U.S. President Barack Obama reaffirmed in a phone call with his French counterpart Francois Hollande on Wednesday Washington's commitment to end spying practices deemed "unacceptable" by its allies.
The United States National Security Agency spied on French presidents Jacques Chirac, Nicolas Sarkozy and Francois Hollande, WikiLeaks said in a press statement published on Tuesday, citing top secret intelligence reports and technical documents.
Italy stepped up calls for a change to European asylum rules on Sunday as neighboring states tightened border controls, turning back African migrants and leaving hundreds stranded at the frontier in northern Italy.
French President Francois Hollande and German Chancellor Angela Merkel have called on Russian President Vladimir Putin to rapidly implement measures agreed under the Feb.12 Minsk ceasefire, Hollande's office said in a statement.
France and Saudi Arabia believe that any future deal between Iran and six major powers must ensure not to destabilise the region further and threaten Iran's neighbours, the two countries said ahead of a summit in Riyadh on Tuesday.
France's tough line in talks with Iran and a similar analysis to Gulf Arab states on regional crises has sealed strategic new links in the Middle East that will be cemented when President Francois Hollande attends a regional leaders' summit next week.
French authorities have identified some of their troops accused of sexually abusing children in Central African Republic while there on peacekeeping duties, a French judicial source said on Thursday.
Armenia marked the centenary on Friday of a mass killing of Armenians by Ottoman Turks with a simple flower-laying ceremony attended by foreign leaders as Germany became the latest country to respond to its calls for recognition that it was genocide.
As many as 700 migrants were feared dead on Sunday after their boat capsized in the Mediterranean, raising pressure on Europe to face down anti-immigrant bias and find money for support as turmoil in Libya and the Middle East worsens the crisis.
Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy wants to rechristen his UMP party "The Republicans" - but more as part of a calculated bid to consolidate his own political comeback than in homage to similarly-named fellow U.S. conservatives.
Voting started in France on Sunday to elect thousands of local councillors in a test of the far-right National Front's growing hold on grassroots politics.
The British, French and German foreign ministers are due to meet Iranian nuclear negotiators in Lausanne on Saturday, European diplomatic sources told Reuters, adding that a final decision would depend on talks among officials on Friday.
The naming of a political insider with no art background to run Paris's Centre Pompidou modern art museum has triggered charges that France's credibility in the world of culture will suffer as a result of nepotism.
The leaders of Russia, Germany and France agreed to Ukraine's proposal to ask the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) to help with the implementation of the ceasefire agreement in eastern Ukraine, officials said after a four-way phone call on Monday evening.
A French lawmaker who went to Damascus for the first talks with Syrian officials since the 2012 closure of France's embassy there faces possible ejection from the ruling Socialist Party, its chairman said on Thursday.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Wednesday additional sanctions against Russia are "teed up" should events in eastern Ukraine warrant them, and he suggested a decision may come soon.
European Union leaders are discussing possible further sanctions to penalize Russia over the crisis in Ukraine, European Council President Donald Tusk said on Friday.
Germany condemned the seizure of a strategic east Ukrainian town by pro-Russian rebels on Wednesday as a "massive violation" of a ceasefire, but said it was too early to call the broader Minsk peace plan dead or ratchet up sanctions against Moscow.
Egyptian jets bombed Islamic State targets in Libya on Monday, a day after the group there released a video showing the beheading of 21 Egyptian Christians, drawing Cairo directly into the conflict across its border.
Police shot dead a 22-year-old Danish-born gunman on Sunday after he killed two people at a Copenhagen synagogue and an event promoting free speech in actions possibly inspired by an attack on the French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo, authorities said.
