A Corkman was extradited from the UK this week and charged with dangerous driving causing the death, almost four years ago, of a young French man working for Apple.

Forensics officers have locked down a neighbourhood in western France, searching for traces of a family that disappeared, leaving behind a bloody mobile phone, stripped beds and a home where "time froze".

Anna O’Donoghue samples sun, sea and castles and the odd mechanical elephant on her visit to Nantes, and discovers how the Loire Valley’s cultural capital comes into full bloom in the summer months.

French car maker Peugeot-Citroen is teaming up with Bollore to jointly produce and sell electric cars, as well as promote car-sharing schemes worldwide.

Gardaí are still actively investigating the hit-and-run death of a French national in Cork City more than two years ago.

DNA testing of the entire male population of a French school has failed to find the attacker who raped a teenage girl on the campus.

French police demanded that male students and staff at a school in western France — 527 people in total — give DNA samples as they searched for the assailant who raped a teenage girl.

Police and demonstrators demanding jobs and a definitive end to a road tax on heavy vehicles skirmished ahead of a protest march by at least 10,000 people in western France.

Gardaí investigating a fatal hit-and-run in Cork on Thursday night have confirmed that a number of vehicles have being examined as part of their investigation.

Birds observe speed limits on the roads even if motorists choose to ignore them, a study has found.

Birds observe speed limits on the roads even if motorists ignore them.

A French court violated a man’s freedom of expression when it convicted him of insulting Nicolas Sarkozy by turning the then-president’s own words against him, the European Court of Human Rights says.

As post-election euphoria wanes, French President François Hollande returns from holiday under pressure to show that beyond dismantling the legacy of his predecessor he can act decisively at home while grappling with recession in Europe.

A bride gave birth only minutes after tying the knot at a townhall wedding in western France, making it more of a “big day” than anticipated, the local mayor revealed.

In a French election subplot, prominent Socialist Segolene Royal – the mother of Francois Hollande’s four children and the runner-up to Nicolas Sarkozy in the 2007 presidential vote – lost her race in western France and her bid to become Parliament speaker.

President Francois Hollande’s partner has set the French political establishment aghast with a tweet seen as a dig against his ex-partner.

Ty-Mad has stout Irish stone inside and out under its quirkily rimmed ‘hat’ of a roof.

A top global agri-banker predicts that continued strong growth in world demand will absorb additional supply of EU dairy products after milk quotas are fully lifted in 2015.

I can’t walk past a horse chestnut tree without stopping to examine it.

FOUR days of dancing got under way today with the opening of the annual Damhsa Fest, Cork’s international folk dance festival.

ANDY SCHLECK’S Leopard Trek team say they want to propel the two-time Tour de France runner-up to victory in cycling’s most prestigious bike race on the road, rather than in the courtroom.

Spain’s Alberto Contador is free to defend his Tour de France title in July after the Court of Arbitration for Sport this evening confirmed his doping case would be heard after the race.

ASH from an erupting Icelandic volcano could reach northern Scotland by tomorrow and parts of Britain, France and Spain by Thursday or Friday if the eruption continues at the same intensity, airlines were warned yesterday.

The Court of Arbitration for Sport have reiterated their aim of ruling on the Alberto Contador case before the Tour de France after naming the arbitration panel for the hearing.

SCOTLAND is in the process preparing to bid to host the Tour de France in 2017, with the possibility of the world’s best cyclists descending on Edinburgh or Glasgow for the Grand Depart.

WORKERS opposed to a higher retirement age blocked roads to airports around France yesterday, leaving passengers in Paris dragging suitcases on foot along an emergency breakdown lane.

French authorities forced strike-shuttered fuel depots to reopen today to ensure petrol supplies keep flowing, and the interior minister threatened to send in paramilitary police to stop rioting on the fringes of protests against raising the retirement age to 62.

A FORECAST has found that total cereal production across the European Union this year should be close to the average of the last five years.

WHETHER the French woman who killed eight of her newborns suffered from a syndrome known as pregnancy denial may determine if she faces major prison time or intensive psychiatric care.

The death toll from the violent storm that lashed western France rose to 47 today.

A VIOLENT storm with fierce rain and hurricane- force winds battered France, Spain and Portugal yesterday, leaving at least 45 people dead.

THE hearts of three female gorillas were set racing yesterday when they were shown a picture of their new foreign lover.

Technically demanding and at times furiously paced, two newly identified Mozart works are helping scholars complete their assessment of the maestro’s very early achievements.

A LIMERICK-BASED couple is embarking on a new venture by taking wine lovers into a French vineyard to enjoy the whole wine-making experience.

The Government considered sinking the historic Asgard yacht at sea after buying it as an icon of the State’s foundation, official files reveal.

CLASSICAL music fans are reaching a crescendo of excitement following the discovery of a previously unknown piece of music handwritten by Mozart.

Eight employees of the two companies involved in an accident that killed 15 people on the world’s largest ocean liner, the Queen Mary 2, were acquitted of manslaughter charges today.

A French court was due to rule today on who was responsible for an accident that killed 15 people on the world’s largest ocean liner, the Queen Mary 2, before it set off on its maiden voyage.

France’s justice minister has received a severed finger in the post.

France’s post-election violence continued for a second night, leaving cars burned and store windows smashed in several cities and prompting the defeated Socialists to call for calm.

The captain of a cruise ship that sank in the Aegean Sea has been charged with negligence.

A Greek prosecutor today pressed negligence charges against the captain and five officers of a cruise ship that sank off an Aegean Sea island, state television reported.

Navy divers are searching the sunken wreckage of a cruise ship for the bodies of a Frenchman and his daughter, missing after the vessel foundered on a volcanic reef in Greece.

A 27,000-year-old human skeleton laid out in a room decorated with ancient art was among the rare finds at a cave in western France whose subterranean art predates that of the famed Lascaux caves.

A 27,000-year-old human skeleton laid out in a room decorated with ancient art was among the rare finds at a cave in western France whose subterranean art predates that of the famed Lascaux caves, officials said on Friday.

Britain had Margaret Thatcher, Germany has Angela Merkel. Could France get Segolene Royal?