The French interior ministry reported that around 70,000 supporters of the 'yellow vest' movement, launched in November against a new hike on fuel tax and which has since grown into a broad protest over falling standards of living for low- and middle-income earners, turned out ofor its 11th successive weekend of nationwide marches on Saturday, with several demonstrations in Paris including an evening rally at the Place de la République which was dispersed by police.
French carmaker Renault on Thursday appointed outgoing Michelin boss Jean-Dominique Senard as chairman and its former second in command, Thierry Bolloré, as CEO, after Carlos Ghosn, who held both posts, resigned late Wednesday while in detention in Japan where has been held since November on financial misconduct allegations.
Following two months of nationwide protests as a loosely formed movement communicating mostly on social media, the so-called 'yellow vests', made up of low- and middle-income earners angry at falling living standards and against the political and social elite, have formed a group to field candidates for this spring's elections for the European Parliament.
In tests of widely selling baby nappies in France, the country's official national health agency Anses has found dangerous quantities of chemicals including aromatic hydrocarbons, dioxins and furans, and the presence of controversial weedkiller compound glyphosate.
Qatari-owned football club Paris-Saint Germain has been fined 100,000 euros by the French Professional Football League (LFP) following Mediapart's revelations of its practice of demanding talent scouts to report on the ethnic origins of potential young recruits.
Braving a chilly night in Paris, around 300 theatre goers stripped off to watch the first naturist play performed in the French capital, a one-off comedy act whose attraction, according to one practicing naturist present, was because 'there is no better way of laughing than to laugh in the nude'.
Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad has warned French President Emmanuel Macron that his government is mulling legislation to restrict imports from France, whose bilateral trade with Malaysia totalled almost 4 billion euros in 2017, if Paris goes ahead with a proposed ban on the use of palm oil in bio fuels.
French interior minister Christophe Castaner has announced that French police on crowd control operations are to use body cameras to record the circumstances of their use of weapons, notably rubber bullets, following an increasing toll of serious injuries caused by the bullets and stun grenades during the ongoing 'yellow vest' street protests over falling living standards for low- and middle-income earners.
Overnight snowfall left Paris draped in white on Tuesday morning, provoking transport woes but also lending the French capital a striking beauty as captured by these news agency photos.
Already high tensions between Paris and Rome have further escalated after Italian deputy prime minister Luigi Di Maio, leader of the anti-establishment Five-Star Movement, said the EU should 'sanction France and all countries like France that impoverish Africa and make these people leave, because Africans should be in Africa'.
