France on Thursday recorded 178 Covid-19 deaths in 24 hours, a 0.7 percent rise from the previous day in the lowest rate of increase in four days, taking the total number of deaths to 25,987. 

Since the start of the Covid-19 epidemic, there has been no shortage of solidarity with those on the frontline on the pandemic. One such example comes from the French NGO Aviation Sans Frontières ("Aviation Without Borders"), which has brought together key players in the aviation sector to allow medical professionals to travel by plane free of charge from one French region to another. These flights help take some of the pressure off overwhelmed hospital staff. Our reporters Benoît Perrochais and Natalia Ruiz Giraldo went on board.

With France now in its eighth and final week of full lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic, FRANCE 24 brings you four reports on the consequences in Paris and around the country.

This week we bring you a show all about face masks as France starts to lift its lockdown. Faced with controversial shortages at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, French authorities initially rejected the notion of a generalised use before finally touting the device as essential, and in some situations compulsory.

France on Friday marked the 75th anniversary of Victory in Europe (VE) day with President Emmanuel Macron attending a scaled-down ceremony on Paris’s Champs-Élysées. Click on the player to see how the commemorations unfolded.

France’s lockdown measures are among the strictest in Europe as the country bids to stamp out the Covid-19 pandemic. Paris is usually known for its night wanderers but the last few weeks has seen its lively and vibrant atmosphere replaced by calm and silence. However, not all Parisians are respecting lockdown measures and FRANCE 24 went out to meet them. Some are simply wandering the streets. Others are out and about because the streets are what they call home.

As France prepares to gradually end its Covid-19 lockdown on May 11, workers are busy installing dozens of kilometres of temporary bike lanes across Paris and surrounding suburbs, part of plans to prepare for – and encourage – an expected boom in cycling in the capital.

The number of people who have died from coronavirus infection in France rose 243 to 26,230 on Friday, a higher daily death toll than the previous day when it stood at 178.

An investigation by French daily Le Monde has uncovered the extraordinary chain of events that led successive French governments to build an ambitious pandemic response strategy and then dismantle it almost entirely, leaving the country dangerously exposed to the Covid-19 disease.

In this edition of Middle East Matters, we continue our rolling coverage of the Covid-19 pandemic across the region. Jordan is flattening its coronavirus curve after a series of strict measures, including travel bans. We speak to Health Minister Saad Jaber, himself a doctor, about how he's managed the crisis. Also, deadly clashes erupt after hundreds take to the streets in northern Lebanon amid a crash in the local currency and a surge in food prices. 

Protests against growing economic hardship erupted in Tripoli and spread to other Lebanese cities on Tuesday, with banks set ablaze and violence boiling over into a second night.

At least 40 civilians were killed, including 11 children, when a bomb detonated in the northern Syrian town of Afrin on Tuesday, the Turkish Defence Ministry said, blaming the attack on the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia.

The Lebanese government on Thursday approved a long-awaited plan to rescue the economy from its worst crisis in decades following a fresh wave of angry street protests this week. Nationwide protests broke out in October accusing the country's political class of corruption and mismanagement.

Police in Istanbul detained at least 15 people Friday, including trade union leaders who tried to stage a May Day march in defiance of a coronavirus lockdown and a ban on demonstrations at the flashpoint Taksim Square.

Hundreds of Lebanese rallied Friday outside the central bank in Beirut and elsewhere in the country, a day after the prime minister said he would seek a rescue plan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to deal with a spiraling economic and financial crisis.

The head of Lebanon's Hezbollah movement on Monday condemned Germany's ban on his group as bowing to US pressure and insisted it was not active in the country. 

Syrian air defences thwarted an Israeli missile attack on a research centre and a military base in the northern province of Aleppo, state media said on Monday, in the fifth such strikes in two weeks on suspected Iranian targets.

We continue our coverage of the Covid-19 pandemic in the Middle East. Iran is one of the worst-hit countries in the region – authorities there have reported more than 6,000 deaths. But observers and health experts say the numbers are in reality much higher. After weighing up economic risks against health ones, the country's leadership decided to reopen businesses in late April, followed by schools and mosques. We speak to a doctor from Tehran, who has been on the frontlines of the battle against Covid-19. He has asked for his identity to be concealed.

