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In a deal to be completed in early 2019, French concessions and construction giant Vinci has announced it will take a stake of 50.1 percent in the capital of London's Gatwick Airport, Britain's second-busiest hub for passenger traffic, adding to 46 other airports it already operates in Europe.

The French presidency has contacted Emmanuel Macron's disgraced former security aide and deputy cabinet director, Alexandre Benalla, who was fired over revelations he assaulted individuals during May Day marches, to account for his eventual business dealings when employed by the Élysée Palace and warned him over his conduct on recent high-level business trips to Africa.    

An online petition backed by Greenpeace and Oxfam calling for legal action against the French state for its alleged inaction over measures to combat climate change has attracted nearly two million signatures.

A Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman said France's call, along with other Western governments, for Beijing to release two Canadians arrested after Canada detained the chief financial officer of Chinese telecoms giant Huawei as 'strange' and 'very bad in the eyes of the Chinese people'.

French magistrates have closed an investigation into the missile attack in 1994 on a plane carrying then-Rwandan president Juvenal Habyarimana, which sparked the genocide in the East African country in which more than 800,000 people died, citing insufficient evidence against seven named suspects.  

British and French sea rescue services intervened in the early hours on Christmas Day to bring to safety at least 40 migrants, including children, attempting to cross the English Channel to England in precarious conditions in five separate boats.  

Peter Cherif, 36, alias Abou Hamza, wanted for his suspected role in the January 2015 gun attack on the Paris offices of Charlie Hebdo magazine which left 12 dead, was was immediately placed in detention after his extradition to France from Djibouti.

FDrench President Emmanuel Macron, speaking during a visit to Chad, said he "very deeply' regrets the decision by his US counterpart Donald Trump to withdraw American troops from Syria, commenting that 'An ally should be dependable'.

The sixth Saturday of nationwide protests organised by the grass-roots 'Yellow Vest' movement against falling living standards for low- and middle-income earners saw turnout significantly down on last weekend, according to the French interior ministry, which estimated the total number of demonstrators at 38,000.

Cherif Chekat, 29, the chief suspect in the shooting attack on the streets of Strasbourg, eastern France, which left five people dead and another 12 wounded, and who was shot dead by police shortly afterwards, had left a recent pledge of allegiance to the so-called Islamic State group on a computer memory stick, judicial officials have confirmed.