Valerie Trierweiler is long gone from the Elysée Palace, but the French people are still stuck with a whopping €481,000 bill from her short stay as France's first lady. Trierweiler was dumped by the president after details emerged of his fling with an actress.
A video has emerged of a violent running street battle that kicked off Sunday in central Paris between a mob of hardline Jewish youths and pro-Palestinian demonstrators who’d attacked a nearby synagogue.
A two-year-old boy was at the wheel of a car that ran over and killed his mother in suburban Paris as she was cleaning the vehicle, it was reported this week. The mother is believed to have pushed her older child out of harm's way before getting run over.
Lovers of French wine were crying into their glasses of plonk on Tuesday after a truck overturned and spilled its load of 18,000 bottles of a famous fine wine. Eulogies for lost tipple poured in on Twitter.
Paris's Velib' bike rental scheme turned seven on Tuesday and after a rocky start it is now firmly part of the City of Light's transport network. Here's seven key figures to mark the occasion including which foreign nationality is the fondest for the bikes.
Days after demonstrators, angry over the latest Israeli bombardment of Gaza, tried to storm two Paris synagogues, leaders of Jewish groups in France tell The Local that the community is braced for more anti-Semitic attacks.
France’s top financial watchdog has called for cuts of up to 20 percent in the fees charged in certain professions including taxi-drivers, pharmacists and bailiffs because customers are being stung by inflated bills.
The Louvre Museum is great and all, but Paris also has scores of weird museums that are worth a visit. Here The Local has gathered 10 creepy and/or fascinating exhibits that are must-sees while you're in town.
A probe has been launched after a young boy died and up to ten other children were left sick after visiting a French holiday camp, where the tap water was known to be contaminated. Several children and adults also fell ill at a separate summer camp in Brittany.
One hundred of France's leading luminaries have launched a campaign to oppose Europe’s negotiations with the United States that would create a massive free trade zone. The group are worried about a lowering of "social standards", as well as tainted American food products.
A French woman lay dead in her apartment for six years before a water leak led firefighters to stumble upon her skeleton this week. The macabre discovery comes on the heels of a report revealing the alarming number of elderly French people living in isolation.
Fed up French officials refused to airlift a Polish climber off the slopes of Mont Blanc, when he called for help after deciding he didn't want to walk down. The local French mayor blasted 'ad hoc' alpinists for being like 'urban consumers'.
Worrying details emerged on Wednesday about a would-be terrorist based in France who, before being arrested, discussed with an al-Qaeda linked terror group, the possibility of attacking the country’s biggest tourist spots like the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre.
Hikers recently found the frozen body of a mountain climber who disappeared on Mont Blanc over 32 years ago. Sadly two other families are just beginning their wait for news after two climbers vanished on the peak this weekend.
Pétanque is a game many in France might associate with daytime boozing and elderly men, but some take this quintessential Gallic pastime quite seriously, it seems. In fact one team dropped out of this year’s world championship after reportedly receiving death threats.
Driving in France might seem simple, but foreign motorists, especially Anglos can get in plenty of trouble here, thanks in part to the unique or lesser-known rules of la route. We've put together a list of those you need to know to avoid a police fine (or a crash) this summer.
German cyclist Marcel Kittel blasted away the competition during an intense sprint into London for stage three of the Tour de France. It was Kittel's second stage win out of the three fought on British soil.
As part of a plan to fight the notorious French addiction to cigarettes, a park in Paris will soon be off limits to smokers. If the trial proves popular it could pave the way for smoking to be banned in all public parks, which is the wish of the government.
A daredevil Frenchman, known for sneaking into high-security places undetected struck again this week when the self-dubbed "poet climber" slipped through security checks at a Paris airport. His stunt came on the same day tighter security restrictions were announced.
An annual report in France has shown a climb in poverty and a growing gap between the rich poor as the crisis-ravaged economy continues to produce casualties. Here are five key stats to show France's ever-increasing divide between the haves and the have-nots.
France’s elite politicians may be among the country's worst drivers. A French magazine followed the five top ministers for months and recorded an array of driving violations, from speeding to ignoring red lights and general bad road etiquette. But guess who’s the worst?
The corruption charges against Nicolas Sarkozy might sound like a fatal blow to his presumed 2017 presidential ambitions, but questions about the case and a tangle of circumstances in France mean the man known as the "bling-bling" president is still a political threat.
A French burglar is in the ‘merde’ after leaving some used toilet paper behind at the scene of a crime. He tried to tell police it wasn’t his, but DNA tests said otherwise.
The head of Amnesty International France tells The Local why the European Court of Human Right’s decision to uphold a French law banning full-face veils is a danger to everyone’s rights and sets a "tragic precedent" for Europe.
Before the countries' two football teams square up on the pitch in their World Cup quarter-final clash on Friday, The Local France and our colleagues at The Local Germany face off in a fight to see which country is the best.
