France’s navy stormed a hijacked French boat off the Somali coast today after pirates threatened to execute the hostages, France’s defence minister said.

The French defence minister defended the Foreign Legion after a soldier from the elite unit opened fire on his comrades in Chad and killed three people.

FRANCE is deploying hundreds of extra police at busy public places in its main cities after dynamite was planted in a Paris department store, Interior Minister Michele Alliot-Marie said yesterday.

The head of the French army resigned today over the military show accident where a soldier shot 17 people.

FRANCE announced a vision for its 21st-century military — a leaner, smarter and more high-tech force, capable of detecting threats like terrorism early and deploying quickly to battlefields abroad.

France is to cut tens of thousands of defence jobs as part of a new strategy aimed at adapting the country’s forces to new threats.

Chad's president insisted today that his government had total control of the country, even as he said three-quarters of his officials had disappeared during weekend battles with rebels which left hundreds dead and prompted thousands to flee the capital.

Chad rebels said today they withdrew voluntarily from Chad’s capital overnight, but it was unclear if they succumbed to the force of helicopter gunships and tanks deployed by government forces.

US Defence Secretary Robert Gates and his French counterpart were today marking the 63rd anniversary of the D-Day landings that turned the tide of the Second World War.

FRENCH President Nicolas Sarkozy unveiled a broad-based cabinet yesterday, naming popular leftist Bernard Kouchner as foreign minister in a slimline government that radically reshaped the finance ministry.

President Nicolas Sarkozy named a radically-revamped Cabinet today, with humanitarian crusader Bernard Kouchner as France's new foreign minister.