The World Rugby Council voted in secret ballot to award the France the lucrative role of hosting the sport's 2023 World Cup, the second time it will have staged the event in five cycles, beating previously tipped favourites South Africa and Ireland.
French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe on Tuesday said Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri must be 'freely' allowed to leave Saudi Arabia, where he has been staying in mysterious circumstances since announcing from there earlier this month that he was stepping down from his post, so that he can 'clarify his situation in accordance with the Lebanese constitution'.
Official figures show the number of complaints lodged alleging sexual assault and harassment have jumped by almost a third year-on-year in France in the wake of widely reported allegations of sex crimes in the worlds of cinema, politics and the media, notably the accusations levelled at Hollywood film producer Harvey Weinstein.
Following recent acquittals in separate cases of men charged with raping 11-year-old girls, rulings justified by magistrates on the grounds that there was no evidence of violence or constraint, France's gender parity minister Marlène Schiappa said her government is to consider changes in the law that would automatically qualify sexual intercourse between an adult and a minor 'under a certain age' as rape.
Lawyers representing relatives of some of the 148 victims, including134 French nationals, who perished in January 2004 when a Paris-bound Flash Airlines flight crashed into the Red Sea shortly after takeoff announced that they are to appeal a decision refusing the reopening of an investigation into the disaster which earlier found it was due to pilot error.
French President Emmanuel Macron on Monday visited the sites of shootings and suicide bombings claimed by the Islamic State group which left 130 people dead and more than 400 injured on the evening of November 13th 2015, accompanied by his predecessor François Hollande and Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo.
