Police were last night searching for a masked gunman suspected of stabbing an elderly woman to death in a retirement home.

Two people are dead and more than 70 monks were being held hostage by a masked man with a knife and sawn-off shotgun in in Montpellier, France.

Demand is running high, so now is the time to book an epic trip around next year's Tour de France.

A Paris travel tip for the uber-rich: Think about keeping your valuables at home.

Seven men arrested by anti-terror police in France initially planned to target the Euro 2016 European soccer, police say.

Courtney Whitaker finds the secret door that unlocks a feast of clandestine cocktails in a Marseille speakeasy.

A World War Two paratrooper who survived being shot four times in the conflict died on Remembrance Sunday while the Last Post played at 11am.

Study finds if men don't pull their weight around the house, infidelity is more likely.

It is a year since terrorists launched co-ordinated attacks in Paris and slaughtered 130 innocent people.

The NZ Herald wasn't the only paper around the world to go big with the US election coverage.

Four people were killed and 14 injured when a balcony collapsed in Angers, western France, during a housewarming party, local authorities and media said.

Shandelle Battersby checks in to Ibis Styles, Charles de Gaulle Airport, Paris, and is very impressed.

COMMENT: Kiwis, don't come and eat in France or Spain with that tuck-in mentality to a good feed. They just don't get it in these parts, says Alan Duff.

Paris might be a must-see, but the city of love doesn't come cheap.

Francesca Gosling sleeps on board in the lap of luxury and hops off to explore a new Riviera destination every day.

Courtney Whitaker stays at the Hotel Bastille Boutet MGallery by Sofitel, Paris.

Where y'all from? That friendly Texan drawl is the icebreaker to meeting fellow travellers on our river cruise on the Rhine and Moselle waters.

Kim Kardashian West has fled Paris after being bound and robbed with a gun to her temple by five men dressed as police in Paris.

Larger-than-life actor Gerard Depardieu said his homeland France is becoming a playground for foreigners "populated by imbeciles making wine and stinky cheese".

Harko Brown, his daughters Billie and Yves and stepson Joshua Rewha, will be in need of a holiday when they return home to the Far

Among the headstones of those who never returned home, hundreds gathered in the tiny town of Longueval, in northern France.

'The nearest approach to hell imaginable' were the words Prince Charles used to describe the Battle of the Somme.

A crowd gathered on the fields of the Somme has heard the sporadic beats of a drum depicting a heart slowly taking its last beats in a sobering sunset ceremony.

It's 100 years to the day that New Zealand troops joined the Battle of the Somme in World War I. Prince Charles paid tribute to New Zealand's role in war.

While Gallipoli resonates more strongly with Kiwis, the casualties at the Somme were worse - where more than 2000 died and another 6000 were injured.

A commemorative sculpture will be unveiled in Wellington on Thursday for the centenary of the New Zealanders' involvement in the Battle

COMMENT: Burkinis be damned is the one-sided debate raging here in France. Comeback king Nicolas Sarkozy has promised voters he'll ban the burkini.

A "knee-jerk" law banning the burkini could fuel further Islamist attacks on France, Francois Hollande warned yesterday in a speech.

Nightfall has prevented the rescue of 60 tourists trapped in cable cars near Mont Blanc on the French-Italian border.

The United Kingdom will begin work on a four-metre high wall in France to stop migrants getting in.