Theme: France

Several regional facilities of the French Blood Establishment (EFS) were affected on November 2 by a cybersecurity incident that hit cold storage room monitoring and control systems, according to the French Health Ministry. The situation is now under control and the safety of blood supplies was preserved thanks to monitoring and alarm systems — no health impact has been identified and no blood products have been lost, the EFS said, with collection and hospital deliveries continuing normally. Hackers accessed control units for fridges containing blood samples and programmed them to raise temperatures to 110°C, according to local media. The incident followed attacks that forced stores in eight European countries to throw away vast quantities of food after hackers tampered with their fridges on Monday.

Europe’s far-right leaders began to distance themselves from Donald Trump after the Democrats’ victory in the US midterm elections, but mostly avoided directly criticizing the president, according to Reuters, in a text republished by Al-Monitor. Jordan Bardella, leader of France’s National Rally, said Trump’s second term was less isolationist than his first, from 2017 to 2021, and that “American intervention regarding Iran carries very heavy consequences” for economies around the world, without mentioning Trump as being behind that intervention. Santiago Abascal, leader of Spain’s Vox, made little attempt to temper his move away from Trump, telling reporters he was “in Spain and not in Michigan,” and that he cares “very little about what happens in other places.” Rupert Lowe, leader of the British party Restore Britain, blamed the decision to attack Iran for the Republicans’ defeat, calling it a “catastrophic mistake,” and wrote in his X post: “What has this war achieved? Absolutely nothing of worth.” Lowe did not include in the text the name of the president who launched the war.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot called the outcome “very good news for American democracy”, saying it is further proof that in a democracy the people write their own history. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said voters had rejected hatred, sexism, climate change denial and privileges for elites, and that the far-right wave “is no longer growing: it is crumbling”. German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) “must become more European in order to be able to remain transatlantic”, and that Germany is taking on more responsibility and a larger share of the burdens within the alliance. British Prime Minister Andy Burnham said the world now has an opportunity to unite around the cost of living and expressed hope that the Strait of Hormuz would reopen. Austrian Foreign Minister Beate Meinl-Reisinger said Austrian and European security and prosperity must not depend on how people in Kansas or Iowa vote.

A cybersecurity incident altered the operating parameters of cold chambers at supervision and control installations in three regional sites of the Établissement français du sang (EFS) on Monday. According to Le Canard Enchaîné, the chambers that store donor samples at -30 °C were set to 110 °C. The EFS said no health impact had been identified and that there were no blood product losses to report. Coolworld, the refrigeration company serving the EFS, said only a limited number of units were affected, through remote monitoring software that relied on a third-party component. The case came shortly after a wave of suspected attacks on supermarket refrigerators and freezers in a dozen European countries, France among them; it is not yet known whether the episodes are linked.

French authorities said a cyberattack on several blood banks sought to raise temperatures to extremely high levels and was thwarted before it could do any damage to blood products or samples. The French Blood Establishment (EFS) said “temperature and defrosting thresholds were raised to extremely high levels” on Monday at three of its cold-storage sites for plasma, and that no health consequences were identified and no blood products were lost. The attack hit a supplier of refrigeration equipment at three EFS sites. France's national cybersecurity agency and the Health Ministry are investigating the incident. The incident comes after supermarkets in several European countries reported that their fridges and freezers warmed up after being remotely taken over, with tons of spoiled food at a total cost of millions of dollars.

The French bank Crédit Mutuel Arkéa, based in Brittany, confirmed it had suffered a cyberattack detected by its services. Its leadership said it took “the decision to temporarily suspend certain transactions in order to secure operations and prevent any new fraudulent movement”. The newspaper Le Télégramme reported that 133 million dollars (118 million euros) disappeared, an amount the bank does not confirm, and Le Monde reported the attack with losses estimated at 118 million euros.

13 people and three companies are standing trial at the Paris criminal court for complicity in tax fraud and money laundering by an organized gang, for having allowed more than a hundred wealthy French taxpayers to escape at least €54 million in taxes between 2007 and 2018. Other proceedings over the scheme are under way in Belgium and Switzerland. The newspaper L’Humanité points to €200 million that the accused are alleged to have made disappear from the tax authority’s radar, through offshore companies and bank accounts in several countries.

France has opened a judicial investigation into a war crimes complaint over an Israeli strike on a residential building in Lebanon, according to the complainant’s lawyer, Clemence Bectarte, speaking to AFP. French-Lebanese artist Ali Cherri, whose parents were killed in the Beirut strike in 2024, filed the complaint as a civil party this year with the International Federation for Human Rights. The crimes against humanity unit of the Paris Judicial Court appointed two investigating judges to the case, a decision the lawyer called “a first.”

France’s Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez confirmed at the National Assembly that the country is holding technical discussions with the Taliban authorities to return Afghans in an irregular situation. Nuñez cited Germany as a precedent and said some of these Afghans may pose threats to public order, making it a priority to be able to return them. Green MP Léa Balage accused the government of a beginning of normalization of diplomatic relations with a regime that commits crimes against humanity and practices gender apartheid. France has not had diplomatic relations with the Taliban since the group’s return to power in August 2021, and a diplomatic source said the talks do not call that position into question.

ADNOC Gas will supply up to 1.6 million tons of liquefied natural gas (LNG) to TotalEnergies over five years, under an agreement announced on Tuesday by the gas unit of Abu Dhabi’s state energy firm and the French oil major. The first LNG deliveries will begin as early as this year, according to TotalEnergies. OilPrice notes that LNG flows through the Strait of Hormuz have been severely constrained for eight months and that the United Arab Emirates (UAE) remains confident that long-term global demand will stay on the upside. The Ruwais LNG project, under development in Abu Dhabi, will have 9.6 million tons per annum of capacity, most of it already committed to buyers in Asia and Europe under long-term agreements.

The French judiciary opened a judicial investigation into a war crimes complaint over an Israeli strike on a residential building in Lebanon, according to a lawyer who spoke to AFP on Tuesday. The crimes against humanity unit of the Paris Judicial Court appointed two investigating judges to the case, a move the lawyer described as a first. The complaint, seen by AFP, concerns the November 26, 2024 bombing that killed seven civilians, including Cherri's parents, aged 87 and 77, in a 12-story building in central Beirut; three floors were destroyed.

Nearly 3,000 military personnel from 12 European nations are taking part this month in Poland in Exercise Koalicja, running November 9–22, 2026, according to the BBC, a rehearsal, led by the UK and France, of how to move, protect and supply a multinational force in Ukraine if there is a peace deal.

The so-called Coalition of the Willing holds on November 9, 2026 its first large-scale military exercise in Poland, in Nowa Deba in the southeast, with nearly 2,800 soldiers from 10 countries in the region bordering Ukraine. The Koalicja exercise runs until November 22. France and the United Kingdom are the main contributors, alongside Estonia, Lithuania, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and Belgium. The alliance, led by France and the UK, has 36 nations and does not include the United States.

French high school students resumed school blockades on Monday, and the country is bracing for more protests. President Emmanuel Macron called for classes to resume after the government announced new measures to address the education crisis, which student groups found insufficient. The head of a student union had said on Sunday that the blockades would restart on Monday.

French students blocked some high schools on Monday, November 2, as they returned from the autumn holidays, determined to reinvigorate the protest movement despite government concessions during the break. Turnout for the blockades is uncertain, and the students vow to “keep up pressure”.

Five Britons detained in France on suspicion of harassing migrants were fined, expelled and banned from entering the region for six months on Sunday, November 2, according to French authorities. An aid group had accused them of violence against undocumented migrants, but investigations found no evidence of violent offenses, prosecutor Charlotte Huet said in a statement on Sunday.

French prosecutors opened an investigation into attempted murder after Molotov cocktails were thrown at security forces during Saturday’s protests in Paris, according to Al Jazeera. The prosecutor’s office said that “explosive devices were thrown at around 15 gendarmes as well as police officers,” referring to military police officers who are part of the French armed forces, and that no suspects had been arrested at this stage. The gendarmerie said 13 members of the injured officer’s unit were hurt, and the interior ministry counted more than 770 arrests across France.

Five Britons arrested on Thursday in Dunkirk on suspicion of violence against migrants were banned from appearing in the Nord and Pas-de-Calais departments for six months for carrying weapons, Le Monde reported. They drove along the coast in a minibus they had nicknamed “the battle bus” and livestreamed images of intimidation against migrants on a social network, according to the newspaper.

