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French anti-terrorist officers are searching for 28 kilograms of Semtex explosive missing from a depot in the suburbs of the city of Lyon. Semtex is a powerful, odourless explosive which is difficult to detect and often used by terrorist groups. The theft was from a depot in a disused 19th century fort at Corbas in the southern suburbs of Lyon. The depot is used for storing explosives by a civil defence unit with the job of blowing up bombs and ammunition left over from the two world wars. Twenty-eight kilograms of Semtex was found to be missing in a routine...

France offers India partnership to export submarines Sandeep Dikshit NEW DELHI: France has offered India a partnership to export hi-tech submarines to third countries. “Our strategy is not only to be in India for developing products for India but to develop for others because we think that a submarine is a strategic defence system which a lot of navies are interested in developing,” Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of DCNS Jean-Marie Poimbeuf told The Hindu. Submarines are counted as among the most potent defence platforms as they can operate undetected far beyond a country’s shores. The DCNS, 75 per cent...

Al-Qaeda Draws New Recruits Via Internet Al-Qaeda is using the Internet to recruit vulnerable young people to its terrorist network, according to a programme aired on Saudi Arabian TV late on Tuesday. Umm Osama, the founder of al-Qaeda's first women-only website, al-Khansa, joined several others on the programme to discuss how they renounced jihadist ideology. Among those who sought a response to this question was an imam from the Medina mosque, Saleh Ibn Awad al-Mudamsi, and the father of a young al-Qaeda suspect held in an Iraqi prison. Read More Qaeda Targets U.S. Oil Interests in North Africa U.S....

PARIS, France (CNN) -- Explosives used to destroy land mines have disappeared from a site near Lyon, France, the French Interior Ministry said Friday. About 62 pounds (28 kilograms) of explosives were stolen from a depot at the civil security site at Fort de Corbas, the ministry said in a written statement, because of an apparent breach in the site's protection. Michele Alliot-Marie, France's minister of the interior, immediately suspended the head of the security center and started an investigation. French anti-terrorism authorities and the Lyon police also are participating in the investigation, the statement

<p>The "polemania" that overtook Hollywood, Australia and Japan a decade ago has grabbed France, where pole-dancing schools say they turn away clients eager to learn routines once the preserve of strip clubs and girlie bars.</p> <p>"It's sensual, not sexy, we leave eroticism in the changing room", said Violetta Carpentier, 31.</p>

EVEN if you couldn’t be on the Champs-Élysées for Bastille Day on Monday to watch seven parachutists float down in front of President Nicolas Sarkozy, you can still celebrate the greatness of France with a new local tradition. Eat a hamburger. Beginning a few years ago but picking up momentum in the past nine months, hamburgers and cheeseburgers have invaded the city. Anywhere tourists are likely to go this summer — in St.-Germain cafes, in fashion-world hangouts, even in restaurants run by three-star chefs — they are likely to find a juicy beef patty, almost invariably on a sesame seed...

LYON (AFP) - La disparition de 28 kilos d'un puissant explosif, vraisemblablement du Semtex, a été constatée dans un centre de déminage de la banlieue de Lyon, un vol que le ministre de l'Intérieur, Michèle Alliot-Marie, a imputé à des "défaillances dans la sécurisation du site". LYON (AFP) - the disappearance of 28 kilos a powerful explosive, probably Semtex, was noted in a center of mine clearance of the suburbs of Lyon, a flight that the Michele Al, Minister of Interior Department, charged to failures in the security of the site.

A Muslim member of the French Government has attacked the head-to-toe Islamic dress as a prison, applauding a court decision to deny citizenship to a Moroccan woman who wore it. “The burka is a prison, a strait-jacket,” Fadela Amara, the Minister for Urban Affairs and a longstanding women's rights campaigner, said yesterday. “It is not religious. It is the insignia of a totalitarian political project for sexual inequality.” The court decision denying Faiza Mabchour, 32, French citizenship has drawn approval from both Left and Right, highlighting a rejection of Muslim customs that conflict with the values of the secular French...

President Nicolas Sarkozy of France has been accused of wanting to turn the country into a "monocracy" as he scrambles to win last-minute backing for a constitutional reform bill, which he argues will strengthen parliament. The opposition Socialist party is calling for a No vote on the bill, which has split the ruling UMP party, and it is uncertain whether Mr Sarkozy can secure the required three-fifths majority in the upper and lower houses of parliament to push it through. Its rejection would be a major blow for the president. "I hope that those Socialists who are sincere will understand...

