Iran's seizure of a UK-flagged tanker in the Strait of Hormuz has further heightened tensions in the Gulf region after the US military claimed it had downed an Iranian drone.

Legendary Paris restaurant Le Fouquet's is to open Sunday for the first time since "yellow vest" protesters torched the plush hangout on the Champs-Elysees boulevard in March. 

Shops in central Paris were looted and a woman was killed in a high-speed car crash in southern France in what the government slammed Friday as "unacceptable" unrest following a key victory for Algeria's national football team. 

French President Emmanuel Macron's top diplomatic adviser is spending two days in Tehran as part of an urgent bid to deescalate rising tensions with Iran over its unraveling nuclear deal with world powers.

An Elysee Palace official said that adviser Emmanuel Bonne left for Tehran on Tuesday, seeking ways to restart dialogue. The official wasn't authorized to speak publicly on the matter and asked for anonymity.

France has slipped further into the red, the national statistics bureau said on Friday, only days after the country's public auditor warned of "worrying" debt levels.

Temperatures in France are expected to reach a record-breaking high on Friday, as Europe continues to endure a sweltering heatwave which sparked an out-of-control wildfire in Spain. 

Governments warned citizens to take extra precautions, with the week-long heatwave causing a build-up of pollution and fears of an increase in emergency calls across Europe. 

French police smashed a neo-Nazi cell accused of plotting attacks on Jewish or Muslim places of worship, judicial sources said Tuesday.

Three French jihadists and their nine children returned to France on Tuesday after being expelled by Turkey, legal sources said, a day after France took back 12 children of French jihadists from camps in northern Syria.

France was clearing up Saturday after a massive storm ripped across the country, leaving three dead and thousands of homes without electricity.

France said Tuesday it was stepping up efforts to stop Iraq executing four French citizens convicted of fighting alongside the Islamic State (IS) group.