Three reactors at the Gravelines nuclear plant near Calais in north-est France shut down automatically after their coolant water filters became jammed by what operator EDF said was a 'massive and unpredictable' swarm of jellyfish.
To the backdrop of a second major heatwave in France this summer, a political debate has opened over the use of air-conditioning, which the far-right has promised to encourage with a 'major' national plan, and which the Left, beginning with the Greens, counters is only treating the symptoms of climate warming while fuelling it, rather than removing its underlying causes.
The vast wildfire that last week swept through around 16,000 hectares of land in the Corbières region of southern France also destroyed the 100-year-old vines of winemaker Jean-Marie Dubois and the stock of 1,300 bottles of his prized white wine.
An exhibition now on until November at the Paris Institut du Monde Arab is showcasing the rich history of what is present-day Gaza, displaying objects that trace the artistic and commercial development of a place that has been a crossroads of cultures since Neolithic times.
Media revelations about the use of outlawed filtering of mineral water by French companies, chief among them Nestlé's subsidiary Perrier, and allegations of a cover-up of the practices by both the firms and conniving ministers, are now joined by concern about the over-pumping of water tables which are fast diminishing amid the effects of climate change.
Local winemakers and mayors have blamed the state-subsidized uprooting of vineyards in the Corbières region of southern France, the scene of this weeks mega-wildfire, for the rapid spread of the flames which they claim would otherwise have been slowed by the moist plantations.
Amid increasing tensions between France and Algeria, notably over refusal by Algiers to accept its deported nationals and recognition by Paris of Morocco's sovereignty over the disputed territory of Western Sahara, president Emmanuel Macron has asked his government to adopt a tougher stance against the former French colony.
One person has died and at least nine others injured, one seriously, in what has become the largest wildfire in France since two decades, which by Wednesday afternoon had destroyed more than 16,000 hectares in the southern Corbières region, close to the Pyrenees, and which about 2,000 firefighters were still trying to contain 24 hours after it first erupted.
A 47-year-old Moroccan man is being held in police custody after he was filmed lighting a cigarette from the 'eternal flame' above the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, situated under the Arc de Triomphe on the Champs Elysées avenue in central Paris, in an act described by interior minister Bruno Retailleau as 'unworthy and deplorable'.
An undercover investigation by the BBC has exposed the activities and network of a violent gang organising clandestine crossings of the Channel to Britain from France.
