The incident was confirmed by France’s culture minister.

Dahbia Benkired is on trial for allegedly killing 12-year-old Lola Daviet in Paris, France.

If your algorithmic gods are anything like mine, you’ll know that Marseille was the place to be in Europe this summer. But France’s oldest city is a draw all year round.

One could say it’s goodnight, Vienna…

Strikes are planned for October 7.

Two people have been arrested after French forces raided a suspected Russian ghost ship linked to its ‘shadow fleet’.

In the latest instalment of Metro Travel Hot Takes, Travel Editor Alice Murphy writes about a lesser-known Notre Dame that captured her heart.

‘From the outset, and unbeknownst to Koum, Tessier treated Koum not as a client but as a target.’

The Metro Travel team has rounded up all the strikes set to take place from now until the end of the month.

A compact but culturally rich city has been named the best place for a 24-hour city break.

A compact but culturally rich city has been named the best place for a 24-hour city break.

One tiny country has four EuroMillions winners.

One tiny country has four EuroMillions winners.

Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy was today found guilty of ‘criminal conspiracy’ in a plot involving some $50million in laundered cash from Colonel Gaddafi.

Judges sitting at the Paris Correctional Court ruled that the cash from the late Libyan dictator helped Sarkozy, now 70, with his electioneering.

It followed a three-month trial that ended in April, and which also involved 11 other defendants, including three of Sarkozy’s former ministers.

Sarkozy was acquitted of ‘receiving stolen public funds’ and ‘passive corruption’.

But he still faces up to five years in prison for conspiring with former ministers including ex-chief of staff, Claude Guéant, now 80, who was found guilty of ‘passive bribery, forgery, and influence peddling.’

Judge Nathalie Gavarino ruled that Sarkozy was guilty of having ‘allowed his close associates to act with a view to obtaining financial support from the Libyan regime’.

It is the first time that a former French head of state has been found guilty of trying to use foreign money in such a manner.

Brice Hortefeux, 67 and another senior Sarkozy minister, were also found guilty of ‘criminal conspiracy’.

Prosecutors proved that Sarkozy’s ‘closest aides’ used the money from Muammar Gaddafi to fund his election campaign in 2007.

Sarkozy was dressed in a dark business suit and tie, when he heard the verdict read out.

He briefly bowed his head, but otherwise remained silent, as family members looked ashen-faced.

They included his third wife, former supermodel Carla Bruni, 57, who was wearing dark glasses, as well as Sarkozy’s three adult sons from a previous marriage.

Throughtout the trial, Sarkozy had blamed ‘liars and crooks’ for the accusations, while denying that the cash was used to fund his election to head of state in 2007.

‘You will never find a single cent from Libya in the campaign,’ Sarkozy insisted.

But prosecutors proved he had a ‘corruption pact’ with Gaddafi, who led Libya up until his assassination in 2011.

Evidence included a note from the late Lebanese arms dealer Zaid Takieddine – who is a relative of George Clooney’s wife, Amy Clooney – saying he regularly delivered cash to Sarkozy aides in suitcases.

Takieddine was found dead in Beirut two days ago, at the age of 75, and was allegedly the principal middleman in the transfer of laundered cash.

Takieddine was a defendant in the trial, but was on the run in Lebanon, which does not extradite its own citizens.

It was alleged that Sarkozy accepted around $50million from oil-rich Libya in all.

In turn, the North African country wanted to get rid of its pariah status after being held responsible for atrocities such as the Lockerbie Bombing, which saw 270 killed when PanAm Flight 103 was brought down over Scotland in 1988.

Sarkozy has already been definitively convicted of bribing a judge in a separate case, and of illegal campaign funding in another one.

Carla Bruni, is, meanwhile, accused of being part of a £4million campaign dubbed ‘Operation Save Sarko’ – a complex and illegal plan to try to keep her husband out of jail.

She has been charged with a range of corruption offences, including ‘witness tampering in an organised gang’, and could be imprisoned for a up to 10 years if found guilty in a separate trial.

Like her husband, Ms Bruni denies any wrongdoing.

