The French parliament will debate today whether the nation should launch strikes against Syria, though France’s president says he will wait for a decision from the US Congress on possible military action against Bashar Assad’s regime.

US President Barack Obama’s decision to seek congressional authorisation for a military strike on Syria has sparked calls for the French parliament to get the same privilege.

The French parliament has decided it is no longer a crime to help illegal immigrants, scrapping a law that aid groups had long criticised.

The French parliament is expected to grant final approval to a contested plan to raise the retirement age from 60 to 62 today, a reform that has sparked street protests and strikes.

France moved a step closer to a legal ban on Islamic veils today.

The entertainment industry won round one in a legal battle against a hugely popular internet music, games and film-sharing site today when four men accused of running it were jailed for a year.

THE French parliament’s lower house adopted a ground-breaking bill yesterday that would make it illegal for anyone — including fashion magazines, advertisers and websites — to publicly incite extreme thinness.

The French parliament today passed a law raising the minimum age at which women can marry from 15 to 18.

The French parliament gave its final approval to extending a state of emergency, even as the country was returning to an “almost normal situation” after three weeks of rioting and unrest.

The French parliament opened a debate today on what is expected to become a new law that would allow terminally-ill patients the right to die.

The French Parliament will today debate Muslim-majority Turkey’s hopes of joining the European Union, a bid that has so far little real support from either the political mainstream or the French public

The death toll in France from August’s blistering heatwave has reached nearly 15,000, according to a government-commissioned report released today, surpassing a prior tally by more than 3,000.

Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin tonight named France’s first centre-right Cabinet in five years, selecting a veteran diplomat to lead the Foreign Ministry and for the first time a woman as head of defence.

Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres today defended the assassinations of Palestinian militants suspected of terror operations as a necessary act of self-defence.