Suleiman Kerimov, a Russian senator whose family Russia’s biggest gold producer, Polyus, has been released on bail of 5 million euros and had his passport confiscated by magistrates in Nice who have placed him under investigation for suspected money laundering and tax fraud in connection with property deals on the French Riviera.
A 33-year-old who suffered burns to 95% of his body in 2016 is making a remarkable recovery after receiving grafts of skin from his twin brother, performed at a Paris hospital, which his immune system did not reject.
In the wake of footage of sub-Saharan migrants captured in Libya being sold as slaves, France has pledged to offer asylum to 25 Eritreans, Ethiopians and Sudanese, including 15 women and four children, who were taken to Niger under UN protection from detention in the North African country.
In an escalating conflict with self-styled fairgound boss Marcel Campion, and following the decision to end a Christmas market he managed on the Champs-Elyséee avenue, Paris City Hall has announced that the 77-year-old's licence to operate the giant Grande Roue situated on the Place de la Concorde will be ended next year.
A Kremlin spokesman said Russia would 'do everything in our power' to protect the lawful interests of billionaire Suleiman Kerimov, a Member of Parliament in Russia and head of the country's biggest gold producer, Polyus, who has been detained in France on suspicion of tax evasion.
Marine Le Pen, leader of France's far-right Front National party, has denounced what she called a 'fatwa' by banks against her and her movement after it was announced that the Société Générale closed her party's accounts after a reported three decades of business, and HSBC closed down her personal account.
A rare surviving example of about 200 brothels in Paris in the early 20th century, Aux Belles Poules (The Beautiful Hens), which has a stunning tiled frieze of Belle Époque ladies, satyrs and nymphs, is being patiently restored by owners who never realised what lay behind the board-covered walls of a room used as a computer business.
French finance minister Bruno Le Maire said the decision to relocate the European Banking Authority from London to Paris, in preparation of Brexit, sent exactly the sort of signal that big banks such as Goldman and Morgan Stanley were waiting for.
Christophe Castaner, 51, who last year swapped political allegiance to join Emmanuel Macron's centrist bid for the French presidency has been appointed as head of the latter's fledgling political party in a move driven by the president and which has been criticised as ignoring traditional democratic party practices.
France's health minister Agnès Buzyn has said she will discuss with her culture ministry counterpart measures to remove or reduce the appearance of smoking in films as part of an anti-tobacco drive in the country where an estimated 75,000 people per year die from smoking-related diseases.
