State sector employees, and notably railway workers, staged one-day strikes and demonstrations across France on Thursday in protest at planned government reforms that will see spending cuts and job reductions and which President Emmanuel Macron's government intends introducing by decree and without parliamentary debate.
French daily Le Figaro on Thursday published what it said was a statement by Nicolas Sarkozy given to judges before they placed him under investigation over the alleged funding of his 2007 election campaign by the Libyan regime of Muammar Gaddafi, in which the former French president says he has been 'living the hell of this calumny' which he claimed was the reason he lost his 2012 re-election bid and failed to be chosen as conservative candidate in 2017.
Two scientific studies have found that the bird population in France has fallen by as much as a third over the past 15 years, and in some regions by two-thirds, a situation described as 'catastrophic' by one biologist involved in the research and which is believed to be due to the decline in insect numbers due to the use of pesticides.
The one-day strike of public sector employees in France against government reforms on Thursday will disrupt many services, and FRANCE 24 has drawn up a guide to which sectors will be hardest hit.
Unions have called an across-the-board strike by public sector employees on Thursday against President Emmanuel Macron's economic reform programme, in a key test of strength that is likely to severely affect transport, education, hospital and administrative services in particular.
A total of 1.46 billion burgers were sold last year in France, compared with 1.22 billion baguettes filled with sliced ham, according to study just released, which also estimated that at least one type of burger is on the menu at 85% of French restaurants.
Ramona Hernandez-Canete, 37, was arrested after one of her teenage children found the corpse of a newborn baby in a laundry basket, before four more bodies of babies were discovered in a freezer at her home in south-west France.
French President Emmanuel Macron's office said he spoke by phone on Monday with newly re-elected President Vladimir Putin, when he voiced his hopes for a modernisation of Russia 'on the political, democratic, economic and social fronts', while also discussing Syria and calling for clarity over the nerve agent attack on a former Russian double agent in Britain.
A study by London-based human rights charity Refugee Rights Europe questioned almost 300 migrants about their conditions living rough on the streets of the French capital, with many respondents complaining of a climate of fear amid physical attacks, racial abuse and sexual assault.
French nationals Sabrina Kouider, 35, and her partner Ouissem Medouni, are accused of murdering their 21-year-old nanny, also from France, and trying to dispose of her body by setting fire to it in their garden in Wimbledon, south-west London.