France’s Interior Ministry counted 779 arrests on Saturday, “without major incident in the second part of the evening”, according to RFI. Pierre Sourzat, head of the “Lyceens!” student group, said that some high schools will be blockaded from Monday, November 2, 2026, when students return from a two-week holiday, according to The Hindu. The blockade campaign will restart on Monday, he said, adding that the government’s proposals did not go far enough.

Hundreds of thousands of protesters, most of them young, returned to the streets across France on Saturday in a third consecutive weekend of demonstrations over living costs and education, according to the Associated Press (AP). France’s government estimated 320,000 protesters nationwide on Saturday, fewer than in previous protests, and about 70,000 police and gendarmes were deployed, with Paris marches rerouted to the edge of the capital.

Rioters looted several shops in Frankfurt late on Saturday and clashes erupted in the city and in other German cities after largely peaceful mass protests over the cost of living. Frankfurt police said windows of several shops were smashed and Molotov cocktails were thrown at emergency services, and there were incidents of violence in Berlin, Cologne and Hamburg, with police using water cannon. The demonstrations, organized by the group Gen Z regelt, took place in 34 cities, including Berlin, Frankfurt and Munich, against compulsory military service and for more investment in education, amid the cost of living. Authorities in Frankfurt, Munich and Berlin counted as many as 18,000 protesters, roughly half of the organizers' estimate. In France, more than 320,000 people demonstrated on Saturday and 565 were arrested across the country, and a police officer was struck by a Molotov cocktail in Paris.

More than 560 people were arrested across France by Saturday night, according to French authorities cited by the Associated Press (AP), in a third consecutive weekend of protests over living costs and education. In Germany, rioters smashed storefronts in downtown Frankfurt and stole weapons from a gun store, which police later recovered, according to the Korea Herald.

France’s government estimated 320,000 protesters nationwide on Saturday, with about 70,000 in Paris, in a third consecutive weekend of demonstrations against the cost of living and inequality, according to AFP. The estimate was lower than in previous protests, according to AP. More than 500 people were arrested and police fired water cannon and tear gas to disperse rioters on the sidelines of the demonstrations, according to AFP.

France’s interior ministry estimated that around 320,000 protesters took part in demonstrations across the country on Saturday, while student unions counted nearly half a million, according to France 24.

France is bracing for a third weekend of protests, with police deploying 70,000 officers to prevent a repeat of the riots and looting that have swept the country in recent weeks, and in Germany protests are scheduled in more than 30 cities on Saturday, the Guardian reported.

France will deploy about 70,000 police officers in Paris and other cities ahead of a new round of nationwide protests on Saturday, with Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez warning of a very high risk of public disorder, France 24 reported. According to Le Monde, Nuñez said demonstrations will be allowed, but not in city centers, where there is a risk of public disorder.

Shops and other businesses in Paris and other cities boarded up their windows on Friday, as France braced for a third consecutive weekend of protests coinciding with Halloween celebrations, according to Le Monde. Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said on Thursday that demonstrations would be allowed, but “not in city centers, where there is a risk of public disorder.”

France imposed new restrictions on Israeli defense companies ahead of the Euronaval maritime defense exhibition, set to open near Paris on Tuesday, November 3, continuing the French policy of the past two years — in October 2024 Israeli companies were initially barred from Euronaval, a decision later overturned by a commercial court in Paris, according to Defense & Tech reporting cited by the Jerusalem Post. At next week's show, Israeli companies may display only air defense and missile interception systems, with official Israeli representatives barred, Ynet reported.

The problem on the network of France's biggest telecoms provider Orange first hit at 11:37 a.m. on Monday and lasted until 8:30 p.m., with outages of up to nine hours for some customers, Orange France CEO Jérôme Hénique told Le Figaro, according to the South China Morning Post (SCMP) — at the core of the outage was a software bug in Nokia's code, new to Orange and “extremely complicated to find”.

Christine Lagarde’s early departure from the presidency of the European Central Bank (ECB) gives current European Union (EU) leaders time to pick a successor well before a French presidential election that polls show far-right candidate Marine Le Pen is favorite to win, according to Reuters, in a text republished by Euronext. The former central bank governors of the Netherlands and Spain, Klaas Knot and Pablo Hernández de Cos, are seen as frontrunners to replace her, according to Reuters. The ECB said Thursday that Lagarde will resign February 7, nine months ahead of the end of her eight-year term, according to AP.

France’s Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez warned of a very high risk of public disorder and announced the deployment of around 70,000 police officers for a new wave of protests this weekend, according to Le Monde. Demonstrations will be allowed, but not in city centers where there is a risk of public disorder, with a pledge of an extremely firm response, also according to Le Monde.

France's anti-terrorism prosecutor's office confirmed Thursday that Kevin T., 39, had been formally charged with murder and attempted murder in connection with a terrorist enterprise, after admitting he targeted people who appeared to be Muslim, African or North African, according to Al Jazeera. Last Friday he fired from his car at people in the towns of Trappes and La Verrière, west of Paris, killing one and wounding seven others, including a child; most of the victims had foreign heritage.

TotalEnergies booked $9.1 billion in third-quarter adjusted net income, doubling earnings from a year earlier, with historically high refining margins and the Middle East conflict driving up liquefied natural gas (LNG) prices and refining results, according to OilPrice.

UN experts said excessive use of force, violence and mass arrests are not appropriate responses to a social protest movement in a State governed by the rule of law, referring to nationwide marches in France. The experts condemned police crackdowns, warning they deter demonstrators from exercising their rights.

An Iraqi court on Tuesday sentenced six French nationals to life in prison and a seventh to 15 years after convicting them of membership in the Islamic State (IS) group, a Reuters witness inside the courtroom said, France 24 reported. The men were among 47 French IS suspects transferred from detention facilities in northeast Syria to Iraq last year under a broader relocation arrangement coordinated by US forces and Iraqi authorities.

French President Emmanuel Macron promised on Monday that his government would announce a package of measures in response to weeks of street protests over a broad set of grievances, according to Reuters, in a text republished by Quews News. Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said earlier that further disturbances are expected on October 31, and the interior ministry deployed 70,000 police for Saturday’s demonstrations, which unions called to denounce the high cost of living and public services.

Marine Le Pen, France’s far-right candidate to succeed Emmanuel Macron, kicked off her presidential campaign Sunday vowing to “restore the rule of law” if elected next year, according to AFP. At a large rally in Orléans before thousands of supporters, she called for a “rebirth of France” and again promised to restore “rule of law” after another weekend of protests across the country, according to Euronews.

France is working with allies on a forward deterrence plan involving the creation of new infrastructure, communications, early warning, intelligence sharing and deployments of nuclear-capable Rafale jets, which the UK, Germany, Poland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Finland, Norway, Sweden and Denmark have joined to varying degrees since March, according to The Jerusalem Post.

France’s far-right candidate to succeed President Emmanuel Macron, Marine Le Pen, vowed on Sunday in her first campaign speech to “restore the rule of law” if elected next year, according to Le Monde.

Storms battered northern Europe on Sunday, cutting power to more than 150,000 homes, forcing the cancellation of hundreds of flights and silencing phone networks, according to AFP. Authorities in the countries said more than 82,000 homes in Britain, nearly 60,000 in France and at least 10,000 in Germany had power cuts inflicted by storms Boelo and Austen within 24 hours of each other. Amsterdam's Schiphol airport cancelled dozens of flights on Sunday; AFP counted some 90 cancelled flights on the airport website, mainly to European cities including Paris, Rome and Dublin.

France’s interior ministry said on Sunday that police arrested 1,314 people in weekend protests across the country and that 53 officers were hurt in clashes. The ministry also said police responded to 75 fires during Saturday’s protests and that 24 shops were looted. Late on Saturday, interior minister Laurent Nuñez spoke of two serious injuries among protesters, one in Toulouse and one in Clermont-Ferrand.

Hundreds of thousands marched across France on Saturday protesting the rising cost of living and a lack of government resources for essential services like schools. Nearly 1,000 people were arrested as fresh clashes erupted during nationwide protests against the rising cost of living and fuel prices, The Hindu reported.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baqaei said that France, Germany and the United Kingdom, known as the E3, and Middle Eastern foreign ministers must examine the root causes of military conflict in the region, according to the Middle East Eye. He condemned what he called the E3’s double standards over their inaction in the face of US and Israeli military aggression against Iran, their comprehensive support for Israel and their destructive approach to Iran’s nuclear issue.