Sarkozy has also been forced to wear an electronic tag, while under house arrest, but has never done any cell time.

Jean-François Bohnert, head of France’s National Financial Prosecutor’s Office (PNF) said a 10 year investigation led to Sarkozy appearing in the 32nd chamber of the Paris Criminal Court over the Gaddafi allegations.

‘The corruption pact was designed to improve relations with Libya,’ said Mr Bohnert.

The PNF alleged that Sarkozy first requested financing during a visit to Libya when he was France’s Interior Minister in 2005.

Within a few months of his election in 2007, Sarkozy invited Gaddafi to Paris for a state visit and praised him as a great friend and ‘Brother Leader’.

This was while Libya was still being viewed as a pariah state because of the Lockerbie bombing.

The assassination of WPC Yvonne Fletcher outside Libya’s London Embassy in 1984 was also still causing outrage, especially as no-one was ever brought to justice for it.

Gaffafi’s head of military security and brother-in-law, Abdallah Senoussi, had also been found guilty in absentia of an attack of a French DC-10 plane which left 170 dead.

The financing case was aided by the Mediapart investigative news site, which in 2012 published a document signed by Libya’s intelligence chief which apparently proved the equivalent of £42million had been paid to Sarkozy.

Sarkozy insisted that the contract was a fake, but it was later ruled it can be used as evidence.

It was in 2011 that RAF and French Air Force jets led the mass bombing campaign that ended with Gaddafi being hacked to death by a mob.

David Cameron was British Prime Minister at the time, and visited Libya with Sarkozy.

There have been claims that Sarkozy wanted his old ally Gaddafi dead because of his potential to produce incriminating evidence.

Sarkozy has already become France’s first ex-president to be tried for alleged crimes carried out in office.

Sarkozy’s conservative predecessor as President of France, the late Jacques Chirac, received a two-year suspended sentence in 2011 for corruption, but this related to his time as Mayor of Paris.

The last French head of state to go to a prison cell was Marshall Philippe Pétain, the wartime Nazi collaborator.

Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.

For more stories like this, check our news page.

Worried about whether your holiday could suffer? The Metro Travel team has rounded up all the strikes set to take place from now until the end of the month.

The medical emergency happened mid-air.

As if the news weren’t depressing enough, I woke up today to read that Brigitte Macron, the wife of French president, Emmanuel Macron, is preparing to present photographic and ‘scientific’ evidence that she’s a woman. This is part of a defama…

The couple have been together for nearly twenty years.

She is free to return to the UK, but might have to go back to France for the trial.

She is free to return to the UK, but might have to go back to France for the trial.

Worried about whether your holiday could suffer? The Metro Travel team has rounded up all the strikes set to take place from now until the end of the month.

A man in his 50s has been injured after receiving ‘a machete blow to the back of their head and arm’ near a school in Paris today.

The incident happened at around 5pm near Place de Breteuil in the French capital where now there is heavy police presence.

Armed with a ‘machete,’ ‘cleaver,’ or a ‘knife’, the attacker was ‘playing cat and mouse’ with police before eventually striking one victim, witnesses describe.

A young woman, who saw what happened, told Le Parisien: ‘I saw a man running with a weapon in his hand, very threatening.

‘He was chased by police, and a few moments later we saw that someone was injured.’

The alleged suspect fled the scene and has so far not been apprehended.

Paris police have launched a hunt at a time when the city is already under the strain of the ‘Block Everything’ protests that were attended by around 200,000 people yesterday.

Local media reported that the victim did not suffer life-threatening injuries and was take to hospital.

Minister of culture Rachida Dati arrived at the scene as officers erected a cordone.

She said in a statement on X: ‘On site following the machete attack in the 7th.

‘Support for the victim, whose prognosis is not in question, and for the law enforcement forces mobilized.

‘Enough of the insecurity and daily violence: we must restore our authority everywhere in Paris and give ourselves the means to do so.’

Dati later added: ‘There is a school in the area, the lawns of Breteuil are often occupied by local residents, the children of local residents… It’s very family-oriented.’

Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.

For more stories like this, check our news page.

