The Latest Breaking News from Radio France Internationale

France has introduced full reimbursement for all wheelchairs, ending what disability advocates long described as an “obstacle course” of partial funding and heavy out-of-pocket costs. The reform is expected to benefit more than a million users but has raised concerns about possible delays and bottlenecks.

A French court on Monday sentenced a mayor to four years in jail for blackmailing a political rival with a secretly filmed sex tape involving a male sex worker. He also received a five-year ban from public office, effective immediately.

French energy group TotalEnergies announced on Monday that it had signed an agreement to sell a 40-percent stake in two Nigerian offshore exploration licences to Star Deep Water Petroleum Limited, a subsidiary of US oil major Chevron.

Cameroon's leading opposition leader, Anicet Ekane, has died after weeks of detention at the age of 74, his lawyers and family said Monday, alleging that he had struggled to breathe but was not given proper care.

As World AIDS Day is marked around the globe, rapid scientific progress is being overshadowed by funding shortfalls and weakened health systems that are putting the global fight against HIV at risk.

Some 600 experts arrived in Paris on Monday to begin work on the next major UN climate report. The five-day gathering gets underway in the shadow of comments by US President Donald Trump, who deems the science around global warming to be a "hoax".

Niger's military regime has announced it is putting uranium produced by Somaïr – a subsidiary of French nuclear giant Orano before the regime nationalised it in June – on the international market.

Madagascar has opened its lychee export season with strong harvests and record prices – even as investigators examine a sector that has for years been controlled by tycoon Mamy Ravatomanga, now under arrest in Mauritius.

Paris police say they have opened an investigation after a group of officers reportedly mocked a feminist and anti-fascist banner they had seized at a demonstration by turning it upside-down and photographing themselves behind it.

Immediately after the 2015 Paris attacks, French police were granted extra powers to search and detain people suspected of links to terrorism. Ten years later, many of these exceptional measures have become law and legislators continue to expand surveillance – steps that human rights experts say encroach on civil liberties…

A team from Plastic Odyssey and Unesco have carried out a mission to map plastic waste, test removal methods and establish monitoring protocols on the Aldabra Atoll in the Seychelles. It is one of 51 marine areas listed as a World Heritage Site, increasingly under threat from plastic pollution.