During a visit on Sunday to the Mali HQ of French military operations against jihadist insurgents in the Sahel, French Prime Minister Édouard Philippe said 'durable stabilisation' in the region could not be assured without 'the backing of others'.
France's so-called 'yellow vest' demonstrations against falling living standards among low- and middle-income earners, which since its beginnings in November has become a protest movement against the governement and the political elite, again drew tens of thousands of protestors nationwide on Saturday, which the interior mionisrty estimated to number 46,600, an increase on last weekend.
Fabien Clain, 41, a senior foreign member of the so-called Islamic State group who is reported to have been killed in an airstrike in Baghouz in Syria this week, came from the French Indian Ocean island of La Réunion and was radicalised in Toulouse, south-west France, before becoming active in a cell that sent jihadists to fight US troops in Iraq.
The written judgment of the Paris court which on Thursday ruled that swiss bank UBS must pay a penalty of 4.5 billion euros for its practices of seeking out wealthy clients in France and helping them evade taxes through money laundering says that the bank refused to heed warnings by its staff over the illegal system.
The French Catholic Church's bishops' conference has agreed to soon begin paying financial compensation to victims of sex crimes by its clergy and who are unable to bring legal action against the perpetrators because of France's statute of limitations for the prosecution of such crimes.
