Former Conservative minister David Mellor told the Leveson Inquiry that French laws on privacy had not been to the “public benefit”.

French and American diplomats were getting closer to a common UN resolution for stopping the fighting in Lebanon, France’s foreign minister said today, but emphasised there was still progress to be made.

FRANCE’S view of the Iraq crisis would “change completely” if President Saddam Hussein orders the use of chemical or biological weapons against US forces, French Ambassador Jean-David Levitte said yesterday.