France

French Prime Minister Michel Barnier's hard-won new government faced pressure from day one on Sunday, as it came under fire from opponents on both the left and far right, which are now the largest blocs in parliament.

A series of arson attacks disrupted high-speed trains in France just hours before the opening of the Summer Olympics in Paris.

Two pistols that Napoleon Bonaparte once intended to use to kill himself were sold in France on July 7 for 1.69 million euros ($1.8 million), the auction house said, with the government insisting that they stay in the country as national treasures.

France, Belgium, Cyprus, Estonia and Hungary have signed a letter of intent to jointly purchase the French "Mistral" air defense systems, Reuters reports, citing sources familiar with the matter.

French President Emmanuel Macron has given himself 100 days to get the country back on its feet after weeks of protests and public anger over raising the retirement age from 62 to 64.

He asked the government to start talks with the unions on a wide range of issues.

French President Emmanuel Macron has defended his recent comments on Taiwan, in which he said France should not be drawn into an escalation between the US and China, the BBC reported.

Macron made the comments in an interview over the weekend following his three-day state visit to China. He also said that being an ally of the US does not mean being a "vassal".

Laurence Boone, France's minister of state for European affairs, expresses Paris' satisfaction at the lowering of Greek-Turkish tensions. Speaking to Kathimerini, she praises the Greek response to the earthquakes in Turkey and confirms France's abiding interest in the Mediterranean.

Protesters started a fire at one of French President Emmanuel Macron's favorite restaurants in Paris on Thursday during clashes with riot police at the upmarket left-bank brasserie.

Staff at La Rotonde in the Montparnasse area of the city were forced to put out flames on the awning of the restaurant where Macron held a victory party during his successful 2017 election bid.

"The law on the reform of the pension system was adopted in the French parliament and, if it passes the control of the constitutional council, then sooner or later it will have to be the topic for negotiating table, because regardless of the fact that the law has been adopted, it needs to be implemented, and that will not work easily because the unions in France are very influential," Duan Guja

Interior Minister Grald Darmanin said that an additional 12,000 policemen and gendarmes will be deployed across the country, 5,000 of which will be in Paris, French online television BFMTV reported.
Darmanin repeated that in France there is freedom of expression, but not the right to create riots and incidents at street protests.