Speaking at a press briefing in Paris on Thurday, Indian defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman reiterated her government's claim that did not impose an Indian company run by a businessman close to Prime Minister Narendra Modi as local industrial partner for Dassault Aviation in the sale to New Delhi of 36 Rafale fighter planes, despite new evidence published by Mediapart suggesting that was the case.
A much awaited reshuffle of Emmanuel Macron's government, prompted by the surprise resignation last week of his interior minister, has been postponed until after the French president returns on Friday from a visit to Armenia, prompting speculation over disagreements with his prime minister.
Marches in Paris and other cities and towns across France in protest at public spending cuts and reform of the welfare system introduced by President Emmanuel Macron's government drew 300,000 according to labour unions, half as much according to the interior ministry.
The departure last week of heavyweight interior minister Gérard Collomb has forced French President Emmanuel Macron into announcing a government reshuffle expected on Wednesday, as he prepares to enter phase two of his government and draw a line under months of scandals and political setbacks.
Serge Klarsfeld, 83, and his German-born wife Beate, 79, who became high-profile hunters of Nazi war criminals, notably tracking down the notorious former Gestapo officer Klaus Barbie, known as the 'Butcher of Lyon', in Bolivia, but also members of France’s collaborationist Vichy regime, have been awarded France’s highest awards for civil merit.
Popular French rappers Booba and Kaaris were each handed 18-month suspended prison sentences and a fine of 30,000 euros by a Paris court for their part in a fight, together with their respective entourages, at Paris Orly airport in August when they exchanged punches and kicks and threw perfume bottles at each other amid panicking passengers.
The first of two appeals lodged by Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy against a decision to send him for trial for influence peddling and corruption was thrown out by a Paris court on Monday.
French medical reasearchers have denounced the ending of an official investigation into several instances in three geographically distanced rural communities of babies born without all their limbs, which some suspect is due to the use nearby of agro-chemicals.
