France

NPR Paris correspondent Eleanor Beardsley says the squalid camp where migrants live in the rough in the dunes of Calais has transformed.

Credit (or blame) goes to France, which wanted more babies in the 19th century. Like most government plans to influence birthrate, it didn't quite work.

A bad restaurant write-up couldn't have been real as the restaurant had yet to open, a French court ruled.

Riad Sattouf is a Syrian-French cartoonist who brings to life the Middle East in the 1980s. Published as a graphic novel, it provides a humorous and intimate view of the author's youth.

Most of the passengers were senior citizens; the bus had recently departed from a village near Bordeaux for a sightseeing trip.

Banksy's "bemusement park" in England has closed. All of the structures from the park will be sent to a refugee camp in Calais, France, to help build shelters, according to the website.

The announcement from Baghdad came as France said it had conducted its first airstrikes against the Islamic State group.

Attitudes in France toward migrants have softened recently, and many of the new arrivals say accommodations have been better than expected. Still, the adjustment to a new country will be a challenge.

The foreign ministers of Russia, Ukraine, Germany and France, met in Berlin over the weekend following a two-week cease-fire that appears to have held.

The Rainbow Warrior, on a mission to protest French nuclear testing in the Pacific, was destroyed by an underwater mine in New Zealand's Auckland harbor.

An arcane law required bakers to tell city hall when they wanted to close up shop. Now that it's been scrapped, bakers can close any time, leaving Parisians hungry for good bread amid summer holidays.

"We cannot be afraid as long as we have individuals like this in our midst," French President Francois Hollande said during a ceremony. The honor is France's highest decoration.