Nearly 1,000 people were arrested across France on Saturday at the end of another day of protests that drew hundreds of thousands and ended in clashes, according to the BBC. The interior ministry said an estimated 410,000 people protested nationwide, while the unions put the number at about 800,000. After largely peaceful demonstrations, police fired tear gas and water cannon in a number of cities including Paris, and barricades were set alight in Marseille.

The French Interior Ministry put nationwide turnout at 410,000, including 110,000 in Paris, according to the Associated Press (AP), in a text republished by PBS NewsHour. The Paris prosecutor’s office said 64 people had been arrested in connection with Saturday’s demonstration in the capital and 40 placed in police custody, including six minors. Near the march’s endpoint at Porte de Vincennes, some protesters threw projectiles while police fired volleys of tear gas and used water cannons to disperse people. Authorities had confined the capital’s march to the city’s southeastern edge, keeping protesters away from central neighborhoods.

The Louvre, the Musée d’Orsay, the Picasso Museum and the Grand Palais, which is hosting a major exhibition of works by Paul Cézanne, closed their doors on Saturday, on a new day of protests in France. In Orléans, thousands of people shouted anti-fascist slogans as they marched against Marine Le Pen and against Emmanuel Macron.

France is set to deploy more than 70,000 police officers and gendarmes for a new round of protests against deteriorating school conditions and the rising cost of living, according to Al Jazeera. Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said police had arrested 135 people and seized a variety of weapons as they deployed for nationwide demonstrations, according to DW. President Emmanuel Macron condemned what he called a “racist terrorist attack” after a gunman opened fire from a car west of Paris on Friday, killing one person, wounding a 12-year-old girl and injuring four others.

Police in Lyon fired tear gas to disperse around 150 protesters who briefly blocked a road near the city centre, where demonstrations had been banned, according to TRT World. In Paris, armoured vehicles were stationed near the Élysée Palace, where the security perimeter was expanded beyond its usual size, according to TASS. In Orléans, thousands of people marched against Le Pen and against Macron, yelling anti-fascist slogans.

The Louvre, the Orsay Museum, the Picasso Museum and the Grand Palais are closed on Saturday in Paris because of planned protests, France 24 reported. Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said as many as 70,000 officers will be deployed nationwide, along with helicopters, armored vehicles and water cannons.

The French government deployed 70,000 police officers and special agents for protests planned for this Saturday (24) in several cities, according to G1. The demonstrations come a week after protests against the high cost of living drew more than 500,000 people, according to estimates from the country's press. In Orléans, the municipality hosts on Saturday and Sunday (25) a congress of the National Rally (RN), the far-right party of presidential candidate Marine Le Pen.

France and the United Arab Emirates have revived plans to jointly develop an upgraded Rafale fighter jet after talks stumbled earlier this year, officials said, according to the Hindustan Times. The project, for which France’s 2027 draft budget earmarks €3 billion ($3.36 billion), has returned to the top of the agenda after the joint plan by France and Germany for a next-generation fighter aircraft collapsed, according to Reuters, in a text republished by Euronext. The UAE is France’s biggest customer of the Rafale warplane, built by Dassault Aviation.

French President Emmanuel Macron condemned as a “racist terrorist attack” the shooting that killed one person and wounded five in the Paris suburbs, including a 12-year-old girl shot eight times, according to the SCMP. The gunman fired from his car on Friday. Macron visited Trappes, the working-class town southwest of Paris where the attack took place and which is suspected of having targeted people of foreign origin. Amid protests in the country, the president met student union representatives, France 24 reported.

France and the United Kingdom carried out their first joint nuclear air strike simulation, with French Rafale jets in a mock mission called “Rummy” escorted by British Royal Air Force Typhoons, according to The Times of Israel. The exercise comes as Paris and London deepen nuclear coordination amid rising tensions with Russia.

The French authorities announced the first ever reported human infection with Shamonda virus (SHAV), a disease that has until now only affected animals, according to a statement from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC). The case involved “a patient receiving treatment for a serious illness that made them more susceptible to infection and complications than the general population”, according to the ECDC. The man died in early October, and France is investigating “whether the virus caused or contributed to the patient's death and how the infection was acquired”. SHAV was detected in Europe for the first time last summer, in France, and has since been identified on farms in Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain and Switzerland.

France will deploy some 70,000 police officers across the country for this weekend's protests, the government said on Friday, after some of the worst urban violence in years erupted on the sidelines of demonstrations a week ago. In a statement to the Associated Press (AP), the Culture Ministry said the Louvre, the Orsay and Picasso museums, as well as the Grand Palais, would be closed. Justice Minister Gérald Darmanin said courts have already sent 217 people to prison over the events on Saturday, half of them first-time offenders. President Emmanuel Macron, according to aides, is postponing a visit later this month to Nigeria and Senegal amid the crisis. He held a meeting of his defence council of top ministers and officials and was to meet security forces.

A shooting left one person dead and four wounded on Friday in Trappes and neighboring La Verrière, west of Paris, according to TRT World. France’s National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor’s Office said it is investigating the case as “murder in connection with a terrorist enterprise”, the outlet reported. The individual was arrested and placed in police custody, and all security forces were fully mobilized, TRT World reported. The BBC reported at least one dead and four injured in the Paris suburb.

French President Emmanuel Macron said “illegitimate” demonstrations will be banned in the coming days as the country seeks to get a grip on civil unrest. Paris police banned a student protest planned for Thursday, and Lyon authorities declared a ban on “all protests” on Saturday, Le Monde reported. Students had held four weeks of protests before the October 17 rallies. Protests planned for Thursday in Paris, Lyon, Lille and Grenoble were also banned, DW reported.

President Emmanuel Macron said only authorised union protests will be allowed in French towns and cities on Saturday, after demonstrations across the country turned violent last weekend. The Rhône prefecture decided to prohibit by decree any demonstration in the city of Lyon this Saturday, “in light of the events of 17 October”. At least 2,500 people have been arrested across France since the disorder broke out, and Macron met intelligence services and ministers on Thursday to prepare for the next national day of protests, according to the BBC.

French authorities confirmed that a patient who died at a Lyon hospital earlier in October was infected with the Shamonda virus, the first such report of the virus in a human, according to Al Jazeera. In a statement on Thursday, the French Ministry of Agriculture stressed that there were no identifiable health risks to the general population at this time. France’s Health Ministry said the patient had “severe immunodeficiency” and was receiving treatment for a serious illness at the Hospices Civils de Lyon, TRT World reported.

French President Emmanuel Macron said on Thursday that “illegitimate” protests would be banned in the coming days and that he would convene a defence council under his chairmanship on Friday, while protests by organised groups such as unions would be offered alternative routes to protect businesses, according to France 24. Only union-organised protests would be authorised during nationwide demonstrations on Saturday, he said. In Lyon, the Rhône prefect decided to ban by decree all protests in the city this Saturday, October 24, according to The Hindu.

French President Emmanuel Macron began on Monday, October 19, a Gulf tour aimed at securing oil and diesel supplies in an effort to bring down prices, after a weekend of violent protests sparked by soaring living costs, according to Le Monde. Macron acknowledged security and intelligence failures but refused his interior minister’s resignation, after more than 2,500 people were arrested in some of France’s worst violence in years, with town halls and shops looted and set on fire, according to RFI.

Qatar and France called for a complete Israeli withdrawal from Gaza under the agreed ceasefire arrangements and an end to settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank, according to TRT World. The two countries reaffirmed the need to restore freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz without constraints or fees, according to a joint statement from the Élysée Palace. Macron and Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani backed full implementation of the Gaza ceasefire and a diplomatic way out of tensions with Iran, according to Al Jazeera.

French President Emmanuel Macron made a surprise “solidarity” visit to Riyadh and became the first Western leader to land in Saudi Arabia since the Houthis intensified their attacks this month, Al Jazeera reported. The trip comes as Saudi Arabia agreed to supply extra diesel to France “for as many months as necessary”, the Elysee Palace told Agence France-Presse (AFP) on Wednesday.

