The row stems from a proposal by Gabriel Zucman, an economist, to tax wealth of over €100m ($117m) at 2% a year. This would touch the richest 1,800 households, a fraction of the 358,000 that paid the old wealth tax, abolished by President Emmanuel Macron in 2018. Mr Zucman says the tax could raise €15bn-25bn a year.

Mali's ruling junta has ended cooperation with France in fighting terrorism and expelled five French embassy employees.

A World War Two veteran who received more than 16,000 cards for his 100th birthday after a public appeal is to receive France's highest honour. Dougie Shelley, who joined the Royal Navy aged 17, was a seaman gunner on the destroyer HMS Milne on D-Day and also saw took part in the Arctic convoys.

France and several other Western nations formally declared their recognition of a Palestinian state at the United Nations on Monday in a move that deepens Israel’s international isolation as it pursues its maximalist war aims in Gaza and expands settlements in the occupied West Bank.

France has dropped its case before the International Court of Justice against Iran for violating the right to consular protection of two French citizens who have been held in detention for over three years,

The disruption gave loud voice to widespread complaints that eight years of leadership by France’s business-friendly president have benefited too few people and hurt too many.