More than 2,000 firefighters and 500 firefighting vehicles continue to be deployed to the Aude region, alongside gendarmerie and army personnel, officials said on Thursday.

An elderly woman has died and 13 people, including 11 firefighters, have been injured, with two in a critical condition, since the fire broke out near the village of Ribaute in southern France on Tuesday.

Three people have also been reported missing by their relatives and dozens of homes have been destroyed, the Aude prefecture added.

Christophe Magny, one of the officials leading the firefighting operation told local media outlet France Info on Thursday that firefighters hoped to contain the wildfire later in the day.

Images overnight showed firefighters tackling the 16,000 hectare (62sq miles) blaze, which officials said had lost intensity since Wednesday due to wind and lower temperatures.

Water-bombing aircraft have also helped tackle the flames.

Smoke from the fires and large areas of burnt land could be seen from satellite images on Thursday, highlighting the scale of the devastation across the region.

Residents have been urged not to return home while operations continue, with 17 temporary accommodation sites opened up.

Villages in the Corbieres region remain on high alert, according to French media.

Officials say the wildfire is the largest in France since 1949, with French Prime Minister François Bayrou calling it a “catastrophe on an unprecedented scale”.

During a visit to the Aude region on Wednesday, Bayrou said the fire was connected to global warming and drought.

Environment Minister Agnes Pannier-Runacher also linked the blaze to climate change.

Officials said on Wednesday the fire’s quick advance was driven by strong winds, dry vegetation and hot summer weather.

Jacques Piraud, mayor of the village of Jonquières, where several houses burned down, told Le Monde that around 80% of the village was burnt.

“It’s dramatic. It’s black, the trees are completely charred,” he said.

French President Emmanuel Macron said yesterday that “all of the nation’s resources are mobilised,” and called on people to exercise “the utmost caution”.

Olivier Grondeau, 34, is “free” and with his family, Macron wrote on X on Thursday, adding: “We share his family’s immense happiness and relief.”

Mr Grondeau was arrested in southern Iran in October 2022 and sentenced to five years in prison for “conspiracy against the Islamic republic”. His family have always denied the charges.

The Iranian regime has arrested many tourists and dual nationals in recent years, mostly on spying and national security charges.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot posted a picture of Mr Grondeau on a plane returning home on Thursday.

“Held hostage in Iran for 887 days, he has been reunited with his family, loved ones, and his country. It’s a huge relief,” he wrote.

Speaking publicly for the first time since his arrest in January, Mr Grondeau said he was being “held hostage” by authorities.

His family have described him as a passionate fan of Persian poetry who had travelled to Iran on a tourist visa as part of a world tour.

Two other French citizens are currently being held in Iran.

Cecile Kohler, a teacher, and her partner, Jacques Paris, were detained in May 2022 and accused of seeking to stir up protests, which their families have denied.

There is growing concern over their health and France has repeatedly lobbied for their release.

“Cecile Kohler and Jacques Paris must be freed from Iranian prisons,” Macron said in his post on Thursday.

Human rights groups say tourists and dual nationals are often held for leverage in diplomatic negotiations, released only when Iran gets something in return.

The British Foreign Office confirmed last month that a British couple – Craig and Lindsay Foreman – had been detained.

They have been charged with espionage, with Iranian state media reporting they were being held in the south-eastern city of Kerman.

In January, Italian journalist Cecilia Sala, 29, returned to Rome after spending weeks in an Iranian jail. Reports said she had been held in solitary confinement in Tehran’s notorious Evin prison.

The tech billionaire was arrested in August after being accused of failing to properly moderate his app to reduce criminality.

Mr Durov denies failing to cooperate with law enforcement over drug trafficking, child sexual abuse content and fraud. Telegram has previously denied having insufficient moderation.

It is the first time a tech leader has been arrested for criminality taking place on their platform.

Mr Durov said in a post on his Telegram channel: “The process is ongoing but it feels great to be home.”

The 40-year-old was arrested in August 2024 as he arrived in Paris on his private jet, and French judges initially did not allow him to leave France.

But the office of the Paris prosecutor told the BBC on Monday that “the obligations of judicial supervision” had been suspended between 15 March and 7 April.

No further details were given about the conditions of his release from France.