The yield on France's benchmark 10-year government bond surpassed 5% on Wednesday, its highest level since 2002, as investors demanded a higher return for holding the country's debt amid a budget standoff and violent street protests, according to Le Monde. According to the newspaper, the spread over the German 10-year bond, the eurozone's credit benchmark, surged to nearly 160 basis points.

President Emmanuel Macron criticized world leaders on Wednesday for making stupid comments about the rioting on the sidelines of protests in France and said images generated by artificial intelligence showed scenes that never took place in France, alongside claims that the country had been invaded by hordes of migrants and Islamists. According to Le Monde, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday that France had been hit by an invasion of extremist Islam, and US President Donald Trump said what is happening in France has to do with immigration.

A Mirage 2000D fighter jet crashed in north-eastern France during a training flight, killing at least one crew member, and an air force spokesman said at least one crew member was apparently unable to eject, with a young trainee pilot and a very experienced weapons officer on board, according to Le Monde.

Fresh curfews were imposed across the city centers of Paris and Lyon on Tuesday after the first quiet night since the worst rioting in years, adding open-ended bans to the entry-and-stay ban already applied in Paris, according to NPR. Paris police said the curfew in two zones — around Place de la République and the Les Halles shopping district — had restored public peace and would remain in place for as long as necessary, and Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu said the deployment of forces for Saturday’s protests will be massive, with Sentinelle troops guarding sensitive sites.

French security forces arrested a man on Tuesday believed to be linked to ultra-left movements over the burning down of a historic town hall in Limoges, according to The Hindu. The man, 34 according to a source with knowledge of the case, was detained by officers of the RAID unit in the nearby town of Val d’Issoire, the Limoges prosecutor’s office said, and the Counter-Terrorism Sub-Directorate (SDAT) was called in to investigate the suspected arson of the 1883 building, whose roof and belfry collapsed. In parliament, deputies reached an agreement on Tuesday to create a commission of inquiry into the weekend violence, according to Carta Capital.

Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani and French President Emmanuel Macron discussed ways to strengthen economic, investment and defence cooperation at Lusail Palace in Doha, according to TRT World. The French tour of the Gulf from October 19 to 21 aims, according to the French presidency, to consolidate strategic and economic partnerships with Gulf states and to support multilateral initiatives to restore regional stability and safeguard freedom of navigation through the Strait of Hormuz.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said France has been hit by an “invasion of extremist Islam” after weekend protests over economic conditions degenerated into riots, according to the Times of Israel. In an interview with i24News, he said, according to the interpreter's translation, that French leaders “did not prepare in time” and “succumbed to the invasion of extremist Islam”. Netanyahu also said he told French President Emmanuel Macron after the October 7, 2023 attack that “if we do not eliminate them here, you will have them in Paris”, according to the Hindustan Times.

Paris police banned people from entering or remaining in areas around the Place de la République and in the Les Halles district from Monday night until 6 am on Tuesday, the dpa news agency reported. Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu said one of the aims of the curfew is to protect people and also property, in particular shops.

The French government will reinforce police with troops and mount a large security operation for protests planned for Saturday, the government said on Tuesday, according to the South China Morning Post (SCMP). Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu said “the deployment next Saturday will be massive” and that the immediate priority was to restore order after rioting and looting hit Paris, Marseille, Lyon and other cities on October 17. He also said further curfews will be imposed where necessary, according to NHK World.

French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu said in Parliament that the security deployment for next Saturday will be massive, acknowledging that the operation for last weekend’s protests had been too static and not mobile enough, according to France 24.

The spread between French and German 10-year yields is the highest since the closing levels of January 2012, when the eurozone was in the midst of a credit crisis that required interventions by the European Central Bank, according to Le Monde. The yield on France's 10-year OAT government bond rose to 4.94% on Tuesday, more than 150 basis points above the comparable German government bond, considered the European benchmark of creditworthiness. The Guardian puts the spread at 143.6bps, on track for its highest closing level since early 2012, amid a wave of street protests in France.

French President Emmanuel Macron has secured the delivery of an additional 200,000 tonnes of diesel per month from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain during a tour of the Gulf, France 24 reported. With the addition of deliveries from Saudi Arabia, France has commitments for 295,000 tonnes per month, just over 10 percent of its consumption, the French presidency added.

France saw a calm night after the first curfews and will impose new curfews in areas where needed on Tuesday, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP), in a text republished by RFI — Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu said the previous day's measures helped keep the night calm and police confirmed the night passed without major incidents across the country, according to the same agency.

France's Interior Ministry said more than 2,300 people were arrested and almost 1,000 police and gendarmes were injured in Saturday's protests — when President Emmanuel Macron declined Interior Minister Laurent Nunez's offer to resign and Nunez admitted losing control in major cities after hundreds of shops were looted, according to Al Jazeera.

The student protest that shook France over the weekend brought about 500,000 people into the streets, according to G1. On Saturday alone, about 2,400 people were arrested and nearly 1,000 police officers were injured, according to the Interior Ministry.

US President Donald Trump blamed immigration for the unrest in France, saying Paris will be a Muslim city very soon: “The whole world was coming in, and as you know, Paris is going to be a Muslim city very soon, and that wasn’t the deal,” he said, adding: “We closed our borders. He didn’t.” Vice President JD Vance, a day earlier, wrote on X that “Western liberals imported the third world into France”. The Saturday protests, called over rising fuel prices and falling purchasing power, escalated in several cities, leaving a historic town hall torched and 1,800 arrests, according to The Guardian.

AI-generated photos falsely claiming to show an elderly couple “stripped and robbed” during unrest in France have racked up millions of views, amplified by far-right accounts that fueled inflammatory claims about Muslims, Jews and the riots. The Paris prosecutor’s office, contacted by Libération’s CheckNews, said that as of Monday — around 48 hours after the alleged incident — there had been no reports to that effect.

Paris police announced a curfew in specific areas of the city, from Monday night until Tuesday morning, and banned protests in certain areas overnight, Le Monde reported. “I’m absolutely determined to restore public order,” Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu said, adding that the government was ready to impose a state of emergency “if needed”. Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez offered to resign on Monday, after more than 2,500 people were arrested and nearly 1,000 members of the security forces injured. On Saturday, some half a million people turned out across France to denounce the surging cost of living, a culmination of four weeks of protests that began with high school students.

French President Emmanuel Macron arrived in Kuwait on Monday, where he was welcomed by Emir Sheikh Mishal Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, TRT World reported. The four-country tour seeks additional oil and diesel and will take him to the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Qatar by Wednesday; according to the broadcaster, the trip is also meant to improve the safety of energy shipping routes disrupted by the war between the United States and Iran.

French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu said on Monday he does not rule out imposing a state of emergency to restore order, speaking after a crisis meeting, France 24 reported. He said he had asked regional authorities to impose “localised” curfews on Monday evening, notably to protect businesses.

Students blocked access to the Louvre Museum in Paris on Monday, in support of ongoing high school protests and to denounce what they described as police repression, TRT World reported. Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu asked regional authorities to impose curfews in some cities on Monday evening. Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said, according to Le Monde, that he could not look shopkeepers in the eye after hundreds of shops were looted on Saturday and tell them the police had not lost control.

French President Emmanuel Macron admitted failures after the weekend of violent protests, following failures in anticipation and intelligence that worsened the crisis and the admission by Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez, in an interview on Monday, that police “lost control” in some cities. On Saturday, over half a million mainly peaceful protesters demonstrated against rising living costs and access to public services before the escalation.

French President Emmanuel Macron refused the resignation of Interior Minister Laurent Nunez, despite criticizing security “failures” after the weekend protests, which ended with nearly 2,400 people arrested and almost 1,000 police officers and gendarmes injured, according to the Interior Ministry. Florian Philippot, leader of the French Patriots party and a presidential candidate, called on Macron to resign amid the protests.

French President Emmanuel Macron blamed “unrestrained violence” on “insurrectionist elements from radical far-left groups, joined by numerous criminals”, according to The Hindu. Marine Le Pen, who leads first-round polling for the 2027 presidential election, described Macron as a president “without credibility or authority” who had “lost all touch with reality”, according to RT, calling his government “a government on its last legs.”

US President Donald Trump said France is burning and that immigration has shattered the country, urging border closures, according to The Hindu. Vice President J. D. Vance wrote that Western liberals imported the Third World in the name of diversity while ignoring questions of assimilation and compatibility.

