French and Malian troops are searching for Sophie Pétronin, who ran an NGO helping children suffering from malnutrition, who was kidnapped in the city of Gao in northern Mali on Christmas Eve.
Fugitive Anis Amri, the Tunisian wanted as the main suspect in the Berlin Christmas market attack on Monday which left 12 people dead, was shot and killed by police in Milan early on Friday after entering Italy via the French town of Chambéry, in the south-east Savoie region, according to Italian officials.
The Front National has seen its requests for a loan for the presidential electon campaign of its leader, Marine Le Pen, turned down by French banks, said the party's secretary-general, who claimed that political motives were behind the lenders' refusal.
The 2,800 square metres of electricity-generating panels are laid along a stretch of road in the village of Tourouvre-au-Perche in a two-year test to see if they can provide power for street lighting.
Newly-elected French rugby federation head Bernard Laporte said the national team is to end selecting foreign players who, under current rules, may play for France if they have resided in the country for more than three years and have not previously been selected for any other national team.
In a rare move, General Pierre de Villiers wrote an appeal in French financial daily Les Echos calling for military spending to increase to 2% of GDP over the next five years, including an upgrading of nuclear arsenals, in order to protect France from against "the full spectrum of threats".
Morgan, one of France's best-known 20th-century actresses, who starred opposite Raimu, Jean Gabin, Humphrey Bogart and Frank Sinatra, died at her home in Paris
As campaigning for next year's presidential elections approaches, an opinion survey finds centrist former economy minister Emmanuel Macron is most popular of French politicians, ahead of conservative presidential candidate François Fillon.
The pileup, on the A87 near Sainte-Flavie-des-Loups, involving dozens of trucks and cars that crashed in thick fog, left at least five people dead and another 20 injured, one of them in a serious condition.
The teenagers, who were removed from the notorious 'jungle' camp in Calais and placed in a reception centre in south-west France, staged a protest at the refusal by British authorities to allow 39 of them to settle in the UK.
