France

PARIS, Sept 23 (Reuters) - Diplomatic efforts by French President Emmanuel Macron in response to the war in Ukraine were a failure and "deeply harmful" for Kyiv, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the former NATO secretary-general, said in an interview published on Friday.

"It was not a success", Rasmussen, a former Danish prime minister who was one of the world's most-senior diplomats until he left the transatlantic defence alliance in 2014, told French magazine Le Point.

20 Sep 2022; MEMO: French President, Emmanuel Macron, held face-to-face talks with his Iranian counterpart, President Ebrahim Raisi, on Tuesday, with the French leader saying he hoped to be able to "discuss all subjects".

The meeting is Raisi's first head-to-head with a major Western leader since he was elected last year.

PARIS, Sept 18 (Reuters) - French far-right Rassemblement National leader Marine Le Pen said on Sunday that her party will vote against President Emmanuel Macron's pension reforms and against the 2023 budget.

"We will oppose Emmanuel Macron's pension reform plans that are unfair and will divide (the country)," Le Pen told a party meeting in Cap d'Agde in southern France.

Macron wants to start implementing the reforms, which mainly consist of a progressive rise to 65 of the legal retirement age, next summer.

PARIS, Sept 18 (Reuters) - France will recognise a state of natural disaster for Guadeloupe after heavy rain tied to the powerful storm Fiona caused flooding in the French Caribbean island, killing one man, President Emmanuel Macron said on Twitter on Sunday.

16 Sep 2022; MEMO: The European Court of Human Rights on Wednesday ruled that France must re-examine repatriation requests from two French women who travelled to Syria with their partners to join Daesh, and the children they gave birth to there, AFP reports.

According to the report, the Court ruled France's refusal to repatriate the women and children was in violation of the rights to "enter the territory of the state of which (one) is a national".

PARIS, Sept 16 (Reuters) - European flights faced widespread disruption on Friday as a French air traffic controllers' strike forced airlines to cancel half of those scheduled to arrive or depart Paris airports and others due to have flown over France.

Strikes and staff shortages in the past few months have forced airlines to cancel thousands of flights, dashing their hopes of a summer rebound after widespread COVID-19 lockdowns, with disruption continuing into the autumn. 

PARIS, Sept 15 (Reuters) - A Russian billionaire is suing French authorities in an effort to win back access to two of his yachts, arguing customs officials did not have the right to immobilise them despite him being on an EU sanctions list, his lawyer said on Thursday.

Alexey Kuzmichev, one of the main shareholders of Russia's Alfa-Bank, who was sanctioned by the EU in March for his ties to President Vladimir Putin, appealed the seizure of his ships "La Petite Ourse" and "La Petite Ourse II", held in the Cote D'Azur towns of Antibes and Cannes, respectively.

PARIS (AP) — A French court on Wednesday ordered a Yemeni airline that operated a passenger plane that crashed into the Indian Ocean in 2009 to pay damages to the flight’s lone survivor and the families of 65 French citizens who died.

The Yemenia flight departed from Paris, picked up more passengers in the southern French city of Marseille and made a stopover in Sanaa, Yemen, where 142 passengers and 11 crew members boarded another plane to continue to the capital of Comoros, an island nation off Africa’s east coast.

PARIS (AP) — French President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday announced a national debate on end-of-life options that will include exploring the possibility of legalizing assisted suicide.

A 2016 French law provides that doctors can keep terminally ill patients sedated before death but stops short of allowing assisted suicide.

Macron said in a written statement that a panel of citizens would work on the issue in coordination with health care workers over the coming months, while local debates are organized in French regions.

PARIS, Sept 10 (Reuters) - President Emmanuel Macron held his first telephone call with new British Prime Minister Liz Truss on Saturday with the French presidency saying the two agreed on their desire to strengthen co-operation.

The statement said Macron and Truss focused on the support for Ukraine and how to respond to the consequences of the conflict on food security and energy prices.