PARIS (AFP) - A report by a French television channel alleging "clandestine" luxury dinners in Paris despite the pandemic has sparked an investigation and public furore over claims that the nation's political elite were brazenly ignoring rules they themselves had set.

The M6 private channel last Friday (April 2) broadcast a reportage based on footage recorded with a hidden camera purportedly from a clandestine restaurant in a high-end area of Paris where neither the staff nor the diners were wearing masks.