Detentions in Saturday’s protests across France rose to 2,397, according to the Interior Ministry cited by Agence France-Presse (AFP), and 997 police officers were injured, seven of them seriously. The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) reported about 2,400 people arrested and about 1,000 police officers injured, seven of them seriously. In a Sunday address, President Emmanuel Macron said “nothing justifies” the “unbridled” violence seen in nationwide cost of living protests.

The French government was in crisis talks on Sunday after one of the most violent days of unrest in years left public buildings burned and hundreds of shops destroyed and looted, The Guardian reported.

Roughly 1,500 shops and retailers were damaged during the protests that swept France over the weekend, many of them looted, according to the head of the Retail and Trade Federation, cited by France 24.

French President Emmanuel Macron will deliver a televised address on Sunday night, at 9:00 p.m. Moscow time (6:00 p.m. GMT), in connection with the October 17 unrest, according to the Elysee Palace, in a TASS report citing Le Monde. Organizers count 800,000 participants in the rallies, while the Interior Ministry puts the figure at 550,000, according to TASS.

France counted 1,800 people arrested in the national tally of the violent protests, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP). The demonstrators were protesting against rising fuel prices, the cost of living and deteriorating public services, including schools, according to the BBC.

Police in Paris arrested 855 people during Saturday’s protests, a record for a single event, according to The Guardian. The city’s mayor, Emmanuel Gregoire, said whole streets in the capital were devastated. In Limoges, central France, the town hall was largely lost to a fire set by masked protesters, the top regional official told the AFP news agency.

Lebanon’s president, Joseph Aoun, told French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot that, if extending the mandate of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) proves impossible, the country welcomes any arrangement that ensures an international presence in the south, prevents a vacuum and avoids placing the Lebanese army in direct contact with the Israeli army, according to The Times of Israel. Barrot’s two-day visit to Beirut was aimed at discussing mechanisms for an international presence in the south, the scene of repeated conflicts between Israel and Hezbollah.

More than 1,200 people were arrested in France on Saturday after protesters supporting high school students clashed with police, with some demonstrations later spiraling out of control as buildings were set ablaze and shops looted, according to The Guardian.

Masked Israeli settlers attacked a delegation of European diplomats in the occupied West Bank, assaulting a French mayor and damaging cars, according to the BBC. The delegation also included officials from Belgium and Poland, according to Al Jazeera. French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot demanded that Israel crack down on criminal violence after a French mayor was beaten by Israeli settlers in the West Bank, and top US diplomat Marco Rubio said the United States is very disturbed by footage of the assault and urged Israeli authorities to crack down on violence across the territory, according to TRT World.

Belgium condemned on Saturday an attack by Israeli settlers on a convoy of European diplomats in the occupied West Bank, during which a visiting French mayor was beaten. Witnesses told the Middle East Eye that diplomats from the French, Belgian and Polish missions had driven to Taybeh, a largely Christian village in the occupied West Bank, when settlers arrived to stop Palestinians from picking their olives. Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar also condemned the attack, calling it “rioter” violence.

The CGT, France’s biggest trade union, said more than 500,000 people have joined Saturday’s nationwide protests over the cost of living, according to France 24. A protester had their hand blown off by a police crowd-control grenade, a police source told Agence France-Presse (AFP), and masked protesters smashed the glass doors of Lille’s town hall as they forced their way in.

Israeli settlers attacked a diplomatic delegation that included the French consul in the occupied West Bank village of Taybeh, according to Middle East Eye. The village’s mayor, Suleiman Khourieh, told Al Jazeera that the settlers launched the attack on Saturday afternoon, the outlet reported.

Protesters attended a demonstration against the “high cost of living” in Paris, according to an AFP photo dated October 17. French police fired tear gas at demonstrators in Paris who were protesting against rising prices and what they described as the erosion of the country’s social model, according to the Times of India. Clashes were also reported in Marseille, where protesters hurled projectiles at police, who responded by deploying tear gas.

Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, asked EU leaders for at least €70 billion more and said the war will cost €155 billion next year, asking for at least €70 billion “for defence, for weapons, and for our resilience”. French President Emmanuel Macron is temporizing after Kyiv’s request, according to Le Monde.

France is set for nationwide demonstrations on Saturday, after weeks of student protests, France 24 reported. The Yellow Vest movement, which eight years ago staged street protests against President Emmanuel Macron, has appealed to teachers, workers, pensioners, farmers and students to join.

Far-right leader and presidential candidate Marine Le Pen said in Brussels that France can no longer finance Ukraine, citing the country’s high deficit and weak economic growth, according to France 24.

A cyberattack targeted a Danish software system used in at least 380 supermarkets in France, forcing some stores to throw out frozen produce, according to The New York Times.

More than 160,000 schoolchildren, students and trade unionists marched in cities across France as protests over high school education continued into a third week, according to The Guardian. France’s interior ministry said 161,500 people had turned out across the country on Tuesday, after more than 260,000 last Tuesday and 75,000 on Thursday. Swedish activist Greta Thunberg joined an early morning protest outside the Lycée Paul Éluard in the Paris suburb of Saint-Denis and said: “Young people are not being included in the conversation.” Riot police fired teargas at the end of Tuesday’s marches in Nantes and near the Montparnasse area of Paris, and an estimated 90% of France’s universities were disrupted, according to the newspaper.

The French navy boarded the oil tanker DF Peak, suspected of helping Russia evade Western sanctions, south of the French Indian Ocean territory of Réunion, according to RFI. French President Emmanuel Macron confirmed the boarding took place on October 12, more than 450 nautical miles south of Réunion. The DF Peak, previously named Kaliningrad, sailed under the flag of Benin and is sanctioned by the United States (US), the European Union (EU), Switzerland, Canada and Japan, according to the Kyiv Independent.

Houthi military spokesman Yahya Sarie said Aramco facilities are legitimate targets and called on employees and civilians to evacuate the sites, according to The Jerusalem Post. The French embassy in Riyadh told French nationals to avoid the airports in Riyadh, Jeddah and Dammam and to avoid travelling to those cities unless necessary, according to France 24. The Saudi-led coalition urged civilians to evacuate the Yemen Oil Company’s Sabah central station in Sanaa ahead of a planned military operation, according to France 24.

A cyberattack raised the temperature of refrigerators and freezers at hundreds of supermarkets in France to as high as 50°C, causing fires and spoiling food, according to The Hindu. The Paris prosecutor’s office said on Monday (October 12, 2026) that a “large-scale” attack was affecting connected refrigerators at several major food retailers across the country, leading to food losses and fires. According to Al Jazeera, shelves were left empty across France, as hackers remotely raised temperatures and forced hundreds of stores to discard food.

France readied on Tuesday (October 13, 2026) for fresh nationwide demonstrations in support of students who have been protesting poor classroom conditions for weeks, with authorities and participants wary of further violence, according to The Hindu. Demonstrations on Thursday (October 8, 2026) saw more than 70,000 people take to the streets across the country, with about 500 people arrested. On Monday (October 12, 2026), only 130 of France’s 3,700 lycees were closed, according to the education ministry, which stated that “the number of school closures is falling... the violence is intensifying”.

A Toluna Harris Interactive poll for French broadcasters M6 and RTL, cited by RT, projects Marine Le Pen winning the runoff of the 2027 presidential race, with 67% against Jean-Luc Melenchon and 56% against former Prime Minister Edouard Philippe, and leading all five first-round scenarios tested, with 35% to 37%.

The French Navy boarded the tanker DF Peak south of Réunion on Monday, on suspicion of sailing under a false flag and involvement in fuel transport trafficking, Emmanuel Macron announced. According to Le Monde, the DF Peak, sailing under the Beninese flag, is on the EU sanctions list and has been suspected of belonging to the Russian shadow fleet since June 25, 2024, when it was called Kaliningrad. The interception took place on the morning of October 12, more than 450 nautical miles south of Réunion, and the vessel is under sanctions from the United States, Canada, the EU, Ukraine, Switzerland, Japan and the United Kingdom, according to United24 Media.

French supermarket chains, including Intermarché and Coopérative U, were hit on Monday (12) by a cyberattack against the refrigeration control systems of the Danish manufacturer Danfoss. According to BFMTV, the attackers reportedly hijacked that function overnight, imposing a forced and continuous defrost with the temperature set at 50 degrees. AFP reported that French supermarket chains say the cyberattack forced the shutdown of refrigerators.

