The last of the around 15,000 electric scooters available for rent by phone app on a 'take-it-here-leave-it-there' basis and which have since 2018 flooded - some say encumbered - Parisian streets, were rounded up on Thursday ahead of a ban on the controversial machines that begins on Friday.
Cross-party talks on a proposition by French President Emmanuel Macron to introduce a series of referenda on major issues, in an attempt to unblock his party's predicament in parliament where it is without an absolute majority, ended in the early hours of Thursday after 12 hours of discussions and with opposition party leaders voicing their scepticism over the project.
In an increasingly tense standoff, French President Emmanuel Macron said on Monday that France will not comply with the demand made last Friday by Niger's junta that its ambassador leave the West African country within 48 hours.
Newly appointed education minister Gabriel Attal said that the wearing of long, flowing dresses favoured by some Muslim women would no longer be allowed when the new term begins next week because they violated the French principle of secularism, or laïcité.
Problems for the industry include falling demand as more people drink craft beer; most of the €200m will be used to buy excess stock, with the alcohol sold for use in items such as hand sanitiser, cleaning products and perfume.
In a direct challenge to the president, interior minister Gérald Darmanin warns country must get tough on crime or risk opening door to the hard-Right.
Both shootings - in which the victims were aged 10 and 18 - took place in the Pissevin area of the historic city which has become plagued by drug violence.
Soaraway temperatures are affecting large parts of France and were expected to peak at 42 degrees Celsius (107.6 degrees Fahrenheit) in the wine-growing Rhone valley.
Police are working on the assumption of mistaken identity, after the boy was shot while travelling in a car with his uncle through the deprived Pissevin area of Nîmes.
