French economic growth this year will fall short of the 1.5% economists say is the minimum needed to lower persistently high unemployment, the country’s central bank governor has said.

A man who beheaded his boss, pinned the head on a fence, and tried to blow up an industrial gas plant will be investigated on terrorism charges, the chief public prosecutor in France said, dismissing the suspect’s claim that his act was not motivated by connections with Islamist militants.

National Front founder Jean-Marie Le Pen hit back at daughter and party leader Marine after she suspended him from the far-right French movement, saying he hopes she loses the 2017 presidential election.

Said Kouachi, one of the gunmen who attacked the offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, has been quietly buried, officials say.

A man has been arrested after a hostage-taking incident at a post office in a Paris suburb today.

Former president Nicolas Sarkozy has accused France’s justice system of trying to “humiliate” and “destroy” him, after he was charged in a corruption probe that could spell trouble for his future political ambitions.

A French company has carried out its first implant of an artificial heart that can beat for up to five years, adding that the operation had gone smoothly.

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.

The leader of France’s far-right National Front has said she will organise a campaign against the European treaty that would enact strict and enforceable budget rules.

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

Socialist Francois Hollande and conservative President Nicolas Sarkozy are heading for a run-off in the race for France’s presidency, according to partial official results after a first round of voting today.

CLEARED of sex assault charges, Dominique Strauss- Kahn could be back in France within days but may not get a hero’s welcome, if sober newspaper editorials and cautious statements by his Socialist allies are anything to go by.