Mr Durov lives in Dubai and was born in Russia, where he has citizenship, as well as in France, the United Arab Emirates and the Caribbean island nation of St Kitts and Nevis.

Telegram is particularly popular in Russia, Ukraine and former Soviet Union states as well as Iran.

Telegram is used by around 950 million people worldwide and has previously positioned itself as an app focussed on its users’ privacy, rather than the normal policies prioritised by other global social media companies.

But reporting from the BBC and other news organisations highlighted criminals using the app to advertise drugs as well as offer cybercrime and fraud services and, most recently, child sexual abuse material.

It led one expert to brand it “the dark web in your pocket”.

The firm has previously said his arrest is unfair, and he should not be held liable for what users do on the platform.

From his home in Dubai, Mr Durov thanked the French judges for letting him go home.

He also thanked his lawyers for their “relentless efforts in demonstrating that, when it comes to moderation, cooperation, and fighting crime, for years Telegram not only met but exceeded its legal obligations”.

However, since the arrest, Telegram has made a series of changes to the way it operates.

It has joined the Internet Watch Foundation programme, which aims to help find, remove and report child sexual abuse material being shared online.

It has also announced IP addresses and phone numbers of those who violate its rules will be handed over to police in response to valid legal requests.

And it has published transparency reports about how much content is taken down – a standard industry practice it had previously refused to comply with.

In a 156-2 vote on Monday, MPs decided to loosen strict restrictions on new bar permits to sell alcohol. The bill still needs a Senate approval to become law.

Supporters say the change is needed to better cement social ties and reduce isolation – but critics warn of health risks through alcoholism.

France has seen a sharp fall from about 200,000 bars and cafés serving alcohol in the 1960s to some 36,000 by 2015. Most of the closures were in rural areas.

In France, a type-4 alcohol licence is required by law to open a bar selling alcoholic drinks, including hard spirits with more than 18% alcohol.

Currently, no new such permits can be granted, and those planning to open a bar must wait until an existing drinking spot closes to acquire its licence.

The new legislation would allow prospective bar managers in communities with fewer than 3,500 people and without a bar to request a brand-new permit without such a wait.

Local mayors would have the final say on whether to approve or deny such requests.

Lawmaker Guillaume Kasbarian said “an old and obsolete legal framework” should be replaced, the AFP news agency reported.

It also quoted Fabien Di Filippo, another French MP, who described bars as “above all, places for people to come together in very rural areas and in a society where people have a tendency to close in on themselves”.

The French health ministry says that each year about 49,000 deaths in the country are caused by alcohol consumption, describing this as a “major public health issue”.

Eurostar services at Gare du Nord were scrapped for the day, after the 500kg bomb was found on tracks in the Paris suburb of Saint-Denis during overnight work.

Homes with windows in a 500m (1,600ft) radius of the bomb were evacuated and part of the Paris circular périphérique was shut as the clearance operation took place.

French Transport Minister Philippe Tabarot said local rail services at Gare du Nord would not resume until late afternoon at the earliest.

Tabarot said on Friday morning that a bomb disposal team was on the scene and there was nothing to worry about. “If we get the green light from the police chief in the coming hours, part of the service could – and I mean could – start up again after 16:00 (15:00G),” he said.

Eurostar said it expected services to return to normal on Saturday.

The bomb was discovered 200m away from the busy Paris périphérique, about 2.5km (1.5 miles) north of Gare du Nord, Europe’s busiest train station.

A nearby short northern stretch of the ring road and the A1 motorway were shut around Porte de la Chapelle. Traffic jams were recorded on 218km of roads in the Paris region.

Authorities in Saint-Denis said there were six schools and a care facility for elderly people inside the evacuation zone, but they were not at risk, because they did not have windows overlooking the area.

Eurostar services were running normally between Brussels and Marne-la-Vallée to the east of Paris as well as trains between London and Brussels and London and Amsterdam.

High-speed TGV trains into Gare du Nord were also badly hit, although some services were diverted to Gare de Lyon in Paris.

The railyards around occupied Paris were regular targets for British and American bombers during World War Two, the BBC’s Hugh Schofield in Paris reports.

Eurostar said passengers would be able to exchange their tickets for free to travel at another date or time in the same class, subject to availability.

“Eurostar will run two additional trains [on Saturday]: a train leaving London for Paris in the morning, and a train leaving Paris for London in the afternoon,” it said in a statement.

