France

PARIS, April 7. /TASS/: The visit of French President Emmanuel Macron to China hasn’t caused a turnaround in Beijing’s position about the Ukrainian conflict and Russia, Le Monde reported on Friday.

The French president on Thursday tried to convince his Chinese counterpart "to bring Russia to its senses," but Chinese President Xi Jinping "has not broken the benevolence displayed by Beijing towards Moscow," the newspaper said in a story about the talks of the two leaders.

PARIS, April 7 (Xinhua) -- As French President Emmanuel Macron is paying his state visit to China, French businesses are eyeing more opportunities from broader cooperation between France and China.

"We have already seen potential opportunities in the market, which makes us even more bullish about China's economic outlook and prospect," Fabrice Megarbane, president of L'Oreal North Asia Zone and CEO of L'Oreal China, told Xinhua in a recent interview.

PARIS (AP) — Protesters disrupted vehicle traffic at Paris’ main airport and police fired clouds of tear gas in other French cities in the latest round of strikes and demonstrations Thursday against President Emmanuel Macron’s contested pension reforms.

Macron’s drive to raise the national retirement age from 62 to 64 has ignited a months-long firestorm of public anger.

Talks between trade union leaders and Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne broke up Wednesday without a breakthrough, setting the stage for protesters’ return to the streets.

MARSEILLE, April 3 (NNN-AGENCIES) — At least three people died and another eight were injured after a flare up in gang violence in the crime-plagued French port of Marseille overnight on Sunday-Monday, police said.

Three separate shooting incidents have increased fears that tit-for-tat violence between rival drugs gangs is spiralling higher after a spate of fatal shootings over the last month.

PARIS, April 3(Reuters) - President Emmanuel Macron said on Monday France must improve the availability of palliative care and there would be a draft bill by the end of the summer on whether some form of assisted dying should be allowed.

He said the bill would build on the work of a group of 184 randomly appointed French citizens who have debated the issue since December. They concluded their work this weekend with 76% of them saying they favoured allowing some form of assistance to die, for those who want it.

PARIS (AP) — French authorities see the police as protectors who are ensuring that citizens can peacefully protest President Emmanuel Macron’s contentious retirement age increase. But to human rights advocates and demonstrators who were clubbed or tear-gassed, officers have overstepped their mission.

PARIS, March 31 (Reuters) - French President Emmanuel Macron will head to China next week for a rare visit to the rising superpower, in an awkward balancing act between his global statesman ambitions and his struggle to contain embarrassing pension protests at home.

The French leader, whose decision to ram much-disputed pension legislation through parliament earlier this month sparked clashes and violence in French cities, is trying to keep his busy diplomatic schedule on track.

PARIS, March 28 (Xinhua) -- Some 740,000 people took to the streets in France on Tuesday in renewed protests against the government's pension reform bill, the French interior ministry said.

However, France's largest union, the General Confederation of Labor (CGT), estimates the number of protesters was much higher than the official figure. According to the CGT, more than 2 million people nationwide took part in Tuesday's demonstrations.

Most of the protests were peaceful, although participants wearing black balaclavas looted a supermarket in Paris.

PARIS (AP) — Sanitation workers in Paris are set to return to work Wednesday amid heaps of trash that piled up over their weekslong strike as protests against French President Emmanuel Marcon’s controversial pension bill appeared to be winding down.

Trash mounds of up to 10,000 tons along the French capital’s streets — reportedly equal to the weight of the Eiffel Tower — have become a striking visual symbol of opposition to Marcon’s bill raising the retirement age from 62 to 64.

PARIS (AP) — Protests and strikes against unpopular pension reforms gripped France again Tuesday, with many thousands marching and the Eiffel Tower closed and police ramping up security amid government warnings that radical demonstrators intended “to destroy, to injure and to kill.”

Concerns that violence could mar the large demonstrations prompted what Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin described as an unprecedented deployment of 13,000 officers, nearly half of them concentrated in the French capital.