A volunteer firefighter has been placed under formal investigation in France on suspicion of deliberately starting the devastating Fontainebleau forest fire south of Paris, which has burned more than 2,000 hectares and forced around 1,000 people to evacuate. President Emmanuel Macron visited the scene and said France had not seen so many fires since the Second World War, vowing there would be no leniency for arsonists as the fire, though contained, remains not fully extinguished.

The 18-year-old suspect reportedly confessed to setting fire to twigs with a lighter and petrol before retracting the admission; a second 18-year-old has also been formally investigated, with at least six people questioned in total. The blaze, which began last Sunday, has damaged around 10% of the historic forest, home to the Unesco-listed Palace and Park of Fontainebleau, and partially shut the country's main north-south motorway. France has recorded almost 11,000 fires this year, part of a wider pattern of intensifying European wildfires linked to climate change, with deadly blazes also reported in Spain and a large fire burning in Scotland's Cairngorms National Park.