The popularity of French President Francois Hollande has hit an all-time low as France continues to struggle with economic problems, a new poll shows. According to the survey conducted by French Institute of Public Opinion (IFOP), Hollande’s approval rating has dropped to 20 percent. The survey, published by the French weekly newspaper Le Journal du Dimanche on Sunday, found that the reported 20... 

A leaked US intelligence document has revealed that Israel is behind the hacking of millions of phone calls and messages in France. According to a report by Le Monde on Friday Israeli agents is behind a cyber attack against the communications networks of the Elysee Palace, intercepting more than 70 million calls and text messages a month. France had initially accused the US of hacking into former... 

EU leaders say their relations with the US have been undermined by reports of NSA spying on European leaders and ordinary citizens. A partnership with America should be built on respect and trust, they said in a joint statement. The statement was released Friday amid the ongoing summit of top European politicians in Brussels. It said the reports of American surveillance in Europe have raised “deep... 

France has summoned the US ambassador after reports emerged that the National Security Agency (NSA) has recorded millions of French telephone calls. The French daily Le Monde recently published a report which showed that the NSA spy agency secretly taped more than 70 million phone conversations in France over a 30-day period this year. Paris summoned US Ambassador Charles Hammerman Rivkin for explanation... 

Financial markets in Asia and Europe have been rocked over concerns that the United States’ government might be heading for a partial shutdown. Washington should agree to a new spending bill before the end of the financial year at midnight on Monday amid political divisions that have created a stalemate. If the American lawmakers fail to agree on the budget deal, essential federal services could... 

Britain could quit the European Convention on Human Rights so it can legally “chuck out” people threatening the country and its way of life, UK PM David Cameron said. Critics doubted Cameron’s honesty, saying such move would mean quitting the EU. In the first public statement of its kind, the British prime minister told BBC1 that he was ready to cut ties with the Strasbourg court, to prevent... 

France has come under fire from the European Commission after Interior Minister Manuel Valls said Roma migrants “are due to return to their motherlands” because of their lifestyle, which is “in confrontation” with the French way of living. “They should return to Romania or Bulgaria and for that the European Union, with the Bulgarian and Romanian authorities, must ensure these populations... 

A Muslim woman wearing a face veil distributes flyers against a cantonal vote on banning face-covering headgear in public places, in Lugano on September 18, 2013. Residents of Switzerland’s Italian-speaking region have voted to ban full-face veils, after similar laws against Muslims were enforced in France and Belgium. Results from a democratic referendum in the Swiss canton of Ticino on Sunday revealed... 

France’s Interior Minister Manuel Valls said that there was a need to review the country’s migration policy in relation to Africans and questioned the compatibility of Islam and democracy. France has long been assimilating immigrants, but in recent years the situation has changed, and the locals are now the ones that are asked to adjust. At a government meeting dedicated to the major challenges... 

A recent survey shows European citizens are losing confidence in their governments, with popular trust in political parties dropping to record low in some countries. The survey carried out by the Transparency International in 107 countries showed that only 23 percent of the studied people had approved of their governments’ anti-corruption efforts. However, the figures were meaningfully lower in... 

One of France’s top courts has thrown out a ban on genetically modified corn, which had been in place since March 2012, leaving the door open for Monsanto’s GMO seed to be introduced into the country’s farmland. The decision by the top administrative court on Thursday argued that the moratorium on the GMO MON810 corn, one of two types of genetically altered crops approved by the European Union,... 

The world’s largest seed corporation says it has dropped its bid to get more genetically modified crops onto the European market due to the wide-spread popular opposition. The biotech giant says it will expand its share of the natural seed market instead. “We will no longer be pursuing approvals for cultivation of new biotech crops in Europe. Instead, we will focus on enabling imports of biotech... 

Muslim women are not allowed to wear the face veil in France. At least five people have been injured in France after clashes broke out between police forces and hundreds of Muslim protesters in a town west of the capital, Paris. Clashes broke out in the town of Trappes late Friday, resulting in the arrest of at least six people. The nearly 300 demonstrators were protesting the arrest of a man whose... 

The logo of France’s Directorate-General for External Security France’s secret services illegally have been spying on the citizens by monitoring their telephone and internet communications as well as internet searches, a report says. On Thursday, French daily Le Monde reported that the country’s security services had stored the data from communications on a supercomputer at the headquarters of... 

Former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden shown in photo on the paper. France has urged the European Union to postpone talks with the United States on a major free trade agreement due to the recent allegations about US spying on EU offices. The EU-US trade talks are set to begin in Washington on July 8, but the revelations of US spying on European diplomatic missions have cast them...