The French health minister has called on some 30,000 women with breast implants made by French company Poly Implant Prostheses to have them removed “as a preventive measure not of an urgent nature”.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn has returned home to a mixed welcome in France – for the first time since attempted rape accusations by a New York hotel maid unleashed an international scandal that dashed his chances of the French presidency.

FRENCH police probing a party financing scandal linked to L’Oreal heiress Liliane Bettencourt have searched the headquarters of President Nicolas Sarkozy’s majority UMP, the party said yesterday.

FRANCE’S opposition Socialists and their allies handily defeated President Nicolas Sarkozy’s conservatives in regional elections yesterday according to partial official results after a vote that helps set the stage for the 2012 presidential race.

Long-awaited negotiations between striking transport workers and the French government were due to begin today as a walkout which has paralysed train services throughout the country entered its eighth full day.

French unions are mounting a sixth day of nationwide transport strikes today, despite signs the movement is running out of steam and heading towards negotiations.

Hopes of an end to the French transport strike rose today after President Nicolas Sarkozy accepted a union offer for talks.

Transport workers shut down most trains across France for a second full day today, once again causing chaos for passengers.

FRANCE was plunged into travel chaos again yesterday as striking railway unions staged a show of strength against the economic reforms of President Nicolas Sarkozy.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy faced a crucial test of his planned reforms today with an indefinite train strike that will also hit the Paris Metro.

Parisians are braced for rush-hour chaos today as a nationwide strike was expected to cripple the public transport system and give President Nicolas Sarkozy his first real test after five months in office.

Nicolas Sarkozy is facing the first real challenge to his presidency tonight when unions begin a one-day strike expected to leave France without public transport.

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.

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.

French Health Minister Xavier Bertrand today urged consumers to say calm and keep eating poultry in response to France’s first case of bird flu, and said the government would spend whatever money is necessary to fight the virus.

France’s health minister has revealed new details of the shocking discovery of 351 foetuses and stillborn babies at a Paris hospital, saying in an interview published today that some of the remains were stored in bags and jars in “disgraceful” conditions.