Queues were beginning to form by 08:30 GMT at St Pancras train station in London as passengers tried to work out what they could do.

One group was approaching the front of the line after a two-and-a-half hour wait.

Their 07:00 GMT train was cancelled and they planned to travel to Lille and make a three-hour bus journey to Paris.

Jess Sayer from Norwich told the BBC on Friday morning that she was stuck in Paris with her husband and best friend after celebrating her 40th birthday on Thursday.

“We’re frantically on our phones trying to find out what to do,” she said, explaining they had not been able to book a train for Saturday via the website.

“We just tried to get a flight. All the flights are booked up so at the moment we are completely stuck in Paris with no way of getting home,” she said. “Do we get a hotel and risk trying to get the Eurostar home tomorrow? Or look into ferries?”

Her friend, Sarah Fitzgerald, said she was trying to get back to London to help her family prepare for a funeral on Monday.

The Paris cancellations coincided with the middle of Paris Fashion Week and meant that personal shopper Anna Griffiths was unable to travel to Paris for a function.

“We work with all of the designer brands, and Chloé Fashion House had invited me to Paris for their show and a showroom event and a big dinner tonight.”

Ivana Koralek told the BBC she had decided to cancel a trip to see her elderly mother and nephew in France.

She said she had been unable to rebook for three weeks’ time because ticket machines in the station did not offer the discount she had originally received.

Karen Hamblin, from Chester, had travelled to London on Thursday evening to catch a Friday train to Paris for a three-day getaway to celebrate her husband’s birthday.

She said she was told at about 07:00 that their train was cancelled.

“As we were effectively stranded, we have decided to transfer our ticket and travel to Lille,” she said. “Lunch in Lille and [we’ll] then work out how to get to Paris from there!”

As president of France in the 1960s, it was he who launched the policy of French strategic independence.

Of course, he said, Americans were more our friends than Russians are. But the US too had interests. And one day their interests would clash with ours.

In the world of today, his warnings have never seemed more clairvoyant.

From his principle of superpower detachment, De Gaulle conjured the notion of France’s sovereign nuclear deterrent – whose existence is now at the centre of debates over European security.

France and the UK are the only two countries on the European continent who have nuclear weapons. Currently France has just short of 300 nuclear warheads, which can be fired from France-based aircraft or from submarines.

The UK has about 250. The big difference is that the French arsenal is sovereign – i.e. developed entirely by France – whereas the UK relies on US technical input.

On Wednesday President Emmanuel Macron aired the idea that France’s deterrence force (force de frappe) could – in this highly uncertain new era – be associated with the defence of other European countries.

His suggestion drew outrage from politicians of the hard right and left, who say that France is considering “sharing” its nuclear arsenal.

That – according to government officials as well as defence experts – is a falsification of the argument. Nothing is to be “shared”.

According to Defence Minister Sébastien Lecornu, the nuclear deterrent “is French and will remain French – from its conception to its production to its operation, under a decision of the president.”

What is under discussion is not more fingers on the nuclear button. It is whether France’s nuclear protection can be explicitly extended to include other European countries.

Until now French nuclear doctrine has been built around the threat of a massive nuclear response if the president thought the “vital interests” of France were at stake.

The limits of these “vital interests” have always been left deliberately vague – ambiguity and credibility being the two watchwords of nuclear deterrence.

In fact French presidents going back to De Gaulle himself have all hinted that some European countries might de facto already be under the umbrella. In 1964 De Gaulle that France would consider itself threatened if, for example, the USSR attacked Germany.

So in one way there is nothing new in Macron suggesting a European dimension to France’s deterrent.

What is new, according to defence analysts, is that for the first time other European countries are also asking for it.

“In the past when France has made overtures [about extending nuclear protection], other countries were reluctant to respond,” says Pierre Haroche of the Catholic University of Lille.

“They didn’t want to send out the signal that they did not have complete faith in the US and Nato.”

“But Trump has clarified the debate,” Mr Laroche says. “It’s not that the Americans are talking of removing their nuclear deterrent – let’s be clear, that does not seem to be on the table right now.”

“But the credibility of US nuclear dissuasion is not what it was. That has opened the debate, and led the Germans to look more favourably on the idea of coming under a French and/or British umbrella.”