Raphaël Glucksmann won the French centre-left primary with 66.13% of the vote and will be the centre-left candidate in France’s 2027 presidential election. Glucksmann, 46, who leads the Place Publique movement, won in the first round with an outright majority. More than 120,000 people voted, far fewer than the 2.8 million who took part in the Socialists’ 2011 primary.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas postponed legislative elections due next month until September 11, 2027 on Saturday and called a presidential poll for the same date, according to Reuters, in a text republished by The Jerusalem Post. France called on the Palestinian authorities to reverse their decision and to organize parliamentary and presidential elections throughout Palestine as soon as possible, according to the same report. Hamas endorsed Abbas's decision to postpone the Palestinian Legislative Council elections, originally scheduled for November 28, until September 11, 2027, according to The Jerusalem Post.

Air France has agreed to enforce an Israeli order barring pilots and cabin crew of certain nationalities from flights to Israel, including those from Muslim-majority countries, according to a Mediapart investigation reported by Middle East Eye. The restrictions cover 31 nationalities, including Algerian, Tunisian, Iranian and Pakistani citizens, and also affect French citizens with dual nationality. Israel's Ministry of Transport issued the directive on October 1, requiring crew in Israeli airspace not to hold the nationality of a country without diplomatic relations with Israel, according to Israeli broadcaster N12.

Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Esmaeil Baghaei, accused French President Emmanuel Macron of a double standard on nuclear deterrence, according to Mehr News. In a post on X, Baghaei said that during a test of a ballistic missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead, Macron said that in order to be free, one must be feared, and to be feared, one must be powerful. According to Baghaei, Macron asserts regarding Iran, which has never sought to acquire nuclear weapons, that the country “must never possess nuclear weapons. Neither today, nor in five years, nor in ten years. Never.”

French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu promised a comprehensive government response at the end of October and rejected accusations of a police crackdown, as students press for more resources, building repairs and additional teachers. More than 6,000 people have been taken into police custody in recent weeks and hundreds of schools have closed, most of them minors with no previous criminal records. The Ministry of National Education said that 224 schools were completely closed and 151 were partially reopening, based on projected figures.

Employees of a French cargo company refused to load an Elbit Systems security shipment onto an El Al aircraft scheduled to fly from Paris to Israel on Saturday evening, according to N12 News. Israeli security officials intervened in an attempt to resolve the issue, according to N12.

The European Union (EU) will support 46 new strategic projects to accelerate supplies of critical raw materials by 2030, including lithium, gallium and rare earths for the auto, defence and renewable energy industries, with a funding cost of €21bn, according to The Guardian. The stated goal is to reduce dependence on China, which controls much of these essential raw materials, and six of the new projects are in France, across 16 countries, with eight for mining, 11 for refining and 19 for recycling, according to Le Monde.

The French government has promised 3,000 supply teachers in the coming days for schools with the greatest need, its first sign of giving ground to the teenage protesters, according to the BBC. Education Minister Édouard Geffray pledged to deploy the 3,000 replacement teachers to address the crisis in French high schools, France 24 reported. The government says 6,877 people have been arrested since protests began, 86% of them under the age of 18.

In France, 141 high schools remain closed on Friday, on the fifth day of student protests, with Minister Edouard Geffray pledging 3,000 additional supply teachers, while officials count 71,500 demonstrators on Thursday, 24,500 in Paris, with 504 arrests and 48 officers injured, according to France 24.

The French police have made more than 6,600 arrests since late September, when students, most of them under 18, began protesting to demand more education funding, according to the Interior Ministry. On Thursday, students barricaded the Lycée Hélène Boucher in northeastern Paris with garbage bins before police moved in with tear gas, according to the Associated Press. The Education Ministry said 375 schools were fully or partially closed on Thursday. Al Jazeera recorded the use of tear gas and water cannons against students in Paris.

The homemade bomb left outside Bank of America’s Paris branch, in the city’s 8th arrondissement, on the night of March 27, was an operation orchestrated by pro-Iran groups, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) concluded in a letter rogatory dated July 29 sent to French justice, according to Le Monde. According to the FBI’s investigations, an Iraqi identified as Mohammad A.-S., arrested in Turkey, is suspected of having orchestrated 18 attacks or planned attacks in Europe between March and May against American interests or targets linked to the Jewish community, in response to the military offensive the US and Israel launched against Iran in February.

France and Saudi Arabia are studying options involving French military assets to protect the Yanbu oil terminal, France’s Armed Forces Chief of Staff, General Fabien Mandon, said in a parliamentary hearing, according to Middle East Eye. France has already deployed around 2,000 troops to the region to protect Gulf allies, including Qatar and Kuwait, Mandon added.

High school students across France were preparing for a fresh day of protests on Thursday, with entrances blocked at hundreds of schools since late September, according to AFP, in a text published by Pakistan TV. The protests, on a second day of mass mobilization in the week, denounce missing teachers, overloaded timetables and dilapidated classrooms. More than 6,500 people, mostly minors, have been arrested since the mobilization began, according to AFP, in a text republished by The Standard.

France’s interior minister suspended on Wednesday the use of stun grenades by police at student-led demonstrations, as allegations of police brutality mounted after days of sometimes violent demonstrations across the country.

The French foreign ministry summoned Iran’s ambassador on Wednesday over a disinformation campaign targeting France’s student protest movement, according to France24. Ministry spokesperson Pascal Confavreux said the misleading content disseminated by official Iranian ministry accounts was absolutely unacceptable and that the provocations had to stop. On Tuesday, Tehran had summoned France’s envoy in Tehran over what it called the violent treatment of demonstrators, according to Reuters, in a text republished by the Jerusalem Post.

About 250 thousand demonstrators took to the streets across France on Tuesday, with unions and teachers joining high school students demanding better learning conditions, according to France 24. Protests with student walkouts spread across the country and closed schools amid public discontent, according to The Washington Post. A French policeman was charged with violence after firing a tear gas grenade at close range at a 14-year-old student during last week’s protests, according to France 24.

France test-fired its new M51.3 nuclear-capable ballistic missile for the first time on Tuesday, a variant of the M51, launched from the Le Vigilant nuclear submarine off Brittany, according to the French defence ministry. The missile carried no warhead and impacted in the North Atlantic, hundreds of kilometres from any coastline. President Emmanuel Macron made an unexpected appearance at the launch, according to Le Monde.

Police fired tear gas at protesters blockading French high schools on October 6, according to Al Jazeera. Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu said there can be no tolerance for violence in the student protests, G1 Mundo reported. At least 715 police officers and 215 adolescents were injured in the clashes, according to Lecornu’s office. The Interior Ministry has arrested 6,100 people since the start of the protests, the majority of them minors, according to Al Jazeera.

France is set for nationwide strikes as school protests escalate, according to The New York Times. Between 400 and 500 French secondary schools had lessons suspended on October 5, after almost three weeks of pupil blockades, according to Brussels Signal.

A 15-year-old student had his hand blown off during a protest in Lens, northern France, after picking up a sting-ball grenade fired by riot police, authorities said. A police union source said he appeared to have picked it up to throw it back when it exploded in his hand. By late morning, 413 schools were subject to actions or disruptions, according to the education ministry.

France’s education minister, Edouard Geffray, said that security conditions have not been met in about 400 to 500 schools, which will be fully or partly closed on Monday, while organizers called for renewed large-scale protests on Tuesday, citing a lack of “concrete measures” from the government. Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez says that 1,747 people were arrested on Friday and 24 schools have been burned or ransacked since the protests began.

Lessons will be totally or partly suspended in 400 to 500 schools in France on Monday because security conditions “have not been fulfilled”, the education minister, Édouard Geffray, said on Sunday, according to The Guardian. The minister said 24 schools have been burnt or ransacked and 78 education staff members injured since student unrest began last week.

Hundreds of protesters took to the streets of Paris on Saturday against continued aid to Ukraine, in a national protest by the Les Patriotes party of Florian Philippot, according to RT. The protesters called on President Emmanuel Macron to halt the aid and pushed for France's withdrawal from the European Union and all supranational institutions, including the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

French police arrested around 5,000 people since Monday, most of them teenagers, and about 400 high schools — roughly one in 10 — were closed on Friday due to the unrest, according to Reuters. Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez confirmed nearly 5,000 arrests by early October, with 1,949 people detained on Thursday alone and another 1,747 on Friday, according to the Tehran Times.

