Paris’s borrowing costs have been above Rome’s for most of the summer amid concerns over upcoming budget and next year’s elections

The candidates will debate the economy, not least what to do about France’s strained public finances. But the event will also be an early test of how they measure up against one another. Polls put Ms Le Pen comfortably ahead.

Several firefighters have been killed as France, Spain and Italy all battle wildfires that have forced tens of thousands to evacuate a vacation hotspot.

France has seen four heat waves since May, totaling 63 days of heat wave conditions, according to the country’s weather service. Daily and monthly records for summer heat were broken this year, and a heat wave in July was longer than one in 2003 that killed 15,000 people in France.

By Leigh Thomas PARIS, Aug 27 (Reuters) - French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu's minority government faces a particularly treacherous budget season as opposition parties dig in for a fight over his deficit-cutting plans before an April-May presidential election.

Reactor units at France's largest nuclear power station in Gravelines have once again been shut down due to an influx of jellyfish. A spokeswoman for the French operator EDF told dpa on Thursday that

Paris has opened its first shop devoted entirely to butter, in a country that eats around 8 kilograms (18 pounds) per person a year yet has one of the European Union’s lowest obesity rates.

(ANSA) - ROME, AUG 27 - France is replacing Italy in international financial markets' debt concerns, the Financial Times said Thursday. Paris is supplanting Rome as the main source of market concern over the sustainability of European debt,