Last month the likely next German chancellor Friedrich Merz surprised the country’s partners by saying it might be the moment for discussion with Paris and London on the subject.

How a French or Franco-British European nuclear deterrent might operate is still far from clear.

According to Mr Haroche, one option might be to position French nuclear-armed planes in other countries, such as Germany or Poland. The decision to press the trigger would still rest entirely with the French president, but their presence would send a strong signal.

Alternatively, French bombers could patrol European borders, in the same way they regularly do French borders today. Or airfields could be developed in other countries to which French bombers could quickly deploy in an emergency.

Numbers are an issue. Are 300 French warheads enough against Russia’s thousands? Maybe not – but in an alliance with the UK 300 become 550. Also (to repeat the point) the American nuclear deterrent is still in theory in place. There are US nuclear bombs in Germany, Italy and the Netherlands.

Another question is whether to reformulate the French nuclear doctrine so as to state unambiguously that “vital interests” cover European allies too.

Some say there is no need, because the strategic vagueness that exists already is part of the very deterrent.

But Mr Haroche says there is a political dimension to stating more clearly that France will use its arsenal to defend other European countries.

“If the US is to be less present, then European countries will be depending much more on each other. Our strategic world becomes more horizontal,” he says.

“In this new world it is important to build trust and confidence among ourselves. For France to signal it is prepared to take on risk in support of others – that helps create a solid front.”

Last December, Dominique Pelicot was sentenced to 20 years in jail for drugging his ex-wife, Gisèle, raping her and inviting dozens of men to also abuse her over nearly a decade.

Pelicot filmed the rapes of his wife, collecting hundreds of videos he neatly catalogued on a hard disk.

Among them were also two photos of his daughter, in which Ms Darian, 46, says she is clearly unconscious, sleeping in an unfamiliar position and wearing underwear she doesn’t recognise.

Dominique Pelicot has offered conflicting explanations for the photos, but has always denied sexually assaulting his daughter.

Ms Darian has long said the photos are proof her father also drugged and raped her.

“I know that he drugged me, probably for sexual abuse. But I don’t have any evidence,” she told the BBC in January, when she also talked about the shock of being shown those pictures by police for the first time.

The heated courtroom exchanges between Ms Darian and her father were some of the most dramatic in the 16-week trial that shocked France and the world. “I never touched you, never,” Pelicot pleaded to his daughter during one session. “You are lying!” Ms Darian shouted back.

Ms Darian has previously said she felt she was the trial’s “forgotten victim” as, unlike in her mother’s case, there was no record of the abuse she is convinced was inflicted upon her.

She told Elle France earlier this week that the charges she is pressing against her father were “symbolic” but “in line with what I have said since the start: that I am a victim of chemical submission [drug-facilitated assault] but was never recognised as such”.

She has hired lawyer Florence Rault to represent her.

For many years, Ms Rault has been fighting for justice for two women who were the victims of violent ordeals in the 1990s.

One, a young property agent known by the pseudonym Marion, was the victim of an attempted rape in 1999, to which Pelicot has admitted.

The other – also an estate agent in her 20s – was raped and murdered in 1991. Pelicot is currently being investigated over that case, but has always denied any involvement.

Ms Darian said she saw similarities between her and Marion. “We look strangely alike. She is blonde, her hair is bobbed, we were born the same year… I wanted to meet her lawyer and hear all the details,” she told Elle France.

In her police complaint, which was quoted by French media, Ms Rault lamented that Ms Darian had never been offered gynecological examinations nor had she been tested for the drugs Pelicot used on his wife.

Ms Rault said the investigation had only focused on Gisèle Pelicot and that her client had been treated as a “peripheral victim”. She asked the authorities to launch a fresh “serious and in-depth” inquiry.

Béatrice Zavarro, Dominique Pelicot’s lawyer, told French media that Ms Darian’s decision to press charges was “unsurprising given her statements and beliefs during the Avignon trial”.

She also said that the prosecutors in Avignon, in south-eastern France, said there were insufficient “objective elements” to accuse Pelicot of raping and using chemical submission on his daughter.

Forty-nine men were sentenced in December alongside Dominque Pelicot. All were found guilty of at least one charge – rape or sexual assault – against Gisèle Pelicot.

