In other men’s events, Italian Gianmarco Tamberi won the high jump but his victory was soured when he fell heavily attempting to clear 2.41 meters.
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The 29-year-old Scot, who is in Team GB’s Rio Olympics squad, claimed her second Diamond League victory of 2016 in a time of 54.09 seconds.
The meeting in the French principality went ahead despite Thursday’s attack in Nice, in which 84 people died after a lorry drove into a crowd celebrating Bastille Day.
Semenya pulled well clear in the home straight to finish in 1 minute, 55.33 seconds, more than one second faster than the time she set in winning a Diamond League meet at Rabat, Morocco, in May.
“I’m a 5km-10km guy and I just ran 3.31, so that’s good, isn’t it?!”
Steph Twell, fresh from her 5,000m bronze at last week’s European Championships, wiped nearly 10 seconds off her 3,000m PB to finish fifth in 8:40.98.
Semenya put in a 28-second final 200m in a performance that will send shivers down her rivals’ backs and set her up as outright favourite for Olympic gold in Rio.
In a non-Diamond League event, Alfred Kipketer, victor of the Kenyan 800m trial, won over two laps in 1:44.47 ahead of Poland’s Adam Kszczot, who retained his European title last weekend, and who ran a season’s best of 1:44.49.
Britain’s Eilidh Doyle ran a personal best of 50.09 to win the women’s 400m hurdles and take the lead in this season’s Diamond Race, with second place going to Cassandra Tate of the USA in 54.63 and Sarah Petersen – who last weekend became the first Danish woman to win a European title – in a season’s best of 54.81.
Her previous best mark for the year was 19.69 metres.
American Michelle Carter finished third in 19.58m.
In the 100m Holland’s Dafne Schippers stormed to victory in 10.94.
South African Wayde van Niekerk, whose gold medal-winning 400m run at the 2015 world championships in Beijing made him the fourth best performer over the distance, showed his one-lap form with victory in 44.12, the flawless way to celebrate his 24th birthday.
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Holly Bleasdale was fourth in the pole vault with 4.65m.
