French President Emmanuel Macron on Monday awarded a string of American and other climate scientists multi-million-euro grants to work in France.

The "Make Our Planet Great Again" grants were devised to counter US President Donald Trump's rejection of the Paris climate accord. Mr Macron announced the initiative - whose title is a play on words Mr Trump's "Make America Great Again" campaign slogan - hours after the US president announced in June that he would withdraw from the 2015 deal.

More than 5,000 people from about 100 countries expressed interest in the grants, the French government said, with the majority coming from the US. Their research focuses on pollution, hurricanes and clouds.

Announcing the first 18 winners, including 13 Americans, Mr Macron, 39, said: "France and Europe will be the place where we will decide how to make our planet great again.

"We will be there to replace" US financing of climate research he told scientists and entrepreneurs at a start-up incubator in Paris.