France was on Friday preparing for a second day of travel cancellations and school closures as unions warned there would be no let-up in the strike called to protest planned pension reforms.
The first day of a strike, seen as a major test for President Emmanuel Macron’s ambitious vision of reforming France, saw giant rallies across the country coupled with walkouts that paralysed transport and closed schools.
Friday was set to follow a similar pattern, with almost all high-speed train services cancelled, most of the Paris metro system shut down and hundreds of flights set to be axed.
AFP 
A nationwide strike brought much of France to a standstill on Thursday with more than half a million people hitting the streets to protest the government’s planned overhaul of the pension system, one of President Emmanuel Macron most ambitious reforms.
The huge demonstrations across the country added to walkouts that paralysed transport services and closed schools, with international high-speed rail disrupted and flights cancelled.
In the capital as well as in the southeastern city of Lyon and western city of Nantes police fired teargas to disperse small groups of rioters but protests were mainly peaceful.
Macron’s government has yet …
Nigeria was the main country of origin of the migrants arriving across the Mediterranean to Italy in 2016 and 2017, though their numbers have since dropped.
Many of the arrivals were women and girls lured to Europe with false promises of jobs as hairdressers or seamstresses, only to find themselves selling sex on arrival to repay their debts.
Nigerians now outnumber Chinese or
President Emmanuel Macron on Monday urged France’s Muslim community to step up the fight against “separatism” as he toughened his rhetoric against Islamic radicalism in the wake of a deadly attack.
Macron, a centrist whose main political rival at home is far-right leader Marine Le Pen, has sought to show he is serious in cracking down on Islamic radicalism in France following the October 3 attack by a Muslim convert at Paris police headquarters that left four staff dead.
In a pre-recorded interview with RTL radio broadcast on Monday, Macron said he planned to fight, alongside Muslim leaders, against religious …
France said Sunday it was “worried” after Kurdish authorities reported that hundreds of relatives of foreign jihadists had escaped from a displacement in northern Syrian camp in an area under Turkish assault.
France has been hit by a wave of jihadist attacks since 2015, many claimed or inspired by the Islamic State group, and has expressed concerns that a Turkish assault on Kurdish forces at the helm of the fight against IS in Syria would bolster the radicals.
Kurdish authorities and foreign powers have warned repeatedly that fighting could allow jihadists to break out of captivity.
“Of course we are …
The president of the Confederation of African Football Ahmad Ahmad has been arrested in a Paris hotel by French police.
According to Jeune Afrique, Ahmad was picked up around 8:30 am at the Berri Hotel in Paris, by the services of the Central Office for the fight against corruption and financial and fiscal offences (Oclif).
It said the arrest may be related to the alleged misappropriation and corruption involving French company, Tactical Steel.
Former secretary-general of the confederation Amr Fahmy accused Ahmad of corruption before he was sacked in April.
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A package blast on a pedestrian street in the heart of France’s city of Lyon wounded several people Friday, officials said, just two days ahead of the country’s hotly contested European Parliament elections.
President Emmanuel Macron called the blast an “attack” during a live Facebook interview, adding that no deaths had been reported “for the time being”.
The area where the explosion occurred, on a narrow strip of land between the Saone and Rhone rivers in the historic centre of the southeast city, was evacuated and cordoned off by police, according to AFP journalists at the scene.
A police source …
Five residents at a retirement home in southern France have died and more than a dozen others are in a serious condition after a suspected case of mass food poisoning, officials said Monday.
Twenty-two people at the privately operated Cheneraie residence in Lherm, a town south of Toulouse, began showing symptoms including vomiting after dinner on Sunday, police said.
Four deaths were initially announced by officials, and a source close to the investigation later told AFP that a fifth person had died.
The victims — four women and a man — were aged between 72 and 95.
Toulouse prosecutor Dominique …
