Bernard Arnault, 75, the CEO of French luxury goods group LVMH, appeared in court on Thursday as a witness at the trial of former French intelligence director Bernard Squarcini who he hired as a security chief, and who is accused of using state agents to counter a blackmailer targeting Arnault, and also when mounting an intelligence-gathering operation targeting journalist and leftwing MP François Ruffin.
As the French government, led by former minister and EU Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier, approaches a possible fatal no confidence vote in parliament next week over its budget proposals, an Ifop-Fiducial opinion survey for Sud Radio published on Thursday found 53% of those polled wanted Barnier and his ministers to step down.
The French government has changed its earlier position on the arrest warrants for war crimes issued by the International Criminal Court against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defence minister Yoav Gallant, which was initially that it would arrest the men if they landed on French soil.
Evelyne de Pontbriand, who transformed her family's winemaking domain, more than five centuries old, into a showcase for organic vinyards, and who became a voice for sustainable agriculture, has died at the age of 73.
The South African poet, author and artist Breyten Breytenbach, whose outspoken opposition to the apartheid regime led to him being jailed for seven years and forced into decades of exile in France, has died in Paris at the age of 85.
As the trial in Avignon, southern France, of Dominique Pelicot and 50 other men accused of raping over several years Pelicot's wife Gisèle, who he sedated into an unconscious state for the acts to take place, draws to an end, prosecutors have demanded he serve a maximum sentence of 20 years behind bars.
Marine Le Pen, figurehead and parliamentary leader of France's far-right Rassemblement National party, left talks with Prime Minister Michel Barnier on Monday centred on a looming parliamentary vote on the country's 2025 budget, complaining he made no concessions and raising the possibility that her party will join in a no confidence vote against Barnier's minority government.
Marches were held in Paris and cities and towns across France on Saturday to protest the widespread crimes of violence perpetrated specifically against women, an issue highlighted by the ongoing trial of 51 men accused of raping over several years the wife of one of them while she was unconscious.
The French ambassador to Haiti was summoned to hear the Caribbean country's protests over filmed comments by President Emmanuel Macron in which he called the transitional presidential council 'total morons'.
Pope Francis has declined an invitation to attend the ceremony in early December for the re-opening of Notre Dame, which was severely damaged by fire in 2019, amid speculation over a rift between him and President Emmanuel Macron who backed a successful campaign to make abortion a constitutional right in France.