A third of people in the Afghan capital Kabul have tested positive for Covid-19, according to a recent study. FRANCE 24 spoke to Afghan doctors on the Covid-19 frontline as civil war continues to ravage the country.

A choice between lives and livelihoods? Iranian authorities have gradually been easing confinement since April 11, this in a nation hit early and hard by Covid-19. Did they have to reopen mosques? Could they afford to keep the sanctions-squeezed country in lockdown and risk a complete collapse of the economy or does opening it up make it worse? Already there are signs of a resurgence of coronavirus. The show features Sanam Shantyaei's exclusive interview with a frontline medic in Tehran while Esfandyar Batmanghelidj and Behnam Ben Taleblu disagree on whether the US should ease sanctions.

Israel's Supreme Court on Wednesday approved a coalition deal between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former rival Benny Gantz.

Iraqi lawmakers approved a new government on Wednesday after six months without one as parties squabbled until the last minute over Cabinet seats in backroom deals.

Israeli lawmakers approved the formation of a unity government between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his erstwhile rival Benny Gantz Thursday, paving the way to an end to more than a year of deadlock.

The Iraqi parliament approved its new government headed by Mustafa Al-Kadhimi, now prime minister. The move ends six months of political vacuum, but many challenges lie ahead, including the country's struggling economy and the re-emergence of the Islamic State group. 

After 76 days under lockdown, China's Wuhan city is gradually returning to a new normal. But while Covid-19 infection rates have fallen, social distancing measures are still in place and the economic repercussions for the industrial hub are also becoming clear.

North Korean state media on Wednesday made no mention of new appearances by leader Kim Jong Un, a day after intense international speculation over his health was sparked by media reports he was gravely ill after a cardiovascular procedure.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards announced they had successfully launched the country’s first military satellite on Wednesday, at a time of fresh tensions with US forces in the Gulf.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is "alive and well", a top security adviser to the South's President Moon Jae-in said, downplaying rumours over Kim's health following his absence from a key anniversary.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un made his first public appearance in 20 days as he celebrated the completion of a fertilizer factory near Pyongyang, state media said Saturday, ending an absence that had triggered global rumors that he may be seriously ill. 

The United States tweeted its support for Taiwan’s participation in the United Nations Friday, provoking a sharp response from China expressing “strong indignation and firm opposition.”

North and South Korean troops exchanged fire along their tense border on Sunday, the South’s military said, blaming North Korean soldiers for targeting a guard post.

Robots delivering meals, ghostly figures in hazmat suits and cameras pointed at front doors: China's methods to enforce coronavirus quarantines have looked like a sci-fi dystopia for legions of people.

South Korea's assessment is that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un did not have surgery, local news outlet Yonhap said, citing an unidentified senior official at presidential Blue House. 

New Zealand on Monday recorded no new cases of the coronavirus for the first time since March 16 and less than a week after the Pacific nation ended a strict lockdown that appears to have contained the outbreak.

South Korea returned largely to normal Wednesday as workers went back to offices, and museums and libraries reopened under eased social distancing rules after new coronavirus cases dropped to a trickle.

Eleven people were killed and hundreds hospitalised after a pre-dawn gas leak at a chemical plant in eastern India on Thursday that left unconscious victims lying in the streets, authorities said.

India will within days roll out a version of its coronavirus contact-tracing application that can run on mobile carrier Reliance Jio's cheap phones, as it looks to increase the reach of the system, a senior government official said on Thursday.

China's new prototype spacecraft "successfully landed" on Friday, marking an important step in its ambitions to run a permanent space station and send astronauts to the moon.

Indian police have filed a complaint against an LG Chem subsidiary over a toxic gas leak at its chemical plant in the south of the country that killed 11 people and sickened almost a thousand more.

Up and to the office, where sat all the morning, among other things a great conflict I had with Sir W. Warren, he bringing a letter to the Board, flatly in words charging them with their delays in passing his accounts, which have been with them these...