Seventeen initially said they would appeal the charges against them, but seven of those have since changed their minds.

Those who decide to press ahead with their appeals will go on trial at the end of the year in Nîmes, southern France.

The first trial – which lasted from September to December 2024 – garnered worldwide attention thanks to Gisèle Pelicot’s decision to waive her anonymity and open the trial to the public and the media.

UK opposition politicians accused JD Vance of disrespecting British forces, after he told Fox News a US stake in Ukraine’s economy was a “better security guarantee than 20,000 troops from some random country that hasn’t fought a war in 30 or 40 years”.

The UK and France have said they would be willing to put troops on the ground in Ukraine as part of a peace deal.

Vance has since insisted he did not “even mention the UK or France,” adding both had “fought bravely alongside the US over the last 20 years, and beyond”.

However, he did not specify which country or countries he was referring to.

In a post of social media, he added: “But let’s be direct: there are many countries who are volunteering (privately or publicly) support who have neither the battlefield experience nor the military equipment to do anything meaningful.”

So far only the UK and France have publicly committed troops towards policing any potential peace deal in Ukraine, although Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has previously said a “number of countries” have agreed to commit troops.

Earlier, Vance’s original comments had drawn criticism from UK opposition politicians.

Conservative shadow defence secretary James Cartlidge pointed out both the UK and France deployed forces alongside the US in Afghanistan, adding: “It’s deeply disrespectful to ignore such service and sacrifice.”

Asked about Vance’s comments later, Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said the vice-president did not call Britain a “random country”.

“A lot of people are getting carried away. They’re saying loads of things and getting quite animated. Let’s keep cool heads,” she told GB News.

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage said Vance was “wrong, wrong, wrong”, adding that the UK “stood by America” for 20 years in Afghanistan.

Liberal Democrat defence spokesperson Helen Maguire, a former captain in the Royal Military Police who served in Iraq, urged the UK’s ambassador to the US, Peter Mandelson, to call on Vance to apologise for the comments.

“JD Vance is erasing from history the hundreds of British troops who gave their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan,” she said.

“I saw firsthand how American and British soldiers fought bravely together shoulder to shoulder. Six of my own regiment, the Royal Military Police, didn’t return home from Iraq. This is a sinister attempt to deny that reality.”

Conservative MP Ben Obese-Jecty, a former British Army officer who fought in Iraq and Afghanistan, said: “The disrespect shown by the new US vice-president to the sacrifices of our service personnel is unacceptable.”

Speaking after Vance posted on social media to defend his comments, Obese-Jecty told BBC Two’s Politics Live programme: “It’s difficult to see who he was talking about, if he wasn’t talking about Britain and France.”

He called on the vice-president to clarify which countries he was referring to, and to apologise, adding that Vance had caused “real offence”.

Downing Street refused to be drawn on whether the prime minister found the comments insulting or disrespectful but said he was “full of admiration for all British troops who have served, for instance in Iraq and Afghanistan”.

The UK joined the US invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001, following the 9/11 attacks, with France also sending forces to the country.

More than 150,000 British personnel have served in Afghanistan over the last 20 years, with the final troops withdrawing in 2021.

The UK was also part of a US-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003, with British forces in the country peaking at 46,000.

Vance’s comments came as the US paused military aid to Ukraine, following an explosive spat between President Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office last week.

Zelensky left the White House before a proposed deal on sharing Ukrainian minerals with American companies could be signed.

Speaking about the proposal, Vance told Fox News: “The very best security guarantee is to give Americans economic upside in the future of Ukraine.

“That is a way better security guarantee than 20,000 troops from some random country that hasn’t fought a war in 30 or 40 years.”

Sir Keir has said US security guarantees – such as air cover – will be needed to deter Vladimir Putin from invading Ukraine again, if there is a deal to end the war.

However, Trump has so far refused to offer this, instead arguing that US workers in Ukraine as part of a minerals deal could provide such assurances.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is due at a summit of European leaders, two days after a fiery exchange with US President Donald Trump in the White House.

Sir Keir told BBC One’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg that his “driving purpose” right now was to act as a “bridge” between the two men.

Asked about how he felt watching the spat in the White House, Sir Keir sought to play down the incident, saying “nobody wants to see that” and admitted he felt “uncomfortable”.