A man in his 50s has been injured after receiving ‘a machete blow to the back of their head and arm’ near a school in Paris today.

The incident happened at around 5pm near Place de Breteuil in the French capital where now there is heavy police presence.

Armed with a ‘machete,’ ‘cleaver,’ or a ‘knife’, the attacker was ‘playing cat and mouse’ with police before eventually striking one victim, witnesses describe.

A young woman, who saw what happened, told Le Parisien: ‘I saw a man running with a weapon in his hand, very threatening.

‘He was chased by police, and a few moments later we saw that someone was injured.’

The alleged suspect fled the scene and has so far not been apprehended.

Paris police have launched a hunt at a time when the city is already under the strain of the ‘Block Everything’ protests that were attended by around 200,000 people yesterday.

Local media reported that the victim did not suffer life-threatening injuries and was take to hospital.

Minister of culture Rachida Dati arrived at the scene as officers erected a cordone.

She said in a statement on X: ‘On site following the machete attack in the 7th.

‘Support for the victim, whose prognosis is not in question, and for the law enforcement forces mobilized.

‘Enough of the insecurity and daily violence: we must restore our authority everywhere in Paris and give ourselves the means to do so.’

Dati later added: ‘There is a school in the area, the lawns of Breteuil are often occupied by local residents, the children of local residents… It’s very family-oriented.’

Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.

For more stories like this, check our news page.

A man in his 50s has been injured after receiving ‘a machete blow to the back of their head and arm’ near a school in Paris today.

The incident happened at around 5pm near Place de Breteuil in the French capital where now there is heavy police presence.

Armed with a ‘machete,’ ‘cleaver,’ or a ‘knife’, the attacker was ‘playing cat and mouse’ with police before eventually striking one victim, witnesses describe.

A young woman, who saw what happened, told Le Parisien: ‘I saw a man running with a weapon in his hand, very threatening.

‘He was chased by police, and a few moments later we saw that someone was injured.’

The alleged suspect fled the scene and has so far not been apprehended.

Paris police have launched a hunt at a time when the city is already under the strain of the ‘Block Everything’ protests that were attended by around 200,000 people yesterday.

Local media reported that the victim did not suffer life-threatening injuries and was take to hospital.

Minister of culture Rachida Dati arrived at the scene as officers erected a cordone.

She said in a statement on X: ‘On site following the machete attack in the 7th.

‘Support for the victim, whose prognosis is not in question, and for the law enforcement forces mobilized.

‘Enough of the insecurity and daily violence: we must restore our authority everywhere in Paris and give ourselves the means to do so.’

Dati later added: ‘There is a school in the area, the lawns of Breteuil are often occupied by local residents, the children of local residents… It’s very family-oriented.’

Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.

For more stories like this, check our news page.

A man in his 50s has been injured after receiving ‘a machete blow to the back of their head and arm’ near a school in Paris today.

The incident happened at around 5pm near Place de Breteuil in the French capital where now there is heavy police presence.

Armed with a ‘machete,’ ‘cleaver,’ or a ‘knife’, the attacker was ‘playing cat and mouse’ with police before eventually striking one victim, witnesses describe.

A young woman, who saw what happened, told Le Parisien: ‘I saw a man running with a weapon in his hand, very threatening.

‘He was chased by police, and a few moments later we saw that someone was injured.’

The alleged suspect fled the scene and has so far not been apprehended.

Paris police have launched a hunt at a time when the city is already under the strain of the ‘Block Everything’ protests that were attended by around 200,000 people yesterday.

Local media reported that the victim did not suffer life-threatening injuries and was take to hospital.

Minister of culture Rachida Dati arrived at the scene as officers erected a cordone.

She said in a statement on X: ‘On site following the machete attack in the 7th.

‘Support for the victim, whose prognosis is not in question, and for the law enforcement forces mobilized.

‘Enough of the insecurity and daily violence: we must restore our authority everywhere in Paris and give ourselves the means to do so.’

Dati later added: ‘There is a school in the area, the lawns of Breteuil are often occupied by local residents, the children of local residents… It’s very family-oriented.’

Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.

For more stories like this, check our news page.