon its environmental obligations, a move that was backed by 2.1 million signatures in an online petition.
Saint-Exupéry airport in Lyon, France's second-largest city, has begun operating robots to position cars in a long-term car park and which, according to the manufacturer of the machines, can fit twice as many vehicles into a given parking area than humans.
France has announced the repatriation of five children aged up to five years who were placed in internement camps in Syria after their French parents, who had joined the Islamic State group, are reported to have died or gone missing in fighting, and thanked Kurdish-led forces 'for their cooperation, which made this outcome possible'.
After a successful trial project in several regions, the French interior ministry has given the national go-ahead for a scheme by which drivers convicted for being drunk at the wheel – except for repeat offenders and those found to have more than 1.8 grams of alcohol per litre of blood – may escape a driving ban if they fit their vehicle with a breathalyser device that prevents the engine from starting if they are over the legal limit.
French President Emmanuel Macron arrived in Kenya on Wednesday on the final leg of a three-nation tour of East Africa, the first official visit by a French president since Kenyan independence in 1963, when he is due to seal a number of trade deals with his Kenyan counterpart Uhuru Kenyatta and to discuss closer cooperation in the fields of defence and counter-terrorism.
An Italian-owned cargo ship carrying thousands of vehicles from Germany to Morocco when it caught fire and sank about 260 kilometres off France's Atlantic Coast on Tuesday, was also transporting 45 containers of "dangerous materials", French regional maritime authorities have confirmed.
A young fox which entered a chicken coop containing several thousand hens has been found apparently pecked to death by the birds on a farm in Brittany.
