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The four countries, grouped together in an 'Inclusive Vaccines Alliance', struck a deal this weekend with pharma group AstraZeneca to receive a Covid-19 virus vaccine under development by researchers at Oxford university in Britain, and which it is hoped will be available at the end of the year.

A fire that broke out Friday on one of France's six nuclear attack submarines during renovation in the southern port of Toulon was described as 'serious' by a French navy official after it took 14 hours to bring under control, while defence minister Florence Parly insisted 'there was not a nuclear accident'.

A procession of around 15,000 people, according to official estimates, marched through central Paris on Saturday, along with several thousand in other cities and towns across France, protesting racism and police violence in the country and highliting the case of a black man who died in strikingly similar circumstances to Afro-American George Floyd in Minneapolis last month.

Police officers have mounted protests in Paris and other major French cities over a growing debate about violent behaviour and systemic racism in the force - and which has led to a ban on applying chokeholds during arrests - with symbolic displays of throwing their handcuffs to the ground outside police stations.

The numbers of new Covid-19 cases have continued to drop since most of France reopened for business last month – while maintaining physical distancing and protection measures – with the number of additional deaths down to its lowest figure since March.

Olivier Marchal, who served more than ten years as a policeman before becoming a film and television director, railed at those in his own industry who offered opinions about the fierce current national debate over police violence and racism.

Tom Ciotkowski, a council worker from Stratford-upon-Avon in the UK, was violently arrested while filming riot police preventing humanitarian volunteers from distributing food to refugees in the northern French town of Calais in July 2018.

The work stolen last year from the Bataclan music hall in Paris, and which depicted a young female figure with a mournful expression, created as a tribute to the 90 victims of the 2015 Islamic State group terrorist attack at the venue, has been found in a farmhouse in the Abruzzo region of Italy.

Announcing a 15 billion-euro bailout package for aircraft manufacturer Airbus and aerospace industry companies, as well as for national carrier Air France, economy minister Bruno Le Maire said, 'We will not let the global aeronautical market be divided between China and the United States. France and Europe will be there too".

The official toll announced on Tuesday of deaths from the Covid-19 virus over 24 hours since Monday rose to 87, taking into account fatalities in both hospitals and care homes, reaching a total of 29,296 since the officially declared beginning of the epidemic in March, representing the seventh succesive day that daily recorded deaths numbered less than 100, while ICU patients treated for the disease fell by 69 to 955.