The targets of French human rights protesters include President Omar Bongo of Gabon, Denis Sassou Nguesso of Congo and Gnassingbe Eyadema of Togo.President Eyadema has been in office for 38 years and President Bongo has long had a prominent role in dubious French business dealings in Africa. President Sassou-Nguesso has been accused of serious human rights abuses.Mrs Mugabe, meanwhile, is expected to go shopping. The Zimbabwean leader’s wife, who was a keen shopper at Harrods, is believed to favour the Galeries Lafayette among Parisian department stores. The security office at the store said yesterday it did not know whether she had shopped there. There is also speculation that Mr Mugabe will see doctors in Paris. According to reports, he receives treatment for his eyes from French doctors. Yesterday, he was not seen at any of the meetings held by President Jacques Chirac at the Elys?Palace.President Chirac says he wants to put Africa at the top of France’s international agenda.

His stated interest has been noted by prominent African governments on the international stage, such as South Africa. France will chair the next G8 meeting and South Africa hopes it will promote Nepad, the New Partnership for African Development.But France’s renewed interest in Africa has got off to a faltering start. A plan for peace in Ivory Coast, signed last month in Paris, has been unsuccessful amid increasing signs that President Laurent Gbagbo is unwilling to implement it fully Mr Gbagbofailed to attend the summit.M. Chirac hopes for two diplomatic triumphs to emerge out of the summit: improved relations with Rwanda, which have been chilly since France’s ill-fated Operation Turquoise compounded the country’s genocide in 1994; and a handshake between Morocco’s King Mohammed VI, and Abdelaziz Bouteflika, the Algerian President.

Algeria backs guerrillas fighting for independence from Moroccan-occupied Western Sahara.. Pauline Hanson, the Australian far-right firebrand who achieved notoriety with her opposition to Asian immigration, is seeking a political comeback after moving to Sylvania Waters, the nouveau riche Sydney suburb featured in a “fly on the wall” BBC documentary. But the party imploded amid in-fighting and allegations of electoral fraud, and last year Ms Hanson said she was retiring from politics. She dabbled in other careers, including fashion design, but clearly found it difficult to relinquish the limelight. Yesterday she ended weeks of speculation, confirming that she planned to run as an independent candidate in elections to the New South Wales upper house next month.Hitherto associated with Queensland, a conservative state known as Australia’s “Deep North”, she has no links with New South Wales. Yesterday she looked blank when asked about Ken Moroney, the state’s police commissioner.