The PM’s response was to pick up the phone to his counterparts Trump and Zelensky that same night, in an effort to “get us back to the central focus”, he said.

“There are a number of different routes people can go down. One is to ramp up the rhetoric as to how outraged we all are or not.”

He said the other option was to “roll up my sleeves” and quickly phone both men – and then also to speak to French President Emmanuel Macron about the role that the leading nations of Europe would play.

“Because my reaction was we have to bridge this, we have to find a way that we can all work together because in the end we’ve had three years of bloody conflict now, we need to get to that lasting peace”.

In the interview, Sir Keir was careful to avoid laying any blame for the row and insisted he was “clear in my mind” that Trump “wants a lasting peace”, answering “yes” when asked directly if he believed Trump could be trusted.

Zelensky could also be trusted, he added, but not Russian President Vladimir Putin – which is the reason the US needs to provide a security guarantee for any peace deal.

The prime minister acknowledged that a European security guarantee would have to be led by a “coalition of the willing”.

Sir Keir said that “Europeans have stood up in the last three years” but that “generally Europe needs to do more in its own defence and security and that’s why I’ve said we need to increase spending, we’ve got to increase capability and we’ve got to co-ordinate more because in the Ukraine conflict we’ve seen that the co-ordination isn’t there”.

Earlier this week, the PM announced he would cut the foreign aid budget to fund an increase in defence funding to 2.5% of national income by 2027, which led to the resignation of his International Development Minister Anneliese Dodds.

The move came after Trump had called on the US’s Nato allies to increase defence spending to 5% of their respective national incomes.

France spends 2.1% on defence and has pledged to double this by 2030.

Sir Keir urged all European nations to review their defence budgets, saying: “Generally Europe needs to do more in its own defence and security and that’s why I’ve said we need to increase spending, we’ve got to increase capability .

Asked to explain what a European “coalition of the willing” he said: “We need to be clear what a European security guarantee [in Ukraine} would look like.

“We’ve got to find those countries in Europe that are prepared to be a bit more forward-leaning.”

He said the UK and France were leading the thinking on it but added: “The more the better in this.”

Two prison officers were killed and three others injured when a vehicle carrying Mohamed Amra was attacked by men using military-grade assault weapons in May 2024.

Amra, known as La Mouche, or The Fly, has links to a major drug gang in Marseille, according to French police.

President Emmanuel Macron hailed his capture as “a formidable success” and said his thoughts were with the families of the prison officers who died.

Amra was arrested in Bucharest and had been identified through facial recognition tools and his fingerprints, Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau said. He had changed his appearance and dyed his hair.

On Sunday, Beccuau announced the arrest of 10 people “suspected of having helped in the preparation and execution of the escape, and having helped the fugitive to hide”.

Macron said he also wanted “to thank our European colleagues and French investigators who had been hunting Mohamed Amra for months and months”.

France’s Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau thanked Romania for its “crucial cooperation”.

Amra escaped from a prison van after the vehicle was ambushed by gunmen at a toll booth at around 11:00 (09:00 GMT) on 14 May near Rouen, Normandy.

Two prisoner officers were killed after the van was rammed and shots were fired. Three other officers were injured.

The gunmen escaped in a car which police later found abandoned close to where the attack happened.

The Paris prosecutor’s office said Amra had been convicted of burglary by a court in Evreux on 10 May and was being held at a prison in Val-de-Reuil until his escape on 14 May.

He had also been indicted by prosecutors in Marseille for a kidnapping that led to a death, it said.

Amra was not a “closely watched inmate”, Beccuau said at the time, using a term for highly dangerous prisoners.

However, his transportation still reportedly required a “level three escort” which meant there were five prison officers travelling with him.

His lawyer at the time, Hugues Vigier, said Amra had attempted to escape prison the weekend before the ambush by sawing the bars of his cell, but said he was shocked by the “inexcusable” and “insane” violence.

“This does not correspond to the impression that I had of him,” the lawyer told BFMTV.

At the time, Macron said “everything” was being done to find the perpetrators of the attack, which marked the first deaths of French prison officers in the line of duty since 1992.

More than 300 investigators were assigned to track Amra down and roadblocks were set up across north-west France, according to police.

“After a manhunt lasting several months, Amra has been arrested, finally!” Prime Minister Francois Bayrou wrote on X on Saturday.