Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy has been placed under investigation as a special witness after a day spent answering a judge’s questions about whether he accepted illegal campaign donations from Europe’s richest woman.

An Algerian military cargo plane has crashed in southern France with six people aboard, the North African country’s defence ministry has said.

At least some of the paparazzi who pursued Diana, Princess of Wales, to the scene of her death made statements that were "patently dishonest and misleading," the High Court was told today.