The so-called New IRA which admitted killing journalist and activist Lyra McKee during a night of riots in Derry’s Creggan estate may have announced its formation in July 2012, but its origins stretch back five years earlier, writes Dieter Reinisch

Update 6.47pm: The driver who rammed a car carrying explosives into a police convoy on the Champs-Elysees avenue in Paris has died after the "attempted attack" on security forces, France's interior minister said.

Greece could be given more time to pay off its debt if it keeps its budget in balance and maintains promised reforms, French officials said yesterday.

French police have identified the man arrested for shooting a newspaper assistant photographer and carrying out three other attacks.

A massive manhunt was under way in Paris, a day after a gunman shot and critically wounded a photographer at the offices of a major newspaper before opening fire outside a bank headquarters and hijacking a car.

Police were hunting a lone gunman on the loose in Paris yesterday after he opened fire with a shotgun at the offices of a left-wing newspaper and a major bank before hijacking a car to take him to the Champs-Elysees avenue.

A lone gunman is on the loose in Paris after shooting and wounding a newspaper worker days after opening fire at a TV station in the French capital.

A French prosecutor has opened a preliminary investigation into allegations of rape in a Washington hotel by former IMF chief and one-time presidential hopeful Dominique Strauss-Kahn.

A French prosecutor has opened a preliminary investigation into allegations of rape in a Washington hotel by former IMF chief and one-time French presidential hopeful Dominique Strauss-Kahn.

France’s prime minister has rejected suggestions that anti-terrorism authorities fell down on the job in monitoring a radical Islamist who gunned down seven people in a wave of killings that revolted the country.

France’s first lady, singer Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, is giving up concerts until her husband is out of office, she said today.

FRENCH newspapers yesterday splashed photos of President Nicolas Sarkozy with singer and former supermodel Carla Bruni, fuelling speculation of romance just two months after the president’s divorce.

FRANCE was plunged into travel chaos again yesterday as striking railway unions staged a show of strength against the economic reforms of President Nicolas Sarkozy.

The French reporter who disappeared in Iraq last week has probably been abducted, her newspaper said today.

The disappearance of a French reporter and her interpreter in Iraq is "worrying", Foreign Minister Michel Barnier said in Paris today.

A French reporter and her interpreter are missing in Iraq, the newspaper Liberation said today.

IF the Catholic bishops feel discouraged by last week’s Prime Time survey, which shows that only 50% of the population now attends mass each week, they should remember that the Catholic church faces bigger challenges elsewhere.

Virgin is planning to buy a troubled French airline, once owned by British Airways, for more than £300 million , it was reported today.