Thales, which manufactures electrical systems for the aerospace and security markets and in which the French state owns a 25% stake, offered 4.76 billion euros for Dutch cybersecurity firm Gemalto and announced that no jobs are expected to be lost in the takeover.
The official declarations by French government ministers of their personal wealth, which can be consulted online, show that French labour minister Muriel Pénicaud is the richest, with assets worth 7.5 million euros, and that environment minister Nicolas Hulot, a figurehead of the Green movement in the country, owns six cars, a motorboat and a motorbike.
In a recorded television interview broadcast on Sunday by the France 2 channel, French President Emmanuel Macron said that following the rout of the so-called Islamic State group in Iraq 'I think that by the middle to the end of February, we will have won the war in Syria', adding that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad 'will have to respond to his crimes before his people, before the international courts'.
The 34-year-old arrived back in north-west France in the early hours of Sunday after completing his 27,860-nautical-mile tour of the globe in a trimaran in 42 days, 16 hours, 40 minutes and 35 seconds, beating the previous record by six days and recording an average speed of 27.2 knots.
Ali Akbar Velayati, the top adviser to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was quoted as by Iran's semi-official Fars news agency as saying that French President Emmanuel Macron, who has raised concern over Iranian ballistic missile tests, 'is now acting as Trump’s lapdog' and that 'France should not blindly follow the Americans'.
Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, currently leading a purge presented as an anti-corruption drive with the arrests of members of the Saudi royal family and other top officials, has been revealed by The New York Times as the secret owner of a sprawling replica near Paris of the Versailles château, estimated by Forbes magazine to be the world's most expensive property.
The giant skeleton of a male, which was discovered in permafrost in Siberia ten years ago and is believed to be the largest in private ownership, was sold at an auction in Lyon.
Before turning 40 next Thursday, French President Emmanuel Macron on Saturday held early celebrations at the sprawling Loire Valley Renaissance castle of Chambord, once a residence of France's 16th-century king François 1st, prompting sarcasm and accusatons of haughtiness from political opponents.
The death toll from the level-crossing collision on Thursday afternoon between a coach carrying secondary school children and a passenger train near Perpignan in southern France has risen five, while six of those injured remained in a critical condition, announced a Marseille public prosecutor late Friday.
The French government is to submit to parliament draft legislation on use of the internet which includes the rquirement of parental permission for under-16-year-olds to operate an account on social media including Facebook.