Paris in the month of May was in full aphrodisiac bloom. The girls were swinging along the boulevards in their short, flowery skirts, their hair flowing loose behind them. On the radio, the singer Tino Rossi - France's answer to Rudolph Valentino - belted out his latest romantic favourite. But a few short weeks later, on June, 14, 1940, the German army marched into the capital and occupied it for four years. France has never forgotten its humiliation - or its bewilderment - in having to adjust to a life of close proximity to the old enemy, with all the...

PARIS (AFP) — French President Nicolas Sarkozy praised Islam on Wednesday at a ceremony with Saudi Prince Al Walid bin Talal to lay the first stone for a new Islamic art section of the Louvre museum. "This will be an opportunity for the French and all visitors to the Louvre to see that Islam is progress, science, finesse, modernity, and that fanaticism in the name of Islam is a corruption of Islam," Sarkozy said at the ceremony. The new exhibition space is due to open in 2010 after the 86-million-euro (136-million-dollar) renovation project is completed at the Louvre, which draws...

  Private jets, Bugatti cars, a shark-filled aquarium and enough bank accounts to paper the new luxury yacht - the extraordinary capacity of some African leaders and their families for apparent self-enrichment has been laid bare in a French lawsuit over allegedly stolen state money. Following an inquiry last year by the French fraud body OCRGDF, an anti-corruption campaign group has accused a string of African politicians of plundering vast sums from the often struggling economies of their countries. (edit)The richest parts of France are teeming with homes, cars, boats and other expensive baubles belonging - in practice, at...

Leaders from Europe, the Middle East and North Africa have been attending France's Bastille Day military parade.

French media loses big court case proving Palestinian propaganda false, New York Times ignores shocking story… Why? France TV 2 has lost a major court case in France that makes the lie to a major piece of Palestinian propaganda. In 2000 an incident occurred in the Palestinian areas that has since been used as propaganda for the Palestinian cause all across the world and the New York Times has repeatedly been a willing host for this propaganda. Now, however, it has been proven that France 2 perpetrated a lie that has given succor to terrorism. And where is the New...

Rosé, long dismissed by purists as uncultured plonk, has overtaken white wine in volume of sales in France, buoyed by a fashion for pink. While much of France's wine growers battle lower consumption and persistent overproduction, pink wine - which comes into its own in the summer heat - is enjoying la vie en rose as never before. It is estimated that more than one in five bottles of wine sold in France is a rosé, with the gains coming from falling red sales. A hot summer could push the amount of rosé drunk to more than half of all...

The European Union and its Mediterranean neighbours launched a new platform for their relationship on Sunday at a summit boosted by a promise from Lebanon and Syria to open embassies in each other’s capital. Leaders of more than 40 countries attended the inaugural session of the Union for the Mediterranean, a project conceived by Nicolas Sarkozy, France’s president, as a way to bridge differences between the EU and the states of north Africa and the Middle East. As the ceremonies got under way at the majestic Grand Palais in Paris, the spotlight fell on Ehud Olmert, Israel’s prime minister, and...

France kicked off Bastille Day celebrations on Monday in a whirlwind of controversy as Syrian President Bashar al-Assad joined dozens of leaders to watch the Champs Elysees military parade. United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon was the guest of honour at this year's festivities and two units of UN blue helmets were to lead off the traditional march from the Arc de Triomphe down to Place de la Concorde. But President Nicolas Sarkozy's invitation to Assad has angered opposition politicians and some in the French military who served in a UN peace force in Lebanon, where Syria for years was...

WHY, INDEED? "French media loses big court case proving Palestinian propaganda false, New York Times ignores shocking story... Why?" Because it opens the door to suggestions that this wasn't an aberration, but the norm in Mideast coverage? # # # Also see related videos at YouTube: "Green Helmet Guy" in Qana (Aug 2006) Dead Children Used as Props in Lebanon (Aug 2006) Pallywood (Mar 2006)

It appears that Europe is waking up more and more. I have been saying for years that the burqa is a sign of oppression and should not be allowed in non-Islamic countries. More actions like this will make Muslims not even want to come into our countries. Viva la France!! For the rest....

Rock gods have fallen at her feet. But now that she is married to Nicolas Sarkozy, is politics threatening to cramp Carla Bruni-Sarkozy’s style? In her frankest interview yet, she sings her heart out Carla Bruni-Sarkozy strides out into the afternoon sunshine on her terrace and throws up her hands in welcome, shouting “John!” and kissing me on both cheeks. I’m taken aback: I’ve interviewed her twice in two years, but that was before she become France’s première dame. She is dressed in tight blue jeans and plain white T-shirt, her wedding ring the only jewellery. The Parisian home of...