The Trump administration unveiled sanctions against three individuals allegedly related to the Islamist militant group Hamas and against two charities based in France, according to The Guardian. Investigators alleged that the network moved more than $2m to Hamas “through deceptive charitable fronts and cryptocurrency channels”. All property in the US of those sanctioned is blocked and must be reported to the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).

Riot police clashed with students as education protests rage in France, according to the BBC. Student protests involve blockades and tear gas, according to The New York Times.

France approved 35 new sales of military equipment to Israel between May and September 2026, according to research by the rights groups Palestinian Youth Movement and Urgence Palestine. The items include cooling systems for tanks and missile launchers, helmet visors for helicopter and fighter-jet pilots, connectors and electronic equipment, as well as surveillance systems, all destined for Elbit Systems subsidiaries, according to the report seen by Middle East Eye.

About 400 schools in France remained closed on Friday (October 2) amid student protests, and the toll includes about 100 schools severely damaged and 40 headteachers injured, according to The Guardian. Nearly 3,000 high school students, aged 15 to 18, have been detained since the start of the protests, according to the Interior Ministry.

France’s Interior Ministry recorded 1,949 arrests on Thursday (October 1, 2026) in student protests marked by fires and blockades spreading across the country, according to the ministry, as cited by The Hindu. A total of 305 officers were injured in the clashes, according to the same report.

French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu called a crisis meeting on Thursday and told ministers to cancel travel plans to deal with the student protests, according to The Guardian. Police counted about 900 demonstrations, blockades and related incidents outside high schools across the country, with more than 160 shut down. Since the start of the protests, hundreds of high school students aged 15 to 18 have been detained, including 625 on Wednesday alone, according to the Interior Ministry, and more than 80 police officers and firefighters and 120 pupils and teachers have been injured.

The Trump administration told Germany and France to draw down emergency diesel inventories or face a potential US ban on exports of the fuel, according to Reuters, citing three people close to the discussions. The threat to ban diesel exports set off global alarms over prices and supply, according to The New York Times.

About 30 universities joined on Thursday (October 1) the high-school blockade movement spreading across France, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP). High-school students are demanding mainly the replacement of absent teachers and more resources for education. On Tuesday, teenagers set fire to rubbish bins and threw projectiles at police, who responded with batons and tear gas, according to France24.

A year-old deal between France and Britain to return migrants crossing the Channel illegally on small boats has come to an end, the UK interior ministry said on Wednesday. The deal was agreed last year under Keir Starmer, then UK prime minister, as part of a post-Brexit reset and to ease tension between the neighbours. According to UK figures, some 1,500 people had been returned to France and just under the same number had in turn been accepted by Britain, RFI reported, citing AFP.

The US 10-year Treasury yield breached a level last seen in April 2002, rising 4 basis points to 5.3338%, according to LSEG data. In Europe, the French 10-year yield rose 11 basis points to 4.9501%, Italy’s was up 10 basis points to 4.7171%, and the UK 10-year yield rose 5 basis points to 5.483%.

The Trump administration has told Germany and France to draw down emergency diesel inventories to help ease global fuel prices or face a potential US diesel export ban, according to Reuters. The request was reported by three people close to the discussions.

French security forces detained more than 600 people on Wednesday, while dozens of police officers and gendarmes were wounded in the escalation of protests, which included high school blockades, according to the interior minister, in an AFP text republished by the Hindustan Times. Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said 625 people were detained in the blockades, pointed to an “expansion of the movement” and condemned an “escalation of violence” outside certain schools.

The UK government has announced that the pilot “one in, one out” agreement with France to send back some migrants who cross the Channel has been scrapped. A pilot programme between the UK and France that aimed to curb the number of people crossing the English Channel in small boats to migrate to Britain has been scrapped, Britain’s government said on Wednesday. A spokesperson for the UK Home Office said the pilot with France to remove asylum seekers in exchange for an equal number of legal migrants is no longer processing new cases.

More than 400 people, mostly minors, were detained on Tuesday over student protests at high schools across France, the French interior minister said, according to the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). At least 400 schools were affected, with blockades driven by overcrowded classes and teacher shortages. Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez spoke of 440 people detained, with two thirds taken into police custody.

France’s far-right National Rally (RN) party and its allies secured a record 14 seats in the Senate, effectively quadrupling its number in the 348-seat chamber just months before a presidential election, according to The Guardian. It was the first time the party had cleared the 10-seat threshold to be able to form a Senate caucus. The party entered the Senate for the first time with two seats in 2014, when it was known as the National Front, and won three seats in 2023.

Marine Le Pen’s National Rally and its allies won 14 of the French Senate’s 348 seats and formed a parliamentary group in the upper house for the first time in the party’s history, according to France 24. It is the first time the party has cleared the 10-seat threshold for a Senate parliamentary group. Nine party senators were elected on Sunday, on top of the three who won seats in 2023 — the other two of the 14 seats won by RN and its allies went to allies.

Hundreds of thousands of people greeted Pope Leo XIV in the centre of Paris for a giant open-air Mass, according to the BBC. The Mass on the Place de la Concorde was due to start at 3 p.m. Saturday, and nearly 600,000 worshippers were expected, according to Euronews. According to the Vatican, 300,000 people cheered the pontiff as he passed through the streets of Paris in his popemobile on Friday.

Pope Leo XIV opened a four-day visit to France in Paris on Friday, September 25, 2026, with a warning that a “paradise of machines” risks undermining what it means to be human. At the Élysée Palace, before President Emmanuel Macron and diplomats, the pope raised existential questions about the meaning of the human in the age of artificial intelligence (AI) and reaffirmed the Vatican’s opposition to nuclear weapons, according to the Associated Press, via The Hindu. The schedule includes a vigil with young people, vespers at Notre-Dame and a Mass on the Place de la Concorde under Olympics-level security, with as many as a million people expected, the Associated Press reports.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu used the U.N. General Assembly tribune on Thursday, September 24, 2026, to attack Iran, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, critics and allies such as the United Kingdom and France, and rejected accusations of genocide in Gaza, Al Jazeera reported. Dozens of delegations walked out as the speech began, some jeering and booing, while Netanyahu’s own team stood and applauded; SBS News put the number of delegations that walked out at 77.

The French government said the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) arrest warrant against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not prevent the “Wing of Zion” official aircraft from overflying its territory en route to the United Nations (UN) General Assembly in New York, according to The Times of Israel. According to the newspaper, Paris argues the Rome Statute does not require an overflown state to arrest a suspect, and flight data show the plane also crossed Italian and Greek airspace, both states party to the treaty, according to Today.az.

Saudi Arabia is meeting military chiefs from Pakistan and Türkiye to discuss options under the Mecca pact, as France confirmed it is sending soldiers, radars and defense systems to guard the Yanbu oil terminal, according to Al Jazeera. The Houthis launched an offensive along the Red Sea coast this month, amid the U.S.-led war against Iran, with fighting spreading across Yemen, according to The Washington Post.

Pope Leo XIV begins on Friday, 25 September 2026, in Paris the first official papal visit to France in 18 years, according to Vatican News. The last papal trip classified as an official visit was Benedict XVI’s, in September 2008, Euronews recalls, which reports a four-day schedule including an address at the headquarters of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), a meeting with sexual abuse survivors in Lourdes and an open-air Mass in Paris with 600,000 people expected by French authorities.

French President Emmanuel Macron announced on Thursday, September 25, 2026, the deployment of soldiers, radar and air defense systems to protect the Yanbu terminal, in Saudi Arabia, after Houthi attacks on the East–West pipeline terminal on the Red Sea. According to the broadcaster, the mission is described as strictly defensive, with no direct combat against the Houthis.

Marine Le Pen said she does not want France to go to war with any nuclear power, recalling that Russia is a nuclear power, according to TASS; in an interview, she stated that under her presidency France would not contribute financial aid to Ukraine.

