France | featured news

With its long vacations, short hours and myriad workers' rights, France has a reputation for being a hard place to do business. Now add this to the mix: A law working its way through parliament would grant amnesty to workers who have ransacked their company's offices or threatened their bosses during a labor dispute.

A major al-Qaeda base has been dismantled by French forces in the remote mountains of northern Mali, France's Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian says.

The US has deployed 100 troops to Niger to assist French forces in neighbouring Mali, President Barack Obama says.

Even as the euro zone periphery starts to spy some glimmers of hope, concern is mounting that Germany is drifting apart from other countries at the core of the single currency bloc, notably France.

President Francois Hollande has confirmed that a French family of seven -- three adults and four children -- have been kidnapped in northern Cameroon.

As jihadists start an insurgency in Mali, US officials say France should stay in the lead.

France's lower house of parliament on Tuesday approved a sweeping bill to legalize gay marriage and allow same-sex couples to adopt children, handing a major legislative victory to President Francois Hollande's Socialists on a divisive social issue.

The measure, approved in the National Assembly in a 329-to-229 vote, puts France on track to join about a dozen mostly European nations that allow gay marriage and comes despite a string of recent demonstrations by opponents of the so-called "marriage for all" bill.

Europe's horsemeat scandal is spreading, as French consumer safety authorities say companies from Romania, Cyprus and the Netherlands were part of a supply chain that resulted in horsemeat being disguised as beef in frozen lasagna sold around the continent.

The UN should begin planning for African-led forces in Mali to become a full peacekeeping mission, France tells the Security Council, as clashes continue.

French President Francois Hollande's approval rating jumped this month from a record low, improving for the first time since he took office after sending troops to Mali to battle Islamist rebels.