The Eurocrats should take heed. A village in southern France has decided to bring back the franc as legal tender in an experiment that it hopes will be followed elsewhere. Collobrières, a village of 1,600 inhabitants in Provence, is motivated largely by profit: accepting the franc has boosted their business. “It’s amazing how many francs people have kept at home,” said Dominique Cardi, a gift shop owner. “Now they can spend them.” There is also a note of protest, however: nostalgia has grown for the colourful old money depicting French national heroes and its reappearance has warmed the hearts of...

PARIS, July 12 (UPI) -- France has refused to grant citizenship to a Moroccan woman because of her conservative interpretation of Islam, papers show. Officials said the woman's religious beliefs are incompatible with French values, The Daily Telegraph reported Saturday.The unnamed 32-year-old woman is married to a French national. She arrived in the country in 2000. Her three children were born in France, the newspaper reported.Social service reports say they woman wears a black burqa that covers all her body except her eyes and lives in "total submission" to her husband and male relatives."She has adopted a radical practice of...

France's first lady Carla Bruni said Friday she was "hurt" by frosty reactions to her new album from critics of her husband President Nicolas Sarkozy, as the much-hyped record went on sale across Europe. Half a million people logged on to the web to listen to the third album by the supermodel-turned-chanteuse, "Comme Si De Rien N'Etait" (Simply), ahead of its official release, according to figures from her record label Naive. But the 60s-flavoured album has sparked some mocking reviews and an outpouring of vitriol on the Internet by French voters hostile to the right-wing leader. "Of course it hurts...

France has denied citizenship to a veiled Moroccan woman on the grounds that her 'radical' Islam is incompatible with French values, a legal ruling revealed. The case will re-ignite debate about how to reconcile religious freedom with other rights, which many in France feel are being challenged by the way of life of some Muslims. Le Monde newspaper said it is the first time a Muslim applicant had been rejected because of personal religious practice. 'She has adopted a radical practice of her religion, incompatible with essential values of the French community, particularly the principle of equality of the sexes,'...

There are unknowns, of course. The persona of John McCain is already in play and it would be wrong to underestimate him. The man is remarkable, surprising in his opposition to torture and Guantanamo, audacious when he challenged the economic policies of the two Bush administrations. And isn't it said that Democrat John Kerry considered for a time asking this unconventional conservative to share the ticket with him? Then there is also the American art of "junk politics," especially as practiced by the Republicans, and its unpredictable, often devastating effects. When will the below-the-belt stuff begin? On what Internet site...

PARIS - France has denied citizenship to a veiled Moroccan woman on the grounds that her "radical" practice of Islam is incompatible with basic French values such as equality of the sexes. The case will reignite debate about how to reconcile freedom of religion, which is guaranteed by the French constitution, and other fundamental rights, which many in France feel are being challenged by the way of life of some Muslims. Le Monde newspaper said it was the first time a Muslim applicant had been rejected for reasons to do with personal religious practice.

Another day in the Massif Central with a nice, fast finish.

Tour de France Stage 6

Once upon a time, patriotism was a fairly simple thing. It was tribal identification writ large, an emotional attachment to a people and their land. In most of the world, where patriotism exists at all it's still like this -- tribal patriotism, blood-and-soil emotionalism. A different kind of patriotism emerged from the American and French revolutions. While American patriotism sometimes taps into tribal emotion, it is not fundamentally of that kind. Far more American is the sentiment Benjamin Franklin expressed: "Where liberty dwells, there is my country" Thus, most Americans love their country in a more conditional way -- not...

French President Nicolas Sarkozy sent a letter to his Venezuelan counterpart Hugo Chávez thanking him for the "tireless efforts that helped" release last week several hostages held by the Colombian guerrillas, including Ingrid Betancourt. "As we celebrate the release of Ingrid Betancourt and other 14 hostages, I thank you again for your tireless efforts that helped the hostages of Colombia to come back to freedom and the love of their beloved ones," said the French president, as quoted on Tuesday in a press release from the Venezuelan government. Early this year, Chávez welcome six hostages in Venezuela, who were unilaterally...

PARIS (Reuters) - French nuclear firm Areva said on Tuesday 30 cubic meters of a liquid containing natural uranium was accidentally poured on the ground and into a river at a site in southeastern France. The uranium, which was not enriched, was poured on the ground during the cleaning of a tank at the Socatri group, an Areva subsidiary, on the site of the Tricastin nuclear plant. The uranium, which was not enriched, was poured on the ground during the cleaning of a tank at the Socatri group, an Areva subsidiary, on the site of the Tricastin nuclear plant. "Around...

