Florence Parly

Reports in the French press suggested on Tuesday there is a "misunderstanding" between Greece and France over Athens' claims that Paris has agreed to lease two Fremm-type frigates to the country for a period of five years, amid growing tensions with Turkey.

 France wants air strikes in Syria to end and calls for the opening of humanitarian corridors as soon as possible, the French defense minister said on Friday.

"We are very preoccupied and are monitoring the situation on the ground very carefully. The air strikes need to end," Florence Parly said on France Inter radio, giving no further details.

Iraqi forces have dislodged Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) from 70 percent of Tal Afar, a stronghold of the militants in northwestern Iraq, including its central citadel neighborhood, officials and military commanders said on Aug. 26. 

French police shot and arrested a man on Wednesday suspected of deliberately ramming his car into a group of soldiers in a Parisian suburb hours earlier, injuring six of them in what the government called a deliberate attack.

A manhunt has been launched after a car ploughed into anti-terror soldiers in the northwestern suburbs of Paris on Wednesday morning, injuring six, according to The Local.

French security forces launched a manhunt on Wednesday after a car ploughed into anti-terrorism soldiers outside their barracks in the town of Levallois-Perret (see below), injuring six, three more seriously.

Italy’s energy giant ENI is currently carrying out drilling offshore Cyprus and this could lead to a positive development for the whole of Europe.

This is what Italian Minister of Defence Roberta Pinotti said in Nicosia on Monday evening after talks with her Cypriot counterpart Christoforos Fokaides.

The “West Capella” drilling rig is expected start drilling today in the seabed of Cypriot waters at block 11. Despite continuous Turkish provocations and constant aggressive rhetoric regarding the oil exploration operations, procedures are moving forward, as both the US and France, who have stakes in the procedures, have made their support clear to Cyprus for the operations.

The French president, Emmanuel Macron, has named a group of relative unknowns to senior government cabinet posts over traditional allies after a series of high-profile resignations.

As a spokesman announced the names of ministers appointed, political analysts said many voters would be left asking: “Who?”