France has officially expressed its readiness for 'bilateral dialogue' over the theft of artifacts looted during a French army colonial campaign in present-day Niger in 1899, although it has stopped short of acknowledging responsibility for the simultaneous massacre of thousands of unarmed locals.
Gisèle Pelicot, who was widely admired for choosing to appear publicly for the trial of her former husband who organised his wife's repeated rape by strangers after drugging her, has been made a 'knight' of France's highest award for merit, the Legion of Honour.
In a speech on the eve of the Bastille Day military parade, and hot on the heels of a rare public appearance of his chief of military staff who warned that France had become Russia's primary target in Europe, President Emmanuel Macron on Sunday announced a steep increase in military spending, saying 'There are no more rules, it’s the law of the strongest that wins'.
The French president said the EU should be ready for a trade war and to stand up to his US counterpart who, before his threat this weekend to impose 30% tariffs on EU goods, had been expected to approve a 10% tariff agreement with the bloc.
Pro- and anti-independence representatives from France's strife-torn Pacific Ocean territory of New Caledonia, meeting together near Paris, have reached agreement on a new status for the archipelago, to be submitted for parliamentary approval, which would allow islanders dual French and New Caledonian 'nationality', creating greater powers for the local parliament, while also opening up the right to vote to those who have settled in New Caledonia for ten years or more.
Financial weekly magazine Challenges reports that an unprecedented number of wealthy people were asking to be removed from its yearly ranking of the richest individuals in France over fears that detailing their fortune would attract criminal interest.
For the yearly Avignon Festival, the largest performing arts festival in Europe, held every summer in the former papal city in southern France, rising summer teperatures have become an existential threat, when days sweltering under more than 40 Celsius are no longer a rarity, causing serious effects on audiences and workers.
The sails of the red windmill on top of the landmark Moulin Rouge cabaret in the Montmartre district of Paris are back rotating again more than a year after they collapsed to the ground, an event celebrated by a street party of the venue's dancers performing the high-kick can-can dance that made its fame in the late 19th century.
The very first Birkin bag, a design collaboration between French fashion house Hermès and the Paris-based late British actress and singer Jane Birkin, has been sold at a Sotheby's auction for 8.58 million euros (10 million dollars) to a Japanese buyer, a record price for a handbag.
At a joint press conference in London, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron, who was wrapping up a three-day state visit to the UK, announced their agreement over a pilot scheme for migrants reaching Britain in small boats whereby some arrivals would be detained and returned to France while the UK would accept an equivalent number of asylum seekers.