PARIS - Iran's written response to an incentives package aimed at curbing its nuclear programme made no mention of a suspension of uranium enrichment, a process that could potentially make fuel for bombs, France said on Tuesday. France, Britain, Germany, the United States, Russia and China made the revised offer to Iran last month, and Iran sent a reply to EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana last week. "There was no mention of a suspension of sensitive activities in this letter," French Foreign Ministry spokesman Eric Chevallier told a news conference, using an expression that refers to enrichment-related activities. Iran...

French President Nicolas Sarkozy will attend the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympic Games next month despite an earlier threat to boycott over a crackdown in Tibet... Sarkozy told Chinese President Hu Jintao he would go to Beijing during a half-hour meeting on the sidelines of the Group of Eight industrialised nations summit in northern Japan. "The president confirmed to the Chinese president that he intends to go to Beijing on August 8 to take part in the opening ceremony of the 29th Olympiad,"... Sarkozy had threatened to boycott ... "The head of state consulted all of his European counterparts...

Ingrid Betancourt euphoria fades as Nicholas Sarkozy basks in glory Ingrid Betancourt was given a Senate ovation but there were critical voices Charles Bremner in Paris After five days of her dramatic release being toasted, a backlash against Ingrid Betancourt yesterday was tainting the euphoria that has elevated the former Colombian hostage to saintlike status. The French Senate gave an emotional standing ovation to the 46-year-old politician and magazines and television were still saturated by the image of what Paris Match called “the new global icon”. But dissent surrounding Ms Betancourt, who was freed last week from the Colombian jungle...

Is Syria's President Bashar Assad about to switch sides? The answer given by the entourage of French President Nicolas Sarkozy is an empathic yes. And it has to be. After all, Sarkozy has invited the Syrian leader to sit next to him in the presidential niche during the July 14 military parade, the most important public holiday in France honouring the Great French Revolution. The invitation, a rare honour bestowed on few foreign leaders, is designed to transform Bashar from an international pariah into a valued partner not only for France but also for the European Union as a whole....

Remember the tightwad tourist whose baggy shorts, frequent complaining and shouted questions about why none of the locals spoke any English made the ugly American the world's Visitor From Hell? Well, it's time for Archie Bunker to move over and make way for Petulant Pierre. According to a recent international survey, the French are now considered the most obnoxious tourists from European nations, and behind only Indians and the last-place Chinese as the worst among all countries worldwide. And it's not only the rest of the world that have a gripe with the Gallic attitude: the French also finished second...

Producers warn the price of snails - one of France's more exotic foodstuffs - is about to soar, because of economic development in eastern Europe.France consumes more than 14,000 tonnes of snails every year but practically none of them are actually French. With the most prized species now under protection, the industry relies on central and east European imports. But economic progress in countries like Poland and Bulgaria means less appetite for the hard work of snail-gathering. Until now, every year rural families there could earn a decent wage from collecting the animals in the fields and woods. So the...

BEIJING (Reuters) - China made a barely veiled swipe at French President Nicolas Sarkozy on Thursday and state media warned he can expect a cold public shoulder if he attends the Beijing Olympics after he threatened not to go over Tibet. Sarkozy has said he will decide next week whether to attend the opening of the Games in August, with his choice depending on how talks go between Beijing and the Dalai Lama's envoys. China often lashes out at foreign leaders for meeting the exiled Dalai Lama or criticizing its policies in Tibet, which it calls an internal affair. In...

LE CREUSOT (FRANCE): President Nicolas Sarkozy announced on Thursday that France will build a second third-generation EPR nuclear plant, arguing nuclear power was the country's best answer to soaring energy prices. Sarkozy, who has made exporting French nuclear know-how a priority of his presidency, made the announcement during a speech on energy policy at an ArcelorMittal steel factory in central France. France's first European Pressurised Water Reactor (EPR) -- one of only two under construction worldwide -- is being built by utilities giant Electricite de France (EDF) in Flamanville in northern France, set for completion in 2012. Sarkozy said a...

CERGY, France (AFP) — US Continental Airlines and two of its employees are to stand trial for manslaughter over the crash of an Air France Concorde in 2000 that killed 113 people, judicial officials said Thursday. A former French civil aviation official and two senior members of the Concorde programme are to be tried on the same charge, with proceedings expected to start early next year, the officials said. The Concorde crashed in a ball of fire shortly after takeoff from Paris Charles de Gaulle airport on July 25, 2000, killing all 109 people on board and four workers on...

