France

France has begun withdrawing its troops from Niger after being ordered out of the West African nation by the leaders of the July coup that ousted the pro-Paris president, the military said Tuesday. 

Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy was on Friday charged as part of an investigation into possible witness tampering, adding to his long list of legal woes, including over illegal campaign financing.

French troops will begin withdrawing from Niger "this week", Paris said Thursday, after a falling-out with the military junta in power since a July coup.

Niamey has won big against neo-colonialism, but its enemies could now resort to a covert technique they've already used in Africa.

The French government said Tuesday it would host emergency meetings this week to examine surging numbers of reported bedbug cases, which are being increasingly seen as a major potential public health problem.

French rapper MHD has been given a 12-year jail term for the murder of a young man in Paris in 2018.

President Emmanuel Macron announced Sunday that France will end its military presence in Niger and pull its ambassador out of the country after its democratically elected president was deposed in a coup. 

French rapper MHD was sentenced Saturday to 12 years in prison for the 2018 murder of a young man in Paris who was rammed with a car before being set upon by a mob and stabbed.

French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin announced on Tuesday that France would not be taking in any of the migrants who arrived on the Italian island of Lampedusa last week. FRANCE 24 looks back at six years of French U-turns on immigration policies.

King Charles III on Thursday followed in his mother Queen Elizabeth II's footsteps by addressing lawmakers in the French upper chamber of parliament with a speech calling for strengthened ties to help tackle the world's environmental challenges.

President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday hosted King Charles III for a glittering banquet at France's former royal residence of the Palace of Versailles, as the British monarch kicked off a three-day state visit aimed at showing the underlying strength of cross-Channel ties even after Brexit.

President Macron lamented that the envoy in Niamey has been reduced to military rations

France's highest administrative court ruled Thursday that a school ban on abayas, traditional over-garments worn by some Muslim women, was legal.

The French education minister has said that nearly 300 pupils arrived at school on Monday wearing the abaya, the long Muslim robe which was banned in schools last week.

Thousands rallied Saturday in Niger's capital Niamey to demand that former colonial ruler France withdraw its troops as sought by a junta which seized power in June.

Why is it so often that problems seem to get worse just when they ought to be getting better?

A ban on rental electric scooters has come into effect in Paris in response to a rising number of people being injured and killed in the French capital.

Niger's military junta said it revoked the diplomatic immunity of France's ambassador and ordered police to expel him from the country, according to a statement. The French foreign ministry has said the junta, which seized power last month, has "no authority" to expel the French ambassador. 

Leading military figures in Gabon announced on Wednesday that they had placed President Ali Bongo Ondimba under house arrest in a bid to remove him from power after 14 years. The attempted coup comes days after Bongo was re-elected as president for the third time – a role he inherited from his father, former president Omar Bongo.

A group of senior military officers in Gabon announced on national television on Wednesday they had taken power and election results were annulled, just minutes after President Ali Bongo was declared to have won a third term. If successful the coup would represent the eighth since 2020 in West and Central Africa, a region that in the last decade had made strides to shed its reputation as a "coup belt", only for persistent insecurity and corruption to open the door to military leaders.