President Emmanuel Macron said France had taken key decisions '15-20 years later than some of our European neighbours' and now needed to 'to become again a nation of innovation and research'.
In the first concrete sign of a slackening of tensions, Macron agreed to send France's ambassador back to Washington next week after he was recalled to Paris in an unprecedented diplomatic protest.
After a slow start, France now has one of the world's highest vaccination rates, with close to 90% of adults in the country of 67 million people having received one or two vaccine doses.
Angela Merkel is to relinquish power after German elections on 26 September, bringing an end to her 16 years in office that has seen her work with four different French leaders starting with Jacques Chirac.
"I accept responsibility and I want truth and transparency together with you," Macron said in a speech to Polynesian officials during his first official trip to the territory, adding that there should be better compensation for victims of the tests.
Pegasus can hack into mobile phones without a user knowing, enabling clients to read every message, track a user's location and tap into the phone's camera and microphone.
New evidence uncovered by The Pegasus Project has revealed that the phone numbers for 14 heads of state, including Ramaphosa, French President Emmanuel Macron, Pakistan’s Imran Khan, were selected as people of interest by clients of spyware company the NSO Group.
The man, named as Damien T., has been in custody since the incident on Tuesday and is expected to be convicted of assaulting a public figure when he appears before a magistrate in the southern town of Valence.
French President Emmanuel Macron said France would invest in boosting the production of COVID-19 vaccines in Africa, to help close a gap in the availability of the shots between the continent and western nations.
French President Emmanuel Macron arrived in South Africa on Friday to hold talks with Ramaphosa on the COVID-19 pandemic, trade and the worsening conflict in Mozambique's Cabo Delgado province.
Assimi Goita, who headed a junta which seized power less than 10 months ago, said that transitional President Bah Ndaw and Prime Minister Moctar Ouane had been stripped of their powers, and he promised elections in 2022.
French President Emmanuel Macron warned that failing to vaccinate Africans risked allowing potentially dangerous COVID-19 variants to emerge on the continent that then could spread around the world.
The French leader made clear the biggest priority for making progress would be to rid Sudan of its 'burden' of debt, which amounts in total to some $60 billion, adding that he hoped other creditors would follow suit.
Sudan's debts to the Paris Club, which includes major creditor countries, is estimated to make up around 38% of its total $60 billion foreign debt.
Idriss Deby's coffin, draped in the national flag and surrounded by elite troops, was driven on the back of a pickup truck to the Place de la Nation square for ceremonies attended by foreign leaders, including French President Emmanuel Macron.
The archives concern the work of former president Francois Mitterrand and his prime minister Edouard Balladur between 1990 and 1904 when the genocide began, according to a statement issued in France's official journal which publishes government decrees.
In an address to the nation, he tightened restrictions significantly on Wednesday, ordering schools shut down, travel restrictions across France, and the closure of non-essential shops around the country.
A historical commission set up by President Emmanuel Macron concluded there had been a 'failure' on the part of France under former leader Francois Mitterrand over the genocide that saw around 800,000 people slaughtered, mainly from the ethnic Tutsi minority.