LONDON (AFP) — Foreign Secretary David Miliband on Wednesday backed French President Nicolas Sarkozy's proposal that Europe should develop its own defence capabilities, saying it posed no threat to NATO. Miliband welcomed Sarkozy's pledge in a major speech last month that France, which was a founding member of NATO but left the integrated command in 1966 when president Charles de Gaulle rejected US dominance of the military alliance, will fully re-integrate the alliance. But he said developing European defence capacity was "not a threat to NATO". "NATO is and will remain the cornerstone of European defence," he said in a...

The Bordeaux region's St Emilion wines have been stripped of their top classifications by a French court, which has ruled that "grand cru classés" labels should be taken off bottles. The ruling follows a year-long legal fight by four wine makers whose wines were demoted in 2006. They argued that the system used to rank wines after a tasting was "partial". "It's an aberration to condemn the classification over so little," said Nicolas Thienpont, owner of Chateau Pavie-Macquin, recently awarded the second highest rank of St Emilion premier grand cru classé. "All those who have worked so hard to move...

PARIS — France’s much-praised system of using sweeping arrests and aggressive interrogations and prosecutions to combat terrorism violates the rule of law and prevents suspects from receiving a fair trial, according to a human rights report released Wednesday. France prides itself on having the most efficient counterterrorism strategy in Europe. French counterterrorism officials insist that the flexibility of French law and the French judicial system has been crucial in their ability to respond to the threat of international terrorism and has helped prevent attacks on French soil. But an 84-page report issued by New-York-based Human Rights Watch, entitled “Preempting Justice,”...

Hartlepool to break up France's toxic flagship Clemenceau Charles Bremner in Paris An asbestos-laden French aircraft carrier that was too toxic for Indian breakers' yards is to be towed to the UK for dismantling, it was announced yesterday. The agreement to send the Clemenceau, once the flagship of the French navy, to Able UK, near Hartlepool, ends an embarrassing five-year saga that saw the toxic vessel wander the high seas in a vain search for a final resting place. The stripped-down hulk, which once displaced 32,700 tons, has been moored off Brest since an odyssey that ended in 2006 when...

Nicolas Sarkozy wants to reunite the European family. But yesterday, on his first day as its patriarch, he found himself presiding over a tribe squabbling about everything from defence to tax to climate change. The French President admitted that his six months at the head of the EU were going to be tougher He conceded that the community faced deadlock over the Lisbon treaty and that winning acceptance for his ideas on issues such as immigration and trade could be complicated. Plans to encourage Ireland to reverse its rejection of the treaty by urging the remaining 26 EU members to...

French first lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy has been compared to Marie Antoinette by one of the country's most influential political journals. According to Marianne, the country is sick and tired of the 40-year-old's repeated preening and showing off for the world's media, which has intensified in recent weeks as the former model-turned-pop-star prepares to release her third album of songs. This is followed by everything from nude pictures of Bruni - released by Christie's auction house on the eve of her state visit to Britain - to intimate interviews in which she talks about her chequered love life and her Left-wing...

EBay Inc. said Monday that it plans to appeal a ruling from a French court that fined the company about $63 million for the sale of counterfeit luxury goods over its Web site. The online-auction giant said that the ruling goes beyond the sale of counterfeit products and represents an attempt by manufacturers of high-end goods to exert greater control over the market -- especially over the secondary sale of authentic products that take place outside the normal distribution channels. "We believe that the overreach manifests itself through an attempt to impose, in France, a business model that restricts consumer...

John McCain says new plants can help solve the energy crisis and address climate change. It's not that simple. To power America's future, Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) has an energy plan with a distinctly French accent. "The French are able to generate 80 percent of their electricity with nuclear power," the presumptive Republican Presidential nominee points out. "There's no reason why America shouldn't." In a mid-June speech, part of a continuing blitz on energy issues, McCain laid out his vision for 100 new nuclear plants -- 45 of them to be built by 2030. They would help meet America's energy...

PARIS (AFP) - The former German head of aircraft manufacturer Airbus, Gustav Humbert, was detained for questioning by France's financial crime unit Monday in connection with alleged insider trading at Airbus parent EADS, a source close to the matter said. The French financial market regulator, AMF, in April alleged in a report that Humbert sold 160,000 EADS shares in November 2005, earning 1.685 million euros (2.7 million dollars). He is suspected of having benefited from privileged information on EADS' financial prospects as well as delays to the Airbus A380 superjumbo project, which were announced in June 2006 and caused the...