The Saudi-led coalition said it intercepted six Houthi ballistic missiles on Thursday, 24 September 2026, thwarting attacks on Taif and Yanbu, after warnings were issued for several regions of the kingdom, including Mecca. French President Emmanuel Macron said France planned to send “military assets, meaning soldiers, radars and defence systems to protect” the Red Sea oil terminal of Yanbu.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office called ‘grotesque absurdity’ French President Emmanuel Macron’s claim at the UN General Assembly that Hamas has never operated in the West Bank, according to Agence France-Presse, carried by Channel NewsAsia. The Israeli statement said Hamas militants attack Jews in Judea and Samaria, the Israeli name for the West Bank, ‘almost every day’ and that ‘ignorance is no excuse for erasing their blood’. The Jerusalem Post reports that Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich accused Macron of lying and cited the killing of a French-Israeli father of six in an attack attributed to Hamas in the West Bank on Sunday, September 20, 2026, two days before the speech. Macron spoke in French, and published renderings of his remark vary between ‘never operated’ and ‘never caused trouble’ in the West Bank; he criticised daily violations in the territory and called the humanitarian situation in Gaza ‘a spectacle that shames us all’.

Qatar’s prime minister and foreign minister, Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, condemned Israel’s declared rejection of the roadmap to complete the implementation of the plan to end the war in Gaza, at a closed meeting of heads of state and government convened by French President Emmanuel Macron, UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney on the sidelines of the 81st United Nations (UN) General Assembly in New York, according to Mehr News, citing Qatar’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. According to the ministry, Mohammed bin Abdulrahman urged the international community to press Israel to meet its obligations under the Gaza ceasefire agreement and to halt violations of Palestinian rights, and reaffirmed Qatar’s support for a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital. Israel rejected the 15-point plan put forward by the mediators in August and conditions any withdrawal from Gaza on Hamas disarming, according to Mehr News.

France’s government announced on Tuesday, 22 September 2026, a €450 million aid package to blunt a fuel price surge that pushed the average diesel price to €2.39 a litre. The spending lifts the state’s total for the year to €1.4 billion, Budget Minister David Amiel said. The main measure doubles, from €0.20 to €0.40 a litre, the subsidy for low-income workers who drive for a living and expands the number of beneficiaries from 3 million to 5.5 million, government spokesperson Maud Bregeon said. The tax-exempt ceiling on the fuel allowance employers can pay rises from €600 to €1,000 a year. Aid to fishing, farming and construction was extended to 31 December 2026, and fishermen who blocked Mediterranean ports last week will have up to 70% of their cost increase covered, plus access to zero-interest loans. Economy and Finance Minister Roland Lescure said there was no concern about supplies over the next two months. The surge stems from the closure of the Strait of Hormuz since the United States and Israel bombed Iran in February 2026, according to Politico and the Xinhua news agency, in a dispatch carried by Big News Network.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office on Tuesday, 22 September 2026, criticised French President Emmanuel Macron’s claim at the United Nations General Assembly that Hamas has never operated in the West Bank. “The grotesque absurdity of Emmanuel Macron’s statement is staggering,” the statement said, as carried by Middle East Eye and the Jewish News Syndicate (JNS). The statement cites the killing of Netanel Shukrun, a French citizen and father of six, who it says was shot dead in his car by a “Hamas terrorist” on Sunday, 20 September 2026, the eve of Yom Kippur, in the occupied West Bank — the region the Israeli government calls Judea and Samaria. “With his final breath, he told his son to run,” it says. “Hamas terrorists carry out attacks against Jews almost every day. They have murdered countless Israeli civilians in Judea and Samaria.” Macron had called the scenes in Gaza “shameful. A shame for all of us”, and said that “all those who claim that Israel’s security requires violating the sovereignty of all its neighbours are making a fatal mistake”, according to Middle East Eye. Netanyahu is expected to address the UN on Thursday, 24 September 2026.

French President Emmanuel Macron used his final address to the United Nations General Assembly as head of state to urge countries to recommit to international law and the UN system against what he called a resurgence of the “law of the jungle.” According to Agence France-Presse (AFP) and The Hindu, he called for a “double moratorium” halting strikes on civilian and energy targets in the war between Russia and Ukraine: “We must protect the civilian population, and this is why we’d like to express our support for a double moratorium, a moratorium on strikes on energy and civilian infrastructure.” On Gaza, he said that “some claim that peace has been achieved, but this has not opened up humanitarian deliveries” — “a spectacle that shames us all,” as he put it. Macron also proposed that countries pool investment capacity to build an open-source frontier artificial intelligence (AI) model: “I don’t want anyone to become the vassal of one of the great powers,” he said.

French president Emmanuel Macron said on Tuesday, 22 September 2026, in his final address to the United Nations (UN) General Assembly that countries must resist a “return to the law of the jungle” in international relations, at a moment when “the rhetoric of defeat” is “giving way to abuse of power by empires”. “The question put to us, in very simple terms, is whether we want to live in this state of nature, with a kind of return to the law of the jungle, or in a civilised international society,” he said, according to France 24, which carried the speech with AFP, and DW. On Gaza, Macron hammered the rostrum and said “the scenes, the spectacle, it is shameful. Shame on all of us”: “What is our credibility worth if we remain inactive on Gaza? Some claim that peace has been achieved, but this has not opened up humanitarian deliveries.” He said respect for the “legitimate rights” of the Palestinian people is a “prerequisite for security” for Palestinians and for Israel, and that “all those who claim that Israel’s security requires the violation of the sovereignty of all of its neighboring states are making a very fateful error”. On Ukraine, he proposed a “double moratorium”: an end to strikes by both sides on energy and civilian infrastructure, and a matching commitment in the Black Sea to allow “grain shipments” to flow. “Winter is coming,” he said. Turning to artificial intelligence (AI), he called on countries to pool resources to build an “open-source frontier model” independent of “one of the great powers”: “I don’t want anyone to become the vassal of one of the great powers,” he said, naming India, Brazil, Singapore, African nations and the Gulf states as possible partners.

A special court in Paris sentenced French citizen Othman Garrido, 32, to 30 years in prison on Tuesday, 22 September 2026 for murders committed as part of an organised group, with a 20-year period without parole eligibility. He was convicted over the public execution of two Iranians in Syria in September 2015 and acquitted of being their executioner; some 1,500 French nationals transited through Iraq and Syria to join the Islamic State group in the 2010s, according to Le Monde and Agence France-Presse (AFP). At trial, Garrido said he was forced to follow the group or risk death.

France signed a contract to deliver radars and interceptor missiles to Ukraine, French President Emmanuel Macron announced on Tuesday, September 22, 2026, after meeting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in New York, according to the Kyiv Post and United24 Media. Macron did not disclose the number or type of radars and interceptors, nor a delivery timeline. The announcement came the same day Russia hit industrial sites in Dnipro, Kryvyi Rih and Pavlohrad and Zelensky pressed for a new winter support package alongside France. Macron said he discussed the initiative with US President Donald Trump and that the two will work toward a moratorium on strikes against energy and civilian infrastructure, a proposal Ukraine conditions on Russian reciprocity.

French President Emmanuel Macron said on Monday, September 21, 2026, that his talks with Donald Trump in New York were “very constructive” and that there was a willingness to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran has blockaded during the war, according to the Hindustan Times. In the account he gave to reporters, “several solutions” were discussed that would allow, without a comprehensive deal, more container ships and tankers to move through the strait, along with the situation in the Red Sea, a route that has gained weight for oil shipments with Hormuz closed and where the seizure of a strategic strait by the Iran-backed Houthis has complicated navigation. On Ukraine, Macron said he pressed Trump to speed up the delivery of missile interceptors to Kyiv, “a defensive measure”, and said in a post on X that the two discussed the prospect of an “energy truce and a moratorium in the Black Sea”. Before the meeting, Trump had blamed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for part of the surge in diesel prices because of attacks on Russian refineries and called on him to stop hitting Russian diesel, according to Le Monde. Macron also met Zelensky on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.

Operators of civilian nuclear plants in the United States bought 13 million separative work units (SWU) of enrichment services in 2025 at an average price of $108.70 per SWU; 77% came from foreign suppliers, and Russia accounted for 26% of that foreign-origin SWU — ahead of France (18%), the United Kingdom (14%) and the Netherlands (8%), according to the annual uranium marketing report of the US Energy Information Administration (EIA). The 2024 US law that bans imports of Russian uranium lets the Department of Energy grant waivers when alternative supply is unavailable, and that authority expires in January 2028; new enrichment projects in the United States and among allies are not expected to reach commercial scale before 2029, according to Bloomberg. Foreign Policy reported on Tuesday that Russia remains the largest supplier of enrichment services to US nuclear utilities.